They said the closing of the Freezing Point section of the China Youth Daily is a "historic incident" in a struggle between Communist Party controls and calls for media freedom.

"History demonstrates that only a totalitarian system needs news censorship, out of the delusion that it can keep the public locked in ignorance," they said in a public letter signed on February 2 but issued Tuesday.

Many of the signatories were officials under Zhao Ziyang and Hu Yaobang, the relatively liberal party chiefs ousted in the 1980s, and they reflect growing discontent about censorship even among party veterans, Li Datong, the editor of Freezing Point, said.

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The signatories include Mao's secretary and biographer Li Rui; a former editor-in-chief of the party's own mouthpiece, The People's Daily, Hu Jiwei; and a former propaganda boss, Zhu Houze.

They said China's elaborate restrictions on information could have dire consequences for the country's political evolution.

"Depriving the public of freedom of expression so nobody dares speak out will sow the seeds of disaster ..."

The party's propaganda department ordered the indefinite suspension of Freezing Point on January 24, after it published an essay by a historian, Yuan Weishi, criticizing what he said were long-standing nationalist distortions in Chinese history textbooks.

The weekly section of the China Youth Daily sometimes published investigative reports on corruption and abuses of official power, and articles critical of official thinking.

Since late last year, censors have dismissed editors of three sometimes adventurous newspapers, the Beijing News, Southern Metropolitan Daily and the Public Welfare Times.

They have also increased surveillance and control of the Internet.

But Li Datong said the crackdown on the China Youth Daily - the flagship newspaper of the party's youth wing - hit a raw nerve even among people inured to censorship.

Propaganda officials were unprepared for the subsequent outcry and last week they ordered officials in charge of the paper to draft a proposal to revive Freezing Point, Li said, adding that China's struggle over media freedom and controls is like a guerrilla war.

"China is a contradiction. The level of censorship is increasingly harsh and detailed, but our methods for overcoming controls are also always evolving."

REUTERS