By Chinese affairs analyst James Miles

Until a few days ago, some observers might have looked back at the past year in China and hailed it as one that had seen the most progress towards safeguarding the political rights of the Chinese people since the Communist takeover nearly five decades ago.

In June, President Jiang Zemin staged a live television debate with President Clinton on human rights issues.

Mary Robinson: Unprecedented visit

The United Nations Human Rights chief Mary Robinson was allowed to pay an unprecedented visit in September.

The following month, China signed the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Meanwhile, dissidents were trying to form the first opposition political party under Communist rule. Remarkably, instead of sending them straight to jail, the police rounded them up and released them again.

Early in the year, the European Union and the United States decided for the first time since the crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 not to support any motion in the UN condemning China's human rights record.

Subsequent developments convinced many Western officials that this "softly softly" approach to human rights issues in China was indeed a productive one.

Keeping control

With the recent jailing of four leading dissidents, however, China has shown that maintaining political control is of far greater importance to it than impressing the West.

Political control will be a key issue for China in 1999.

The year will be dominated politically by two sensitive anniversaries - the 10th anniversary of the crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests and the 50th anniversary of the founding of Communist China.

Anniversaries of historic events have often been volatile occasions in China. Security is always tightened as such dates approach.

But it's likely that the government regards next year's anniversaries as particularly worrisome.

Dangerous dates

One reason that the Tiananmen Square protests flared up with such intensity is that they coincided with the 70th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement, the intellectual revolution that led to the birth of Chinese communism.

The year 1989 was also the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. These anniversaries focussed the attention of many Chinese intellectuals on the ideals of democracy and personal liberty that had inspired these historic upheavals.

The same ideals inspired the leaders of Tiananmen.

The 50th anniversary of the Communist takeover on 1 October next year should in theory be a time of nationwide celebration.

Jiang Zemin: Will nip dissent in the bud

But it will happen at time of soaring unemployment and, very likely, sluggish economic growth. It is bound to lead to much questioning among intellectuals of what communism has achieved in China.