Dear Mr. President Jacques Chirac,
Mr. Prime Minister Tony Blair,
China's policy on dissidents has made headlines against this
week. Beijing has begun what only they could say is related
sweep of so-called "subversives" since President Jiang
Zemin's issued his anti-subversion decree police have been busy
rounding up anyone even suspected of the very widely defined
"anti-government activities". Most notably, the three
founders of the fledging Chinese Democratic Party, Wang Youcai,
Qin Youngmin, and Xu Wenli, were incarcerated and promptly sentenced
to 11, 12, and 13 years imprisonment respectively.
The one Zhang received a 10 year prison sentence that included
a five year moratorium on his political rights, whatever they
may be.
His crime was not revealing military secrets or
organizing political party. It was talking to the media, Zhang
was found guilty of "endangering state security" for
informing radio Free Asia about an anti-tax demonstration held
by local farmers.
Exiled mainland Chinese democracy activist Wei Jing-sheng,
on the eight day of his Taiwan visit, has a pleasant meeting
with President Lee Teng-hui yesterday (Dec. 29, 1998) at which
democracy was again the main topic of discussion. Wei
stressed that Taiwan's security depends much on the fortune
of democracy reform in Asia, especially in mainland China.
As a result, he suggested, Taiwan must build up
a closer partnership of brothership with mainland reform groups,
lending support to democratization in mainland China.
Wei also said if he has any chance to meet mainland President
Jiang Zemin, he will discuss the possible peaceful
reforms that could bring China closer to democracy.
Meanwhile, President Lee Teng-hui met with a group of former
political prisoners yesterday (Dec. 29, 1998) to discuss the
construction of human rights monument on green island. Lee told
the former prisoner that Taiwan has come a long way to emerge
as a pluralistic democracy.
Contrary to Taiwan; that moving to enforce a ban on publications
deemed politically suspect, Chinese authorities have sentence
several groups of people to prison sentence of up to 13 years,
the official newspaper People's Daily reported yesterday (Dec.
29, 1998).
Please help mainland China step up to the route of democracy.
