DATE=9/14/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA-MILITARY (L-ONLY)CQ
NUMBER=2-253846
BYLINE=STEPHANIE HO
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

//re-issuing to add three words in the fifth 
paragraph, just before the actuality, to show the 
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman is speaking through 
an interpreter// 

INTRO:  China is reported to have frozen a wage 
increase for its two-and-one-half million soldiers, 
after the Chinese president was angered by the 
country's largest spying scandal in its 50-year 
history.  V-O-A correspondent Stephanie Ho reports 
from Beijing.

TEXT:  Chinese civil servants are expected to see 
their salaries rise by 30-percent this year.  But 
military sources say a raise planned for the People's 
Liberation Army has been put on hold because of 
Chinese President Jiang Zemin's anger over several 
cases of espionage.

The Reuters News Agency quotes these unnamed Chinese 
military sources as saying Major-General Liu Liankun 
and Colonel Shao Zhengzhong were both court-martialled 
and executed last month.  The two men reportedly 
earned more than one-and-one-half million dollars 
selling state secrets to Taiwan - an island Beijing 
regards as a breakaway Chinese province.

The sources told Reuters the military's salaries will 
not be increased this year because President Jiang, 
who is China's top leader, was furious over the 
scandal.  It is not clear if any other officers were 
implicated or punished.

Major-General Liu is the most senior Chinese military 
officer caught spying for Taipei.  He was accused of 
selling information to Taiwanese intelligence on 
Chinese war games and missile tests in the waters near 
Taiwan in 1996.

The Chinese army and Taipei have already denied all 
knowledge of the spy case.  At a regular briefing 
Tuesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi, 
speaking through an interpreter, added the 
government's brief denial.
 
// Sun interpreter act //
I am not aware of that, and I do not have any comment 
to make.
// end act //

Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other 
since the Communists won a civil war in 1949, and 
drove the defeated Nationalists into exile on Taiwan.  
Since then, the atmosphere across the strait has been 
up and down.

In July, Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui sparked the 
latest round of cross-strait tensions, when he called 
for China to treat the island as an equal state.  
China saw this as a dangerous lurch by Taiwan toward 
independence.  (signed)

NEB/HO/PLM



14-Sep-1999 05:55 AM EDT (14-Sep-1999 0955 UTC)
NNNN

Source: Voice of America
.