Execution Toll Up to 27 in China; 13 More Seized : 7 Are Put to Death in Beijing as Action Against Protests Continues; Agitation for Taiwan Alleged

China’s bloody suppression of pro-democracy agitation continued Thursday, with seven protesters executed in Beijing and the known toll by execution rising to 27.

Authorities also announced the arrests of 13 men accused of being special agitators working for the rival Nationalist government in Taiwan. The men were accused on state-run television of having promoted the recent wave of student-led demonstrations, which ended with heavy casualties early this month when the Chinese army shot its way into the center of the capital.

Word reached Beijing on Thursday that besides three convicted rioters shot in Shanghai on Wednesday, 17 people also were executed that day in Jinan, capital of coastal Shandong province.

Those executed in Jinan had apparently participated in violent protests that occurred in response to the crackdown in Beijing. News of the executions was printed in a newspaper in Jinan. Beijing Radio had previously reported that the 17 were part of group of 45 convicted for “seriously endangering public order.”

As a chorus of condemnation of China continued from Western governments, and some on Capitol Hill in Washington urged a tougher American response, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman warned outsiders against interfering in Chinese affairs.

“This is unwise and will get nowhere,” Li Jinhua, the spokeswoman, said at a regular weekly news conference. “The Chinese have never yielded to any external pressure.”

Li expressed hope, however, that despite escalating tensions, Beijing can maintain and develop its ties with the United States. She said this would demand mutual respect and a deepening of understanding on both sides.

Diplomats Expected Back

Li also declared that Chinese diplomats who defected to foreign countries in the wake of the bloodshed in Beijing had been the victims of misinformation and “malicious incitement.”

“We expect they will come back to China, and their families and friends also hope they will do so,” she said.

China launched an international propaganda counterattack Thursday against news reports on the June 3-4 crackdown in Beijing, during which the People’s Liberation Army shot its way into the center of the city against the opposition of crowds of residents seeking to block its path. Western governments, including the United States, have estimated the death toll to be as many as 3,000.

Chinese television has repeatedly broadcast a videotape that portrays the bloody crackdown as a response to rioting and destruction of military vehicles, reversing the actual order of events. Dramatic scenes of Beijing citizens setting an abandoned military convoy on fire during daylight hours on Sunday, for example, are presented as justification for the Saturday night killings.

Videotape Spread Worldwide

This same videotape, or a similar one, is now being distributed to 162 Chinese embassies and consulates around the world, plus more than 20 foreign television stations, according to a report by the official New China News Agency.

“The 40-minute tape . . . shows scenes of burnt bodies of soldiers and gutted armored personnel carriers of the martial law troops, crowds stopping martial law troops from entering the city proper, tear gas explosions and assaults against martial law troops,” the state-run news agency said.

In another item broadcast on the national television news Thursday evening, Ji Pengfei, China’s top spokesman on matters concerning Hong Kong and Macao, issued a warning to the people of the two enclaves that they must not become involved in Chinese politics.

Residents of the two colonies had expressed strong support for China’s student-led democracy movement. Some sent funds or came to Beijing to participate.

When the People’s Liberation Army moved into Beijing under force of arms on the night of June 3-4, many people in Hong Kong and Macao felt a direct threat to their own futures.

Hong Kong, a British colony, is due to revert to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, while a similar reversion is scheduled for the Portuguese colony of Macao in 1999. Beijing is to assume control of both territories under the formula “one country, two systems,” by which the colonies have been promised the right to maintain their capitalist economies and civil liberties for half a century.

Ji warned Thursday that this promise is a two-way street: that as part of the bargain, the people of these territories must leave China’s system alone.

“I must point out that some Hong Kong and Macao people have done some things that are impermissible by the constitution and law, and in fact added fuel to the flames in the turmoil while they were in the mainland,” Ji said.

“During the transitional period and after Hong Kong and Macao return to the motherland, the mainland and Hong Kong and Macao will practice two different social and economic systems,” Ji added. “The central people’s government will neither change the capitalist system nor implement socialist policies in Hong Kong and Macao.”

People in the two enclaves, for their part, “should not interfere in or attempt to change the socialist system in the mainland either,” he said.

The seven people executed in Beijing on Thursday were convicted on charges of “setting fire to military trucks, stealing military goods and assaulting soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army,” according to the New China News Agency.

The agency listed their names as Lin Zhaorong, Zhang Wenkui, Chen Jian, Zhu Jianjun, Wang Hanwu, Luo Hongjun and Ban Huijie. These seven plus an eighth defendant, Wang Lianxi, had received death sentences Saturday. Wang Lianxi’s fate remained unclear. Television clips have indicated that among the eight there was one woman, but the reports have not clarified which name is hers. She was shown again Thursday, an apparent indication that she was among those killed.

The alleged Taiwan agents, all of them Chinese nationals, were arrested in various cities across China.

Those arrested, according to a New China News Agency report that listed all but one name, included: Wang Changhong, 38, Liang Qiang, 36, and Qian Rongmian, arrested in Beijing; Qiu Lin, 30, Zhou Yan, 23, Cao Weiguo, Feng Jin and Lu Zhengqing, arrested in Shanghai; Zhang Yi, 25, and Wu Jidong, 23, arrested in Guangdong; Gao Xiaoshi, 32, arrested in the Ningxia autonomous region, and Qu Zuojie, 26, said to have surrendered himself in the northeastern city of Shenyang.

The men were variously accused of spreading rumors, inciting turmoil on university campuses, writing “counterrevolutionary” propaganda leaflets, instigating unrest and reporting information to Taiwan’s intelligence services.

The television news broadcast videotapes taken secretly of some of the accused men during the pro-democracy protests that preceded the crackdown.

Wang Changhong was shown applauding the demonstrators. He is accused of having “‘spread rumors at Tian An Men Square time and again, instigating students to overthrow the government” and of having “attempted to incite workers to strike.”

U.S. STANCE CRITICIZED: Lawmakers advocate stronger condemnation. Page 12