The New York Times

Tuesday September 9, 1997

Dissident Tells Chinese to Heed Calls For Change

The Associated Press

SHANGHAI - A veteran Chinese dissident urged his country's leaders Monday to adopt democratic reforms and prove their commitment to change by cremating the body of Mao Zedong. The appeal by the dissident, Bao Ge, to the Communist Party is the latest of

several petitions urging leaders take up political reform at a congress that opens on Friday.

Mr. Bao's open letter, addressed to the party's Central Committee and General Secretary

Zemin, warned that they could only delay political reform at their peril. He cited recent protests by workers and peasants around the country against official corruption and unfair policies.

The letter said that the Communist Party leadership "must see" that "the people's demands for democracy are growing stronger day by day."

"To move ahead with the tide, your party now must fight actively," it added. Mr. Bao distributed copies of the letter to reporters in Shanghai.

Mr. Bao recommended strengthening agencies for fighting corruption, improving the rule of law and protection of civil rights and permitting new political his planned Citizens Congress Party.

"Forbidding people from setting up political parties shows a lack of confidence, " the letter said. Political parties ought be able win the people's support to advance their policies and not rely on iron-handed controls."

To show they have left dictatorship behind, party leaders at the upcoming congress should call for the cremation of Mao's body, Mr. Bao said.

Mao led the Communists to power. Deified by the party in life, his body lies in a glass coffin in a mausoleum on Tiananmen Square.

But his legacy remains troublesome to many Chinese. Mao's ruinous economic policies and divisive politics are blamed for the deaths of millions of people.

Mr. Bao also called for breaking with the past by reassessing the military assault on protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989. That violent suppression also ended flirtations by party leaders

with reform to open the political system.

Mr. Bao served three commemorate victims of the assault and for setting up a human rights group. Released in June, he is one of the few dissidents still actively pushing for change.

"Many activists have either fled the country or are now locked up, so I plan to carry on in their absence, and others will in mine," Mr. Bao told reporters.

The party has revived hopes for political reform in the past few weeks, saying it would be a topic for discussion at the congress.

Held once every five years, the congress will choose a new Central Committee, the party's top policy- setting body, and endorse a blueprint for reforms.

Dissidents have renewed calls from for tolerance and freedom. On academic, a solid party member with no record of dissent, also has urged party leaders to consider adopting Western-style divided government to check abuses of power.

The party's intentions remain unclear. But officials have moved to dampen expectations.

"No big change will take place in the general pattern of China's political structure," the state-run Xinhua press agency cited Wang Jiaqiu, an administrator at the party's top training school as saying Saturday.