News Review

News Review

Wenxiong YAO

1. On September 15, 1999, due to the brutal massacres that erupted after the people of East Timor chose to become an independent nation in a referendum, United Nations Security Council authorized an international peacekeeping force to restore order in this area. The peacekeeping force was led by Australian troops. China showed cautious support for this decision. China often emphasizes that each country should deal with its internal affairs by itself and other countries have no right to interfere.

2. On September 21, 1999, The largest earthquake in decades hit central Taiwan. More than 2,400 people died and more than 8,000 people were injured. The island was in a terror.

The earthquake also had political impact both inside and outside the island. Reconstruction became a new focus of the "presidential campaign," a focus that has changed the relative popularity of different candidates. LIAN Zhan, the Nationalist Party candidate, has gained credits significantly.

Many governments, including the mainland of China, expressed sorrow and offered to help. Taiwan turned down offers of assistance such as medical personnel and teams of trained rescuers from the mainland and only accepted US$100,000 cash in relief aid and $60,000 in materials. An additional US$200,000 cash from the mainland Red Cross was later delivered and accepted. A 16-member rescue team from Hong Kong was turned back.

3. On September 27-29, 1999, the annual Fortune Global Forum was held in Shanghai, China. Executives from most of the world's top 500 firms attended the Forum. President JIANG Zemin and President William CLINTON (videotape) delivered speeches to the guests. The Forum was expected to restore the business leaders' confidence in Asia after the Asian Financial Crisis. Since 1992, foreign direct investment (FDI) has been one of the important driving forces behind China's economic growth. As reported by

Reuters, however, according to China's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC), two main measures of FDI had slid in the first seven months of this year compared with 1998. Actual FDI fell 10% year-on-year over the period to US$21.49 billion, while contracted FDI, a key indicator of future inflows, fell 20.5% to US$22.28 billion, a spokesman for the ministry said.

4. On October 1, 1999, China celebrated her 50th birthday. New weapons, including the recently tested DF-31 intercontinental ballistic missile, were demonstrated in the National Day parade in the Tiananmen Square. Before the spectacular parade, President JIANG Zemin reviewed the soldiers and vehicles formations. The last large-scale military parade was in 1985 when DENG Xiaoping was in power.

5. On October 7, 1999, Far Eastern Economic Review released the content of an interview with the representative of Panama in Hong Kong. According to this representative, the mainland of China will have a formal diplomatic relationship with Panama soon. In the previous month, a number of senior Panamanian officials, including the Vice President, visited China secretly. Currently, Panama is one of a few countries that have a formal diplomatic relationship with Taiwan.

In 1997, Hong Kong Huangfu Groups Inc., which was close to the Chinese government, was awarded the management contract for the Panama Canal after year 2000 when the United States hands it back to the Panamanian government. The Canal is one of the most important resources of Panama. Afterwards, commentators say that the mainland of China gained an upper hand in wooing the small Central American country. China's mainland is currently the third largest trading partner with Panama.

6. According to the China News Digest (Global), the first flag desecration case was heard at the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, after the Court of Appeal overturned the convictions of the two offenders, the South China Morning Post reported on Saturday, October 23. The Justices will make a decision on a later date.

The two plaintiffs, NG Kung-siu and LEE Kin-yun, were arrested in January 1998 in a demonstration for displaying a vandalized Chinese national flag, which bore a Chinese character "shame" and had the big star inked-out. The two men then were convicted of desecrating the national flag, but the ruling was later overturned by the Court of Appeal.

In Friday's final appeal court hearing, Mr. Ng, not represented by lawyers, told the Justices that "the flag ordinances unnecessarily restrict the freedom of speech of the Hong Kong people to criticize the Chinese Communist Government or the freedom to criticize the communist revolutionary ideology."

7. China's National People's Congress is considering establishing a partially autonomous committee to interpret the Chinese Constitution. Due to the controversy over the rights of abode in Hong Kong, leaders in China began to realize the need to have an independent committee to supervise the application of the Constitution. Currently, one option under consideration is to establish a constitutional committee under the NPC.

(Wenxiong YAO is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at State University of New York at Albany.)