Lifting of Martial Law Fails to Lift Depression : China: ‘It doesn’t really matter,’ says a Beijing entrepreneur. Tian An Men Square is teeming with plainclothes agents.

In the cold, gray streets of Beijing, workers and businessmen expressed doubt Friday that the Chinese government’s decision to lift martial law will bring any hope to their winter of discontent.

“It doesn’t really matter whether they lift martial law or not,” a well-dressed young entrepreneur told a reporter. “The damage has already been done.”

A young Chinese tourist, one of thousands of visitors crowding into newly reopened Tian An Men Square, focal point of the pro-democracy protests that brought on martial law last spring, said, “No, there are no changes at all.”

A taxi driver commented: “Just because they opened up the square does not mean that we ordinary citizens can open up. I still cannot say what I would like to say about this government.”

At the same time, the authorities were issuing new rules that analysts said will negate any positive impact from Premier Li Peng’s announcement Wednesday that the capital had finally been stabilized enough to end martial law.

A front-page story in Friday’s issue of the Beijing Daily announced the new rules, which prohibit “demonstrations, gatherings or marches” in 22 specific locations of the city, including Tian An Men Square, without government approval.

The square itself was teeming with plainclothes security agents two days after hundreds of uniformed soldiers were withdrawn. Soldiers had been there since last June, when troops attacked pro-democracy demonstrators and, according to Western analysts, killed as many as 2,000 of them.

The plainclothes police, who have arrested several suspected dissidents in the square since Thursday morning, were a clear reflection of official fear that the angry sentiment behind last year’s demonstrations still simmers just beneath the surface.

Nonetheless, the authorities tried to make the most of Wednesday night’s announcement, which they said put an end to “a historic mission,” though many residents suspect it was no more than a gesture aimed at reopening the financial pipeline from the West.

The state-run New China News Agency said Thursday that many foreign businessmen in Beijing applauded the end of martial law. It quoted Max Wilhelm, general manager of the Great Wall Sheraton Hotel, as saying the decision “will definitely have a positive influence, especially on tourism.”

It said that Ang Keng Lam, executive director of the $450-million joint U.S.-Chinese World Trade Center, was optimistic that “what we have seen in Beijing is a return to normality.”

But other foreign analysts and businessmen were less effusive.

“Of course, the lifting of martial law is good,” John Frisbie, director of the Beijing office of the U.S.-China Business Council, told The Times. “No one can say that it’s a bad thing, but the question is, really, are these all just symbolic moves or do they mean something?”

Frisbie said that by itself the lifting of martial law will have little effect on stalled foreign investment here.

“Any direct effects on foreign business confidence are minimal,” he said, “because companies make their decisions purely on the economic situation in a country, not so much on the political reality.”

Other Western businessmen were harsher. A European who has lived in Beijing for two years called the lifting of martial law “a cheap public relations gimmick.” He said it “means absolutely nothing to the Chinese people, because all the laws and decrees and orders and regulations they’re putting on the books now are actually harsher than martial law itself.”

He said several friends who are students at Beijing University told him there is at least one “paid party spy” for every two students on campus. Students on most city campuses, he said, have become so intimidated by the authorities’ Draconian measures that a resurgence of last year’s pro-democracy activity would be highly unlikely even without martial law.

An American teacher at one university said most of his Chinese students believe that the decision to remove the troops from the city will have little effect on their daily lives. Many of the students, he said, were surprised that the party was bold enough to make such a decision so soon after the wave of democracy that has swept through Eastern Europe, toppling Communist regimes that were close allies of the Chinese leadership.

Premier Li made it clear in announcing the end of martial law that such movements elsewhere have little meaning for the Chinese ruling party.

“No matter how the international situation changes,” he said, “our people, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, will steadily push ahead with the great cause of building socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

In the frigid cold of Tian An Men Square, a young tourist who had traveled from northeastern China had his own interpretation of the premier’s words.

He recalled that Li had said, “We must cherish the country’s stability in the same way as we protect our own eyes.” Then he smiled, covered his eyes with his hands, so that he could see nothing, and added, “This is the way we are going to protect our eyes now.”