Peking back-pedals on debate

Press, 4 December 1978, Page 8

Peking back-pedals on debate

NZPA-Reuter Peking In an attempt to demonstrate unity in China, the Communist Party Chairman (Mr Hua KuoFeng), has appeared in public with a group of other senior leaders as indications mount that Peking has decided to clamp down on the present public political debate in the capital. It was the first time Mr Hua, who had been indirectly criticised in some of the recent rash of wall posters in Peking, had been seen in public since the debate began nearly two weeks ago. He appeared at a meeting for Chinese athletes going to the forthcoming Asian Games in Bangkok along with the senior Vice-Premier

(Mr Teng Hsiao-ping) and five other ranking leaders, some of whom had also been under attack. At the same time, new, evidently officially-inspired, wall posters have been pasted up demanding an end to criticism of the late Mao Tse-tung and calling for the Chinese people to rally round the Communist Party. One charged that a “small handful” of people were trying to attack Mao, “the red sun in our hearts.” The poster said, in language reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, that if these “bad eggs” dared to sign their names to their own posters, the people will “smash your dog heads.” Diplomatic sources in Peking said that workers, students, and other residents of the capital had been briefed at meetings in the last few days about a new

directive that warned people against letting the recent wave of wall posters and street rallies calling for democracy get out of control.

Crowds of Chinese reading the dozens of posters in a central section of Peking had been less friendly in their contacts with foreigners, the sources said, after a new poster urged Chinese not to criticise their country to outsiders. This contrasted with the last week when many Chinese sought out foreign diplomats or journalists to discuss Chinese politics or ask questions about how governments in the United States and Europe worked.

Analysts were uncertain about what the evident crackdown signified, subtle though it was in Chinese terms. , One factor, undoubtedly, was simply

worry by all members of the leadership about the potential danger of letting the demands for democracy, free speech, and attacks on officials go too far.

It also seemed possible that Mr Teng, who has clearly emerged as the key decision-maker in China, was more concerned with ensuring that his sweeping new economic and social policies were approved at a high-level party meeting now on in Peking than he was with revenge on his adversaries. In interviews with foreigners last week, Mr Teng has insisted that there will be no purges of ranking leaders now.

But it also seemed possible, if not likely, that Mr Teng’s efforts to unseat his opponents in the Politburo had run into stiff opposition and he had been forced to back off.