Beijing enforces the party line

Along with the ideology campaign is an extraordinary new party-member education program. It involves three-phase, 18-month meetings designed to "maintain the progressiveness of party members," notes Xinhua state-run media, and to improve members' "ruling capability."

The new campaign is designed to create greater faith in the party among ordinary Chinese. It is also an effort to bring results that communist Eastern Europe was unable to achieve as it became freer during the 1980s, informed sources say. The party in China intends for the country to achieve a high-growth economy, but without the dissent and uncontrolled openness found in the Warsaw bloc prior to the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989.

"At the root of this campaign is a phrase, 'Learn the lessons of 1989,' " says a Beijing source. "But they aren't talking about Tiananmen. It is all about the east bloc. What seems clear is that the Hu Jintao government are serious about control. They are all about being the un-Gorbachev."

"For the first time since the Cultural Revolution, and perhaps even further back, all members of the party must participate in these meetings and be involved," says a senior diplomat. "This isn't fly by night, it is serious. The classes aren't optional."

"We know that this campaign is extensive because so many of our government contacts can't meet with us," a Western diplomat adds. "They are at these classes."

The college message boards have been targeted for months. One of the most vibrant message boards, at Beijing University, was shut last September. YiTaHuTu, or ytht.net, tolerated a relatively wide range of dissent and satire. When it was closed summarily on Sept. 13, there were 300,000 members, with 10,000 logged on at any one time.

University message boards in China have become a greatly loved lifestyle for many. The entire university is connected. Students wake up and log on; they come back from class and log on. Some stay on all day. It is said at Tsinghua that "if you are not on the BBS, you are on your way to the BBS."

Yet minister of education Zhou Ji, in public comment this year, criticized the scope and practice of BBS.

"The message boards are too diverse, and students who read them are prone to rumor mongering," said Minister Zhou. "Students don't watch TV or listen to radio but go to BBS and believe what they read. Many students with a right view do not speak on the BBS."

The new message board rules, handed down in late February, appear to employ well-documented tactics practiced in early periods of China's communist rule: Control by dividing, separating, rerouting, exposing.

The new rules, for example, prohibit any but current students from logging on. This wipes out hundreds of thousands of participants, and one of the largest sectors of activity: exchanges with former students or graduates, particularly those living overseas.

The US, for example, has a huge cohort of Chinese students and alumni who log on to the boards. Current students have interactive discussions with those abroad about life and study in America, language examinations, entertainment, and current affairs.

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