Published by: World Tibet Network News Issue ID: 96/10/18

By Trevor Marshallsea, AAP China Correspondent

BEIJING, Oct 17 AAP - After months of relative calm, China's dissidents have again been thrust into the firing line in a spate of arrests and sentencings which analysts say have been strategically timed.

The clampdown -- which this week led Wang Xizhe to flee to San Francisco in a move sure to strain Sino-US ties -- serves as a reminder that while China strives to modernise and join in the lofty ranks of the World Trade Organisation, little has changed for its citizens' political freedom.

It is also a warning to China's millions to continue to toe the line, amid an atmosphere of rising nationalism which threatens to spill over into unruly public protests.

Since late last month, two well-known dissidents have been sentenced to jail terms, another has been charged after 17 months in detention and is expected to go to trial soon, while a fourth has fled the country for fear of also being swept up.

Guo Haifeng, a leader of the 1989 pro-democracy movement which was crushed in the Tiananmen Square massacre, was detained in August and sentenced last month to seven years in prison for hooliganism for helping another dissident, Liu Gang, flee to the the US in May.

Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to three years in jail last week, having co-authored an article with Wang Xizhe which called for President Jiang Zemin's impeachment and for Tibetan independence. Wang fled his Guangzhou home last weekend and was helped to the US by a support network.

And Chinese authorities also chose last week to charge Wang Dan -- one of the best-known leaders of the 1989 movement who was detained in May last year -- with conspiring to subvert the government.

The timing of this series of actions appears linked to three events -- last week's Nobel Peace Prize announcement; rising nationalist sentiment in China over a dispute with Japan over an island group; and the Communist Party's annual policy-making plenum last week.

Some analysts say China's moves had been made in consideration of its most famous dissedent, Wei Jingsheng.

He remains safely in jail after receiving a 14 year sentence last December but the fact he had again been nominated for the Nobel prize could have influenced the Chinese authorities' actions.

The influential Asian Wall Street Journal described the dissident crackdown as "a pre-emptive strike" aimed at keeping a lid on dissidents and other citizens in the event of Wei winning the award.

"Protests, public criticism of the government and demonstrations" could have followed had Wei won the award, the paper said, since such a victory would have emboldened others to rise up.

The clampdown could also be linked to heightened passions in China over the country's recently inflamed dispute with traditional rival Japan over the Diaoyu, or Senkaku, Islands north of Taiwan.

China's official statements on the dispute have been relatively muted, with most western observers attributing this to a desire to keep fervent patriotism in people's minds and off the streets.

"The authorities don't want sentiments to get out of control on this issue. The roundup of dissidents at the same time as the islands dispute could just be another reminder that the government wants a neatly choreographed society," one western diplomat said.

Some also maintain authorities were keen to corral society's outspoken elements in the lead-up to last week's plenum.

The annual policy making meeting presents a prime time for calls for change to be voiced.

Significantly, the major thrust of this year's plenum was to enshrine President Jiang's call to build in China a "spiritual civilisation", with adherence to socialist values and ideology.

While such drives may be losing validity as China swings to a market-oriented society, the firm rule of the Communist Party against the country's discordant voices obviously is not.