Report from China dissidents: An exiled student leader has called the latest round of arrests a violation of international norms...

Leasing Chinese dissidents living in exile in the US have condemned Beijing's latest round of arrests of followers of the outlawed Falun Gong movement.

Police forcibly removed some 40 protestors of the meditation-based movement from Tiananmen Square yesterday and obliged on-lookers and journalists to hand over their film of the events.

The incident took place as UN chief Kofi Annan, who was in Beijing as part of a two-week tour of the region, was being briefed by foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan.

Lian Shengde, a leading Chinese dissident and one of the student leaders jailed for his part in the landmark Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989, described the arrests as "wild violations of Chinese and international norms."

Lian, who heads the Free China Movement, a coalition of some 30 pro-democracy and human rights groups, said his group supported the Falun Gong.

"We hope that massive civil disobedience like the Falun Gong will force the Chinese communist government to change," Lian said.

Last week in Japan, Annan had told journalists he was "puzzled" by the Chinese government's crackdown on the group, and urged Beijing to conform with the universal declaration of human rights.

One analyst said the Annan's statement might inadvertently have set off the latest sweep.

"He should not have said those things in Tokyo," said Minxin Pei, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, adding that it might have been better for the UN leader to bring up the subject in private with the Chinese.

"The Chinese care very much about face, and this is causing them to lose face," he explained. Annan's comments "raised the expectations of Falun Gong members and made the Chinese government extremely sensitive," said Pei, adding that Tuesday's crackdown was "not out of character."

But Falun Gong representatives in the United Nations reacted differently.

"If China does not comply with the UN charter on human rights, then there is a problem. I hope the United Nations picks up on this issue," argued Er Ping Zhnag, a Falun Gong spokesman based in New York.

Many Falun Gong followers, who practice traditional Chinese meditation and breathing exercises as well as advocate high moral values, have been arrested since the group was banned in July.

The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China has estimated that more than 1,000 members of the group have been locked up in some 300 Chinese "education through labor" camps.

China's foreign ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi defended the government's reaction, contending that only a handful of criminals faced punishment, while the rest of the movement's followers would be "educated and transformed."

The movement rattled China's leaders with a 10,000-strong protest in front of Communist Party headquarters in Beijing on April 25.

The famous Chinese dissident-in-exile Harry Wu, speaking by telephone from California, compared the Falun Gong sect to the student democracy movement that led to the brutal Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

"This is a big threat to the communist dynasty," said Wu, who spent 19 years in Chinese labor camps, including the Laogai gulag, before being exiled to the United States in 1985.

Annan left Beijing yesterday following a lengthy meeting with Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan the previous day. Annan said Tang assured him that human rights were being respected amid the escalating crackdown on Falun Gong.

U.N. chief visits China for talks on rights, aid

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in China yesterday for talks expected to focus on human rights and U.N. intervention in internal conflicts, as members of the banned Falun Gong movement pledged to petition the U.N. chief.

In discussions with Chinese leaders during his four-day visit, Annan would appeal for greater support for U.N. peacekeeping operations in East Timor, which Beijing has pledged to back, analysts said.

He was also expected to hold wide-ranging discussions on the U.N.'s evolving role as global policeman of internal conflicts --- a role being pushed aggressively by Annan, but which compromises Beijing's policy of non-interference, a cornerstone of its foreign policy.

If China fails to soften its position, it risks being marginalized as one of the five veto-bearing permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, diplomats said.

The United States bypassed opposition from Russia and China in the Security Council to lead a NATO bombing campaign against Serbia during the crisis in Kosovo earlier this year.

Jiang reported asking U.S. to press Taiwan

Nov. 19, 1999 --- Chinese President Jiang Zemin has reportedly urged U.S. President Bill Clinton to press Taiwan to withdraw its claims of statehood in its dealings with Beijing, according to a newspaper report.

In an unsigned story, the Hong Kong-based Chinese-language Ming Pao Daily said that in telephone calls made before the United States and the mainland resumed talks on Beijing's bid for WTO membership last week, Clinton promised to press Taiwan to back down on its claim of separate statehood from mainland China.

