Week of August 10, 2001The U.S. and China This Week
DOMESTIC: Falun Gong Devastated by CrackdownThe crackdown has involved arrests, reeducation programs, negative campaigning in the media, and, according to human rights groups, torture. “We are close to completely wiping out Falun Gong,?State Council official Zhao Chongxing said last month. Last January, several Falun Gong members set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square and two died. That incident and the media attacks have eroded whatever legitimacy the group had with ordinary Chinese, even though Falun Gong officials in the US claim the group does not condone suicide and that the incident in Tiananmen Square was unsanctioned. Recently, the Beijing government put on an anti-Falun Gong exhibit at the downtown Museum of Military Affairs. There were more than 850 photographs, drawings and editorials about 134 alleged cases of Falun Gong members hurting themselves or others. The English-language China Daily warned of “lurking danger,?spiritual poison,?and “bloodcurdling mayhem?brought about by the sect. Falun Gong remains legal in Hong Kong, which has
widespread autonomy under the “one country, two systems?formula that was
set up for its governance when it became part of China again in 1997. However,
Hong Kong’s chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, has called the sect an “evil
cult.?#060;/font>
U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS: President Jiang Meets With U.S. SenatorsBut Defense Minister Chi Haotian, in a separate meeting with the delegation, said NMD would be “detrimental to trust among nations around the world.?Biden said Jiang asserted China is abiding by all pledges on arms proliferation, and made a point of stressing China is not exporting missile technology to North Korea. Biden said Jiang indicated it would be bad if Korea had the capability to launch missiles. On the issue of detained scholars with ties to the U.S., Biden said Jiang agreed with another member of the delegation, Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), that the U.S. and China should negotiate an agreement delineating the rights of American citizens detained in China. Besides Biden and Specter,
the delegation consisted of Senators Fred D. Thompson (R-Tenn.) and Paul
S. Sarbanes (D-Md.).
INTERNATIONAL: China Censors Memoirs of Lee Kuan YewZeng Huijie, an editor for the Chinese Foreign Language Press, said her company is rewriting sections of Lee’s book, The Singapore Story, which was published in Singapore last September and in Hong Kong and Taiwan last October. “Some of his political opinions may not be accepted here by the authorities, so they are changed in many places,?Zeng said. In the book, Lee writes a considerable amount about China. While most of what he says is positive, at one point he maintains that Communism hurt China. He also criticizes high-ranking Communist Party official Li Peng. However, he praises President Jiang Zemin and former leader Deng Xiaoping. The first volume of Lee’s work came out in China a month after it was published in Singapore in September 1998. Sections about Lee’s efforts to suppress Communism in Southeast Asia in the 1950s and 1960s were struck from the Chinese version of that volume. An editor at Lianhe Zaobao
publishing house in Singapore, which published Lee’s book, said Lee or
a publishing house representative would look over the Chinese version before
it is published. The official said only Taiwan published the book without
anything deleted.
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Last updated: 16 Aug. 2001 |
