OCTOBER 11, 1999 VOL. 154 NO. 14

A Nation Celebrates a Stormy Half-Century

Vincent Yu/AP Elevation: Jiang appears in a parade portrait, joining Mao and Deng.

By DON MORRISON

Let history record that the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic of China began with a minor miracle. A steady rain had been soaking Beijing, and the forecasts were not encouraging. But when the big day arrived, the streets of the capital were dry and the clouds had lifted enough for the promised formations of fighters, bombers and helicopters to roar out of the east and streak above Tiananmen Square.

There, a crowd of 500,000 citizens, carefully chosen for their "love of the motherland," looked on as thousands of children waving red and gold fans spelled out the characters for national day. Beijing's 10 million other residents had to watch from behind distant barricades or on television. Fearing potential disruptions, police had swept the city of vagrants, migrants, dissidents and the mentally ill, taped shut mailboxes and padlocked manhole covers.

	ALSO IN TIME
	China: Jiang Zemin's Big Bash The Mao-suited President stages a huge, highly choreographed show to celebrate the People's Republic's 50th anniversary A Personal Saga In 1949 a father sent one of his twin sons to Taiwan and kept the other on the mainland. Their story is an epic tale of a divided country's past half-century

President Jiang Zemin, dapper in a charcoal gray Mao suit, reviewed rows of troops and hardware from an open-topped Red Flag limousine. He had much of China's military might to review. Aside from the flyby, there were tanks, armored personnel carriers, missile launchers and the new Dongfang 31 missile--capable of hitting Alaska, had that state attempted to disrupt the festivities.

Late in the day, the sky cleared. Beijingers had the rare pleasure of seeing the magnificent hills outside their normally smoggy city. That was partly because a number of polluting factories had been closed for the week. But it may also have been history smiling on a country that has attempted much, suffered greatly and long yearned for its moment in the sun.

INTERACTIVE NAVIGATE through the People's Republic of China and discover the 50 places where history was made GATE OF HEAVENLY PEACE: Birth of a Nation ZHONGNANHAI: The Inner Sanctum SHANGHAI NORTH STATION: Exodus to Hong Kong YALU RIVER: Taking on the Americans XINGKAI LAKE PRISON FARM: The Chinese Gulag QUEMOY: Standoff with Taiwan XINYANG: A Leap to Starvation		COVER STORY ESSAY: Despair and Deliverance Mao's China was rescued by Deng, writes actor Ying Ruocheng ESSAY: Happy Birthday to Me! Short-story writer Wang Shuo recalls the impact on his own life of some of China's earlier anniversaries MORE ASIAWEEK: Quest for Dignity The success of the Communist revolution climaxed a century-long drive by the Chinese to reclaim their historical greatness CNN: Visions of China 50 years of the People's Republic. An interactive, multimedia journey