Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 12:47:19 GMT

From: SEIBERT 2410

To: Multiple recipients of list TSG-L

The Austrian Chancellor, Mr. Vranitzky, and the Minister of Science, Traffic and Art, Mr. Scholten, have finished a multi-day official visit in China where they met Prime Minister Li Peng and President Jiang Zemin. There are a number of interesting aspects with this visit:

- It was hold in the week preceeding the elections to the European Parliament in Austria, and during a session of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. This is seen as a sign of the high priority given to this visit by both parties.

- Already before Mr. Vranitzky left, he was criticised and/or admonished by practically all the other parties. The human rights speaker of the People's Party (with whom Vranitzky's Social-Democrats form a coalition) admonished him especially to inquire about the fate of the Panchen Lama.

- Mr. Vranitzky declared that there is progress in the Austro-Chinese relationships concerning the human rights debate insofar as Mr. Li Peng spontaneously brought up this topic, instead of blocking it generally as 'interior affairs'. However, there was no specific success to be reported at all. In contrast, just during this visit Lui Xiabo was detained and sent to prison. Austrian media reported this and also that it was because he advocated self-determination for Tibetans (though not as big as the visit itself). Austrian journalists wanted to ask Li Peng about this event during the final press conference, but they had to hand in their questions before, in written, and only those approved of were answered.

- Austria hopes to obtain orders with a total value of 800 million USD from China. One of the sectors of cooperation is the hydropower industry. Austrian enterprises have, for example, delivered the turbines for the Yamdrok Tso plant. Now it was announced that VA-Tech will probably deliver turbines and electrical equipment for the Lang Yashang pump storage project. Newspaper reports say that this project would be the biggest of its kind in China, and consist of 4 turbines with each 165 MW.

[This is puzzling. According to my documents, the biggest pump storage plant in China is Guangzhou in Guangdong Province. The first phase with 4 x 300 MW should have been completed already in 1994, and a second phase with the same power is said to be under construction. My list of hydropower stations > 1000 MW does not include Lang Yashang (probably because it is only 660 MW). Does anybody know whether Lang Yashang is in a Tibetan area, or otherwise a sensitive project?]

Petra Seibert

SAVE TIBET

Vienna, Austria