Beijing Credits Stability to Use of Force : China: The premier defends suppression of 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations. He says the regime would do it again if necessary.

BEIJING —  Premier Li Peng said Tuesday that the Chinese government was right to use force to suppress pro-democracy demonstrations two years ago and that if necessary, it would do it again.

But in a verbal stumble that highlighted the continuing political sensitivity of the 1989 massacre, Li at one point in a two-hour news conference found himself groping for words to stress that the Chinese leadership had been forced by circumstances into ordering the army to open fire. Li himself was at the time a key advocate of using the army.

“If at that critical moment, the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government didn’t adopt resolute measures--or rather, were not forced into taking those resolute measures--then China today could not enjoy its present stability or its economic prosperity . . . and even the existence of the People’s Republic of China would be in doubt,” Li declared.

“If we had not taken the measures that we were forced into taking on that occasion, China today might be bogged down in economic chaos and decline as well as political instability,” Li added.

“It may be no less severe than what has happened in some countries that used to practice socialism. That is something that the Chinese people would not like to see happen. So from a historical perspective, I believe that the resolute measures taken by the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government back then will increasingly be proven to be correct.”

Li did not specify how the government was forced into using violence, but his clear implication was that responsibility lay with the demonstrators.

Li was equally unyielding when asked whether Beijing would use peaceful means, rather than military methods, to deal with any future anti-government demonstrations. “When problems and contradictions intensify and their nature changes to constitute a violation of the criminal law of China, then we will adopt resolute measures,” he said.

Ever since the June 3-4, 1989, army crackdown in Beijing--during which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of citizens died as troops shot their way into the city--the Chinese government has argued that the pro-democracy demonstrations were an illegal uprising.

Li was also questioned about a poem, carrying a hidden message calling for his resignation, that appeared in the March 20 overseas edition of the official People’s Daily. Characters running diagonally from top right to lower left through the eight-line poem said: “Li Peng step down to assuage the people’s anger.” The final line also has political meaning: “Wait, sacred land, spring is everywhere.”

The hidden slogan, which could not be simply a coincidence, has caused a sensation among Chinese who are aware of it. While not widely read in China, the overseas version of the official paper is available at many workplaces.

The poem was identified when published as the work of an overseas student in the United States. Authorities apparently decided that it slipped into print without any editor catching the disguised message.

At the news conference, Li laughed about the incident with what seemed to some reporters to be a touch of nervousness.

“Since China is such a vast country with such a huge population, it is not strange that there are some people who oppose the current policies of the party and the government,” he said. “I think that poem cannot represent the people’s will.”

Li also said he is sure that he will not step down as premier before his current five-year term expires in 1993. He did not say anything about whether he would continue as premier past that time.