China keeps close watch on Tiananmen anniversary

BEIJING - Tight security blanketed China's capital on Saturday, the 16th anniversary of the bloody end to the Tiananmen Square democracy movement, with the leadership fearful of any protest that could threaten its grip on power.

Uniformed and plainclothes police fanned out around the square and dissenters were kept under guard in their homes for the date made more sensitive this year by the death of Zhao Ziyang, a top leader who was ousted for sympathising with the student demonstrators.

Hundreds were killed on the night of June 3-4, 1989, when troops and tanks rolled into Beijing and, in the face of opposition from the city's residents, seized control of the square that had been occupied by student demonstrators.

The movement was sparked by the death of purged reformist party chief Hu Yaobang, a worrying memory for the Communist leadership concerned that Zhao's death under house arrest in Beijing could have a similarly galvanising effect.

But prosperity brought by three decades of economic reforms has dimmed discontent, and sporadic protests by rural poor are quickly put down.

Nonetheless, the sensitivity of the date was underscored by remarks made by China's Foreign Ministry spokesman this week that indicated the government would not consider changing its verdict on the wave of activism in the spring of 1989 it has dubbed a counter-revolutionary rebellion.

"China's development in various areas, the advance of reforms, the expansion of the opening up and the strengthening of democracy and rule by law, have all proven the decision made at that time was right," Kong Quan told a news briefing.

In the past year China has also closed journals, stifled academic debate and detained journalists, most recently a Hong Kong-based reporter for Singapore's Straits Times, in signals that President Hu Jintao's government is unlikely to embrace reform.

While China has recovered the international prestige it lost in the violent suppression of the movement, 1989 still hangs over its diplomacy in the European Union's arms embargo.

The EU imposed a ban on arms sales to China following the violence in 1989, and last month urged it to free Tiananmen dissidents and ratify a UN pact on civil and political rights to create a climate that would allow it to lift the embargo.

China rejects any linking of the arms embargo with its human rights record.

- REUTERS