The New York Times

Tuesday, January 9, 2001

China Says Protest Papers Are Distorted

By ERIK ECKHOLM

BEIJING, Tuesday, Jan. 9 - The Chinese Government today defended the crushing of pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989 as "highly necessary to the stability and development of China."

In the first official response to the "Tiananmen papers," reportedly internal documents newly published in the United States that portray divisions among China's leaders at the time, a government spokesman also suggested that they were fake.

"Any attempt to play up the matter again and disrupt China by the despicable means of fabricating materials and distorting facts will be futile," a spokesman for the foreign ministry, Zhu Bangzao, said in a statement issued early this morning by the New China News Agency.

The documents were reportedly brought out of China by a man who told scholars that he was a Communist Party member who hoped to influence the debate over political change. The American experts who translated and edited the materials said they were convinced that the papers were authentic, though they could not be positive.

The violent suppression of the movement and the branding of its leaders as enemies of the state remain a source of bitter division in China, but no public discussion is allowed.

Copies of the documents are circulating on the Internet and are being avidly read by intellectuals, who say they have found no big surprises. There is no sign yet of any major effects on the political scene, where jockeying has begun for the top party and government positions in the next few years.

The documents depict sharp divisions among China's leaders at the time, pitting a faction led by the party chief, Zhao Ziyang, that sought compromise with the students, against hard-liners led by Prime Minister Li Peng, who feared that the party could be toppled.

The papers also confirm that the ultimate power lay with party "elders" led by Deng Xiaoping, who decided to take forceful action against the democracy movement, which had drawn in millions of people in hundreds of cities. In the documents, Mr. Deng expresses concern that the country could fall into chaos and that his plans for economic change could be destroyed.

On the night of June 3 and 4, after Mr. Deng's decision to crack down, troops poured into Beijing, shooting at crowds and killing hundreds. Mr. Zhao was placed under house arrest, where he remains.