CHINA IN TURMOIL : Who’s on Top? Don’t Ask Party’s Rattled Ranks

The young People’s Daily writer accused the visitor to the newspaper’s tree-shaded grounds of asking him a trick question.

He confessed that as a staff member of the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, he ought to know the answer to such a simple question as who is the party’s top leader.

He answered with a laugh and evasions: “It is not fair to ask me right now. First, I may not give you the right answer and that would be embarrassing.

“Second, my answer might only express what I hope. That could be dangerous.”

Face Many Uncertainties

While a power struggle may still be raging above their heads, members of China’s Communist Party face multiple uncertainties that could make a shambles of the membership.

Young members brought in during the back-to-back leadership of deposed reformists Zhao Ziyang and the late Hu Yaobang may have special worries. Their political upbringing is under challenge in a time when economic reforms are being reconsidered and conservative party leaders are calling for stricter political controls.

“I hope this will be cleared up in the next few days. It makes me nervous,” the People’s Daily staff member added. “Here, read this.”

He handed over a copy of Thursday’s People’s Daily. On the right-hand top corner, a small article listed new rules for party members. One edict called for a “purification of the party organization.”

Does this mean a purge, the traditional device of kicking out dissident party members? Does this mean merely going back to school to relearn new party lines? Is it just idle talk?

“It is not clear. Not clear,” the party member answered hurriedly.

His worried expression reflected just one of the dilemmas facing the 47 million members of the party, the world’s largest.

First, a purge would mean yet another round of turmoil in the ranks. Less than a decade ago, paramount leader Deng Xiaoping weeded out radical leftist adherents to Maoism. Before that, Mao Tse-tung ordered radical Red Guards to “bombard the headquarters” and oust so-called rightist party members.

Perhaps just as worrisome is the party’s evident loss of prestige in the current crisis. Never fully recovered from the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, the party now seems to be losing any air of authority among everyday Chinese citizens. It is a ruling party that in times of trouble seems not to rule.

Party Uses Harsh Rhetoric

At a moment when terrified Beijing residents were looking for some sign of stability, the Communist Party was printing directives that used harsh rhetoric and veiled references unintelligible to the common man.

In a document published Thursday, the party said that people’s minds were being “poisoned” by unseen hands, that political dissent was no more than a “smashing, beating and looting movement,” while the army and police were carrying out “sacred duties.”

The “broad masses,” as the people are referred to by the party, seem unimpressed. It has been common this week to hear enraged residents of Beijing say that it would be better if the Kuomintang, the Nationalist Party that lost the 1949 civil war and was driven to Taiwan, would come back and rule China.

“What do I tell the people when they ask me what is going on?” mused a four-year member of the party encountered on Donghuamen Street. “I say I do not know. They say I am useless.”

Hopes It’s Zhao Ziyang

The young man, a neighborhood committee member, was more forthright than his People’s Daily colleague when asked who runs the party. “Zhao Ziyang,” he replied. “I hope.”

Indications are that he will have to revise his hopes. Deng, Premier Li Peng and President Yang Shangkun, all of them believed to be hard-liners who ordered or approved the crackdown of the pro-democracy students, appeared on television Friday in a show of leadership solidarity. Zhao, who reports say has been put under arrest by these rivals, was notably absent.

He may have been replaced by Qiao Shi, who heads the supervisory Central Discipline Committee. The Discipline Committee issued the latest instructions published in People’s Daily, perhaps indicating that it is one of the few party organs functioning. But no one is saying for sure.