THE CHINESE capital was buzzing with rumours last night about the condition of the Communist giant's supreme leader, Deng Xiaoping.
"Jiang Zemin and Li Peng cut short their trips and rushed back to Beijing because Deng Xiaoping's health was deteriorating" an unnamed source told Reuters. "They went to see Deng over the weekend. His health is not looking good."
Mr Deng, whose policies transformed China from an impoverished state to a potential economic superpower, lives in a compound near Beijing's Tiananmen Square. The buildings have been turned into a private medical centre in recent years as he struggled with the debilitating effects of Parkinson's Disease.
Mr Deng has not been seen in public since 1994 and rumours of his poor health surface periodically.
The reports gained enough credence last Friday to send Hong Kong stocks tumbling.
State run Chinese media rarely mentions Mr Deng, partly because of his own desire to play a behind the scenes role, but in January television carried a first ever documentary on his life.
Recent comments from family members indicate that Mr Deng is no longer able to read or to conduct informal debates with party leaders at his residence. This has resulted in the perception, voiced by many diplomats, that China entered the post Deng period some time ago, and that President Jiang, who is also leader of the Chinese Communist party, has secured enough support to retain his position after Mr Deng's death.
If Mr Deng's condition is fatal, the timing is an additional problem for the ruling clique, dealing with the delicate situation of the North Korean defector in the South Korean embassy in Beijing. Mr Hwang Jang yop passed his sixth day - and his 74th birthday - in the South Korean diplomatic mission behind a police cordon in Beijing yesterday.
Outside, North Korean diplomats demanded his return and warned of trouble if he were transferred to the South Korean capital, Seoul.
They accused South Korea of kidnapping Mr Hwang and issued dour warnings of the consequences of any attempt to move him out of Beijing to the South.
"If they make him go to Seoul, I think there will be war," said one official who declined to be identified.
"We want him back," he said, in an echo of earlier threats to use force if Mr Hwang was compelled to go to Seoul.
China finds itself the unwilling third party in the current crisis between North and South Korea and has appealed to both sides to act calmly.
South Korean diplomats in Beijing said they had no plans to brief reporters over the next few days, suggesting they did not expect the diplomatic crisis to end soon.
The United States has urged Pyongyang to avoid all provocative actions and has said it is, closely monitoring developments after an assassination attempt against a former North Korean defector near Seoul on Saturday night.
Analysts say the North has suffered huge loss of face over Mr Hwang's defection.
He was ranked high in the hierarchy of his Stalinist homeland and was the architect of its governing ideology of Juche, or strict self reliance.
The most senior defection from North, Korea comes as the communist hermit nation struggles to cope with an imploding economy and widespread food shortages caused by two years of flood disasters and failed harvests.
. The US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, said yesterday in Paris she had heard reports from Beijing that Mr Deng was in failing health but could not corroborate these.