The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, July 06, 1998, Image 1

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104 th YEAB • ISSUE 164 • 6 PAGES
Shifting focus
Clinton faces continuing domestic issues after visit to China
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nbleforsf Ba/ASHINGTON (AP) — After a three-
lowed. day pause to recuperate from jet lag
lid. “11 and enjoy holiday fireworks, President
Clinton shifts fo-
[ last ye: cus this week from
China's problems
Hkto his own —
a Republican Con
gress that won't
budge on his
health and crime
initiatives, the up
hill battle for a De
mocratic majority
and the continu
ing Monica
, , Lewinsky investigation.
,, .‘■Clinton opens a packed week with two
i; 1 '. White House events — on Tuesday and
Wednesday — meant to cast the admin-
istr.it ion as a “doer" and castigate Repub-
N l leans for inaction on his bill of rights for
managed-care patients and his juvenile
crime proposals.
■ On Thursday, he travels with his hand
S oul to Democrat fund-raisers in Atlanta and
Miami—stops No. 1 and 2 in what promis
es to be an aggressive political schedule
leading up to the November congression-
alelections.
H Clinton is committed to at least one po
litical event each week this month and
spokesman joe Lockhart said the fundrais
ing and stumping will pick up after Au
gust, when the president will vacation for
two weeks on Martha's Vineyard.
■ "The president will continue to ag
gressively push his agenda and look to
make progress with the Republican
Congress," Lockhart said. "But at the
The Battalion
TEXAS ASM UNIVERSITY - COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS
Tomorrow
Opinion:
Internet pornography
increases in popularity
and proves destructive
to males.
MONDAY • JULY 6 • 1998
A
Clinton
Irk
luxe
same time, we're going to be helping
Democrats across the country with
their elections."
Intent on giving Democrats solid
footing on the "soccer Mom" issues
of education, health care and juvenile
crime, White House advisers have
been scouring the books for executive
action Clinton can order in the ab
sence of legislation.
Already, he has extended consumer
protections to patients in federal health
programs and ordered child safety
locks on all guns used by federal offi
cers. This week, his advisers are promis
ing more executive action to keep guns
away from children and make parents
take responsibility for the kids who
have guns anyway.
Clinton wants Congress to ban vio
lent juveniles from buying guns for life
and spend $95 million on after-school
and crime-prevention programs for
youngsters. Republicans in control of
Congress have ignored Clinton's legisla
tion, saying they instead want to end pa
role for violent criminals, increase prison
capacity, make the death penalty a real
threat and impose mandatory penalties
for crimes committed with a gun.
"Even if Congress decides they
want to play politics this year, we can
move forward and make progress,"
Lockhart said.
To the extent his executive power will
allow, Clinton also intends to keep up with
his own baby steps on health care. This
week, the administration will announce a
new federal outreach effort to notify low-
income elderly and disabled Americans
that funds are available to help pay their
Medicare premiums, said White House
health policy adviser Chris Jennings.
The president is also looking for ways
to keep alive his "Patient Bill of Rights"
for frustrated consumers in HMOs. Re
publican leaders, businesses and insurers
argue that such government-enforced
protections will only drive up health
costs and push more people out from
under the health insurance umbrella.
Countered Jennings: "We're going to
keep this in the news about how the fed
eral government is giving patients rights.
We're going to show how we're doing
it, how well you can do it and ask how
can it possibly not be done for patients
in the private sector."
A CNN/Time poll released Sunday
showed three out of four people sur
veyed believe health care reform is
among the top three issues faced by
Congress in the next year.
They favored such changes as getting
the right to choose one's own doctor
and the right to appeal HMO decisions
to a neutral third party. The telephone
survey of 1,024 American adults had a
margin of error of plus or minus three
percentage points.
The president's efforts to get on with
domestic business play out against the
backdrop of Whitewater prosecutor Ken
Starr's ongoing investigation. Linda Tripp,
the woman who secretly tape-recorded
Lewinsky's allegations of a presidential af
fair and coverup, finished two days of
grand jury testimony last week and will re
turn for a third. It is not known whether
she will be summoned this week or later.
Presidential
Visit to China*
A&M freedom statue unveiled
at Allied Museum in Berlin, Germany
tfewf/wjl
stage fit'1
it***- I
Staff and Wire Report
A piece of Texas A&M University is
low on display in Berlin, Germany.
A replica of "The Day the Wall Came
)own: A Monument to Freedom," a stat
ue commissioned for the George Bush
Presidential Library Center, now calls
Berlin home.
Veryl Goodnight of Santa Fe, N.M.,
said the concept for the statue came in a
dream she had in 1989 after watching the
*/'
Wm
■
Berlin Wall come
down on televi
sion. Goodnight
said the sculpture
commemorates
the destruction of
the Wall
and the re
unification
of Ger
many. She
said the
horses rep
resent the
human
Bush
^ J spirit's desire to be free.
Al , The Bush Complex statue was
■■7, k ^ ^ ^ temporaril) installed at Georgia’s
W\Ji ' " ilrafc v y ’'jly Stone Mountain in 1996 for the
Olympic Year.
The Berlin monument was cre
ated as a "sister sculpture" to the
one at the Bush Complex.
Former president George Bush
officially unveiled the $1.75 mil
lion monument Thursday. The
statue now rests outside Berlin's
newly-opened Allied Museum
which is dedicated to U.S., British
and French postwar occupation of
West Berlin.
