rath

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|From: dir|
|To : sak|
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(RETURN TO CHINA)
(draft/dir/2:23)
(17 June 1998)

Dan Rather Reporting. News, commentary, and analysis. Today, I'm traveling to
Asia. (Today eyem in China. Today I'm traveling ...back from China)

Every year since going to China with President Nixon in l972, your reporter has
tried to visit China. At least one trip every year. Most years, that has
happened.

Now, it's time to go back again. These are thoughts that come to mind.

Number one, there are now, once again, rumblings from below inside China. As
was the case nine years ago...in l989...when the student-led movement for
freedom and democracy built, erupted and then was viciously put down in
Tiananmen Square...widespread discontent can be heard, seen and felt inside the
world's most populous country.

Where this leads, what will result, no one can predict with assurance.
Certainly no outsider. But the fact that there IS widespread and growing
discontent among China's vast rank and file is worth noting.

China's last strongman was Deng Xiao Ping. In his dotage, it was HE who ordered
the crushing of the movement for freedom and democracy in Tiananmen Square.
But now, he is long dead. Today, China has no single strong-man leader. It DOES
still have a dictatorship-- but a dictatorship whose hold is slipping. For one
thing, the current leadership, unlike that of Deng or his predecessor, Mao,
does NOT have total control of nor complete support of the military.

There is now in China a combination of shaky political dictatorship and a sort
of free-market economy. This dangerous combination has created many
opportunities for corruption...small and large under-the-table BUYING of power
and influence.

Corruption of top Communist leaders was one of the protesters' complaints
leading to the demonstrations at Tiananmen Square. The corruption now is much
more widespread. Peasants...the overwhelming majority in the REAL China...are
not sharing in the so-called "new wealth" of the new economy. This is
especially true in China's vast interior, what the late Author Pearl Buck once
wrote of as The Good Earth.

China desperately needs major, drastic political reform. Number one: press
freedom and other freedom of expression and asembly. Number two: true public
accountability for government actions and government leaders. Number three: the
rule of LAW.

Basically, China still has the rule of men, a very few men...NOT rule of law.

The rumblings of discontent grow louder. The China crisis builds. America's
leaders in government and in business don't seem to want to face it.

But it's there. And bears watching. Closely.

Now, please, this message. (comml) Dan Rather Reporting. Today I'm in Asia.
CBS News.