Martial Law in Beijing Ended; U.S. Hails Move

China announced Wednesday that it is lifting the martial law imposed on the city of Beijing at the height of the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tian An Men Square last May.

In a nationwide television address, Premier Li Peng said the return of China’s capital city to civilian control shows that “social order has returned to normal, and a great victory has been won in checking the turmoil and quelling the counterrevolutionary rebellion.”

The Bush Administration immediately hailed the move as “a positive step” by the Chinese leadership. But congressional critics of President Bush’s China policy argued that China’s move has little practical significance.

“It does not change the fundamental circumstances of repression,” Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declared.

At a news briefing soon after China’s announcement, a White House spokesman confirmed that the Bush Administration will not support the World Bank’s efforts to resume a massive $700-million loan program to China. However, in a new gesture that the spokesman insisted has no connection to the lifting of martial law, the White House said it might support at least a few loans to China for earthquake relief and other humanitarian aid.

Analysts said the lifting of martial law will not make it any easier for students, workers or other ordinary Chinese to mount demonstrations in Beijing because the capital remains under the tight control of police and security officials, with heavy troop concentrations in and around the city. The Chinese government passed a law in November that bans all but pro-government demonstrations.

“This is clearly a gesture to world opinion. It also won’t make much of a difference on the ground,” one U.S. official said. “This was an obvious thing they could do in the wake of the Scowcroft visit.” He referred to the conciliatory visit to Beijing last month by two senior Administration officials, National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger.

Nevertheless, some specialists on China argued that the lifting of martial law could play a significant role in the intense infighting within the Chinese leadership. In particular, they said, the dismantling of the martial-law structure in Beijing might reduce the power of Premier Li.

“(Lifting of martial law) won’t make it any more difficult to turn water cannons on the students,” said one Western diplomat who closely follows Chinese affairs. “But this means that the extraordinary amount of power concentrated under martial-law authorities will now be dispersed. Li Peng won’t be able to control things in the way he did before.”

Martial law gave Li direct authority over troops and police in Beijing. With the capital city returned to civilian control, Li’s authority over troops of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army would have to be exercised indirectly, through other institutions, particularly the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission. That commission is headed by Communist Party Secretary Jiang Zemin, a potential rival for power.

Nevertheless, another analyst cautioned that Li may not need any direct access to military power so long as he enjoys the support of other army leaders, such as President Yang Shangkun, the first vice chairman of the Central Military Commission.

Chinese authorities imposed martial law in Beijing and called troops into the city on the morning of May 20, at a time when hundreds of thousands of people had joined the pro-democracy demonstrations in and around Tian An Men Square.

“The capital city is in a critical situation,” Li said at that time. “A situation of anarchy is getting more and more serious.” Fifteen days later, on the night of June 3-4, PLA troops, tanks and armored personnel carriers moved into the city’s downtown area, opening fire on demonstrators and killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Chinese.

As martial law ended at midnight Wednesday, Western reporters in Beijing said that the special armed police who had guarded the perimeter of Tian An Men Square withdrew, but others remained at the flagpole in the square and the Monument to the People’s Heroes. Police officers said civilians now may enter the square freely, but they still tried to wave away passing bicyclists. A sign went up saying the steps of the monument will remain off-limits.

At the White House on Wednesday, Vice President Dan Quayle told reporters that “we view China’s decision to lift martial law as a step forward. . . . I believe that you begin to see dividends from the President’s policy toward China.”

To the suggestion that China’s move was mostly cosmetic, Quayle replied: “It is a positive step forward for human rights.”

However, Michigan Rep. William S. Broomfield, the ranking Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said China’s action amounted to “more blue smoke and mirrors” and “would not fool anybody in Congress into believing that the Chinese leadership was moderating its oppressive rule. . . . The Chinese people have lost the few basic civic freedoms they enjoyed before the massacre in Tian An Men Square, and they are unlikely to regain them soon.”

Asia Watch, the human rights organization that monitors developments in China, said the lifting of martial law will be “a meaningless gesture” unless China takes concrete steps to ease repression.

“Martial law in practice still exists,” Asia Watch executive director Sidney Jones said. “Troops are still out on the streets; students are still being arrested; workers are still being executed.”

Earlier this week, officials at the White House and the Treasury and State departments told The Times that the United States--the major donor and dominant influence in the World Bank--would oppose efforts by President Barber B. Conable and other bank officials to restore a $700-million package of loans for projects in China. Secretary of State James A. Baker III announced last June that the United States favored a freeze on World Bank loans to China.

Asked Tuesday whether a lifting of martial law in Beijing might prompt the United States to alter its opposition to the loans, a White House spokesman replied, “Doing that would not cause us to change our position.”

On Wednesday, while continuing to oppose the $700-million loan package, White House officials added that they might support other loans that meet “basic human needs.” One possibility under discussion by the bank is a proposed project to give new earthquake protection to primitive homes near the Chinese city of Datong.

White House deputy press secretary Roman Popadiuk told reporters that this decision on humanitarian loans does not represent any change in the Administration’s position, because the United States continues to oppose the major projects for energy and other purposes originally proposed by the World Bank. These projects have since been blocked.

However, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said Wednesday that the willingness to consider humanitarian loans does in fact amount to “a partial change” in the Administration’s position.

“Our view is that basic human needs loans--for example, earthquake relief--should be permitted periodically to go forward. But we will view each on a case-by-case basis,” Tutwiler said. “We will still be discouraging project loans.”