Key Reformer May Be Out of Job in Beijing

In a new indication of continuing political turmoil, China’s official media suggested Monday that Wan Li, the reform-minded head of the country’s Parliament, has been at least temporarily stripped of his duties by the Communist Party leadership.

Wan has served since last year as head of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top lawmaking body.

Wan’s downfall would further undercut efforts by pro-democracy demonstrators to challenge the declaration of martial law here.

A newly invigorated core group of thousands of university students, many of them recent arrivals from outlying provinces, remained camped today in Tian An Men Square, the symbolic center of Beijing. They vowed to stay for at least another three weeks to press demands that a pending session of China’s legislature overturn the martial-law decree.

A crowd of 50,000 to 100,000 onlookers and supporters wandered through the square in a festive mood Monday evening, while student-controlled loudspeakers blared out music and protest speeches. Early today, some Beijing art students erected a white, 30-foot-high “Goddess of Democracy” modeled after the Statue of Liberty. Situated at the north end of the square, it faces the famous portrait of the late Chairman Mao Tse-tung that hangs on the Gate of Heavenly Peace.

“Call Open a Session of the National People’s Congress. Push Forward Democracy. Dismiss (Premier) Li Peng. End Military Control,” demanded a new red banner with golden characters hung prominently on the Monument to the People’s Heroes in the center of the square.

On May 20, the premier decreed martial law in Beijing, but the order has not been enforced because Beijing residents immediately barricaded the streets against the advancing troops, and because of continued infighting among political and military leaders divided over whether to use force against the demonstrators.

In a sign that a much-feared crackdown on non-student dissidents may have begun, labor activists at the square today said three of their leaders had been arrested Monday, the Associated Press reported. The agency quoted activists as saying police nabbed Zhao Pinglu, 27, head of the Beijing Independent Labor Union and an employee of the state airline, while two other union leaders were missing and believed under detention.

Troops at Station

Meanwhile, although most of the People’s Liberation Army troops brought into the area remained bivouacked outside Beijing, a few had begun to maintain order in the downtown area around the train station.

Wan only a week ago represented the Chinese government in a meeting with President Bush at the White House. Wan then cut short his visit to the United States and rushed back to China, apparently seeking to help defuse the tension between the pro-democracy demonstrators and the regime.

At the time, many demonstrators believed Wan was ready to go along with their call for a special legislative session to review the declaration of martial law.

But Wan never reached Beijing. His plane made an unscheduled stop in Shanghai, and he was said to have remained there for medical reasons. He has not been seen in public since. The Chinese press reported Saturday that Wan had come out in support of martial law in a “written speech,” which he apparently did not deliver.

On Monday, China’s state-controlled television and the official New China News Agency reported that Peng Zhen, an 87-year-old hard-liner who was chairman of the People’s Congress until Wan replaced him last year, had presided over a meeting of leading Chinese legislators last Friday.

“Peng was entrusted by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party to call the meeting,” the news agency said. The account gave no explanation for Wan’s absence.

Peng was the Chinese leader who spearheaded a 1987 ideological campaign against what was called “bourgeois liberalization” in China after a series of student demonstrations led to the forced resignation of then-Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang.

Now, in the wake of renewed and much larger demonstrations this spring, Peng--a former mayor of Beijing--is apparently being called in to help direct a crackdown on deviations from Marxist orthodoxy. Peng is a longtime ally of senior Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, but for years has opposed any political reform that would undermine the power of the Communist Party.

In a speech given considerable prominence on Chinese television Monday night, Peng asserted that “according to the constitution, China is not a capitalist but a socialist republic. It is not led by the capitalist class but by the working class.

‘Democratic Dictatorship’

“The authority (in China) is not the bourgeois dictatorship but the people’s democratic dictatorship. Therefore, it violates the constitution to conduct acts of bourgeois liberalization in China.”

In another development, a Hong Kong newspaper reported Monday that in a speech to Communist Party leaders last week, Li said the Chinese regime wanted to examine whether foreign governments such as the United States’ were influencing the Chinese demonstrators. For most of the last month, the Chinese leadership has avoided blaming the demonstrations on foreigners or foreign influences.

According to the report in the South China Morning Post, Li asserted that the United States had not been happy with China’s decision to invite Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to Beijing. The pro-democracy demonstrations overshadowed Gorbachev’s meeting with Deng and prevented the Soviet leader from carrying out his planned schedule in Beijing.