CHINA IN TURMOIL : ‘It’s Like Quicksilver,’ Pentagon Official Says : Beijing Troop Moves Seen as Mostly ‘Jockeying’

U.S. experts trying to discern the intentions of the massive military units moving into place in and around Beijing suspect that rival commanders are putting on a show of force to bolster their positions in negotiations over the shape of a new government.

For the most part, the army units are not deployed in conventional battle formations but rather are “jockeying and posturing” to signal their presence to other forces in the area, analysts said Wednesday.

Troop movements also suggest that senior military commanders may be bringing in fresh troops to replace some elements of the 27th Army, the main force that carried out the weekend massacre of civilian demonstrators and which is almost universally hated by the citizens of Beijing.

But officials caution that these theories are drawn from fragmentary evidence and the situation could change overnight. “It’s like quicksilver,” one senior Pentagon official said.

U.S. analysts are watching the military moves closely because they provide virtually the only sign of government activity in the Chinese capital at this time. Senior civilian leaders have been out of sight since martial law was declared May 20, and U.S. officials say they have few clues on the presumed power struggle now occurring in their ranks.

“There are reports that the 27th seemed to be in defensive positions, but defensive against what?” asked the Pentagon official, who requested anonymity. “You can draw certain conclusions, but they’re all speculative. At this point, you can’t tell from the deployments what their intentions are.”

U.S. intelligence sources estimate there are as many as 350,000 Chinese troops now in and around Beijing from more than half a dozen units based in three military regions in eastern China. New forces continued to arrive Wednesday, but it was not clear what units they represented or to whom they owed loyalty, government sources said.

Another U.S. government source said that troops in the capital are “jittery” and discipline is breaking down because of supply shortages and stress on the soldiers, who were not trained for urban riot duty. In addition, there is confusion among not only the troops but their commanders as to rules of engagement--when they are allowed to fire and at whom.

Paul H. B. Godwin, a specialist in the Chinese military at the Defense Department’s National War College, said the Chinese leadership is desperately seeking a solution to the crisis before the nation collapses in civil war.

“The veteran leaders want to get the hell out of this mess. This is a disaster,” he said. The only way to resolve the crisis, Godwin suggested, is through a negotiated agreement among military and political leaders.

Godwin theorized that commanders of at least seven major People’s Liberation Army (PLA) groups have converged on Beijing for a high-level conference with senior Communist party leaders, perhaps at a secret and highly secure military command post west of the city. They brought large elements of their 40,000-member armies to Beijing as a poker player puts a stack of chips on the table to intimidate other players, he said.

Retired Rear Adm. Robert J. Hanks, who served in the Far East on active duty with the Navy, said his reading of the troop deployments around Beijing is that elements of the 27th Army are bracing for a possible attack by the 38th Army, which refused orders to carry out the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, and other units sympathetic to reformist Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, now apparently sidelined for opposing the imposition of martial law.

There have been persistent reports of skirmishes between the 38th and other reform-minded army units and the hard-line 27th. However, Hanks said he saw no sign of offensive-oriented forces massing outside the city for a major attack and that he doubted there would be extensive fighting between elements of the PLA. “But there’s damn little hard evidence” to assess, he noted.

Thomas W. Robinson, director of the China Studies Program at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, likened the situation in Beijing to “medieval barons drawing up with their troops from the four corners of the map.”

He said that army commanders are taking the initiative in rebuilding central authority out of the current chaos.

“Nobody wants to pull the trigger,” Robinson said. “The first thing that has to be done is to get the army back together. Then the party. Then the government. When states fall apart you have to do it all over again.”

Robinson noted that the likelihood that any of the army units is equipped with battlefield or short-range nuclear weapons is remote, even though China has an extensive arsenal of nuclear artillery and bombs. Such weapons are not routinely issued to field commanders, but rather are kept in secure depots until released by senior commanders, he said.

“Short-range weapons tend to be stored in certain areas and I doubt very much whether they’ve been moved,” Robinson said.

He said that strategic long-range missiles have no use in the current crisis, but they are capable of hitting the Soviet Union and the United States, which may account in part for the superpowers’ muted reaction to Chinese events.

“We have to be very careful in this situation that we do not do or imply things that would allow some unknown elements in the military or elsewhere to believe that we are taking advantage or interfering in internal Chinese affairs. We don’t want them to literally fly off the handle and push some buttons,” he said.