In Beijing on April 21, Bernard Schwartz, former CEO of Loral Corporation and new CEO of Globalstar satellite company, announced that China Telecom has agreed to invest $37.5 million to become a full partner with Globalstar, the Beijing Review reports. "The addition of China Telecom as a full partner solidifies Globalstar's commitment to mobile satellite communications to China's 1.2 billion people," Schwartz said. "China's national telephone installation waiting list is over 5 million and it is increasing every day."

China's current telephone penetration rate is less than 5 percent, the Review adds, and some 500,000 rural communities are in need of improved telecommunications services. Globalstar expects to service some 200,000 subscribers in China by the year 2002.

For the second straight year, the communist Chinese government backed out on an agreement to allow Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA) to lead a U.S. congressional delegation to Tibet, the Los Angeles Times reports. After the 1997 U.S.-China summit in Washington, Chinese leader Jiang Zemin restated permission for the Tibet visit that he earlier promised House Speaker Newt Gingrich. But once again, Jiang Zemin postponed the offer, claiming it would happen too close to President Clinton's visit to China. "Tourists are routinely given visas for Tibet," Cox stated. "Singling out the leadership of Congress in this way is a blatant reprisal of our anti-communist political views." As Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, Cox proposed the "Policy for Freedom," a set of 11 resolutions critical of China's human rights violations, calling for a crackdown on Chinese espionage and PLA front companies, and missile defense for Taiwan that won on the House floor by an overwhelming margin.

Chinese officials escorted by armed troops arrested 15 Buddhist monks in Tibet during a crackdown on a "rebellious" monastery in a remote area of Tibet, the Agence France-Presse reports. In early March, monks at the Rongpo Rabten monastery in the Nagqu area, 300 miles northeast of Lhasa, protested after Chinese communist officials tried to persuade them to denounce the Dalai Lama. Between 20 and 30 monks gathered outside the monastery and chanted, "Tibet is free," and "May his Holiness the Dalai Lama live for tens of thousands of years."

In Rome, Pope John Paul II expressed regret that Beijing prevented two Chinese bishops from coming to Rome, and hoped that Catholics in China would have more freedom, the Associated Press reports. A day earlier the Pope's top diplomat, Monsignor Jean-Louis Tauran, said the pontiff would like to see direct talks with China aimed at establishing diplomatic relations. In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao stated that China would improve diplomatic relations with the Vatican based on two conditions: The Vatican must sever relations with Taiwan; and it must "not interfere in China's internal affairs, including interference in religious matters."

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All Rights Reserved.

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