Published by: World Tibet Network News, Monday - December 18, 1995

BEIJING, AAP - As China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping this year continued to defy those predicting his death, his country went on around him, continuing to open up economically to the west but with a clear keyword for the rest of its society -- firmness.

Firmness with and about Taiwan and Tibet, a firmer grip on the country's leadership by President Jiang Zemin, firmness in the lead-up to reclaiming Hong Kong, and a firm approach to weeding out the shoots of unrest that began to surface again after a post-Tiananmen crackdown hiatus.

As 91-year-old Deng spent another year out of public view, his legacies -- good and bad -- continued to prosper. China still enjoyed double digit economic growth for much of the year and a strong trade surplus, but showed its intolerance for voices of dissent was still high, if not invigorated.

The Chinese year of the pig ended with a clear sign that despite economic reforms, China's 1.2 billion citizens are far from free, with famous dissident Wei Jingsheng being jailed for 14 years for advocating democracy.

With a typical lack of subtlety, China waited until after several events which could help its international status had passed before first charging Wei -- having held him for 19 months -- and then sending him away on December 13, in a five-hour trial closed to foreigners.

The trial sparked international indignation led by the US, which only stirred China into lashing out at the west for its attempts to interfere in its internal affairs.

The Wei affair was another clear warning about the machinations of the Chinese judicial system.

The system also sent Chinese-Australian businessman James Peng to jail for 16 years in September on embezzlement and misappropriation charges his lawyers say were concocted as a payback for a legal dispute with business associate Ding Peng, a niece of Deng Xiaoping.

It's likely there will be little change in both cases despite international calls for the release of both men.

Australia will continue to make representations calling for Mr Peng's immediate release -- he also received an undated deportation order -- and will send officials in the southern city of Guangzhou to visit him each month.

Wei's lengthy sentence was indicative of the Communist leadership's moves in a few areas.

After six years of virtual inaction following the Tiananmen square anti-democracy massacre of 1989, calls for change reappeared this year, significantly from the urban intelligentsia, and not just rural workers. Just as China does not want to hear such voices rising again, it also does not want unrest from its huge blue collar workforce and trade unions, which helped kick start the bloody 1989 Tiananmen rally.

This is why the central government will be working busily to nurse its sputtering state-owned enterprises in 1995, to try to meet the difficult challenge of ensuring millions of workers are not left idle amid a tide of state-owned bankruptcies.

"There's the problem of what to do with the workforce and the huge welfare budget for retired workers. China surely doesn't want hordes of coal miners and metal workers in hammers and aprons taking to the streets," one western diplomat said.

China will continue to reduce the incentives it used to get foreign companies here in the first place. While China is expected to remain a lucrative market for western businesses, these steps will be aimed at levelling the playing field between local and foreign investors.

China's 10-year-old craving for a place in the World Trade Organisation is widely tipped to come to fruition in 1996, despite likely moves to censure it for its human rights record at the UN Human Rights Convention in Geneva in March.

That is the next major forum where China can expect backlash over human rights and particularly Wei Jingsheng.

Before his sentence, among important international happenings like the APEC leaders' summit and a Jiang-Bill Clinton meeting, Beijing had also hosted the World Women's Conference. This was agreed by virtually all comers to be an organisational sham, in which "hiccups" included Australian Ambassador Michael Lightowler being jostled by security guards.

China showed also that it would not back down on Taiwan, which was the only serious black spot in a year of consolidation at the top for President Jiang.

Beijing maintained it would use force if necessary to take back the "rebel province" if it declared independence, and showed it meant business with a series of military manoeuvres near the island following perhaps the major disruption in Chinese affairs for the year -- Taiwanese President Lee Teng-Hui's unofficial visit to the US in June.

Jiang emerged badly on the Taiwan issue. With nationalism riding high in China, having replaced Mao-style Communist party-devotion, Jiang sought to ensure reunification with Taiwan would be his political memorial, but failed in the face of an equally bellicose President Lee, and the decision by the US to allow him to visit.

The trouble is, that by attacking Lee so vigorously in 1995, Jiang and cadres will have to swallow their pride if they are to talk seriously with him next year after his certain re-election in March.

Apart from Taiwan, Jiang showed political adeptness at confirming his leadership qualities.

He kept a tight hold on the state-run media and ensured he was portrayed in strong style, including his inspection of troops and military exercises dressed in a Mao-style army uniform. He also ensured two supporters were appointed to key positions in the military, an area which had been seen as his Achilles' heel by hardliners owing to his non-military background.

NPC chairman Qiao Shi is seen as probably Jiang's major rival to assume paramount leadership in the event of Deng's death, but had a reasonably quiet year.

Beijing continued to show it would have things its way in the handover of Hong Kong from Britain in 1997. It assures its "one country-two systems" mantra will work, and that freedoms currently enjoyed by the territory's citizens will be maintained after the July 1997 handover, though episodes like the Wei and Peng cases are no reassurance for those in Hong Kong.

Beijing also thumbed its nose at supporters of Tibetan independence and the Dali Lama by ignoring his choice for the autonomous region's second most revered living Buddhist, the Panchen Lama, and endorsing another candidate in a hail of media exposure in December.

The move is expected to trigger unrest in Tibet, with the people likely to be split between the two Panchens.

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