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CHINA E-LOBBY UPDATE: MAY 7, 2003
TOP STORY: WE DID IT! HUTCHISON WHAMPOA BOWS OUT OF GLOBAL CROSSING BID
Hutchison Whampoa, the firm controlled by pro-Communist Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, has �scrapped a plan to buy Global Crossing because of a U.S. national security review� (Washington Post). The bankrupt Global �has 100,000 miles of lines that carry calls and information at high speeds around the world for companies and governments, including those of the United States and Britain.�
HW, which controls to container ports on the Panama Canal, is at least partly owned by the so-called People�s Republic (see 3/19 and 3/26 Updates), and Li�s attempt to win over Global even included � temporarily � Bush Administration advisor Richard Perle. The firm�s failure is a major victory for the American people, and for anti-Communists worldwide.
NEWS ON COMMUNIST CHINA AND THE TERRORIST WAR
COMMUNIST CHINESE FIRM GETS TV TUNER CONTRACT IN IRAQ
The rest of the world is �worried that (it) will lose out to US firms� (BBC) in Iraq�s reconstruction. Here�s the over-correction: the Communist Chinese firm Sichuan Changhong �says it has won an order to supply one million satellite TV tuners to an Iraqi customer.� The customer was not named.
Check out this story and more on the Communist China and the Terrorist War page.
OTHER AMERICAN-RELATED NEWS
PRC SPY LEUNG THROWS INTO DOUBT INVESTIGATIONS GOING BACK TWO DECADES
In an analysis of how the prosecution plans to move forward on the case of �Parlor Maid� � i.e., PRC double agent Katrina Leung and her ex-FBI lover James J. Smith � the Washington Post reported, �The FBI has said in court documents that the case casts doubt on every major Chinese counterintelligence investigation in the past 20 years (emphasis added).� Ouch!
LOS ALAMOS MANAGEMENT UP FOR BID
Management of the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory � the one at which Wen Ho Lee worked � is up for bid this year. The current manager, the University of California, no longer has a lock on the contract. The university also manages the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where Katrina Leung paramour William Cleveland was the top counterintelligence official (see 4/16 Update). Report: Washington Post
HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS NEWS
GUANGDONG PROPAGANDA HEAD TAKES OVER SOUTHERN WEEKLY
Zhang Dongming is the new editor of Southern Weekly, the Guangdong newspaper that lost its editor for being too critical of the Communists (paper was misnamed Southern Weekend in the 6/15/01 Update). Zhang�s previous post was propaganda chief for Guangdong, i.e., the point man in the Communists� efforts to keep SARS a secret (Financial Times, UK; link courtesy Susan Prager, Member since 2003).
Southern Weekly�s sister paper, the 21st Century World Herald, was shut down after publishing an interview with Li Rui, a pro-reform retired cadre (see 3/19 Update). Clearly, the Communists have every intention of eliminating any such things from either paper in the future � SARS or no SARS (For more on the Communist SARS cover-up, see 3/19, 3/26, 4/2, 4/9, 4/16, 4/23, and last Updates).
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH ASIA SPECIALIST DIES
Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, died over the weekend (Washington Post). Jendrzejczyk, quoted in numerous previous Updates, was a champion of the people trapped in Communist China and its Stalinist North Korean ally. He will be missed.
SEVERE ACUTE RESPIRATORY SYNDROME (SARS) NEWS
PRC PUBLISHER DEFIES QUARANTINE, BRINGS SARS TO NANJING; 10,000 QUARANTINED
Jin Guohua, an executive at a PRC-owned publishing house and SARS victim, refused to obey Beijing�s SARS quarantine. Before symptoms from the virus hit him in Nanjing, and forced him to admit he had been in the capital, �Jin had close contact with 400 people in four cities� (Washington Post).
As a result, Jiangsu Province, which includes Nanjing, was forced to quarantine ten thousand in the city alone, and there are already four SARS cases in the city. It is the first major quarantine in the interior of the PRC to hit the press. Also reporting: BBC
HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS FLEE BEIJING; RURAL MEDICAL SYSTEM IS LIKELY TOAST
Meanwhile, nearly one million workers from Anhui Province have left Beijing and returned home, and about 800,000 have gone back to Henan province, �raising the prospect that some may have carried the virus with them� (BBC-1). Given the state of rural health care this could get really ugly.
