A leading state-run Chinese newspaper said in a staff editorial this week that the wave of popular protests against Japan were part of an "evil plot" with "ulterior motives," suggesting that at least some in the Chinese leadership now wish to portray the demonstrations as a conspiracy to undermine the Communist Party.
The editorial, published in The Liberation Daily of Shanghai on Monday, used the most strident language to date in an escalating campaign against the anti-Japan protests, which officials had previously done relatively little to stop -- and some say had even encouraged -- for three weeks until the present.
"The preponderance of facts prove that the recent illegal marches were not a patriotic movement, but rather amounted to illegal behavior," the editorial said. "They were not a spontaneous movement of the masses, but rather had a backstage plot."
The wording in the editorial was striking because it departed markedly from earlier official descriptions of the protests as spontaneous expressions of popular outrage against Japan.
A senior editor at a party-run newspaper in Beijing said the Shanghai editorial had been intended to frighten people away from taking part in future anti-Japan demonstrations.
But a political analyst in Beijing offered a different explanation: that the government had been sending conflicting signals about the protests because Japan policy has become a source of internal contention.
"I think you cannot rule out the possibility that the tension is not between the authorities and the people, but between some rival elements inside the party," the analyst said.
He said there were similarities between the Monday editorial and one that appeared in People's Daily in late April 1989, which condemned student-led pro-democracy protests as "counter-revolutionary" and provided early evidence of a power struggle that paralyzed the government for weeks before the military crushed the protests.
Shanghai police have issued a public notice warning people not to attend protests or use the Internet or cell phones to organize unlawful gatherings -- underscoring moves to prevent further anti-Japanese demonstrations in China.
Newspapers yesterday also reported the arrest of Tang Ye, a company employee accused of disturbing social order by distributing protest plans via the Internet.
The arrest, along with more than a dozen others in recent days, appeared to reinforced the message that anti-Japanese demonstrations such as those held in several Chinese cities in recent weeks would no longer be tolerated.
The Liberation Daily said yesterday: "The public and students must obey the law, not spread rumors or gossip and not participate in any unlawful activities or protests."
The police notice said authorities were pursuing lawbreakers who damaged public and private property and disturbed social order. It repeated a call for offenders to surrender and for others to inform on them. Patriots should concentrate on work and studies, it said.
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