CHINA IN TURMOIL : Beijing Imposing Nationwide Ban on Protest Groups

Chinese authorities, acknowledging the breadth of anti-government protests that swept the nation last week, Monday banned all student and worker organizations nationwide that were involved in the disturbances.

The order, issued by the Ministry of Public Security, also requires leaders of such organizations to turn themselves in to authorities, with the threat of more severe punishment if they fail to do so.

“All illegal organizations which incite or create social disturbances and counterrevolutionary rebellion are banned,” declared the order, read on state-run television Monday evening. Such a ban was already in effect in Beijing and some other cities, but this order extended it to all places where disturbances had broken out.

“Under critical conditions such as resistance to arrest,” the order said, police are authorized to “use their weapons in self-defense to curb criminal activities.”

Accused Protesters

The national television news broadcast scenes of accused protesters in various cities being interrogated at police stations, many looking frightened and defeated, with police officers forcing their heads partway down in a posture of humiliation or submission.

The prisoners, with clothes in disarray and hair disheveled, are typically placed on small stools in a corner, where they apparently are confessing to a pair of stern-looking uniformed officers taking notes. The camera usually zooms in for close-ups of handcuffs being clamped around wrists.

Pro-democracy demonstrations by university students were initially at the center of the protests, which began in Beijing’s Tian An Men Square in mid-April. But most of the hundreds of arrests that have been officially reported nationwide appear to be of non-students--mostly young workers who blockaded streets or burned vehicles after martial-law troops shot their way into central Beijing on June 4, killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people in crowds blocking their way.

The television news also broadcast photographs of Fang Lizhi, China’s most prominent pro-democracy activist, and his wife, Beijing University physics Prof. Li Shuxian.

‘Don’t Let Them Flee’

“Don’t let these people flee,” an announcer exhorted. “They are wanted for counterrevolutionary crimes.”

Warrants for the arrest of the couple, who have taken refuge inside the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, were issued Sunday. Monday’s television news reported that police units across the country had been alerted to prevent any attempt at escape.

Talks between Chinese and American officials are now under way in an attempt to resolve the issue without further significant deterioration in Sino-U.S. relations, according to reports from Washington.

Under international law, embassies are the territory of the country they represent, not of the host country. Thus a dissident who is granted refuge in an embassy is usually safe from pursuit. Embassies normally have no way, however, to transport such a person out of the host country against the wishes of that government.

U.S. Ambassador James R. Lilley told ABC’s “Good Morning America” program that he would not be surprised if the Chinese government orchestrates demonstrations against the United States.

In a further sign of the tension engulfing Sino-U.S. relations, state-run print and broadcast media gave heavy coverage Monday to an editorial in the official Beijing Daily that harshly attacked the U.S. government-funded Voice of America for its coverage of the student pro-democracy protests and the eventual carnage when troops moved into the city two weekends ago.

VOA Singled Out

Al Pessin, Voice of America’s Beijing bureau chief, said Monday he believes that VOA has been singled out for criticism because the station’s news reports are broadcast back into China.

“I don’t feel physically threatened, but the fact it has been going on for three days, and has made the front page of the People’s Daily, I find worrisome,” Pessin said. “It’s not clear whether they just want to make propaganda points, or whether they have something else in mind. . . . Anyway, it’s not affecting our reporting.”

Tensions also escalated between China and some other countries.

Canada called its ambassador home “for consultations”--often a diplomatic action that implies displeasure with the host government.

And the Australian Embassy, using extraordinarily undiplomatic language, released a blunt assessment of recent developments.

“It is clear the government is attempting to introduce a phase of cold terror aimed at cowing the population,” Gregson Edwards, first secretary of the Australian Embassy, said. “The embassy is talking about what it has seen.”

Edwards said Australian diplomats had witnessed arrests at gunpoint, police beating people in the streets and troops mounting apartment-to-apartment searches.

Cold Shoulder

Fear of speaking to foreigners, pervasive during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution but gradually eliminated during the past decade of reforms, has again engulfed many Chinese.

An English teacher in the capital told of encountering a student who greeted him with a smile--but refused to stop to talk--and of waiters in a favorite restaurant, once friendly, who now give him a cold shoulder.

Authorities in Beijing took further steps today to try to restore normality to the city, opening the main thoroughfare, Changan Avenue--which passes the north side of Tian An Men Square--to routine commuter traffic on bicycles and in vehicles. Entering the square itself or passing along Changan Avenue past the square on foot is still banned, however.

Armed soldiers stand at 50-foot intervals along Changan Avenue. Alongside and in front of Tian An Men itself--the Gate of Heavenly Peace, which forms the entryway to the old imperial palace--stand eight tanks and 40 armed personnel carriers.

“Don’t stop your bike,” a middle-aged woman said in concerned tones to a foreign cyclist riding beside her past the square this morning. “Don’t walk your bike, just ride right through.”

“Why?” asked the foreigner.

“I don’t know why,” she replied. “Just ride.”