Taipei Face-Off on Reforms in 4th Tense Day : Taiwan: 5,000 protesters draw comparisons to Beijing pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989.

Protesters demanding democratic reforms kept up their face-off with riot police in downtown Taipei early today as a peaceful sit-down demonstration entered its fourth day.

The government toughened its demands that demonstrators leave, but they responded by drawing increasingly blunt comparisons of their movement to that of student-led pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tian An Men Square in spring, 1989.

“If the government takes action against us now, that means this government has less tolerance than Beijing, than the Communist government,” Hsu Hsin-liang, chairman of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, said early today. “The Communist government tolerated the rally in Tian An Men Square for 40-some days. It is a test for us. It tests our will to suffer. It’s also a test for the government--to what extent they can show tolerance.”

As he spoke, about 5,000 demonstrators calling for direct presidential elections listened to speeches and protest songs in a tense but festive rally blocked the main street outside the Taipei train station, not far from an old city gate called Peimen.

On Wednesday, protesters put up several open-walled, wood-framed tin-roofed shelters to protect themselves from intermittent rain. Vendors sold cold drinks, sausages, roasted chicken and corn on the cob; street stall offered videotapes of varied fare.

Riot police equipped with shields and helmets, and backed by motorized water cannons, were parked on three sides of the protesters. A major road leading from the protest site, in a direction away from downtown, was left open. Pedestrians also could enter or leave from other directions by passing through narrow paths between barbed-wire barricades, put up by police to block routes toward government buildings.

Authorities issued repeated threats Wednesday to use force to end the protest. But they took no immediate action.

“This is no longer a political problem. It has become a problem of social order,” James Chu, spokesman for the ruling Nationalist Party, told reporters Wednesday. “Security personnel will deal with it according to the law.”

This already is the longest-running protest in the history of Taiwan’s pro-democracy movement, Democratic Progressive Party leaders say.

The Taipei scene was developing a growing resemblance, on a far smaller scale, to the atmosphere of Beijing’s central square during the more festive moments of the protests there three years ago.

Where Beijing protesters had shouted for Premier Li Peng to step down, protesters in Taipei on Wednesday screamed for Prime Minister Hau Pei-tsun to quit. They called for direct election of Taiwan’s president and release of political prisoners.

The memory of Tian An Men carries two conflicting images for many Chinese: There is the image of the student movement itself, then of the carnage that brought the pro-democracy demonstrations to an end. Both images were called into play by the Taipei protesters.

Speakers at a Wednesday noon rally called on the people of Taiwan to join protesters in the street, to turn Taipei’s Peimen area into a Tian An Men. But hanging from a pedestrian bridge, visible to riot police faced off against the protesters, a banner evoked a different image, declaring--”To Each Respected Soldier and Policeman: This Place Is Not Tian An Men.”