Crackdown in Beijing

China’s Communist Party has served grim notice that its tolerance for student protests in behalf of more democracy is at an end. In a strong statement, the party has called for waging “a grave political struggle” to “resolutely stop this unrest.” The warning is similar to those given in the wake of student-led demonstrations in both 1976 and 1987. In each case arrests and repression quickly followed. There is no reason to think that a new crackdown won’t occur if the protests in the streets continue, as student leaders in Beijing vow they will.

Official concern over the intensity and duration of the demonstrations is deepened by two pending events. One is next week’s 70th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement, which marked the beginning of nationwide protests against the decision at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 to legitimize Japan’s seizure of former German interests in the province of Shantung. The deeply patriotic May Fourth Movement remains venerated as modern China’s first major experience in mass political action. Student groups have indicated they will keep their protests going until the anniversary.

The other event on the minds of China’s leaders is next month’s planned visit to Beijing by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, for what could be the start of a reconciliation process between the two Communist giants. As the Chinese well know, efforts at political reform--including a more permissive official attitude toward freer speech--have proceeded much faster in the Soviet Union than in China. It would be a major embarrassment to the Beijing regime if students were still openly demanding more democracy during Gorbachev’s visit.

Repression therefore seems very much in the offing. But the discontent expressed by those who are training to be China’s technicians and administrators in the early 21st Century, while it can be silenced, plainly won’t be eradicated. The regime will win this round because it commands the power to suppress. That won’t stop other rounds on other days, perhaps with other outcomes.