PRC Premier Wen Jiabao admitted as much when he called the health care apparatus in rural Communist China �totally incapable of dealing with a major Sars outbreak in the countryside� (BBC-2). As a result, the Communists are doing everything they can to keep the virus out of the interior � although if Nanjing is any guide (see above), they may already be in big trouble. Also reporting: Willy Wo-Lap Lam, CNN
New cases in the PRC are still over 100 a day, and the World Health Organization announced that SARS �has yet to peak in China� (CNN). Also reporting: AFP, Washington Post
RESERVOIRS IN BEIJING SHUT DOWN; PM CALLS SITUATION �GRAVE�; MAY DAY LAID LOW
Wen also said the situation in Beijing �still remains grave� (MSNBC). As if to prove his point, Beijing shut down all access to its reservoirs �to prevent the virus reaching the public water supply� (BBC-1). Meanwhile, Communist China�s celebrations for May Day � a leading Communist holiday � brought far fewer into the streets than in previous years, thanks to �fears of the Sars virus� (BBC-2).
EXPORTS TO JAPAN �SHUT DOWN� DUE TO SARS
The news that SARS can survive on inanimate surfaces for days on end �is a shock to importers of Chinese-made goods� (Newsmax). The news has �already led to a quiet shutdown of electronic and consumer product exports to Japan.�
VILLAGERS RIOT AGAINST MAKESHIFT SARS CENTERS, WHICH THEY SAY ARE INADEQUATE
Attempts by the PRC to keep SARS victims quarantined in makeshift care centers throughout Communist China have run into angry locals �who say local medical facilities are ill-equipped to cope with the effects of the virus� (CNN). In some cases, �officials have been beaten, offices ransacked and cars overturned.�
SARS CAUGHT UP IN JIANG-HU BATTLE FOR POWER
The political battle over SARS came into some sharper relief last week, when the Washington Post reported that the issue of how to handle the disease has separated from each other the two big factions within the Communist Party. PRC President and Communist Party chief Hu Jintao heads the �openness� faction � although the supposed openness not does go anywhere beyond reporting of the disease.
Leading the other faction is � no real surprise � Jiang Zemin, ex-President and current Central Military Commission Chairman. Jiang�s post, the one from which Deng Xiaoping overruled then-party chief Zhao Ziyang to order the Tiananmen Square massacre, is arguably the most powerful in Communist China.
OTHER MAINLAND NEWS
SUBMARINE ACCIDENT SPURS MOVE TO �SPEED UP� PRC MILITARY MODERNIZATION
The deaths of seventy crewmen aboard a Communist submarine led PRC President Hu Jintao to issue a call �to advance the capacity of our national defence (UK sp) and speed up the modernization (UK sp) drive of the PLA� (BBC). The Communists have still not revealed the cause of the accident that killed the crew. Also reporting: CNN, Washington Post, Cybercast News
JIANG ZEMIN�S TENURE AS CMC CHAIR MAY HINGE ON SUBMARINE ACCIDENT AFTERMATH
The aforementioned submarine accident, combined with the part of the military in the SARS cover-up, may have another aftershock, the �full retirement� (Willy Wo-Lap Lam, CNN) of Central Military Commission Chair Jiang Zemin. The former PRC President and Communist Party chief holds the one post as or more powerful than his old titles, both of which are held by Hu.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
FIFA TAKES WOMEN�S WORLD CUP AWAY FROM PRC
Thanks in large part to SARS, the Women�s World Cup is out of the PRC. Soccer�s top administrative body, FIFA, pulled the Cup from Communist China this weekend. Where the Cup is going is still not known. The U.S. won the Cup in 1999, defeating the PRC in the finals. Report: Washington Post
REPUBLIC OF CHINA (TAIWAN) NEWS
WHO FINALLY REACHES TAIWAN, AS ROC PUSHES ANEW FOR MEMBERSHIP
Doctors from the World Health Organization are now in Taiwan to help fight SARS, which became a much bigger problem over the weekend in the ROC. Meanwhile, the SARS epidemic, and the Communist secrecy about the disease, has brought new momentum to the efforts of the island democracy to enter the WHO (currently, Communist China has blocked their entry). Report: Cybercast News
The UN-based medical group actually had to get permission from Communist China before they could go to a place where no Communist has ever steeped foot (BBC, Washington Post), all because the WHO and the UN refuse to challenge the Communists� assertion that they are Taiwan�s rightful rulers.
ECONOMIC STIMULUS DOUBLED TO FIGHT SARS
The ROC government has decided to �double the size of a long-planned stimulus package� (BBC) in reaction to the debilitating effects of SARS. Part of the problem is the fact that Taiwan�s economy �relies on factories in mainland China and regular travel by business people to visit them.� This could be a lesson for the island democracy, and should be a warning to �engagement� supporters.
HONG KONG NEWS
U.S. HAS �SERIOUS RESERVATIONS� ABOUT ANTI-SUBVERSION BILL
The United States expressed �serious reservations� (AFP) about Hong Kong�s �anti-subversion� bill, despite supposed improvements to it. Pro-democracy activists and the city�s Roman Catholic Bishop, Joseph Zen, oppose the bill (see 12/18/02, 12/26/02, 1/30 Updates and 2/21 Week�s Links).
No news was reported from Tibet this week.
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