Thousands Rally Again in Shanghai Protests : Officials Accuse Students of Break-ins, Beating of Policemen in 3rd Day of Calls for Reforms

Tens of thousands of students gathered in downtown Shanghai on Sunday for a third straight day of demonstrations, apparently the largest yet held here, and Chinese officials accused them of breaking into buildings and beating policemen.

Reporters estimated that the students and onlookers massed on the huge People’s Square numbered as many as 50,000.

However, the atmosphere in Sunday’s demonstrations appeared to be calmer than in previous days. The students appeared to be badly organized, leading one foreign observer to conclude that it was amazing that the demonstrations for freedom, democracy and human rights have kept going as long as they have.

A new element was the presence of increasing numbers of factory workers and other laborers who came to support the students. “We’re of one heart with them,” said a man in his 20s who said he was a worker.

Sunday’s demonstrations came as the official New China News Agency issued its first detailed account of the three days of protests, quoting an unnamed city official as criticizing the students for “aggravating the already crowded traffic situation and disrupting normal production and social order.”

The report said hundreds of students broke into the Shanghai People’s Congress on Friday evening and were ignoring appeals from Mayor Jiang Zemin to end their protest.

“The municipal government demanded they leave before 5:30 when the peak traffic hour arrived. But they insisted on staying, and when policemen urged them to disperse, the students beat up 31 of them,” the agency claimed.

A city government spokesman claimed there had been no cases of police beating students.

The crowd that gathered in front of the city and Communist Party headquarters on the downtown waterfront embankment Sunday appeared to be slightly smaller than Saturday’s crowd. One estimate of the crowd jammed together on the embankment was 25,000, many of them onlookers rather than student activists.

New Protests Due

Some of the students said they intended to launch even larger protests today.

By 11 p.m. Sunday, the demonstrators at the embankment had dispersed after repeated appeals delivered by a man and a woman over a government loudspeaker, urging the students to leave the area in order to avoid accidents and interfering with public order, transportation and production.

“We want democracy more than anyone else in the world, but we have less of it than anyone else,” said one of the students at the demonstration on the embankment.

The students came from a wide range of universities and institutes in Shanghai, including some of the most prestigious training centers for the country’s future engineers, chemists, physicists and technicians.

‘Down With Bureaucracy’

The government’s goal appeared to be to wear the students down, rather than to provoke them. There were fewer posters and banners Sunday night denouncing government oppression, but one group of students did denounce “despotism” and some of the banners said “Down With Bureaucracy.”

One youth explained that by bureaucracy, the students meant leaders who have a narrow view of things and who do not listen to views which differ from their own.

Students from Shanghai’s prestigious Institute of Mechanical Engineering carried a banner saying, “We Want to Be Free Men. We Don’t Want to Be Machine Men.”

Meanwhile, life was undisturbed in most other parts of China’s largest city. On the embankment, hawkers sold sunflower seeds in large metal trays slung from shoulder poles. Several couples embraced as they leaned against a wall overlooking the waterfront. Members of the aging Chinese jazz band at the Peace Hotel within 200 yards of the main demonstration played “As Time Goes By.”

Reporters Besieged

Large groups of students besieged two American reporters with questions about demonstrations that have occurred elsewhere in China. They particularly wanted to know what has happened in the capital city of Peking, where university students have put up pro-democracy posters but have not held any demonstrations.

One of the students’ chief complaints is that the government-controlled Chinese press has reported little if anything of the demonstrations, which have taken place in at least six widely scattered cities over the past several weeks.

When two reporters identified themselves as Americans to members of the crowd at the People’s Square, a murmur of approval arose and the reporters received a round of cheers.

Police Appear Restrained

Despite accusations made by students that police had beaten and arrested some students, the police surrounding People’s Square appeared to be conducting themselves with great restraint.

But a student who asked not to be named said armed police attacked a group of students from the university Sunday morning. He said police used force to remove students holding an all night sit-in in front of city hall and party headquarters at 5 a.m. He said several of the police used “kung fu” techniques to beat up some members of the crowd. There have also been unconfirmed reports that as many as 200 students have been arrested.

Mayor, Students Meet

A spokesman for the city said that Mayor Zemin had met twice with student representatives on Thursday and Friday.

Students said they had presented four demands to the mayor of Shanghai. They are demanding press freedom--meaning press coverage of their demonstrations--and the right to put up wallposters for free and open debates. They also want official recognition that the demonstrations are legal and a guarantee that no action will be taken against participants.

In a telephone interview, Fu indicated that the mayor had agreed to two of the students’ demands--that the government acknowledge that their demonstrations were permitted by China’s constitution and that they have been “just, legal, and patriotic.”

According to Fu, the mayor also stated that there would be no retribution against most of students who had participated.