
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 8, 1990                   TAG: 9004060701
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: F-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TIANANMEN SQUARE CAN'T BE FORGOTTEN

THE OLD MEN who run China are nervous. As the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations approached, they posted police around the site to prevent a proposed "silent march" in memory of last year's pro-democracy movement. A metal fence surrounds the 100-acre square, and sentries stood only 30 or 40 feet apart. Three fire trucks waited nearby, large water cannons at the ready.

Thousands of troops and police were added to the normal contingents in Beijing. There were reinforcements in surrounding neighborhoods. Undercover police, posted on rooftops and behind high windows, watched through binoculars and aimed long-range cameras at suspected dissidents.

To counter any revisionist thinking, the government organized festivities within the square. Throughout this past Sunday, streams of Young Pioneers, the Chinese version of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, paraded around the Monument to the People's Heroes. The events welcomed the upcoming Asian Games and memorialized a model soldier named Lei Feng. This was the pretext for sealing off the square for the day; it was reopened later, but few people entered. The area was closed again this past Thursday, and one report said that the authorities had machine guns nearby.

The purpose is to show a government in firm control. The impression from all this contrived celebration and exaggerated show of force is quite different. The regime is scared of its people - at least, of those who took part in or supported the spring 1989 demonstrations, and those who lost relatives and friends in the army's slaughter of defenseless citizens last June 4. By illegal posters and word of mouth, dissidents had urged fellow citizens to "take walks" quietly to the square to express their support for democracy.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, another critical date approaches. China's most-favored-nation tariff status in the United States expires this spring. President Bush, who believes that carrots are better than sticks to sway the Chinese leadership, must recommend to Congress whether to extend MFN. Lifting it, China's Foreign Minister Qian Qichen has warned, would hinder trade and lead to a "major retrogression" in Sino-American relations.

Major retrogression has already taken place, even if the White House cannot bring itself to acknowledge that. It was caused by last spring's murders in Tiananmen Square and the repression that followed. MFN is a minor matter by comparison, and the dissidents still in and around the capital will not let the slaughter's anniversary go unmarked. Another bunch of carrots will not likely stay Beijing's iron fist. What then from President Bush?

by CNB