Chinese Media Urge Punishment of ‘Enemies’ Who Led Protest and Assail VOA

China’s official media Friday published calls for punishment of “enemies” who led a New Year’s Day pro-democracy demonstration, and accused the Voice of America of countering government efforts to end student unrest.

But students at Peking University, the main participants in illegal, daylong protests that ended before dawn Friday, put up a wallposter accusing China’s leaders of failing to understand the nation’s youth.

In a front-page account, the Peking Daily newspaper said hundreds of people who staged a 20-minute march in central Tian An Men Square at midday Thursday shouted slogans in support of China’s Communist system, “thinking that in this way, they could break the regulations on demonstrations.”

“But among their ranks were people who shouted ‘Down with tyranny’ and slogans attacking the four basic principles” of the Chinese constitution--the leadership of the Communist Party, the supremacy of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung thought, socialist construction and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

‘Enemies . . . Plotting’

The newspaper said the protesters, who tried unsuccessfully to push through a police cordon into Tian An Men Square, were “instigated by individuals hostile to the socialist system.”

Peking Daily quoted Wu Jiemin, secretary general of the Academy of Social Sciences, and others as saying that “enemies of the socialist system are plotting upheaval.” Wu called for “severe punishment” for them.

The paper said, however, that students detained by police during the protests--estimated by witnesses to number at least 24--were released after “education.”

The detentions had prompted a second demonstration late Thursday when about 5,000 students marched from the suburban Peking University campus toward the city center. Most turned back when told the detainees had been released, but about 1,000 others completed a 10-mile march through the snow-covered streets to Tian An Men Square. They dispersed shortly before dawn Friday.

Later, students at Peking University clustered around a small handwritten poster entitled “An open letter to (Chinese leader) Deng Xiaoping.”

‘Trying to Suppress Us’

The letter explained why the students defied a week-old city ban on unauthorized demonstrations, saying there “are some old people who are trying to suppress us.”

“We need leaders who understand our people,” said the poster, which one student read aloud as his excited colleagues listened. “We young people have our own thoughts now.”

The official New China News Agency accused the Voice of America of thwarting government efforts to end the unrest by quoting an American journalist who urged pro-democracy demonstrators not to “lose heart.”

The agency was referring to a VOA report Friday of comments by I.F. Stone about the wave of pro-democracy demonstrations that have affected at least 11 Chinese cities since early December.

In Washington on Thursday, Stone lit a candle in “solidarity and sympathy” with the demonstrators and said he hoped the protests have been “a comfort to dissidents” everywhere.

“Fresh winds are blowing and I hope the students do not lose heart,” he said.

But the New China News Agency attacked VOA for the report and quoted a resident as complaining, “While the Chinese authorities are taking measures to educate the students, the Voice of America . . . quoted a so-called independent American reporter named Stone as saying that he hopes the Chinese students would not be discouraged.”

VOA Defends Coverage

In Washington, Voice of America officials Friday defended their coverage of the Chinese student demonstrations as balanced and in no way inflammatory.

Richard Carlson, director of the VOA, said the broadcast agency carried Stone’s comment because it was legitimate news and because Stone has been identified with China.

“We ran it because it was news,” Carlson said. “Because Stone is a well-known figure. He is not just a person who got up in Lafayette Park and made a statement.

“He has long been identified with a specific political point of view--in this case on the left. He has been thought of as a friend of China--of the People’s Republic.

“I.F. Stone supporting what appears to be a significant change in a political system that he has supported is inherently news,” Carlson said.

Carlson said the VOA, the global broadcast arm of the U.S. Information Agency, rather than fueling demonstrations, had bent over backwards to keep the reporting of the China demonstrations unbiased.

“We have refrained from analysis, from background stories, from editorials--all of which might lend themselves to the story generally--but just to be sensitive to the reporting so we would not in fact play some part in the story,” Carlson said.