Update on Human Rights
Slavery is on the rise throughout China in private and semi-legal factories, such as brick factories, stone quarries or greenhouse farms. The slaves, mostly healthy young men, work under threats of violence or death. Slave users bribe the complicity of government officials, who often have a financial stake in the businesses. China Reform Monitor 403, 8-22-01
A 66-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen has been in jail in Beijing for 18 months on suspicion of gathering state secrets. A New Jersey electrical engineer, Fuming Fong, who has not been formally indicted, has nevertheless been subjected to gratuitous torment. This is the latest of several cases involving the arrest of Chinese-born Americans on vague security grounds.
New York Times, 9-8-01
The Chinese government ordered Guandong province to conduct 20,000 forced abortions within six months. Officials are taking expensive ultrasound equipment from village to village so that abortions can be ordered on the spot and followed by sterilization. According to a spokesman for the UN Population Fund in Beijing, abortions are forced on women as late as 8-1/2 months into pregnancy, and government officials have drowned babies in paddy fields.
Washington Times, 8-6-01
Update on Free Trade
Two new books reviewed in the Aug. 12th Washington Times show the folly of the myth that China is moving toward Western-style capitalism. They should be read in the context that China's Defense Minister Chi Haotian has predicted that war with the United States is "inevitable."
China Reform Monitor 401, 8-13-01
The Coming Collapse of China by Gordon Chang (Random House) describes the one-party control and pervasive corruption by Communist cadres and their cronies who control China's economic system. Everything is done to enrich the government elite. Bankruptcy is more often brought about by political disfavor than market failure. No organized political alternative to the Communist Party exists.
The Return of the Dragon: China's Wounded Nationalism by University of Nevada professor Maria Hsia Chang (Westview Press) describes China's "reactive nationalism," which is fueled by "a sense of contemporary victim-hood." The professor cites the 1996 Chinese best-seller, China Can Say No, which describes the U.S. as a declining superpower and states, "Why shouldn't we become a superpower and assume leadership of the world?" That book was praised by the Communist Party and made into a national TV series.
Update on Military Threat
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the No. 2 Pentagon official, said China is "almost certain" to become a superpower this century and could emerge as a threat to the United States. China has stepped up deployments of short-range missiles threatening Taiwan and now has 350 rockets within range of the island. China has added more than 30 new CSS-6 and CSS-7 missiles within range of Taiwan. Washington Times, 9-9-01
Front-page headlines on Sept. 2 proclaimed the news that the Bush Administration intends to tell China that the U.S. has no objections to China's plans to build up its small fleet of nuclear missiles capable of striking the United States. This is supposed to overcome Chinese objections to the U.S. building an anti-missile defense. On Sept. 4, the White House backed off from this position.
New York Times, 9-2-01, p. 1; Washington Times, 9-10-01
The FBI's investigation of Wen Ho Lee was more seriously bungled than previously disclosed, according to an 800-page Justice Department report. Lee acknowledged copying classified nuclear data onto portable computer tapes and removing them from Los Alamos. The tapes have never been found and Lee has never explained what became of them or why he did it.
Washington Post, 8-27-01, Washington Times, 8-18-01
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