The newspaper said Jiang emphasized to Clinton the justification, legitimacy and public support for a possible military attack on Taiwan by mainland Chinese forces.

Clinton's promise, which could not be independently confirmed, would be a departure form Washington's longstanding policy toward Beijing, and would tilt the balance it has taken pains to maintain between Taiwan and the mainland, a local political observer said.

In their last meeting in September in New Zealand on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit, Clinton stuck to Washington's stance on the Taiwan issue.

According to a briefing given by Clinton's National Security Adviser Sandy Berger at the time, Jiang did not ask Clinton to publicly denounce Taipei's claim of statehood, and Washington would rather steer clear of the issue than take sides in the dispute.

Berger said Clinton reiterated the three pillars of Washington's policy toward the Taiwan issue, namely, that there is only one China, that the Taiwan issue should be resolved peacefully, and that Beijing-Taipei dialogue should be encouraged.

Frankly speaking, the democratization of Taiwan is vital to its continued survival and it can only be guaranteed with American support, but having had a taste of democracy. Taiwanese people also naturally want the right of referendum, but their use of this right might create a conflict with China. We tough the U.S. and China stepped up military exchange and cooperation, had the reason of preventing Cross-Straits from conflict.

If Taiwan is real democracy, we have the idea of global village with respect to human rights and multiparties' political system.

I think that exiled minorities and more likely to share this global concept. Taiwanese people have a poorly developed sense of nationalism, especially in our young generation. We hope both Taiwanese and Chinese need to reevaluate their nationalistic philosophies.

They need to adjust their understanding to the extend that they no longer fear loss of sovereignty.

The reported from ... Kuomintang (KMT) outcast James Soong yesterday (Nov. 20, 1999) asserted that the people's interests should be given priority over the nation's and the party's.

"The people should always come before the party and the nation," pledged Soong, now an independent candidate for the presidential race after being formally expelled from the KMT on Wednesday (Nov. 18, 1999).

He said he recognizes the hope Taiwan's people are placing on him and, therefore, will not disappoint his supporters.

The presidential hopeful has so far led almost all public opinion polls, and earlier claimed that he will have no problem gathering the more than 224,000 endorsement signatures required for his candidacy.

He, along with running mate Chang Chau-hsiung, yesterday morning paid a visit to their campaign headquarters located on Taipei's Jenai Road, where they held a press conference.

The people are hoping for changes, Soong said. Corruption and inefficiency within party politics have disappointed many, he said, which should help him win the race as an independent.

Soong has advocated "breaking party boundaries," drawing extensive criticism from his Democratic Progressive Party rival Chen Shuibian, who suggested that the ex-governor was attempting to build a "one-person government."

Responding to speculation that the KMT and DPP might cooperate against him, Soong said he was not interested in analyzing such a strategic partnership.

Instead, he called further attention to what he dubbed the public's disappointment with party politics.

He went on to give a clear picture about party politics in Taiwan, to establish concrete grounds for what his opponents called a "one-person government."

Pointing to the recent row over the National Assembly's tenure extension, Soong said it was clearly the result of collaboration between the KMT and DPP.

He later quoted his running mate Chang, saying "real party politics should be base on wholesome politics."

"Democracy is the crucial factor to rebuilding party politics," he said.

With Chang seated beside him during the press conference, Soong said there is no hierarchy between him and his running mate, as they have the same goal of fighting for the interests of the people.

Soong said yesterday's opening of the headquarters symbolized a new stage as he entered the real working phase for his election campaign.

Meanwhile, yesterday Chang disclosed his cross-strait relations concept, which he defined as "one plus one is more than two."

Chang will be the future spokesman for the Soong team's mainland policy, the ex-

governor said.

Rapid globalization is a reality and it is gradually redefining sovereignty. The aim of globalization is to obtain economic benefits. So it's unavoidable that certain regional groupings emerge, which has already led a number of countries to worry about violations of their sovereignty.

There are the most part of world that countries should accept the reality that the rapid globalization trend is not only difficult to resist, but it isn't easy to protest against regional groupings either.

On the other hand, for the sake of free markets and security of regional stability as the European Union in order to create a super state, countries such as England, France and Germany would have to give up absolute sovereignty over their respective nations.

