Under Tight Wraps, China Marks 40th Anniversary of Communist Rule

BEIJING —  A huge crowd, crimson banners and the acrid smoke of fireworks filled Tian An Men Square on Sunday evening as China’s top leaders presided over a tightly orchestrated celebration marking the 40th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

About 120,000 dancers selected from schools, universities and workplaces--some against their will--performed during intervals between massive fireworks displays. Tens of thousands of additional Chinese, all present by invitation only, stood at the edges of the square.

At one point during the festivities, a voice on the loudspeaker praised “the suppression of the counterrevolutionary rebellion,” a reference to the brutal June crackdown that ended seven weeks of student-led pro-democracy demonstrations centered in the square.

At the spot where students this spring had set up a “Goddess of Democracy” statue, on Sunday there stood 25-foot sculpted figures of a worker, a peasant, a soldier and an intellectual.

“Do you think we’re cowards?” one of the college students performing in the square asked a foreign friend before the show began. “Do you think the people of Beijing are cowards?”

The student had participated in the pro-democracy protests of the spring. Those protests ended on the night of June 3-4, when the Chinese army shot its way into Beijing against the resistance of angry crowds. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed. But this student, like most of those in the square Sunday, was not free to make his own decision about whether to participate in the National Day show. The risks in refusing were too great.

With martial law still in effect in Beijing, security controls were already tight. But starting Sunday afternoon, soldiers, police and neighborhood security workers began enforcing a protective cordon around the entire central part of the city, blocking all traffic except for vehicles with permits to attend the evening festivities. Truckloads of helmeted soldiers and police with riot gear took up positions at various spots. Armed troops in open trucks patrolled the city’s northwest campus district.

The capital was awash with rumors--some fanned by authorities--that protesters or revenge-seekers might launch acts of terrorism to mar the festivities. At many workplaces, according to Chinese who spoke with foreign journalists, those employees not invited or ordered to take part in organized festivities Sunday were urged to stay off the streets because of the alleged possibility of terrorist attacks.

There were no reports, however, of any incidents. It was not clear whether authorities genuinely feared terrorism or whether the rumors and warnings were part of a ploy to ensure that large, potentially unruly crowds did not form in the streets.

Leaders Shown on TV

The evening-long festivities in the square were broadcast live on national television, with some scenes showing the nation’s top leaders on the rostrum of Tian An Men, the Gate of Heavenly Peace that separates the square from the ancient Imperial Palace. It was on Tian An Men that Chairman Mao Tse-tung declared on Oct. 1, 1949: “The Chinese people have stood up.”

Those gathered Sunday included the last of Mao’s old comrades, who still cling to supreme power in China: Deng Xiaoping, 85, who is now China’s paramount leader; Chen Yun, 84, a still powerful but rarely seen figure who has been in poor health for several years and other octogenarian revolutionaries who played key roles in calling for the use of troops to suppress the student protests.

Ambassadors from the United States, Canada, Western Europe and Japan boycotted the festivities and fireworks. But former U.S. Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr., who is in China on a business trip, joined Chinese leaders on the rostrum, according to the official New China News Agency. Saturday evening, Haig sat with Chinese leaders at one of the head tables at a National Day reception.

Many foreigners in Beijing who watched the celebration live or on television found it deeply offensive in the aftermath of the June massacre.

“It’s so shockingly tasteless,” a European man in the spectator stands commented to friends standing next to him.

“It’s grotesque,” a senior Western diplomat, who watched the show on television, commented to a reporter for United Press International. “They just put this on as if nothing happened.”

Lukewarm Response

An American journalist who managed to slip past security lines into the crowd of dancers said that at close range, it was clear there was little enthusiasm for the dancing but that people seemed genuinely excited about the fireworks.

The official New China News Agency reported that 30,000 fireworks were set off by 1,400 paramilitary police during the Tian An Men Square festivities, while another 20,000 fireworks were shot off at eight other locations around the capital.

A Chinese man standing at the edge of the crowd in Tian An Men Square confided to a foreigner that in his view, the show was “kind of boring.”

“A lot of young people think China should be more like America, more democratic,” he added.

The New China News Agency reported that Deng, speaking on the rostrum to North Korean Vice President Li Jong Ok, said that in the future, China will be more strict in demanding that there be no challenges to the Communist Party’s dictatorship.

“What happened in Beijing not long ago was bad, but in the final analysis it is beneficial to us, because it made us more sober-minded,” Deng reportedly told Li.

“When you go home, please tell President Kim Il Sung that China’s social order has returned to normal,” Deng added.

Li promised to tell the Korean president what he had seen in China, the official news agency reported.

“I am sure President Kim will be very happy about this,” Li said.