President Jiang Zemin of China, by suggesting "mistakes" were made in China's handling of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, made a startling departure from a hardline script which had deeply offended his US hosts, diplomats said yesterday.
However, they said Mr Jiang's comments at Harvard University fell far short of an apology for the crackdown by the People's Liberation Army in which hundreds, if not thousands, died.
Still less was it a signal that China was ready to reverse its official verdict on the protests as a "counter-revolutionary rebellion", a move that could have farreaching consequences for China's domestic politics.
"I think the main danger is to say that Jiang has apologised. He hasn't," said one Western diplomat in Beijing.
Mr Jiang did not specifically mention Tiananmen Square in answering a question after a speech at Harvard University on Saturday about Beijing's use of tanks to confront demonstrators.
"It goes without saying that, naturally, we may have shortcomings and even make some mistakes in our work. However, we've been working on a constant basis to improve our work," said Mr Jiang.
The vague language left open the possibility that Mr Jiang had uttered the first public words of contrition by a Chinese leader about Beijing's fateful decision to send in tanks.
"It's an oblique comment that implies that things weren't done as they wanted it," said the diplomat. "But the official verdict still stands."
Mr Jiang's comments, nevertheless, were in stark contrast to his robust defence of the crackdown that sparked a verbal clash over human rights at a joint news conference with President Clinton on Wednesday. At the time, Mr Jiang had said China had taken "necessary measures" to maintain social stability.
His comments on Wednesday were perceived by many in Washington as offensive and damaging, making it much harder for Mr Clinton to sell his policy of engagement with Beijing to critics. "He may have got advice from his spin-doctors," another diplomat said, referring to Mr Jiang's apparent change of tone in his comments at Harvard. But he cautioned about reading too much into Mr Jiang's unscripted remarks. "He would not have been startled into saying something completely new."
The Chinese Communist Party does not still claim to be infallible and has in the past admitted mistakes of gigantic proportions, such as the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution which killed millions of people. But, while acknowledging its errors, the party has never loosened its grip on power.
Nor have its admissions of failure led to automatic disgrace and punishment for those responsible. Mao Zedong, who started the ultra-leftist Cultural Revolution, is still revered.
Diplomats said any reassessment of the Tiananmen Square tragedy would be similarly complex, dragging in the main actors from that period as part of an intricate power play.
It would not necessarily lead to a mass release of pro-democracy activists jailed after the Tianan men killings. "You're certainly not going to see a ticker-tape parade for Wu'er Kaixi," said one diplomat, referring to one of the student leaders from Tiananmen now in exile in the US.