WHISTLES on trains, ships and warships and factory horns will be blown for three minutes at 10 a.m. on Tuesday as more than 10,000 people assemble in Beijing's Great Hall of the People for a memorial ceremony for China's paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, who died on Wednesday evening.
The mourning will not include a lying-in-state of Deng's body with mourners filing past, the State Funeral Committee said yesterday.
In a display of business as usual, the United States, Portugal and Israel were not told to postpone plans for high-level official visits to Beijing, which will begin before a six-day mourning period ends next Tuesday. There will be no red-carpet welcoming ceremony for the visitors.
Deng's family requested that the body be cremated and the casket covered by a flag of the Communist Party of China. "No ashes should be preserved," his relatives said in a letter to President Jiang Zemin.
"It is the wish of Comrade Xiaoping himself that his ashes be cast into the sea. Comrade Xiaoping has devoted his entire life to the motherland and the people without any reservation.
"We hope that the last thing we do for him will reflect the essence of his mental outlook, and express our grief in an utterly plain and solemn way."
No foreign dignitaries will be invited to the service in which pomp will be reduced to a minimum. Until it is over the Chinese red flag will be flown at half-mast at all party, government and military offices, at air and sea ports, at enterprises, institutions and schools, and at China's embassies.
. The US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, will shorten her planned two-day trip to Beijing by one day because of the death of Deng
Xiaoping, her spokesman said. He said Ms Albright's meetings will take place on Monday only.