People Jittery : Rumors Rule Beijing as City Disintegrates

Sometimes the hints of Beijing’s progressive disintegration are as sharply defined as the sound of random rifle fire into narrow alleyways where old ladies sit fanning themselves and children play jump-rope.

Sometimes they are as subtle as the increase in the price of tomatoes or the realization that on every street corner, garbage cans are full to overflowing.

Hour by hour, the seams of the city tear apart as the volcanic struggle for power is played out.

General panic has not set in yet among the people of Beijing, who in the past four decades have witnessed their share of chaos. But this orientation is evident in every conversation, at every gathering on the streets and in homes.

A Different Greeting Now

When a foreigner passes by, the usual Chinese greeting of “Ni hao ma? “--”Are you well?”--has been replaced by wonder: “Why haven’t you been evacuated?”

A rumor of danger can, at any moment, set people suddenly scurrying for cover, and that on its own becomes a dangerous moment.

On Xidan Street, west of Tian An Men Square, hundreds of meandering cyclists suddenly panicked Tuesday and headed for cover up side streets for no apparent reason. People ran into each other, fell off their bikes and tripped over debris left from the army invasion of Sunday.

“What happened?” a passer-by asked.

“The soldiers were loading their rifles,” replied a sweating, middle-aged man who had scraped his elbows in the escape.

It was not clear how he or anyone else knew that soldiers were loading their guns. The nearest troops were two long blocks away and hardly visible against the backdrop of tanks blocking the entrance to Tian An Men Square.

Beijing is a city in limbo. There is no authority to clear the streets of debris. Burned-out buses, armored personnel carriers and trucks clutter intersections from one end of the city to the other.

Because there are no outlets for reliable information, the traditional network of “alleyway news” reveals heavy preoccupations if not points of fact.

“My sister saw two people shot in the head outside Sazhu Lou,” said a cyclist who pulled up wearily beside a foreigner who himself was cycling along Donghuamen Street, a short block east of the Forbidden City in central Beijing.

Worse Than Bad Emperor

“We have never seen anything like this. In our Beijing, even the cruelest emperor never shot down citizens in the capital.”

His expression of alarm was common. People seemed unbelieving that the carnage--Sunday’s Tian An Men massacre and the seemingly random shootings in the days since--could occur here at China’s center of government and culture.

Residents of the alleyways near Donghuamen ushered a visitor to the corner of Nanchizi alley. On the sidewalk, in the shadow of a decrepit Ming Dynasty temple, a pile of sand soaked up blood from a spot where not long ago someone was shot in the head by soldiers who invaded the usually crowded street.

A few feet away, a dried stream of bloodstains marked the tragic path of a man who was dragged from Donghuamen after being shot dead the day before.

“He was strolling! He had just finished dinner and was walking like he always did,” a witness said. “And they shot him in the head.”

“We cannot even walk on our own street,” another resident chimed in as the crowd gathered, the way it usually does now when any discussion of the situation breaks out.

“The government has gone crazy! Crazy!” someone else said.

The effect of such violence--it is impossible to say how many incidents there have been during the day--is clear. Fewer and fewer people are venturing from their homes.

Even Beihai Park, the fairyland complex of ponds and gardens framed by gold-tiled temples, pavilions and palaces, was uncharacteristically empty Tuesday. Only a few lovers dared to take advantage of the privacy and cling to each other in hidden nooks. Otherwise, the normally well-used park seemed a private preserve as it was when only royalty could enter.

The unpredictability of violence seems to have encouraged even the curious to stay home.

On Changan Avenue in front of the city’s massive Military Museum, soldiers suddenly fired on passers-by who were viewing the remarkable array of burned-out vehicles and trucks left over from a battle earlier in the week between citizens and an approaching army unit.

Did the civilians Tuesday taunt soldiers holed up in the museum? Did the soldiers just decide to shoo the citizens away from the museum’s front gate where they had been gazing at them all day? No one seemed to be sure.

“I just came to see the armored cars,” said an elderly man who said he was a retired customs inspector. “I have seen enough. I’m going home.”

Struggle Over Cameras

Security has also been heightened by the apparent return of plainclothes secret police to the streets. Four such agents tried to wrestle cameras away from two Western photographers in Chongwenmen, a district on the southeastern side of Beijing.

Civilian onlookers intervened and helped the photographers wrestle the cameras back.

At Xidan, a crowd chased away a man who they said was snapping photos for the Public Security Bureau, China’s police force.

“Be careful,” a bystander whispered to a reporter. “They are looking for you as well as for us.”

Security forces are clearly looking for someone. On television Tuesday night, videotapes showing youths stoning army trucks were aired repeatedly. The tapes were from remote-control cameras hidden in buildings along major streets.

Food Running Short

Food is growing short, residents say. Few stores are open, and only an occasional vendor from the countryside dares cross the thoroughfares blocked either by civilian-constructed barricades or army roadblocks.

Business was brisk for those salespeople who did brave the obstacles. Residents lined up, sometimes by the scores, to purchase tomatoes, cucumbers and eggs available at sidewalk stands.

The smell of rotting garbage is beginning to compete with the stench of burned rubber on charred buses as the dominant aroma of the city.

All schools are closed, as are restaurants and movie and opera houses. An occasional beauty salon or other small business has kept its doors open, but factories to which workers would have to travel long distances are shut. No buses or taxis are running on the streets.

The government has made no attempt to assure the public that things will soon return to normal. Instead, television and radio broadcasts have focused on discrediting student activists and defending the actions of the army in the storming of Tian An Men Square.