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Despite all the lurid stories, China's crime rate is probably lower than that in most Western nations. Some observers suspect that the new campaign against crime is part of a broader movement to restore law-and-order that also includes the recent crackdown on China's tiny dissident movement. Last week Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping, talking to a delegation from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, defended the stiff 15-year sentence meted out six weeks ago to Human Rights Activist Wei Jingsheng on the ground that "we needed to make an example of him." At the same time, the centerpiece of the human rights movement, Peking's famed "democracy wall," came under official attack. Meeting in Peking, members of China's National People's Congress demanded that "resolute measures" be taken to curb activity at the wall, which, they charge, is being exploited "as a platform for a tiny number of people to foment disturbances" and to "plunge the nation into chaos." Some observers fear that that charge could signal a campaign to put new restrictions on democracy wall, the only place in China where free expression is genuinely tolerated.