Deng Blames Leadership for Student Unrest

BEIJING —  Senior leader Deng Xiaoping blamed poor party leadership as the root cause for last year’s pro-democracy demonstrations, West German sources said today.

The new Communist Party chief, Jiang Zemin, says he cannot rule out more such demonstrations this year, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The comments came in talks Monday with former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, they said.

The sources said Deng and Jiang took a generally conciliatory stance toward students who took part in the pro-democracy demonstrations, which were crushed by the military in June.

Deng, China’s 85-year-old patriarch, said poor party leadership was the root cause of the popular drive for democratic reform. Then-party chief Zhao Ziyang, Deng’s protege, was purged in June for being sympathetic to the student movement. Since then, many of Zhao’s followers have been jailed or lost their jobs in a sweep against the ideologically suspect.

Schmidt told Deng that China suffered a serious loss of prestige when the military killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, in ending the democracy movement, and that the West had no choice but to downgrade relations with China.

The sources said Jiang told Schmidt the possibility of new demonstrations could not be excluded. He said “hostile forces” are trying to make use of anniversaries of events during the demonstrations last May and June.

Jiang said China has built up its riot police, which is now better-equipped with non-lethal weapons.

Luo Gan, secretary-general of the State Council, also told Schmidt that only police forces, not the military, would be used to put down any future political unrest.