Unchecked Liberal Ideas Blamed for China Protests

PEKING — The official Communist Party newspaper today blamed “the unchecked spread of bourgeois liberal ideas” for pro-democracy demonstrations and accused some party members of ignoring the anti-socialist trend.

A Western diplomat said the tough editorial in the People’s Daily appeared to reflect the position of China’s central leadership and could herald a campaign to step up ideological education of students.

The rare, front-page editorial called the month-old wave of student pro-democracy demonstrations in at least a dozen cities “a very serious affair, albeit nothing terrifying.”

“It is the result of the unchecked spread of bourgeois liberal ideas in recent years,” said the People’s Daily, the official organ of the Chinese Communist Party.

It defined bourgeois liberalism as “advocating capitalism and negating socialism.”

The editorial said the unrest has taught “a serious lesson” on the need to stress Communist values.

“Some comrades have turned a blind eye to the trend of bourgeois liberalism,” the paper said. “Now is the time to wake up.

“Bourgeois liberalism is certainly a trend that is poisoning our youth, endangering the stability and unity of our society, disrupting our reforms and open-door policy and impeding modernization.”

A Western diplomat said the editorial indicates the party will strengthen ideological training among students, many of whom already balk at mandatory political education classes on Marxism.

The diplomat noted that People’s Daily stressed that the “Communist Party center is unified,” an apparent effort to dismiss speculation of a split between reformers and conservatives on how to handle the student unrest.