JIANG PLAYS BULLY

By Anthony Spaeth

CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS HAVE become fashionable among China's smart, urban set. Young men and women hold parties, exchange presents and finish up the night at local discos. This Christmas, however, such merrymaking was condemned. The Ministry of Public Security reportedly identified Christmas as a day for potential unrest because the celebrations bring groups of people together. The Workers' Daily, one of China's government-owned newspapers, criticized what it called the "Christmas craze" and gave a stiff warning to youths who "madly go after Western life-styles."

China's leaders, never known for lenience, are suddenly acting tougher than in the recent past, jailing dissidents, executing dozens of criminals and corrupt officials, pressuring foreign journalists. Last month the National People's Congress submitted new laws to make it easier to arrest individuals and impose martial law. There have never been serious impediments to doing either, but for some reason the government has decided to remove even flimsy legal obstacles.

This toughness suggests a resurgence of intense nervousness, especially on the part of President Jiang Zemin, as China's leaders await the death of Deng Xiaoping. The 91-year-old patriarch, reportedly living in a military hospital, is said to have suffered several strokes and can barely speak. Deng has chosen Jiang as the man to follow him, but no one can supplant Deng as "paramount leader" until he dies, and his death will unleash a succession struggle. In the meantime, China is in a nerve-racking state of limbo, facing grave problems, such as rampant official corruption and widely divergent income levels, and fretting over a whole generation that remembers the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. At moments of particular skittishness--perhaps following a new gambit by a Jiang rival, an incident of disorder or Deng's taking a turn for the worse--the state steps up its harsh talk and bullying.

China's leaders are terrified that Deng's ideology of free-market economics and communist governance has lost its legitimacy, and they have nothing plausible to offer as a substitute. "In broad terms, this is a society that has lost its footing,'' says Kenneth Lieberthal, a scholar at the University of Michigan. ''Society is now without a sure sense of what China is all about.'' With no better alternatives, leaders emphasize stability and nationalism. "The government is uncertain," explains Robert Sutter, a China expert at the Congressional Research Service, "and that leads them to reassert control as much as they can."

Although few in number, China's pro-democracy activists invariably bear the brunt of any crackdown. That was shown again last month when Wei Jingsheng, the country's most renowned dissident, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for "engaging in activities to overthrow the government." Wei had already spent 16 years in jail since his first campaign for greater freedoms in 1978, during the last big political transition. His sentencing brought protests from the West, but China ignored them. Two weeks ago, three Tiananmen activists were detained in coastal Zhejiang province for collecting signatures demanding Wei's release. A few weeks earlier, five researchers at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing were fired; one of them, Chen Xiaoya, had published a book on the Tiananmen Square episode, in which the other four were also involved.

Pressure is coming down on the average citizen in various ways. In Beijing the number of policemen on the streets has markedly increased over the past few weeks. The cops, who carry electric prods, are supposed to be combating street crime, which is on the rise. But they have broad authorization to check IDs, question people and commandeer vehicles. Residents are wary of their role, in both the capital and other cities, including Shanghai, where more police have been deployed. An anticorruption drive by Jiang has resulted in a rash of arrests--47,560 in 1995--and each week the official media report the incarceration or execution of several corrupt bureaucrats or businessmen. Jiang has also approved a slew of nationalistic campaigns, including a drive against the recent fad of putting miniature foreign flags on the dashboards of private cars and taxis, a practice now officially banned in Shanghai and Dalian. ''To place a foreign flag in a place where a Chinese national flag should be placed will not only bring damage to the nation's dignity but also hurt the patriotic feelings of the Chinese people,'' the official Press Digest reported last month.

Despite Deng's imprimatur, Jiang's position is weak; by conducting these campaigns and the crackdown on dissidents, Jiang is proving to hard-liners in the Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army that he can control Chinese society. "Hard-liners are on the rise," notes Andrew Nathan, a political scientist at Columbia University. "They have more voice in the regime." Jiang needs their support if he is to succeed Deng, and the hard-liners have thought him too soft in the past.

More and more Jiang is refusing to play nice guy with anyone, either domestically or internationally. In his speeches he talks about the vital need for stability, which in China is a euphemism for rigid political control. Last month his government pushed ahead with its own selection of a new Panchen Lama for Tibet, the second highest religious leader in that oppressed province. Relations with Taiwan froze last summer after Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui visited the U.S.; China responded by conducting provocative military exercises near Taiwan. China last month again threatened to use force should Taiwan opt for independence. Last week Beijing announced the names of the 150 people who will make up the Preparatory Committee, a panel that will shepherd Hong Kong's transition to Chinese rule over the next 18 months. China's list was dominated by businessmen certain to do Beijing's bidding, whereas liberals had hoped a more representative body would be appointed. U.S. officials say all this behavior complicates relations between the U.S. and China, especially since the level of goodwill is already so low.

In a further effort to consolidate his position, Jiang last week took a well-publicized trip to impoverished villages in northwestern China, a region that has not benefited from Deng's economic reforms. He was filmed walking through fields and visiting the elderly in scenes reminiscent of Mao Zedong's propaganda, not Deng's. The message was that Jiang was not a mere successor to Deng but a leader in the mold of Mao, for whom many Chinese, especially those in the countryside, are increasingly nostalgic. Some experts say Jiang's willingness to distance himself from Deng and his policies implies that Deng's health is in rapid decline. If so, the recent agitation in China may be only a prelude to something far more dramatic.

--Reported by Hannah Bloch/ Washington and Mia Turner/Beijing

With reporting by HANNAH BLOCH/ WASHINGTON AND MIA TURNER/BEIJING