Deng Won’t Comment on Official’s Status

Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and other officials avoided comment today on the status of Communist Party chief Hu Yaobang, fueling speculation he is in trouble in the wake of student pro-democracy demonstrations.

A Chinese source, echoing reports by the Italian Communist Party newspaper L’Unita and the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug, said Hu is expected to be replaced by Premier Zhao Ziyang as party chief at the organization’s 13th Party Congress in October.

The unconfirmed reports said Hu would be replaced by the 52-year-old mayor of Tianjin, Li Ruihuan.

Hu has not been seen in public for two weeks.

Deng, in his first public comment on a recent wave of student demonstrations for more democracy in China, told visiting Japanese Liberal Democratic Party leader Noboru Takeshita today that “several well-known Communist Party members share these ideas.” He said the protesters had received “poor guidance,” Japanese diplomats said.

The diplomats said Deng did not explain Hu’s absence from the meeting, although earlier Chinese officials told them that Hu, 71, was overworked and had been ordered by his doctor not to attend public functions.

Asked by Takeshita to wish Hu a speedy recovery, Deng merely replied “thank you,” the diplomats said.

Deng said the campus demonstrators were anti-communist and advocates of “total Westernization,” a term officially defined as supporting capitalism and opposing socialism.

“Several well-known Communist Party members share these ideas,” the diplomats quoted Deng as saying. They said Deng named physicist Fang Lizhi and liberal writers Liu Binyan and Wang Ruowang.