European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 26, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Bans on China Wither away Nyji Abrams associated press iting National interest humanitarian causes and business Competition Western democracies Are slowly dismantling the sanctions they imposed on China alter the bloody suppression of the democracy movement last Spring Western officials Are coming Back to renew contacts with chinese counterparts but tourists and businessmen still apparently wary Haven t returned in the numbers they came in before. The West remains committed in principle to limits on High level visits arms sales and new Aid packages but exceptions have become the Rule and some sanctions never Strong to Start with Are withering away even though repression continues the turning Point was the Surprise visit in december by Brent scowcroft  National Security adviser and disclosures that he had made a previous visit in july just a month alter the army killed hundreds perhaps thousands in soul Fig out the pro democracy movement president Buth was assailed in Congress for his overtures to the Hartline Beijing government but other Western nations quickly followed suit in easing bans on High level contacts Bui tourist hotel occupancy rates Are Only about half what they were a year ago. And the China Market seems to have lost its Luster Lor businessmen As the government reasserts Central controls and puts off new Market oriented reforms businessmen were the first to argue we really ought to gel Back in said an australian Diplomat. Now they Are some of the most reluctant to come  John Onsbie of the us China business Council said there is Little direct correlation Between sanctions and business but the direction of chinese policy was positive before now businessmen Are Uncertain and will be for some time " the renewed contacts Are chiefly governmental the european economic Community decided in mid january that political visits Short of the ministerial level were acceptable Australia said visits by Cabinet ministers would be allowed on a Case by Case basis also in january. Japan played Host to the head of China s stale planning commission and Britain disclosed that sir Percy Ladock senior foreign policy adviser to prime minister Margaret Thatcher held secret talks in Beijing in december More crucial to China has been the lilting of bans on credit and Aid in december the dec gave its 12 member nations the go ahead to extend Export credits to China and Spain responded by announcing a $30 million development loan in Early january on feb 2. The us Export import Bank signed a peking wit martial a peking without martial Law $9.75 million loan with a chinese Oil corporation. A week later the Bank announced a $10.4 million Grant part of a $23.1 million package to encourage China to buy american equipment for a Shanghai subway project. The Bank said contracts won by american companies would have been jeopardized if financing had not been finalized. West Germany has provided $275 million in preferential credit for the subway project. Only a few private syndicated Loans have been made since june but As one West German Diplomat said. Everyone is waiting for the world  the chinese Are almost passionate about world Bank Loans said one . Official. He said chinese officials constantly bring up the $780 million in world Bank concessionary credit suspended since june and blame the United states for it. They say if the world Bank Loans do not come through we will retaliate against you " the official said. On feb. 8, the world Bank following a White House decision to Back Loans for human  approved a loan package of $30 million to Aid an earthquake struck area of Northern China. The ban with 151 nations As members still Means withholding the big development loan package but a positive decision could open the floodgates particularly from China s main creditor Japan. Japan continues to discourage commercial lending but has also Given the go ahead to human need Loans and has started talks on a five year $5.6 billion package of development Aid. Other signs of encroaching normalcy in relations arc showing up a $600 million . Project to develop avionic equipment for chinese fighter planes is on course chinese engineers were allowed to return to their jobs at . Plants in october. A vote by the us. Congress in late january to codify sanctions Drew howls of protest from China but Congress allowed Bush to waive sanctions if it was in the National interest a right he exercised in approving the Export of three us made satellites to be launched by chinese rockets. The . Department of agriculture recently announced China was authorized to buy an additional 1 million metric tons of wheat at subsidized prices and us China Trade in general expanded by nearly 40 percent in 1989 Over 1988 the peace corps unable to Send its first volunteers last year Hopes to Start its program this year Canada announced in january its first new cultural project since last year a Community College Exchange program Bush and other Western leaders have argued that the chinese people should not suffer from sanctions and that it s bad policy to isolate the chinese government. So far however China has done Little to reciprocate the West s conciliatory gestures. The government in moves mainly intended to improve its International image and obtain badly needed foreign credit lifted martial Law in Beijing in january and announced the release of 573 participants in the pro democracy movement. But political repression continues with dissent outlawed and thousands of activists languishing in jails without being formally tried forbidden to see families and lawyers government leaders continue to say China s economic reforms and open door policy go on yet the communist party is reasserting controls Over Industry and the propaganda line is that Western technology is Fine but Western values must be repudiated. As a consequence it s hardly business As usual with China. Eight months after China s democracy movement ended in bloodshed the country s airwaves and newspapers remain full of harsh ideological language. But underneath the ideological blizzard Lor the great majority of the chinese population that lives outside the major cities the texture of life seems to have changed very Little. In Winshi Tan Youyun a 42-year-old private businessman nibbled a bit of steaming pig intestine and furrowed his brow As he tried to think of some Way in which life had changed since the Rise of the hard liners last year. I know he finally said with some Relief As if it would be a political mistake not to be affected. Occasionally i used to Gamble a Little just Small amounts it was for fun but now that the government has declared that gambling is evil i Don t do it anymore otherwise things Are just the Way they were  i was talking about my grandmother the other Day when someone observed i Don t know How she remained so eternally  i answered because she terminally  every birthday she juggled More numbers than the Illinois lottery. On each of her five children s birth certificates she recorded a different year for her birth by the time her last child was born she had carved a Niche for herself in the record books for being the youngest female Ever to give birth she unseated Linda Medina a 5-year-old irom Peru what was so Classy about grandma was that she never backed Down or fumbled about the discrepancy. There was nothing wrong with her memory. She could Tell you the exact hour the girl in the next Block could have a baby and still be considered a decent girl under the nine month limitation act. She just Felt her age was no one s business you d think with All the changes women have gone through the age thing would have Given Way to up front honesty but it has t it s still one of the two questions you never ask a woman the other one is How much do you weigh age is relative. Anyone who was on the screen when i was a child i automatically put at 80 years old and each year thereafter added 10 years. It never occurred to me that when i was a 10 year old child a Starlet could be just six years older than i so i do a lot of watching murder she wrote and observing i thought she he was dead1" maybe if we started to judge people s Ages by what they be accomplished instead of what they look like we could get a trend going Here i Don t care if George Burns has to have someone follow him around and carry the bags under his eyes the facts Are that he remembers lyrics has the humor of an entire comedy store and is booked at the London palladium in 1996 when he turns 100 frankly the 12-year-old women who stare defiantly at me from the to tube and Tell me they re not going to grow old gracefully but will fight it with Oil of olay Are getting on my nerves. For some of us there s not enough Oil in the persian Gulf to win that Battle lying is All that is left. Some reporter with Little to do recently noted that Charo listed her age at 39. Yet in 1966 when she married Xavier Cugat. She said she had been born in 1945. Nine years later she said she was born in 1947. And in 1985 changed it again to 1951. So what grandma s obituary should have read Emma England died today at the age of 63.65,67,69 and 74. 01 special interest is that she got her Driver s License at age 9." 1c 1990 Erma Bombeck Page 16 the stars and stripes monday february 26,1990