China calls Tiananmen Papers Fakes

B E I J I N G, Jan. 9 -- China branded as fakes today newly publisheddocuments exposing Chinese leaders’ squabbles over the crushing ofthe 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and suggested their release wasaimed at destabilizing the country.

In the first official reaction to their weekend release in theUnited States, China’s Foreign Ministry labeled the documents assimilar to previous efforts abroad to rekindle controversy over thedivisive crackdown in which hundreds were killed.

“Any attempt to play up the matter again and disrupt China bythe despicable means of fabricating materials and distorting factswill be futile,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said in astatement carried by the government’s Xinhua News Agency.

Pressed by foreign reporters at a briefing later today, Zhuleveled more direct accusations.

“I have already indicated here that these are fabricatedmaterials that distort facts,” Zhu said. “How much clearer wouldyou have me be?”

Zhu defended the crackdown as “highly necessary to thestability and development of China.” He added that the rulingCommunist Party’s “correct conclusion” about the 1989 protestswould not change.

Casting Doubt

Supposedly smuggled out of China by a disaffected civil servantand vetted by U.S.-based China scholars, the documents — dubbed the“Tiananmen Papers” — purportedly contain minutes of secrethigh-level meetings, intelligence reports and phone conversationsby party patriarch Deng Xiaoping.

The documents — if authentic — show a leadership in turmoil overthe million-strong democracy protests and their suppression on June4, 1989. Their release threatens to aggravate ever-present strainsamong reformist and conservative factions in the party and reawakendebate over political change.

“The publication of these high-level decisions on the June 4suppression will be positive, not only for a just resolution, butalso for accelerating the advance of China’s democratization,” 111people wounded and relatives of some slain in the crackdown said ina statement from New York-based Human Rights in China.