The sculpture in Berlin was
PHOTO by JAKE schrickling/the Battauon a gift from a foundation led by
“The Day the Wall Came Down: A Monument to Freedom” stands in front of the Bush, an Associated Press report
George Bush Library Complex commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany. said.
Clinton’s China trip
analyzed, discussed
by A&M professors
By Rod Machen
City Editor
Friday, President Bill Clinton finished
his nine-day state visit to the People's Re
public of China.
Shauping Wan, visiting lecturer in
history, said even though China is still
nominally a communist
nation, it has embraced
a more market-oriented
economy.
"China is a capitalistic
society," Wan said. "Chi
na has a bureaucratic
capitalism."
Dr. Guoqiang Tian,
professor of economics,
said this bureaucracy is
beginning to be scaled
back. He said the num
ber of Chinese min
istries, similar to U.S.
Cabinet departments,
has gone from 40 to 29,
and in the end, over 50
percent of government
employees are expected
to lose their jobs.
Tian said the percent
age of businesses owned
by the state has de
creased from 80 to 30
percent in the last 20
years.
Tian said with the change in China's
economic system, people are enjoying
more economic freedoms. Political liber
ties, he said, will come later.
"With the increase in the standard of
living, the people will want more person
al freedoms," Tian said.
A controversial issue during the visit
was that of human rights and the student
uprising in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
In June of that year, the government at
tacked pro-democracy demonstrators,
killing hundreds.
Wan said the Tiananmen Square
protests were not as straightforward as
We [in the
United States]
romanticize democracy.
The protesters of
Tiananmen went to the
streets because of
unemployment,
corruption and
inflation. 5 ’
— Shauping Wan
Visiting history lecturer
they are made out to be.
"We [in the United States] romanticize
democracy," Wan said. He said the people
did not protest for noble goals, but for
change.
"The protesters of Tiananmen went to
the streets because of unemployment, cor
ruption and inflation," he said.
Wan said since the incident, China has
changed tremendously,
allowing people to go
into business for them
selves and removing re
strictions on personal
wealth.
"Tiananmen Square
symt)olized the death of
Chinese communism,"
Wan said. "China has in
tegrated itself totally
into the world economic
system."
Tian said democracy
has already began in
China.
"Eighty percent of
rural areas have democ
ratic local systems," he
said. While there, Clin
ton viewed a rural, free
election.
Wan said, in light of
these changes, Clinton's
visit came at important
1 time.
"Clinton's trip was important at least
from a propaganda standpoint," Wan
said. "Both sides need each other. The
United States needs China as a strategic
partner."
As China looks to the future, democra
cy looms on the horizon.
"I think the real democracy will come
from the bottom, the grass roots," Wan said.
With the Cold War over. Wan said he
believes there will be a tendency to make
China the new enemy of the United
States. This, he said, is uninformed.
"The confrontation from China will not
be ideological, but economic," Wan said.
AS
•■mr.
News Briefs
from staff and wire reports
mm
mm
Lamar Street closed for utility repairs
Beginning last Friday, both lanes of
Lamar Street between Albritton Tower
md the Memorial Student Center will
ie closed for utility repairs.
There will be no access to Lamar
Street at the bell tower, and no access
to west Lamar from Clark Street. Most
of the utility work on Lamar will be in
the area near
The Grove.
The on- and
off-campus
shuttle bus
stops will be
moved to Old
Main Drive
while the street
is closed.
The street
will be closed
about two
weeks, said
Sherry Wine of
Parking, Traffic
and Transporta
tion Services.
A&M professor of history awarded
Foundation's 1997 Distinguished
Brian Linn, a professor of history at
Texas A&M University, has been award
ed the Army Historical Foundation's
1997 Distinguished Book Award.
Linn is the author of Guardians of
Empire: The U.S. Army and the Pacific,
1902-1940.
The Army Historical Foundation
was established in 1993.
The organization is dedicated to
preserving the history and heritage of
the American soldier.
The Army Historical Foundation's
Distinguished Book Award is given
each year for the book that best con
tributes to the history of the U.S. Army.
It consists of a plaque and mone
tary award.
In addition to this award.
Guardians of Empire: The U.S. Army
and the Pacific, 1902-1940 was se
lected for the 1998 Distinguished
Book Award from the Society for Mil
itary History.
It was also a summer History Book
Club selection and a Choice Maga
zine "Outstanding Academic Book"
for 1997.
"This book is a detailed study of
the U.S. Army in Hawaii and the
Philippines over the 40 years leading
up to World War II," Linn said.
"It examines the evolution of
American defense policy in the Pacif
ic, concentrating on strategy, tactics,
relations with the local communities
and technology."
Linn adds it also examines such
Army Historical
Book Award
controversies as the alleged unpre
paredness of the U.S. Army for the
Japanese attack in 1941, pre-war
planning and preparations, the role
of air and naval power and the use of
the Hawaiian and Filipino populations
in their own defense.
A history professor at Texas A&M
since 1989, Linn has published one
other book, The U.S. Army and Coun
terinsurgency in the Philippine War,
1899-1902. He also has written 1 0 ar
ticles and book chapters.
Linn has been a visiting fellow at
Yale and Stanford, has lectured at the
Army War College and teaches a sem
inar each year at the Marine Corps
Staff College.
He is a native of Honolulu, Hawaii.