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3. Activists Resume Second Political Party Efforts Despite Crackdown .... 59
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[CND, 01/02/98] The Beijing offices of major international news agencies,
including Agence France-Presse and the U.S.-based Associated Press,
report that a new group of political activists are pressing forward with
attempts to legally register a second political party in China.

The leadership of the new applicant party, known as the China Labor Party
(CLP), have remained largely unknown in contrast to the highly visible but
ill-fated China Democracy Party (CDP). However, LI Yongming has stepped
forward as the party's founder in an e-mail he forwarded to the press.

The e-mail lays down some basic tenets of the new party's goals. It hopes
to enact a freezing of all bank accounts pending a massive investigation
of corruption, establish a minimum living allowance for residents of
large cities, and halt the restructuring of state-run industries and
their accompanying loss of nationally-owned assets. Li stressed that
the CDP's membership did not seek to assume power for themselves, but
rather that they sought fundamental changes in Chinese public policy.

There is a strong political message within the party's platform. Li is
quoted as saying "We are the generation after 1989 who are dissatisfied
with the social situation, the corruption and low efficiency of the
Chinese government and lack of rule of law ... Our party's responsibility
is to monitor the Chinese Communist Party and represent the working
class. We want to see, if we, who have declared that we will never seek
political power and never participate in politics will also be charged
with subversion." Li has backed up his words with a threat to "radically"
commit suicide if the party's applications are rejected despite written
laws that theoretically allow such a party to be formed.

Shengde LIAN, a U.S.-based Chinese political activist, was among those
helping to forward the CLP's message internationally and characterized
the CLP members as ordinary citizens rather than dissidents in the
usual sense.  Another U.S.-based dissident helping spread the message
was YE Ning, who said "The China Democracy Party has already given the
dictators a headache. Now, here comes the China Labor Party. These are
sparks and matches for the dried firewood covering all of China."

The new party has also expressed solidarity with dissident WANG Xizhe,
who as of this writing was in the his fifth day of a hunger strike at the
United Nations building, protesting the Chinese government's crackdown on
movements to establish second parties. Wang's health, already frail from
his imprisonment in China, is said to be declining. ZHU Yufu, a dissident
in Zhejiang province who identifies himself as a founder of the CDP, wrote
in praise of Wang "From your heroic action of hunger strike protesting,
we see you as the sacred hero of China. You are not alone. Our hearts
and souls are accompanying you every day, every hour and every minute."

The CLP action is especially remarkable in the wake of China's forceful
repression of the CDP, which so far has culminated in the detention of
over 30 dissidents and prison sentences of up to 13 years for some of
them. The Chinese government has also vowed to quash would-be second
parties with even more vigor in 1999, as the tenth anniversary of the
Tiananmen Square Massacre and the fiftieth anniversary of the founding
of the People's Republic approach. The government is expected to be
especially leery of any labor-based unions or parties as unrest builds
among ever-growing numbers of displaced workers. 
(Phil STEPHENS, YIN De An)