November 27, 1982

A senior Chinese official said today that the new state constitution to be adopted soon would let Taiwan operate as a new special administrative zone of mainland China. Peng Zhen, the deputy chairman of the policy-setting Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, explained the provision to delegates of the nominal Parliament who convened today for their annual full session. The draft of the constitution circulating here since last spring included an article enabling the state to establish special administrative zones. This left diplomats here speculating that it was meant for Taiwan.

Yasuhiro Nakasone, who was elected Japan's 17th postwar Prime Minister today, is a conservative, pro-Western, 35-year veteran of mainstream Japanese politics who is expected to seek better ties with the United States but no abrupt military or economic changes. In foreign affairs the new Prime Minister is known to regard the United States and Japan as leaders of an emerging economic and cultural sphere in the Pacific. He has indicated that he will try to ease recent strains with Washington over military matters and rising Japanese trade surpluses. Domestically, observers say, he hopes to rebuild a stagnant economy and trim national budget deficits by cutting Government spending, even if that means forgoing some military increases he has advocated, and by reducing Government regulation of the economy.

Nearly two years after court officials began a new effort to speed the processing of criminal cases, judges and criminal-justice officials say that the criminal courts in New York City are overwhelmed, choking under the greatest flow of new cases in recent years. As a result, judges and prosecutors said, many defendants charged with felonies are being allowed to plead guilty to lesser offenses, just to keep the court system moving. More Defendants Wait Longer Some defense lawyers said a growing number of defendants were being forced to wait longer in overcrowded jails before their cases are heard. On Rikers Island, there are more people in jail than at any time since 1972 - 75 percent of them awaiting trial or sentencing. ''We're going through this charade, it is an illusion of prosecution, an illusion of justice,'' Elizabeth Holtzman, the Brooklyn District Attorney, said of Criminal Court. ''You have a court system that is on the verge of collapse.''

The potato harvest is over, and Albin Pietrewicz's two little white barns are filled from floor to ceiling - thin-skinned Katahdins on top, more-durable Superiors near the floor. Four farmhands will be kept busy until next spring, sorting the potatoes into clear polyethelene bags. The work is so steady and dependable that nonfarmers might wonder why Mr. Pietrewicz is not a contented man. Why he is not has to do with the laws of supply and demand, which he cannot repeal; the costs of borrowing money, which he cannot meet, and other countries' export policies, which he cannot change. All these headaches have made Mr. Pietrewicz wonder, he says, whether the time has come to give up farming, which has been his occupation since he was 17 years old.

A high White House official said privately today that a study proposal to tax unemployment benefits to make them ''less attractive'' was suffering a quick death in the face of widespread opposition. On Thursday the White House spokesman, Larry Speakes, confirmed that the proposal was under study as part of a package of unemployment remedies. But a fast retreat from the idea was described today by other officials who complained that the Administration had needlessly suffered another round of negative publicity on the issue of whether the White House had compassion for the unfortunate. Authorship Is Unknown The authorship of the proposal could not immediately be traced among wary White House officials here with President Reagan and in Washington. And in brief public comments today, Mr. Speakes complained that ''typical press shorthanding'' by reporters had stirred the controversy.