Voice of America Directed to Restive Chinese : Foreign relations: Broadcasts could anger Beijing. It has accused the network of fostering discontent.

In an effort to reach millions of new Chinese listeners, the Voice of America, the U.S. government’s broadcasting network, has begun beaming a series of new feature programs into China aimed especially at workers, young people and entrepreneurs--the most restive and disaffected elements in Chinese society.

The special programs, launched Jan. 1, are the first ones on VOA’s Chinese-language broadcasts since the Tian An Men massacre last June. At that time, VOA, which has a huge audience estimated at 60 million people or more inside China, halted all its regular programming except for the teaching of English, in order to concentrate on news broadcasts.

The new VOA shows could arouse the ire of the Chinese government, which has accused the U.S. network of fostering discontent inside China. Last June, an official Chinese publication asserted that VOA “vigorously supports a small handful of so-called people holding different political views to oppose the Communist Party and the socialist system.” A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington had no immediate comment on the new broadcasts.

Since last June, China has been jamming VOA’s Chinese-language broadcasts, as well as those of the British Broadcasting Service. Officials at VOA say that this jamming continued without any reduction last week, during and after the Chinese regime’s widely proclaimed lifting of martial law in Beijing. Nevertheless, they say, the VOA broadcasts are managing to get through to China.

“If we’re wanting to talk to the people in China who will have some influence in the future on relations with the United States or on China’s dealings with the world, we’re going to have to reach a broader audience,” said David Hess, chief of the Chinese branch of the VOA.

“What we’re doing reflects the changes that have already taken place in China. Modernization means more decision-making by more people. The number of decision-makers increases as a society becomes more complex. Democracy really isn’t confined to small groups at the top (of society).”

Hess said that since the political upheavals last spring, the audience for VOA inside China seems to have increased dramatically. Purchases of short-wave radios in China shot upward, letters to the VOA from China also increased and interviews with Chinese indicated that new, different sorts of Chinese were listening to the broadcasts.

“Our traditional audiences in China were intellectuals, students and government and party officials,” said Hess. “We found that we were going beyond these audiences. Whole new groups of Chinese were listening to us.”

One of the new VOA programs, called “Labor Report,” is aimed at Chinese workers. Another, called “The Spirit of Business,” is directed at the small-scale entrepreneurs who flourished on the streets of China over the past decade, buying and selling everything from blue jeans to antiques.

A third show, called “Washington Express,” plays American top-40 music and is aimed at China’s 15-to-25-year-olds.

VOA’s charter guarantees that it will operate without outside interference in developing its news broadcasts. However, VOA is financed by the U.S. government and run by the U.S. Information Agency. Hess, the chief of VOA’s Chinese-language branch, is an experienced American diplomat who has worked both in China and Taiwan.

The VOA broadcasts have often become a vehicle for disseminating news and information that would not otherwise be available to the Chinese population.

For example, last fall, VOA beamed into China a speech written by Fang Lizhi, the Chinese dissident who took refuge inside the American Embassy in Beijing after the Tian An Men massacre. “Remember that in the current climate of terror, it may well be that those who are most terrified are those who have just finished killing their fellow human beings,” Fang said in that speech.

The VOA broadcasts also carried to China the word that Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu had been deposed and executed. Analysts have said the news from Romania proved extremely unsettling to China’s Communist Party leadership. Other government radio networks--including Radio Moscow, which broadcasts to China over a strong signal 24 hours a day--also broadcast the news of Ceausescu’s fate.

China began jamming VOA’s broadcasts on May 21, the day after the regime imposed martial law on the city of Beijing and called army troops into that city. After China lifted martial law last week, Hess said: “We watched very closely to see if there was any reduction in the jamming. There was no change.”

Last summer, China expelled two VOA reporters from Beijing. In December, after a special visit to Beijing by National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger, the Chinese regime agreed to let VOA station a correspondent in Beijing once again.