Crackdown in China : Troops Sent to Beijing and Students Vow to Defy Them : Party Chief Reportedly Offers to Step Down

Chinese authorities imposed near martial law in Beijing today to quell the biggest anti-government demonstrations since the 1949 Communist revolution.

Motorized columns of troops, at least two immobilized by residents who

surrounded the convoys, massed near the capital’s center. But the students vowed to remain in Tian An Men Square to press their demands for democratic reforms.

Student leaders and Chinese journalists said they believe Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang offered to resign from the Politburo over the crackdown, but this could not be confirmed.

Television cameras panned through the Great Hall of the People where the martial law announcement was made, but there was no sign of Zhao, the leading reformer in the five-member Politburo.

The crackdown, announced by President Yang Shangkun, came just two days after Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev left China after a four-day Sino-Soviet summit that was overshadowed by the million-strong demonstrations in and around Tian An Men Square.

Yang, China’s figurehead chief of state, said Beijing had been reduced to an “anarchic situation” and that the normal work of government was impossible.

His announcement coincided with the movement of thousands of troops into Beijing where the pro-democracy protests, including a student hunger strike, have drawn massive support.

Yang was speaking at a meeting of Communist Party, government and military officials.

Condition ‘Increasingly Grave’

Just before Yang’s announcement, hard-line Premier Li Peng described the student-led protests that spread from Beijing to many of China’s major cities as “increasingly grave.”

Student demonstrators in Tian An Men Square, the heart of the protests, jeered when Li’s speech was relayed over loudspeakers.

They drowned out the broadcast for several minutes by singing the “Internationale,” the song of the world Communist movement. They then began chanting, “Li Peng, step down!”

The students earlier had decided to end their seven-day hunger strike but tens of thousands of people remained in the square before dawn, many joining hands and vowing to sit down in nonviolent resistance when the troops arrived.

Li accused a “tiny minority of agitators” of manipulating the protest movement and “using the hunger strikers as hostages to coerce the government into agreeing to their demands.”

This minority aims to destroy the socialist system, Li said. He accused them of forming illegal organizations and trying to create an anti-Communist opposition party.

“They have damaged production and social order, and our country’s international reputation,” he said. “They have even launched attacks on Comrade Deng Xiaoping, who has made great contributions to our reforms.”

Particular Target of Protest

The 84-year-old Deng, China’s senior leader, has been a particular target of the anti-government demonstrators, who have called for his retirement.

On Tian An Men Square, focus of vast demonstrations for democracy that disrupted the visit by Gorbachev and sparked sympathy marches across the country, the students vowed to remain until the government meets their demands, which include a dialogue on political reforms, press freedom and an end to officials’ corruption.

“Tonight we have to stay here for the future of China,” said a student from the central coastal city of Hangzhou.

“I thought we were close to victory. Now I see it’s far away,” said another.

They called on classmates to remain passive if troops tried to force them out.

But one convoy of 100 army trucks carrying about 4,000 men was blocked in a western suburb by about 10,000 people chanting, “Don’t let them through,” and pasting pro-student posters on the trucks’ sides as the young soldiers looked on impassively.

The moves came at the end of a day in which the Beijing leadership began with a bid to persuade the students and their supporters to give up their protest.

Appeals With Tears in Eyes

Li and Zhao went to the huge square just before daybreak. Zhao, with tears in his eyes, appealed for reason.

His call brought a partial response 12 hours later when the student leadership voted to call off a hunger strike by about 3,000 young people.

But most of the fasters decided to continue and to stop taking liquids as well, according to an announcement on their public address system on the square.