By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 24, 1998; Page A01

BEIJING, Dec. 23—China appeared to move another step closer to a full-scale political crackdown today when its state-run press published tough new rules threatening film directors, singers and computer software developers with life in prison if they attempt to "overthrow state power" or "endanger national security."

Meanwhile, President Jiang Zemin, in his second hard-line speech in six days, told a gathering of security officials that their task next year is to ensure China's stability. Jiang's speech, which dominated the national news tonight, was a clear signal that China's recent move to sentence three dissidents to long prison terms was part of a broader pattern to suppress organized dissent and bolster the Communist Party's rule.

In less than a week, starting with the trials of two dissidents last Thursday, the tenor of the state-run press and the words employed by China's leaders have taken on one of the harshest tones in years, according to Chinese observers. Communist Party officials said that throughout Beijing today, party members were called to meetings to listen to criticism of the jailed dissidents: Xu Wenli, Wang Youcai and Qin Yongmin.

The three men, all veterans of past democratic movements in China, were jailed for attempting to establish the country's first opposition party, the China Democracy Party. Xu was sentenced to 13 years, Qin to 12 and Wang to 11. They were part of a group of several hundred activists who tried to register the party in 14 provinces and cities since last June in an unprecedented, albeit ill-timed and ill-fated, effort.

Some Chinese in the capital have questioned whether the Communist Party has the political capital to shove the country onto a more conservative path. While this week's sentencing of Xu, Wang and Qin illustrates that the party can crush organized opposition, it is unclear if it can stop a general trend toward the development of a more liberal society. If censorship of state-produced films, TV shows, music and plays increases, Chinese still have a huge market of underground music, semi-legal CD-ROMs and secretly published books.

One Chinese activist pointed out that the party risks triggering a backlash if it presses people too hard.

"There needs to be a way for steam to get out of the pressure cooker," said Peng Ming, the Beijing-based founder of an independent political and economic research institute that was recently evicted from its offices north of the city for flouting government restrictions on freedom of assembly. "Too much pressure will further alienate people from the party. That will intensify society's contradictions. Some people could embrace violence, which would be a tragedy for all."

The Communist Party has handled the recent political cases in a fundamentally different manner than previous crackdowns. For one, it has publicized details, informing its citizenry that Xu and the others tried to form an opposition party and received funds from an unidentified foreign organization. That has raised the eyebrows of some Chinese readers. "They have never acknowledged that before," one Beijing activist said.

Second, the party-run press has issued editorials and articles that attempted to justify the crackdown.

One reason for the new attitude is that information flows more freely into China than ever before. So perhaps the Communist Party feels compelled to state its case. However, many Chinese in Beijing seem to have no knowledge of the arrests and the verdicts. "Who?" said Zhu Feifei, 28, a government worker at a Beijing bar tonight. "These dissidents don't have anything to do with me. I wish them luck, but it's not going to change my life."

The Communist Party appears worried that next year will be a difficult one for China and for the party's domination of this fast-changing country. In the cities, unemployment is high. In the countryside, where about 75 percent of the population lives, incomes are flat. Strikes and rural protests are commonplace.

Chinese often use anniversaries as an opportunity to press for social change, and next year anniversaries abound. China will celebrate its 50th anniversary as a Communist state; 1999 also will mark the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown and the return to Chinese rule of Macao, a Portuguese-administered territory.

The rules issued today by the Supreme People's Court also underscore a fear of some Chinese that the crackdown against dissidents is part of a broader cultural tightening. During the recent crackdown, the Communist Party has drawn a distinction between organized dissent, which it has crushed, and the increasing openness of its films, books, plays and TV shows.

Under the new guidelines, artists, film directors, singers, producers and computer software programmers could face stiff prison sentences if they "endanger social order" -- in other words, do anything to challenge the Communist Party's rule. They also could be jailed if they encourage independence movements in Tibet, the northwestern province of Xinjiang or on Taiwan.

Some Chinese and Western observers say they have sensed a tightening already -- although others debate this view.

Reporters at the crusading newspaper Southern Weekend said they have been told to tone down their muckraking. But the paper is still publishing interesting reports.

And, when a senior Chinese academic retired this fall from his post as vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, some observers took it to mean that the party's liberal wing had suffered a defeat. Liu Ji was said to have been a close adviser to Jiang and an advocate of political reform.