Peking imposes unity, says purges will follow

Press, 27 June 1989, Page 10

Peking imposes unity, says purges will follow

NZPA-Reuter Peking China’s strictly controlled press yesterday blazoned countrywide approval of the new communist leadership, and warned of a purge of liberals at all levels of the party.

Newspapers printed predictable messages of support from the cities of Peking, Shanghai and Tianjin and some provincial capitals for the sacking on Saturday of the reformist party chief, Zhao Ziyang. They printed words of approval from all China’s seven military regions, from the Navy, Air Force, the 2nd Artillery and border defence forces — a vast public relations exercise which Western diplomats said was unprecedented in recent years. The authorities also turned back the clock with a vengeance by devoting two-thirds of a page in the “Economic Daily” to a compilation of quotations from the late Chairman Mao Tse-tung as justification for the party’s action. “They’re sparing no ef-

fort to show that the country is united behind the crackdown on pro-demo-cracy campaigners and the removal of Zhao,” a senior diplomat said. Mao Thought, once slavishly followed by the entire nation, has been out of fashion in recent years. The current paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, sanctioned a 1981 party report calling Chairman Mao’s actions “70 per cent good, 30 per cent bad.”

Today the “Economic Daily” — organ of the State Planning Commission — said, "Along with studying the speech of Comrade Deng Xiao-ping, it is good to review these discussions of Comrade Mao Tse-tung.” Mr Deng made the speech in question on June 9, five days after troops with tanks crushed

student-led demonstrators who had been occupying Tiananmen Square, in the heart of the capital, for six weeks.

Mr Deng’s words, justifying the crackdown as necessary to foil what has now officially been dubbed “a counter-revolu-tionary rebellion,” have been made compulsory reading for all 47 million Communist Party members. The speech has not been published in the official press. Three weeks after using the People’s Liberation Army against the people, the party leadership last week-end convened a meeting of its central committee to dismiss the general-secretary, Mr Zhao, who has been blamed for taking a soft line towards the demonstrators, and name the Shanghai party chief,

Jiang Zemin, in his place

Within hours, the party’s disciplinary inspection commission warned party members who supported the democracy movement that they faced retribution and told the rest of the membership to toe the ideological line.

“Those party members who deviated from the correct political stand and violated party discipline during the turmoils and the counter-revolutionary rebellion should be strictly punished in accordance with disciplines, including expelling them from the party,” it said.

“Those party organisations which made resistance against the decisions of the party central committee or had been controlled or manipulated by bad people during the

turmoils should be firmly overhauled and strictly dealt with.”

In addition to disgrace, expulsion from the world’s biggest political party usually entails loss of privileges and a lifelong black mark in records kept on every Chinese. For some it can mean loss of a job, or demotion. Among the first to come under scrutiny from the political watchdogs are the media, which in late May were seen to waver in their normally total loyalty to the party line. The party last week sacked the director and editor-in-chief of its mouthpiece, the “People’s Daily,” replacing them with known hardliners.

Chinese journalists said the army was supplying Chinese Central Television with material for its news broadcasts.