Struggle latest round in old battle

Press, 25 May 1989, Page 8

Struggle latest round in old battle

NZPA-Reuter Peking The furious power struggle in progress in Peking is just the latest round in a battle between hardliners and reformists that has smouldered on through 40 years of communist rule in China.

In the past 20 years or so, the reformists have usually won, but with the Communist Party now facing the biggest crisis in its four decades of rule, there are no certainties they can do it again. The standard bearers for the two camps in the

current struggle are the Prime Minister, Li Peng, a hardliner supported by the ageing leader, Deng Xiao-ping, and the Communist Party chief, Zhao Ziyang. The sharp shifts in the battleground of Chinese politics in the last decade have changed Mr Deng from moderate to hardliner.

Defining the difference between hardliners and reformists is not easy given a political scene in which Leftists are the conservatives. But the hardliners are generally seen as those

Communist Party cadres most suspicious of political and economic reform and most unwilling to give up the powers and privileges they enjoy. There are remarkable parallels between the current battle and the last major upheaval in Chinese politics, the fall of the “Gang of Four” leaders in 1976.

Both began with demonstrations sparked by the death of a respected leader, Chou Enlai in 1976, the former party leader, Hu Yaobang, last month. Both have centred on Tianan-

men Square in the centre of Peking. The leadership struggle that ensued in both cases revolved around whether the demonstrations were patriotic or not.

In 1976, Mr Deng was the champion of the reformists waiting in the wings to take over from the hardliners led by Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s widow, Jiang Qing.

It took another two years of intense behind-the-scenes manoeuvring before he emerged as victor, and even then he was hindered every step

of the way by a former Prime Minister, Hua Guo-feng, a hardliner who fought hard against Mr Deng’s reforms.

There is also one crucial difference between the events that brought Mr Deng to power and those which now threaten to bring him down. In the present fight, the Chinese people are playing a vastly more direct role in events.

Millions of ordinary people have spontaneously taken to the streets in recent days to protest against a Government

they consider to be inflexible, undemocratic and corrupt. By contrast, the demonstrations of the Cultural Revolution of the 1960 s and even the anti-Gang of Four crowds that gathered in Tiananmen Square in April. 1976, were largely organised by factions in the party. A source close to the military said Li Peng was not popular in the Armed Forces in spite of its hardline reputation, and the Army would not support him if he won the power struggle.