The problem was reported by Java ES team (5049127, 5048639).
There is a similar bug 4951068, discussed with responsible engineer, that bug has been verified by Oracle. The recommendation was to file a new bug with these additional findings.

Tested OS: RedHat AS 2.1 (32-bit)
Tested locales: ko, zh_CN, zh_TW
Tested JDK: 1.4.2_04_b05 and 1.4.2_05 b03

Test Suite 1: /net/sekai/projects/java_websvcs_j2se_1.5_tiger_l10n/java_websvcs_j2se_1.5_tiger_l10n/web/i18n/test_suites/GlobalSuite/1.4.2/gs142-b16.tar

Test results:
No problem with 2d and swing. Some problems in awt tests.

font-render/awt/one/CheckboxMenuItemRednerTest1.java - FAILED
font-render/awt/one/ChoiceRenderTest2.java - PASSED
font-render/awt/one/LabelRenderTest3.java - FAILED
font-render/awt/one/ListRenderTest4.java - FAILED
font-render/awt/one/TextFieldRenderTest1.java - PASSED
font-render/awt/one/TextFieldRenderTest4.java - PASSED

TestSuite 2: /net/sekai/projects/java_websvcs_j2se_1.5_tiger_l10n/java_websvcs_j2se_1.5_tiger_l10n/web/i18n/test_suites/awt.tar

Test results:

This test case also verified that certain awt components (menu, button, checkbox, label) displayed CCK characters as square boxes.

Furthermore, ASCII text cannot inputted in TextField and TextArea. CCK characters can be inputted there.

Warning messages:
Warning: Cannot convert string "-b&h-luxi
sans-medium-r-normal--*-140-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct

If we replace "luxi" with "lucidux" in font.properties.zh_CN.Redhat2.1 for S.Chinese, then the ASCII input problem disappeared. But the CCK font display problem still existed.