By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, January 21, 1999; Page A19

BEIJING—As economic conditions begin to worsen, China's Communist leadership faces a growing problem of internal security, manifested in a soaring crime rate and signals of a broader restiveness around the country.

Over the past two weeks, state-run media have reported three bombings that killed more than 21 people. A gang of masked thieves suspected of robbing jewelry stores throughout central China engaged in a dramatic shootout with police in the middle of Wuhan, a city of 7 million people. And a human rights organization said a tax protest by thousands of farmers in Hunan province on Jan. 8 left one protester dead and scores injured when police suppressed it.

Communist Party sources said that last year more than 5,000 protests -- in cities and the countryside -- severely taxed China's massive security services. Meanwhile, Chinese experts have been quoted in the state-run press as saying China is facing its most serious crime wave since the Communist revolution in 1949. Narcotics seizures are the highest ever. So are slayings of police officers.

The reports, collected over several weeks, seem to underscore the fears of senior Communist Party officials that 1999 will be a difficult year for China. The Asian financial crisis has begun to bite here, slowing the country's growth rate and increasing unemployment in major cities. Discontent with corruption within the Communist Party also is growing, triggering unrest.

Few, if any, analysts believe that China is tottering on the brink of a political breakdown. But the events of the past two weeks, coupled with a smattering of statistics released recently by the official media, paint a picture of a country with serious crime problems, a disgruntled population and no readily available means to improve the situation.

The reports follow one of the Communist Party's toughest crackdowns on dissent in years. Four dissidents were sentenced last month to 10 years or more in jail for attempting to establish an opposition political party, the China Democracy Party. That party formed preparatory committees in 23 provinces and was trying to register in 14 provinces and cities when China's security apparatus smashed it and arrested its organizers, who are veteran dissidents. The ability of the China Democracy Party to organize so quickly surprised the Communist Party and Western diplomats and was an indication of the depth of disquiet felt by many Chinese.

The main ingredients in the current strife appear to be the economic slowdown coupled with growing opposition to corruption within the Communist Party.

Opposition to corruption and to heavy-handed tactics is what prompted 3,000 farmers to protest on Jan. 8 in the village of Daolin, outside of Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. The farmers marched on government offices after police arrested the organizers of an unofficial group called the Lower Taxes and Save the Country Society, according to the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China, a Hong Kong-based human rights organization.

More than 1,000 security personnel broke up the protest, using clubs and tear gas, the center said. One man bled to death after he was hit by a canister. Authorities gave his family $7,000 in reparations. The protests continued the next day, and the People's Armed Police were called in to quell the disturbance; more than 110 people were detained. Residents in Daolin corroborated the Hong Kong report, but added that many of those detained have been released.

Hunan is not just a hotbed of rural dissent. It also has been battered by high urban unemployment. On Jan. 1, the Changsha city government issued an order "prohibiting attacks on state organs and blockages of traffic," according to a recent edition of the Hunan Economic Times, a state-run paper. It said that during the first 10 months of 1998, unemployed workers, angry at not being paid unemployment benefits, blocked traffic on the main boulevards of the provincial capital more than 60 times -- a rare acknowledgment of the extent of urban unrest.

Throughout the country, labor unrest is expected to increase with the economic decline. The official China Daily reported last week that 16 million city dwellers will not be able to find work this year -- 11 percent of the urban work force, and one of the highest percentages of unemployed since 1949. Another 120 million people in the countryside are out of work, and many of them have traveled in search of jobs, leading to social problems and crime waves.

Crime, after corruption, is fast becoming one of the main worries of city dwellers. Over the past two weeks, Chinese have been treated to a number of shocking reports.

Shortly after sundown on Jan. 4, a gang burst into a jewelry store in the Wuhan Square Shopping Center, stole about $500,000 worth of jewels and then fired a fusillade at police during their escape. Two police officers, one soldier and three passersby were wounded. Last year, 442 Chinese police officers were killed and 7,735 injured while on duty, the Public Security Ministry reported earlier this month.

On Jan. 6, in northeastern Liaoning province, a prospective thief blew up a bus, killing 19 people in a botched robbery attempt. The suspect had hoped to rob passengers after knocking them out with a controlled explosion. He was arrested and has confessed, official press reports said.

On Sunday, again in Hunan's Changsha, a man believed to be a rural migrant ignited a bomb on a bus injuring 37 passengers, including three who lost their legs, the New China News Agency reported. Last Wednesday, four people were injured in a blast in the southern city of Zhuhai. Official press reports said an "unidentified object" exploded near a downtown bus stop.

The bombs and Wuhan robbery are dramatic indications of the crime wave sweeping China.

In an interview with the state-run press last week, Cao Feng, an expert on crime statistics at the Chinese People's University of Public Security, said China was experiencing its "fifth peak of criminal activity" since the Communist revolution.

Cao said the incidence of crimes is running about eight times what it was a decade ago and illegal drugs are a particularly troubling problem because China had all but wiped out drug use following the revolution.

Narcotics seizures in 1998 were the highest in the history of Communist China.

Police seized more than seven tons of drugs, including 2.5 tons of heroin last year, the state-run press said last week. In all, narcotics seizures were up 19-fold over 1997, it said.