DATE=9/14/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA-MILITARY (L-ONLY)CQ
NUMBER=2-253846
BYLINE=STEPHANIE HO
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
//re-issuing to add three words in the fifth
paragraph, just before the actuality, to show the
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman is speaking through
an interpreter//
INTRO: China is reported to have frozen a wage
increase for its two-and-one-half million soldiers,
after the Chinese president was angered by the
country's largest spying scandal in its 50-year
history. V-O-A correspondent Stephanie Ho reports
from Beijing.
TEXT: Chinese civil servants are expected to see
their salaries rise by 30-percent this year. But
military sources say a raise planned for the People's
Liberation Army has been put on hold because of
Chinese President Jiang Zemin's anger over several
cases of espionage.
The Reuters News Agency quotes these unnamed Chinese
military sources as saying Major-General Liu Liankun
and Colonel Shao Zhengzhong were both court-martialled
and executed last month. The two men reportedly
earned more than one-and-one-half million dollars
selling state secrets to Taiwan - an island Beijing
regards as a breakaway Chinese province.
The sources told Reuters the military's salaries will
not be increased this year because President Jiang,
who is China's top leader, was furious over the
scandal. It is not clear if any other officers were
implicated or punished.
Major-General Liu is the most senior Chinese military
officer caught spying for Taipei. He was accused of
selling information to Taiwanese intelligence on
Chinese war games and missile tests in the waters near
Taiwan in 1996.
The Chinese army and Taipei have already denied all
knowledge of the spy case. At a regular briefing
Tuesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi,
speaking through an interpreter, added the
government's brief denial.
// Sun interpreter act //
I am not aware of that, and I do not have any comment
to make.
// end act //
Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other
since the Communists won a civil war in 1949, and
drove the defeated Nationalists into exile on Taiwan.
Since then, the atmosphere across the strait has been
up and down.
In July, Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui sparked the
latest round of cross-strait tensions, when he called
for China to treat the island as an equal state.
China saw this as a dangerous lurch by Taiwan toward
independence. (signed)
NEB/HO/PLM
14-Sep-1999 05:55 AM EDT (14-Sep-1999 0955 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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