A chilling side to Beijing's celebration

Fear of dissent still haunts the People's Republic

BEIJING - Communist pride, power, progress - and a fair bit of paranoia - are all on brilliant display here this weekend under a gunmetal gray sky, as China fêtes the 50th anniversay of the People's Republic.

The New China, as they prefer to call it, may be freer, richer and happier than at any time in history, but the Communist party firmly intends to keep on writing that history, even as China's 1.2 billion people and its rich markets open to the world.

``Socialism,'' says President Jiang Zemin, ``is the only way to save and develop China.''

And socialism means, The Party.

Freer speech and capitalism are acceptable today, as are local elections. But political pluralism will have to wait, maybe for a very long time.

The Communists, cashing in on the historic occasion, have spent the equivalent of $20 billion to parade their power here as seldom before, bundling it as closely as they possibly can with a sense of national pride in all that China has accomplished in the past half-century.

It's impossible to walk down a street in this sprawling city of 13 million without running into a Communist flag. There's a new airport, subway, widened streets and plazas.

Acres of red carpets festoon plazas, hotel lobbies and parks. Cherry banners boasting patriotic slogans deck buildings and lamp posts.

The festive air is everywhere.

Yet so are the cops.

There's one, dressed in an olive drab army uniform and a red armband, on virtually every major corner. Half of Beijing was simply ordered off the streets for the big military parade yesterday, in which only the handpicked patriotic elite was allowed to participate.

Yet while even ordinary Beijingers, who are revelling in a rare seven-day holiday, seem to be catching the patriotic, pro-government spirit the party has tried so hard to generate, this 50th birthday of the New China has a chilling side, as well.

During the big parade at Tiananmen, President Jiang's most memorable words were addressed not to the assembled Communist leaders or to the people, but to the 10,000 People's Liberation Army troops marshalled, many with fixed bayonets, for the walkpast.

``Good morning, comrades,'' shouted Jiang.

``Good morning, our general,'' they shouted back with one voice

``Comrades, you work very hard,'' Jiang said.

``To better serve the people,'' the troops replied.

It was a well-drilled exchange. And it was immediately punctuated by the rumble and belch of battle tanks, the roar of nuclear-missile launchers, and the scream of combat aircraft.

All across China, people got the message.

A half-century ago Mao Zedong proclaimed a People's Republic, ending centuries of feudalism and foreign oppression. He promised to ``protect the people's lives and property . . . relieve their suffering . . . struggle for their rights.''

And to their credit, and China's great benefit, the China Reds (as The Toronto Daily Star called them at the time) have delivered on all those promises, and more, though not always as the Great Helmsman imagined.

Mao declared ideological war on American imperialism, capitalism and feudalism. And against their Chinese ``lackeys, running dogs and capitalist roaders.''

Today, after so many Great Leaps Forward, China has taken a half-step back on all three fronts.

The Party has just hosted a sparkling Fortune 500 business conference in Shanghai, to attract more American-led foreign investment. Beijing also is working overtime to cultivate better political ties with the United States, the last imperial power standing.

Casting aside Mao's 1949 doctrine of Marxist world revolution and economic collectivism, Mao's successor Deng Xiaoping warmed in 1978 to capitalist development, and Jiang is trying to accelerate it.

The one English language slogan seen in the parade was: ``Development is the absolute need.''

Meanwhile the ruling Communist party - 60 million strong, or about 1 in every 20 citizens - is trying to rebrand itself as the party of good government, stability and prosperity, in the eyes of people who scorn it as a corrupt feudal elite of self-perpetuating bureaucrats, robber barons and crooks.

``Under the leadership of the Communist party, the hardworking, courageous and talented people of China have worked wonders on this ancient Chinese land to the admiration of the world,'' was how Jiang put it in his big anniversary day speech in Tiananmen Square.

That has resonance with the Chinese, who traditionally look to authority for guidance.

Still, most people recognize that most of the party's members are Communist in name only, and see party membership more as a meal ticket than an ideological vocation.

``People here respect two things: Officals and businessmen,'' one party official told The Star this week. ``I have no head for business, so it's the party, and government, for me.''

But the Chinese people know, as well, that the Communists have ``worked wonders,'' as Jiang boasts. ``Certainly, I give them a passing grade,'' says Peking University professor Wen Hai, a top researcher for the China Centre for Economic Research.

China's economy has exploded to the near $1-trillion point, the world's seventh largest, and personal consumption has jumped 60-fold since 1949. Few other countries can match that achievement.

And China's economy is still growing rapidly.

Still, China remains a developing country with wrenching challenges. Its per capita income at about $600 lags far behind Canada at $16,000, and urban areas are doing far better than rural ones.

As the Communist reformers continue to shut failing, state-owned-industries, adding to the unemployment of more than 200 million people, worker protests that are already breaking out across the country will spread.

That leaves the Communists - who remember the turmoil of the chaotic Hundred Flowers campaign, the catastrophic Great Leaps Forward and the Cultural Revolution - dreading serious political or social upheaval. After suppressing democrats in 1989, the party has appealed by turns to patriotism, nationalism, and traditional Chinese culture to reinforce social cohesion. Most recently, the focus has been on unnamed ``enemies'' who want to tear down the party and destabilize the country.

This Communist reflex to equate political dissent with disloyalty to the nation, and to invent internal enemies, poses the greatest threat to China's rapid progress. It was on frank display this week as the authorities launched a massive crackdown to make sure no one spoiled the party.

Half of Beijing was under martial law. Time Magazine's latest edition, focussing on China and carying critical articles, was banned.

The streets were swept clean of dissidents, vagrants, migrant workers, spitters and prostitutes. The Fortune 500 conference was persuaded to cancel potentially embarrassing seminars on reforming state-owned industries, and the army.

And President Jiang, reformer though he is, donned an austere charcoal Mao jacket in Tiananmen Square, the site of so much suffering and so much hope, to review the troops and loudly proclaim that the Communist party and the army are one.

And people better know it.