BEIJING — A ragged vagabond scooped water from the gutter on the Avenue of Eternal Peace and took a drink. A group of cyclists accelerated to pass Tiananmen Square, where troops with fixed bayonets guarded Communist China`s 40th birthday party Sunday.
Water trucks hosed down deserted streets in a silent city under martial law, where the spirit of celebration has been dampened by the presence of an estimated 100,000 troops and the stern warning that any protest will be considered a crime against the nation.
Beijing may be garlanded with a million light bulbs and adorned with elaborate floral displays, but the weeklong party that was to salute four decades of Communist achievements Sunday has already died amid public apathy.
In the crisp autumn air, only the privileged and the loyal, carefully vetted and shielded from acts of dissent, participated in an anniversary program held under the heavy cloud of the massacres of June 4, when troops crushed a popular pro-democracy movement with bullets and tanks.
In a desperate attempt to procure a festive mood, the authorities bathed the capital with light. Light bulbs strung like streamers outlined the contours of buildings, flooded Tiananmen Square and the Great Hall of the People and illuminated Mao Tse-tung`s stern portrait over the Gate of Heavenly Peace where on Oct. 1, 1949, he proclaimed his new China.
Neon-lit banners hailed the glory of socialism and the achievements of the great masses. But the great masses stayed home.
At a banquet Saturday in the Great Hall of the People, foreign ambassadors sat in stoic silence as Premier Li Peng, who declared martial law May 20, told a subdued audience that after 40 years, class struggle was not over and may sometimes become ``even very fierce.``
Most Western ambassadors boycotted a cultural evening in the auditorium, annoyed by the presence of a military dance ensemble goose-stepping across the stage at a time when the scars of the bloody June crackdown, during which an estimated 300 to 2,000 people were killed, have not yet healed.
Until a few months ago it is likely that eulogies and praise would have inundated China`s leaders on Oct. 1 for the amazing achievements of a nation that has managed to feed and clothe 1.2 billion people, a quarter of the world`s population, on 7 percent of the world`s cultivated land.
China attained a new image over the past decade after it turned from xenophobic isolation into an open society eager to trade and exchange knowledge with the rest of the world.
In fact, without the bloodshed around Tiananmen, the world might have ignored the periodic convulsions and disasters of Mao`s haphazard policies that Li mentioned briefly in his banquet speech as ``mistakes and slips.``
Some of these ``mistakes`` were costly. The Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s forced people to throw anything made of metal, including ancient statues and vases, into backyard steel furnaces. The disastrous Cultural Revolution a decade later sent millions of fanatical Red Guards across the nation to smash, burn and destroy China`s ancient monuments and to beat, torture and kill those considered traitors to Mao`s credo.
Even Beijing, once considered a magic city with 8,000 magnificient temples, quaint harmonious courtyard houses, ancient walls and monuments, was brutally destroyed by the communist frenzy to build a new society with a new urban face: concrete blocks, broad boulevards and neoclassic edifices. Only the Forbidden City, a few city gates and eight temples, survived the zealots. In a small hutang (alley) off the Eternal Avenue of Peace, Chou, an elderly accountant, sat morosely behind a row of beer bottles this weekend in one of those private bars that have mushroomed since the authorities tapped the ancient entrpreneurial energy of their compatriots.
``What is there to celebrate?`` he asked. ``Each time we see the light at the end of the tunnel, they crack the whip. Today we`re not even allowed to go to Tiananmen Square. Anyway, who wants to let off firecrackers among those nervous soldiers.``
Just a mile away at the Great Hall, Li reiterated China`s commitment to import science, technology and expertise from abroad but not foreign ideas. He hailed four decades of Maoism as a triumph over ``imperialist aggression, sabotage and armed provocation.``
Addressing the party hierarchy and foreign ambassadors, including U.S. Ambassador James Lilley, the premier said economic sanctions imposed by some Western countries after the June crackdown would bring ``temporary
difficulties`` for China, but also would make the Chinese more determined to become self-reliant.
It was a short perfunctionary speech delivered to a polite audience at a banquet that lasted less than an hour. Only the party members near the podium laid down their chopsticks and dutifully applauded when Li, voice raised, called the crushing of the spring rebellion ``a great victory for four decades of socialism.``