AS BEIJING welcomed in the New Year with a light fall of snow, the immediate concerns of the Communist Party leadership focused on an icy laneway in the heart of the city. There, in a closely guarded courtyard residence, the ailing Chinese patriarch, Deng Xiaoping, is rumoured to have taken a turn for the worse in his long fight against Parkinson's disease.
Reports of the imminent demise of the 92 year old Deng, which could precipitate a major realignment in the Communist Party leadership, have proved greatly exaggerated in the past, but the current accounts have been backed by the publication of unusually intimate details of his deteriorating condition.
Quoting sources close to the family, the South China Morning Post said Deng lapsed into unconsciousness for a period early this week during which his nurses could not wake him, and that the incident on Monday was serious enough for the medical team at his home near Tiananmen Square to alert President Jiang Zemin.
Deng has said he hopes to live long enough to see Hong Kong returned to China this year, but is now said to be incapable of abstract thinking and taking mainly liquid nourishment.
A source close to the family told the Hong Kong newspaper that Deng fell into unconsciousness about, once a week as his health deteriorated in a manner typical of sufferers from Parkinson's disease. His remarks were limited to a few words, the source said. If his handlers say it is time to eat supper, he would mutter `eat supper'."
Coincidentally, a 12 part documentary on the life of Deng Xiaoping began last night on Chinese television, covering his rise to prominence in the Long March and his contribution to the open door policy which revolutionised the Chinese economy.
The series has considerable political significance for President Jiang, who has been involved in its preparation for a year. The Chinese leader has personally encouraged scholars, film makers and authors to produce works which would honour Deng's achievements.
Analysts believe that Mr Jiang is keen to protect himself against criticism that his stress on, spiritual civilisation" - the imposition of strict party orthodoxy on the political and cultural life of the nation - means he has deviated from Deng's line.
Such a perception could damage his survival as China's paramount leader if pro Deng reformers dominate the 15th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, due to be held in the autumn.
Under Mr Jiang, the Chinese government has shifted away from the free wheeling "get rich" attitudes encouraged by Deng in the early 1990s and concentrated on ensuring social stability. Symptomatic of this, new conservatism has been an increasingly tough line with dissidents.
The latest dissident to be imprisoned is a former Student leader, Li Hai, who was sentenced to nine years in prison by a judge at Beijing's Chaoyang District Court for prying into state secrets, family members told Reuters news agency on Tuesday.
Li, who has been held incommunicado since May 1995, was first arrested in 1990 for his role in the 1989 student demonstrations for democracy in Tiananmen Square and released six months later. He was one of 56 signatories of a pro democracy petition in May 1995 to coincide with the sixth anniversary of the military suppression of the student demonstrations.
Twelve prominent dissidents were sent to labour camps in 1996 in what western diplomats believe is a continuing drive to maintain social order. The longest sentence, 11 years, was imposed on a former student, Wang Dan, who was charged with conspiring to subvert the government.
During a New Year television address just after midnight yesterday, President Jiang gave no hint of concern about the health of Deng Xiaoping, whose pro reform pronouncements are still the fundamental guiding compass of communist party thought. He called for the reunification of Taiwan with China and expressed confidence about the future of Hong Kong, which China recovers from Britain at midnight on June 30th.
"The return of Hong Kong to the motherland will wash away a century old national disgrace and signal a significant victory in the Chinese people's struggle towards national reunification," Mr Jiang said.
Hong Kong residents saw in the New Year with the British colony's biggest ever fireworks display. Over 200,000 revellers crowded on to beaches to watch a spectacular show of 22,000 fireworks rounds which ushered in a tumultuous political year for the territory.
With just six months left before the handover, relations between Britain and China remain bitter. The senior Beijing official dealing with Hong Kong made the extraordinary claim on New Year's Eve that Britain had refused him permission to visit the city since his visa expired on December 15th.
Mr Lu Ping, head of Beijing's. Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, said in a television interview in Beijing that this was one of the reasons a meeting of the 400 member Beijing approved committee which elected Hong Kong's post colonial legislature was held in China on December 21st instead of in Hong Kong.
"You go to Hong Kong to hold an election, but the British don't agree ... and refuse to co operate," Mr Lu said. "Why did they give this visa only until December 15th? It's because the selection was held on December 21st. So they would not allow me to go Hong Kong, would they?"
The British government is not known to have refused visas to Chinese government officials before. A spokesman for the Governor, Mr Chris Patten, said that if Mr Lu "had felt strongly enough about wanting to come to Hong Kong again to hold the selection committee meeting for the provisional legislature in the territory then I'm sure the arrangement could have been made for him".
Mr Patten has refused to co operate with the provisional legislature, which will be installed when the British leave, and he has not been on speaking terms with Mr Lu since the Chinese government rejected the Hong Kong governor's democratisation of the legislature in 1995. Asked if he would meet Mr Patten, the Beijing official replied: "They won't even give me a visa, how can I meet him?".
The first chief executive of post British Hong Kong, Mr TungChee hwa, said on Monday the provisional legislature would soon hold its first meeting, probably in Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong.