by H. Asher Bolande

BEIJING, Oct 30 (AFP) - In sentencing pro-democracy leader Wang Dan to 11 years in prison Wednesday, China has cleared away the final remnant of China's dissident movement, now almost wholly behind bars or in exile, analysts said.

Just weeks earlier, Liu Xiaobo, another prominent 1989 democracy movement activist, was sent to a labour camp for three years for penning an open letter calling for Tibetan autonomy and labour reforms.

Liu's arrest also prompted co-author and veteran dissident Wang Xizhe to flee China, eventually arriving in the United States.

"The government has effectively wiped out the Chinese dissident movement for the foreseeable future," said Robin Munro, Hong Kong director of the New York-based agency Human Rights Watch/Asia.

Foreign rights groups said the conviction also bodes ill because the methods used to charge Wang Dan with trying to overthrow the government show authorities have adopted a tougher, less tolerant legal stance toward dissent.

In an open letter to Chinese premier Li Peng, Amnesty International said the trend in China is toward increased repression despite "international claims that (Beijing) is working to improve human rights protection in China."

Human Rights Watch has said the Wang Dan case sets a precedent that Chinese courts will no longer draw any distinction between political speech or writing and concrete action.

"Both levels of dissent are henceforth to be indiscriminately treated as 'endangering state security'," it warned.

Amnesty said: "It is clear that the 'crimes' imputed to Wang Dan amount to no more than the peaceful exercise of his fundamental right to freedom of expression," it said.

"The indictment provides no evidence that his activities involved in any way a threat of the use of force or violence."

Wang Dan's will likely be the last major dissident trial to be conducted before planned reforms of China's criminal law take place next year. Although the reforms are meant to beef up defendants' rights and enhance due process, they are unlikely to provide relief to government opponents.

"If the authorities had any intention of (making) the new legislation more liberal, then they wouldn't have brought Wang Dan to trial in the first place," Munro said.

Human Rights Watch/Asia has said China is making cosmetic changes to its laws on dissent "while at the same time reinforcing their repressive nature and impact."

The feared charge of "counter-revolution" reportedly to be abolished under reforms is simply to be replaced with the charge of "subverting the government," it said, citing official sources.

The situation following Wang Dan's sentencing will be a source of considerable embarrassment for US Secretary of State Warren Christopher when he arrives in Beijing next month for a visit seen as crucial to improved Sino-US relations.

Christopher and other high-ranking US officials who have come here in the past few years have repeatedly stressed that the human rights situation in China can only be improved through a policy of "constructive engagement" that stresses dialogue above overt political pressure.

Since Washington de-linked its extension of Chinese Most Favored Nation status from human rights in 1994, the Chinese dissident movement has suffered a series of setbacks.