CHINA: Turning Back the Clock

China curbs its dissidents and looks again at modernization

In Hubei (Hupeh) province, the local radio station declared that April 5 to May 4 was "Uphold Public Morals Month." Citizens were directed to observe law and order, behave politely and "cherish public property." In Sichuan (Szechwan), the authorities denounced "muddled ideas and unhealthy trends" among "some young people." In Henan (Honan), the Provincial Revolutionary Committee decreed a "total ban" on posters and other publications that criticized socialism, Communist Party leadership or Mao Tse-tung's thought. In Peking, foreign residents learned that Chinese would henceforth be forbidden to make contact with them unless instructed to do so. All across China, party leaders were cracking down on the kind of free expression that had been openly encouraged only five months ago.

The new policy was first signaled by Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping (Teng Hsiao-p'ing) in a speech to party officials last month. Among other things, Deng denounced Chinese who indulged in Western-style dancing or who "sold state secrets" to foreigners. As if on cue, city and provincial bosses quickly went on the attack against all political protest. China's press denounced "ultra-democracy," as well as the "black sheep" who helped "to launch vicious attacks on party and state leaders." The Peking Daily dismissed human rights as a mere "bourgeois slogan."

In Peking, a six-point circular issued by the municipal committee forbade the posting of wall posters anywhere in the city except on the 100-yd. stretch of Changan Avenue at Xidan Street that has become known as democracy wall. A People's Daily editorial, which accompanied the edict, warned against "gatherings and parades that block traffic, attacks on the party, government and military organs," and "other acts of rumor-mongering and troublemaking."

Still more proof that the leadership meant business came when plainclothes police two weeks ago arrested four prominent human rights activists as they tried to paste up a wall poster that denounced the authorities for repression. The activists belong to a group that publishes a clandestine journal called Inquiry. Protesting the arrest of its own editor, Wei Jingsheng, 29, the journal complained: "Where is freedom of speech in China? All criticism is fiercely suppressed as contrary to socialism and to the dictatorship of the proletariat. What brutal hypocrisy!" A wall poster responding to Deng's speech sneered that he and his Politburo cronies were "successors and followers" of the Gang of Four-the clique headed by Mao's widow Jiang Qing (Chiang Ch'ing)-who had been Deng's most bitter enemies.