Chinese Students’ Protests Are Far From Academic

The recent student demonstrations in China came as a shock to me both for the unprecedented numbers involved, not seen since the turbulent days of the Cultural Revolution, and for the incisiveness of their political criticisms. That the open expression of such views by so many vulnerable young people persisted, and even spread, in the face of explicit official injunctions (and the scheduling of final examinations) serves to underscore the depth of their discontent and frustration.

Behind the student unrest are chronic problems rooted in nationwide material shortages: overcrowded dormitories, inferior campus food, even inadequate lighting. Added to these, in each city, were immediate local concerns: At Jiaotong University, the initial focal point for the Shanghai demonstrations, these included a controversial public execution earlier in the year of a student involved in a complex lovers’ quarrel, and the more recent police beatings of two students attempting to dance on stage during a university performance by a visiting American rock group.

Between the immediate local issues and the more abstract political demands, which go so far as to challenge the authority of the Communist Party itself, are practical issues of personal urgency. One demand of the Shanghai students, for example, was that they be allowed to inspect their dangan , the notorious dossiers containing personal and family histories compiled by the party for each person in China.

When I visited Shanghai last summer, I encountered the intense frustration of students not permitted to choose (or to change) their college majors, fields of interest or job assignments. Even younger faculty members were assigned teaching positions in departments for which they had little interest or preparation, and were denied permission by authorities to accept suitable alternative job offers.

University people told me that there was a worrisome decline in the performance of freshman students last year. They attributed it to a growing feeling that intense study and high marks alone were no guarantee of later success, that the best jobs would be handed to those with connections and that undesirable jobs would be assigned to “troublemakers.”

Faced with an inability to control their future in China, graduating students attempt to go abroad for additional study, hoping that the resulting prestige, if not the training itself, will bring advancement and a wider range of choices in their later careers. Since 1979 about 40,000 students have left China for graduate training overseas; about 15,000 have come to the United States. But, by most accounts, returning students have little more control of their lives than before, and are often assigned to jobs for which their additional skills are irrelevant. For that reason, at least half the students who go abroad stay there. Considering that only the top 1% or 2% of all Chinese students are admitted to any university, and that those with the highest marks have the best chances for study abroad, the failure of these super-elite students to return home amounts to a “brain drain” of serious consequences.

The current demonstrations reveal the risks that Chinese students will accept to achieve the basic rights essential for the control of their own lives. For the most part, the authorities, whose usual response to student concerns is indifference or stonewalling, have thus far acted with restraint and even a degree of sympathy.

A resolution of the issues raised so dramatically will not be easy, but, as the intensity of the demonstrations shows, neither can it be postponed indefinitely. In its handling of this volatile situation the government can continue to squander the nation’s intellectual resources or can send a clear signal to students at home and abroad that future bureaucratic interference with their lives will be minimized, and that they will be welcomed into the political processes necessary for modernization.

If the government would introduce the same kind of flexibility into the education system that proved so successful in agriculture, China might finally be able to realize the benefits of the huge investment that it has made in education.

DR, THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE, AUTH