Any attempt to disrupt China by the despicable means of fabricating materials and distorting facts will be futile

Zhu Bangzao

Spokesman Zhu Bangzao hinted that the papers were fake.

In a statement, he said any attempt to discredit China by fabricating material and distorting facts was futile.

The papers reveal that the leadership feared the government could be overthrown if it did not call in the army to crush the massive pro-democracy protests.

Correspondents say the emergence of the papers in the United States suggests a power struggle in the communist party ahead of next year's leadership reshuffle.

Hidden agenda

In an open letter, relatives of those killed in the crackdown welcomed the leaked documents, and made a fresh call for an inquiry into the massacre.

The 111 relatives and injured victims, led by former university professor Ding Zilin who lost his son, said the papers revealed top leaders "trampled on the constitution and laws."

The papers, published in a book called Tiananmen Papers on Monday, are said to have been smuggled out of China by a senior official hoping to promote political reform.

We can't just allow people to demonstrate whenever they want to

Deng Xiaoping

Some analysts believe the material was leaked by reformers in an attempt to weaken the position of hardliners in the government.

On Monday, a prominent former Chinese official said he believed the secret documents were genuine.

Bao Tong, then secretary to Communist Party chief, said the paranoid statements attributed to paramount leader Deng Xiaoping were plausible.

Transcripts

The book contains transcripts of high-level meetings between April and June 1989, when China's leadership eventually sent tanks into Tiananmen Square to crush the six-week-old student protests.

Deng feared house arrest

In one meeting Mr Deng is quoted saying: "Anarchy gets worse every day. If this continues, we could even end up under house arrest."

The transcripts show Mr Deng insisted there must be no killing.

But one of the eight elders in the leadership, Wang Zhen, says: "Those goddam bastards; we should send the troops right now to grab those counter-revolutionaries!"

High level leak

After the troops were sent in, the papers quote former premier Li Peng - now number two in the Communist Party - as saying 200 civilians had been killed in the surrounding area.

The demonstrations were the most serious challenge to Communist rule

Those figures are line with the official account of casualties but human rights organisations say several hundred people died in the square itself - the official line from China has always been that nobody was killed there.

Mr Bao, the most senior official to be jailed in the aftermath of Tiananmen, said the documents must have come from a very highly-placed official in the government.

Mr Bao has lived under tight surveillance since his release in 1997.