Intelligence

DATE=07/27/01

TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP

TITLE=CHINESE SCHOLARS

NUMBER=6-12405

BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE

DATELINE=Washington

INTERNET=YES

EDITOR=Assignments

TELEPHONE=619-3335

CONTENT=

INTRO: On the eve of Sectary of State Colin Powell's first visit to China, the Beijing government has released a trio of U-S-based ethnic Chinese scholars. Two of them have arrived back in the United States and the third is believed to be on his way.

All three had been arrested and charged with various counts of espionage, causing a good deal of outrage in the U-S press. We get a sampling now from ____________ in today's U-S Opinion Roundup.

TEXT: China has deported American business professor Li Shaomin and granted medical parole to two others, sociologist Gao Zhan and Qin Guangguang, who is expected to leave China shortly. The moves came as Secretary of State Colin Powell arrives [is about to arrive] for brief talks in Beijing.

The arrests and essentially secret trials of the American-based Chinese were not well received in the U-S press. We begin our sampling with The New York Times, which complains:

VOICE: If China's leaders want to move toward an era of more constructive relations with Washington, they will not get there by sentencing United States residents to lengthy jail terms on dubious spying charges just before a visit to Beijing by the secretary of state. Unfortunately, that is just what China [has done]... The sentencing of Gao Zhan and Qin Guangguang to ten-year prison terms on charges of spying for Taiwan was another disheartening example of how Beijing persists in criminalizing activity that in most countries would be considered normal scholarly inquiry.

TEXT: As for the releases, which took place only hours after that New York Times editorial appeared, The Augusta Chronicle in Georgia is not impressed.

VOICE: Let's hope ... Secretary of State ... Powell isn't as naïve as he sounded in commenting on Beijing's decision to release two permanent U-S residents and a Chinese-born American just before his ... visit... "I think the relationship is on an upswing now...that these irritations are behind us," said [Secretary] Powell..."

Irritations? American business professor Gao Zhan and scholars Qin Guangguang and Li Shaomin, a U-S citizen, found it a lot more than irritating to be held in Communist custody for months before being convicted ... on trumped up charges of spying for Taiwan. ... the trio should never have been detained at all. And when they were, [Secretary] Powell and his boss should have turned [it] ... into an international ** cause celebre. ** [Italics for foreign language.]

TEXT: Excerpts of an Augusta [Georgia] Chronicle editorial.

California's Los Angeles Times says of the releases: "...before the administration breaks out the champagne, it should be asking itself what the cases say about the nature of the Chinese regime." And Portland's Oregonian grumbles: "it doesn't look very much like engagement with China has led to improvement in the Communist regime's attitude toward human rights.

Northern New Jersey's [Bergen County] Record snaps: "The question is why they were ever detained..." and in Minnesota, the Minneapolis Star Tribune is perplexed, suggesting:

VOICE: It's hard to know what to think about this game of attack-and-relent - - especially after this month's decision to award the 2008 Olympics to Beijing. Wasn't that ...supposed to make China more... mindful of its image?

TEXT: In the nation's capital, The Washington Post is also upset, and writes, before the releases were announced:

VOICE: Just four days before the arrival of Secretary of State Powell, a court sentenced Ms. Gao and another permanent U-S resident, Qin Guangguang, to ten-year prison terms, after sham trials that were closed to the press, U-S officials and other outside observers. American officials held out hope that Beijing might soften this kick in Mr. Powell's shin by releasing Ms. Gao and a U-S citizen convicted last week, Li Shaomin, before the U-S delegation lands on Saturday.

Even if it grants this concession, however, the government of Jiang Zemin will have established its position: that it expects the Bush administration to conduct business and carry out normal high-level relations with China regardless of how it treats its own people- - even those who happen to be U-S residents or citizens. ... Mr. Powell should not go along. Instead he should make clear that the Bush administration's engagement with China will depend - - and the president's planned visit to China will take place - - only when the Chinese ... campaign against ... intellectuals is stopped.

TEXT: The stance of The Washington Post.

Michigan's Detroit Free Press, meanwhile, tries to understand China's rationale for its recent hard line against ethnic Chinese, U-S based scholars, arrested and tried for spying.

VOICE: ... it is not too farfetched to think that the convictions were largely a product of China's fretful leaders playing to the country's growing nationalism and ongoing outrage over the U-S spy plane incident.

TEXT: Whatever the real motivation for the recent trials and jailing of American-based Chinese, and notwithstanding their subsequent release, New Hampshire's Manchester Union Leader is furious.

VOICE: By giving ten-year prison terms to two American-based scholars just days before Secretary of State Colin Powell is scheduled to visit, China is provoking the United States... [Secretary] Powell ought to firmly repudiate China's intimidation tactics ... If other countries begin to think the United States is weak and China is strong because of our complacency, we could gradually lose allies...

TEXT: Lastly, these views from South Carolina's Charleston Post and Courier, written just before the releases took place.

VOICE: Secretary of State ... Powell has been challenged by China's Communist leadership. Four days before Mr. Powell was due to arrive in Beijing, he was tested on America's commitment to human rights by the sentencing of two U-S-based Chinese scholars on trumped up charges of spying.

Beijing has used the same strategy before, first defying and then placating Washington. Mr. Powell must not allow himself to be intimidated or placated. ... The "crime' ... all three scholars were charged with was ...[exchanging] information, in the form of magazine articles and research papers, about Taiwan. ... The highly publicized arrests of the three scholars, and the long prison sentences handed down in closed courts, form part of a stepped-up campaign of repression and persecution of dissidents. ... During his visit to China ... Mr. Powell should remind President Jiang Zemin that Washington does not intend to overlook the Communist regime's violations of human rights.

TEXT: With that, we come to the end of this sampling of editorial comment on the recent imprisonment and then release and expulsion of American-based Chinese scholars from Mainland China.

NEB/ANG/PFH