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Fri, Apr 4, 1997
KMT Wants To Give President More Power
also: drilling platform leaves Vietnam's waters; local politics in mainland China; news on provisional legislature; Invitations for July 1 going out; info on Yellow River; and more . . .Please read the statement of purpose.
Taiwan: the KMT has said it will propose changes to the constitution for the purpose of placing more power in the office of the President. The changes, if approved by the National Assembly when it convenes on May 5, will relegate Premier Lien Chan to the post of chief-of-staff and permit President Lee Tung-hui sole discretion on affairs concerning defense, foreign relations, and relations with the mainland, reports the paper. The plan was approved by the KMT during a meeting on Wednesday.
"Under the plan, the premier [Lien Chan ] will execute important decisions made by the President, and the Legislative Yuan will have no right to override the decisions or ask the Cabinet to change them," Tan Chi-tung, a KMT spokesman, said.
According to the paper, opposition parties and some within the KMT have criticized the plan. The paper quotes Cheng Pao-ching of the Democratic Progressive Party: "Lee Teng-hui is trying to make himself the emperor of Taiwan. But the principle of democratic politics is to maintain a checks-and-balances system."
We will look for more information on this story.
Vietnam: saying its work was completed, an official with China National Offshore Oil Corp. said the drilling platform, operating off of Vietnam's coast since March 7, has been moved. A Vietnam naval officer stationed in Haiphong has confirmed this. The expert-level talks set up in recent days by both countries to resolve the issue are still set for April 9 and will concentrate on resolving these kinds of disputes.
The China Daily does not have a story about this issue specifically, but it does report on the meeting in Beijing between President Jiang Zemin and Le Minh Huong, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV) and minister of the Interior.
Mr Jiang took the opportunity to hail the long relations between the two countries. He said both countries have enjoyed long histories of friendly relations and both have aided each other during "the long revolutionary struggles and socialist construction," reports the paper. The present relationship contribute to peace and stability in the region, reports the paper.
Local politics: local self-government '90s style---Inside China carries a Reuters article on the growth of village-level elections. We have been hearing about such developments for a few years now, and in this article we get a sense of the difficulties officials from the office of basic-level democracy under the Ministry of Civil Affairs face in implementing these political structures. Initiated in the 1980s, the elections have introduced new forms of decision making into nearly a million villages, or some three quarters of China's 1.2 billion population, reports the paper. The elections are conducted by secret-ballots, and villagers vote from a range of candidates. Many candidates are not members of the Communist Party, although forty percent of those who do win eventually join the party.
In the case of the Hebei village highlighted in the article candidates stressed their ability to find new markets for the village's products and to use their political savvy to forge new business connections outside of the locale. One promised improvements in electrical service and lower school fees, reports the paper.
The overall goal of the program is to implement it upward, from the village level to the county, to the provincial and finally the national level. The government, however, has not set a timetable for all of this and says it must proceed slowly.
Hong Kong: events across the border in Shenzhen give us glimpses of a process of 'government building', so to speak, as the provisional legislature works to put its affairs in order. According to the South China Morning Post the body has set the deadline for electing the chairman and deputy chairman of the finance committee and the house committee for no later than its fifth plenum on April 26.
Hong Kong: invitations are going out to 1200 guests to attend the ceremonies marking the change in sovereignty, reports the South China Morning Post.
Hong Kong: the Irish Times reports on a exhibition organized to show off to Hong Kongers the military hardware China will use to defend the territory. The paper notes, amid the helicopters, the light armor, the jet fighters, the photocopiers, and fast pursuit boats, tanks were conspicuous by their absence. The images of Tiananmen, where tanks literally crushed the protests, still haunt the memories of Hong Kongers, and sensitive to this the PLA has decided not to deploy them in the territory, reports the paper. The move is seen by locals as a confidence-building measure.
The paper also reports on the recent announcement from Beijing saying mainland propaganda units will not interfere in local press freedom and media.
Hong Kong: the New York Times has an article entitled "Anxiety in Hong Kong Over Religious Freedom"
(Note: the New York Times on-line edition is free, but requires that users register a name and password, and therefore first-time users should first introduce themselves on the Times registration page.)
Environment: the China Daily reports, the water level on the upper reaches of the Yellow River has hit a record low point.
"Rainfall accounts for over 70 per cent of the flow on the upper reaches of the Yellow River, which originates in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Droughts on the plateau for several years running have caused the river flow to remain relatively low since 1990. Flow from the river's upper reaches decreased by more than one-quarter compared to last year," the paper quotes an official with the Yellow River Water Conservancy Committee.
The paper further explains, on the other end of the river in Shandong Province the river bed dried up a week earlier than it did in 1996.