China has been hoping to enter the World Trade Organization for some 13 years now and has entered into 26 multilateral conferences as well as hundreds of bilateral negotiation sessions. The longest-running and most difficult of these have been its talks with the U.S. Those talks involved a dialectical process in which political decisions outweighed economic considerations, but in which those same economic factors often drove political policy-making.

From a policy perspective, the mainland leadership seems to have finally relaxed its stubborn, deeply rooted desire for self-reliance. Politically, Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongi seem to have fashioned an even more tightly knit style of collective leadership, with positive implications for the stability of the regime. Economically, entry into the WTO should guarantee that there will be no backsliding to the era of a centrally planned economy, since only firm linkage with the world economy can stabilize China's economy as one guided by market forces. Diplomatically, the imminent accession to the WTO means an even larger participation in international society. China is already an important member of the world community, but after today it must give even greater respect to the standards of that community and the conventions on which it is based.

Nevertheless, the US-China agreement on WTO accession is, for China, a double-edged sword. Its policies of reform and liberalization show that Jiang and Zhu both recognize what China must learn from the examples of the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, which is that since economic strength is the bastion on which its legitimacy as a Communist regime must rest, it must seek integration into the world economy. But liberalization will have a huge impact. In its negotiations with the U.S., China used a "market-for-technology" strategy, hoping that imports of foreign technology would help maintain growth, allowing it economically to match or even surpass the performance of its competitive Asian neighbors. But liberalization may mean a rise in unemployment and corresponding

social instability, and it is further feared that foreign firms may capitalize on the inflow of investment and technology to gain marker dominance, ultimately to the detriment of China's domestic industry and national security. China must therefore practice a balancing act between integration with the world economy and control of its own domestic economy.

We hail the linkage between China and the world economy that will soon take place. Only a China understands the logic operating in the world community and that can respect its norms and standards can bring greater prosperity and stability to the region and to the world economy as a whole.

Taiwan's democracy needs support from United States. In the past, we could have adopted a nonchalant attitude because we knew that U.S. would support us, but currently the U.S. is vehemently insisting that Taiwan and China stay on friendly terms because it would be in a difficult position if we started to fight.

When I asked my students if for the sake of argument China eventually becomes as prosperous as the U.S. or Switzerland should Taiwan then become part of China?

They were unanimous in support of the Taiwan independence as the U.S. and Canada. They are both well-developed countries so we hope we could establish

excellent neighboring nation relations with them, or to sign a common market agreement with them, but that doesn't mean we hope to become a province or state subordinate to them.

If Taiwan is adequately armed to repel a sustained Chinese attack, and in fact to beat Chinese forces, the democratic system would more mature than before. It's really interesting how at the same time. We can be so confident in war and have such a back of confidence in peace negations.

In fact, Taiwanese people want to achieve a win-win, including unification advocates as well as separatists on both sides of the straits.

Currently, we're all so concerned with the struggle across the Taiwan Straits and evolving Cross-Strait relations that we haven't taken the time to examines our situation from a global perspective.

Russia softens to foreign intervention in Chechnya

As dozens of world leaders wrapped up a European security summit, Russia appeared to be softening its opposition to outside intervention in the Chechnya crisis. But U.S. officials, who have led international calls to ease the suffering of civilians in Chechnya, cautioned against expecting a quick end to the war in the

breakaway Russian republic. U.S. President Bill Clinton and 53 other world leaders, ending a two-day summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe yesterday, planned to declare their support for a principle Russia has long disputed: that outside intervention in a civil war can be justified if the conflict has the potential of spreading beyond its borders.

In the near future, Taiwan problem will evolve to global proportions. So China would find it very hard to solve the Taiwan problem with crude militaristic methods.

The best results, Taiwan and China will eventually have to design an amorphous, non-threatening mutually sovereign federation, but at least it would satisfy the needs of fiercely nationalistic Chinese people.

After enjoying the game of international community the new Chinese generation will eventually develop, a more tolerant view of Taiwan under a more globally sensitive educational system, that comes to China in the face of this trend.