Conservatives Challenge China’s Leader : Ex-Peking Mayor Leads Group Forcing Halt to Dissent, Reform

Evidence is mounting that a group of conservative Communist Party, security and military leaders under the leadership of party veteran Peng Zhen has mounted a significant internal challenge to Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.

The conservative forces have pressured or induced the Chinese regime to make an abrupt and dramatic change of direction. From now on, the Communist Party will behave strictly like an orthodox Leninist party. All members will be required to adhere to party doctrine and to follow the orders of the leadership.

Discussion by some reformers and intellectuals about the right to dissent and about the importance of checks and balances on the power of the party has been abandoned. Chinese newspapers that aired new ideas last year are being told to operate once again like conventional propaganda organs.

It appears that the powerful conservative forces are willing for the time being to go along with Deng in his market-oriented economic reform program and open-door policy--so long as Deng reins in those party leaders who want to decentralize the operations of the party and grant more freedom to intellectuals.

Deng remains China’s top leader, but the authority of some of his senior aides who sought political reform is now in doubt. And the official line and policies now being put forth by the party from day to day are largely those of Peng Zhen and the conservatives.

On Tuesday, in a meeting with visiting Japanese politician Noburo Takeshita, Deng blamed intellectuals, rather than students, for the recent series of demonstrations for democracy in China. He promised that the Communist Party will take strong action against those who oppose its policies.

Deng specifically named three men--physicist Fang Lizhi and writers Liu Binyan and Wang Ruowang--as examples of intellectuals who have failed to obey party discipline. On Monday, Fang was fired from his job for encouraging student demonstrators.

The issue in the party infighting has been nothing less than the political future of Chinese communism. In addition, the conservatives have challenged the idea that a single man, Deng, should be considered the supreme authority in China, arguing instead that it is the party that wields power.

Generally, Peng and the conservatives have been willing to permit some economic reforms, so long as they do not undermine the authority of the party. In some ways, their beliefs may not be too far from those of Deng himself, who has never been a strong supporter of political liberalization.

Political Changes Argued

However, some of Deng’s top aides, including the party general secretary, Hu Yaobang, and Politburo member Hu Qili, the man who was being groomed to succeed him, have argued that economic reforms would not work without significant political changes limiting the party’s power.

The challenge to Deng and the reformist leadership has been mounted over the last two months. The recent wave of student demonstrations may have helped bring events to a head, but the intra-party maneuvering predates them and goes back more than half a year.

The spearhead of conservative forces has been Peng, 84, the crusty, stern former mayor of Peking who is the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s Parliament. Under the late Chairman Mao Tse-tung, Peng was once an ally of Deng’s, and was forced from office during the Cultural Revolution and humiliated by youthful Red Guards. He reappeared a decade later, and now is an independent figure with strong ties in the internal security and defense apparatus.

Veiled Attack on Deng

The first sign of the bitter internal feuding came in a speech by Peng in November that amounted to an attack on the Chinese leader.

Deng Xiaoping, in late September, had told Polish leader Wojciech Jaruzelski: “If we make our work a success, we will be able to show the superiority of socialism over capitalism. Otherwise, we will not be qualified to talk about the superiority of socialism, let alone our ideal of reaching the stage of Communist society.”

Peng Zhen, in a Nov. 26 speech to the People’s Congress, delivered a scathing attack on unnamed persons who belittle the ideal of communism or talk about it as something in the distant future. Rather, Peng said, the Communist ideal is “a matter of immediate importance.”

“The Communist ideal was, is and will always be a source of strength and a spiritual pillar for us Communists and the advanced elements,” Peng said.

He also attacked those who advocate Western-style democracy, saying that “democracy in capitalist countries is . . . more and more at the disposal of monopoly capital.”

Criticized Personal Rule

Finally, Peng criticized the idea of “personal rule” in China, arguing that “the most fundamental and most important thing is to rely on the system.” Indirectly, he was attacking the idea that Deng, rather than the party, rules China.

At the time, it seemed that Peng might be only a voice in the wilderness. On several occasions in recent years, other senior party leaders had voiced public disagreement with Deng, without mounting any organized challenge to his leadership.

But soon there began to be hints that Peng Zhen might be playing an increasingly powerful role, and that his disagreements with Deng might represent larger forces.

In mid-December, Deng met with the party’s Military Commission, the group that oversees the People’s Liberation Army. The meeting was attended by all army commanders, and it was the largest session of its kind since 1978.

A brief official account of the meeting, on Dec. 25, said that four leaders had met with the army officers: Deng, party General Secretary Hu, Premier Zhao Ziyang and Peng. In earlier meetings of the Military Commission, Peng had not been given such a prominent role.

Given Prominent Coverage

Since then, Peng has been given increasingly prominent coverage in the official Chinese press. And some of the arguments he used in his November speech are now the daily fodder of China’s official press commentaries.

On Tuesday, the press provided some new clues to the sources of Peng’s power. It gave front-page coverage to an appearance by Peng before the party committee of the People’s Armed Police, one of China’s main security agencies.

Gathered together were ranking Chinese leaders, all of whom have close ties to the security and defense apparatus, such as Vice Premier Qiao Shi, party secretariat member Chen Pixian and Defense Minister Zhang Aiping.

With the security officials standing by, Peng delivered a speech filled with the rhetoric of the party’s conservative line.

“We oppose bourgeois liberalization,” he said. “To oppose bourgeois liberalization (and) to oppose spiritual pollution are one and the same.”

Theme of 1983 Campaign

The reference to “spiritual pollution” was fraught with political significance. In late 1983, conservative leaders used this phrase as a code word for improper Western influence in China and mounted a campaign to keep Chinese culture pure.

That earlier campaign was scuttled within a few months after Hu, the party general secretary, said the concerns being voiced about spiritual pollution represented only “a very few people in theoretical and cultural circles.”

By Tuesday, however, the party general secretary’s name had disappeared from the newspapers. His whereabouts were unknown. And Peng stood ready to lead conservative elements on a new campaign to keep China on the path of Communist orthodoxy.