Envoys’ Compound Raked by China Soldiers’ Gunfire : Provinces Feel Heat of Turmoil

Embassies ordered their nationals out of Beijing today after Chinese army troops raked a diplomatic compound with gunfire. Turmoil spread to more than a dozen provincial cities.

Foreigners crowded Beijing’s airport, trying to escape a chaotic city where tanks and troops raced along main avenues firing at random. The U.S. Embassy ordered the evacuation of all dependents of staff members, and the State Department urged all Americans “to leave at once.”

U.S. Ambassador James Lilley protested to Vice Foreign Minister Xhu Qizhan about several instances of rifle fire that broke windows at apartments occupied by U.S. government employees.

Bullets Miss Children

The U.S. Embassy’s chief of security said bullets flew through the window into a room where his two children were watching television.

A senior official in Washington said the bullets appeared to come from “the indiscriminate firing of troops who were attempting to clear Chinese civilians from the streets.”

Armed patrols with red armbands marched near Tian An Men Square, the center of a popular pro-democracy movement that the 27th Army crushed last weekend, killing or wounding thousands of people.

Soldiers in one convoy chanted: “We love the people. We love the capital,” then opened fire, scattering crowds. Several more deaths of unarmed civilians were reported today.

State television broadcast a statement from the Communist Party that any members found to have “plotted, organized and led the rebellion” will be expelled and punished severely. The warning, broadcast on television, did not mention any names.

Another government announcement said soldiers were authorized to “forcibly dispose of, on the spot,” anyone who resisted arrest.

In the provinces, crowds protesting the army’s invasion of the capital blocked major roads and railways with barricades in anticipation of military assaults.

Roland Dumas, the French foreign minister, declared in Paris that China was “on the verge of civil war.”

U.S. Move Criticized

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the U.S. decision to stop arms sales and military contacts in protest of the bloody crackdown was a “detriment to bilateral relations.”

China also condemned the United States for giving refuge in its embassy to dissident Fang Lizhi, a well-known astrophysicist. It said Washington was interfering in China’s internal affairs.

A major battle has yet to materialize between the 27th Army and supposedly rival military units on the edges of the city, but a witness said the 27th and 38th armies, based in Hebei and Beijing respectively, fought each other with automatic weapons early today about 12 miles east of downtown.

State television showed Chinese reporters today on a tour of garbage-strewn Tian An Men Square. Soldiers appeared to be sparsely deployed, and tanks could be seen on the side near the Imperial Palace.

“Not one person died on the square,” a martial law official claimed. Students driven from the square after a three-week protest said hundreds were shot down or crushed by tanks during the invasion early Sunday.