In the run-up to tomorrow's 10th anniversary of the crushing of Beijing's student-led democracy movement, Chinese authorities have pulled the plug on the US satellite news channel, Cable News Network, in the Chinese capital, and warned citizens not to discuss the bloody events of June 4th, 1989, with foreigners.
The official media appealed to people yesterday to maintain stability and to "resolutely trust the leadership of the party's Central Committee". Actions that sabotaged stability and political unity should be "nipped in the bud", said the People's Daily. "Stability prevails over everything."
While no mass protests are expected, reports circulated in Beijing yesterday that critics of the army crackdown which resulted in hundreds of deaths will defy a ban on demonstrations tomorrow by wearing white - the Chinese colour for mourning.
The few people in the streets and parks willing to talk to foreigners this week - out of sight of police and without giving their names - indicated that a residue of anger against the Communist party leadership still simmers beneath an orderly surface.
"My boyfriend was killed, shot here while just watching from a bicycle park," said a teacher, furiously pointing to her chest.
Foreign correspondents have meantime been stopped from going to the campus of major universities which were the scenes of student ferment in 1989. A former student activist said that he had been warned in a lengthy interview with security bureau officials not to talk to the foreign media.
Students have until recently been focused on anti-NATO activities, encouraged by a strident official media which, since the NATO bombing which killed three Chinese journalists in Belgrade, have accused Washington of having a hand in the 1989 disturbances. This week the monument to the journalists at Beijing university was taken down and the police presence on the campus stepped up.
Many Beijing citizens who normally have access to CNN in apartment blocks and hotels found notices this week saying the channel had been shut down between June 1st and June 8th "for maintenance". CNN is broadcasting a one-hour special today on the June 4th killings, most of which occurred when troops approached the student-occupied square from the west and north.
The provision of a number of other foreign cable news services in some city hotels was also stopped late on Tuesday, with the exception of diplomatic compounds, which are closed to unauthorised Chinese visitors and not subject to government restrict ions.
CNN yesterday carried an interview with Mr Bao Tong, former secretary to Mr Zhao Ziyang, who was toppled as Communist Party secretary for sympathising with student demonstrators. Mr Bao, the most senior Chinese official to be jailed for sympathising with the 1989 pro-democracy protesters, also addressed the Chinese leadership in a taped interview smuggled out to Hong Kong and issued yesterday by a human rights group.
He said Chinese leaders should reverse the verdict on 1989 of counter-revolutionary turmoil, which they claim was put down by "timely and appropriate measures" to prevent chaos.
Mr Bao, who has been under close police surveillance since his release in 1996 after serving seven years in prison, said: "As long as authoritarianism and corruption prevail, the Tiananmen movement will continue. This cannot be avoided. The Tiananmen movement cannot be fully destroyed." He added: "Is there any way that the Tiananmen movement will end? There is one way. Democracy."