Beijing Student Protest Asks School Fund Boost

A small group of university students staged a sit-down demonstration Sunday in Tian An Men Square in the heart of Beijing to press for increased funding of education and higher pay for intellectuals.

The protest came after several days in which posters critical of government educational policies and supportive of political democratization were put up--and allowed to stay up--at Beijing University, the nation’s most prestigious educational institution.

“We believe that there must be not only the appearance of democracy but also the reality,” one of the posters said.

Although extremely limited in size and scope, the events of recent days constitute the most visible student activism in China since a wave of pro-democracy student demonstrations in the winter of 1986-87.

Those protests triggered a backlash that led to the dismissal of the reformist Communist Party general secretary, Hu Yaobang, and a crackdown on intellectual freedom.

Since last summer, tension has gradually eased again. The intellectual climate in China now is roughly similar to that during the relatively relaxed summer of 1986.

Sunday’s Tian An Men Square protest, held by 18 students and one teacher, took place across the street from the Great Hall of the People, where delegates to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a powerless advisory body, were holding the closing ceremony of an 18-day annual session.

Sunday morning, the conference elected as its new chairman Li Xiannian, 79, who stepped down Friday after a five-year term as China’s president. Li succeeds Deng Yingchao, 84, widow of the late Premier Chou En-lai.

The advisory body provides a forum for the airing of views about government policy. At this year’s meeting--and at the more important National People’s Congress, which also is in session--delegates have expressed moderately critical views on a variety of subjects. Many of these comments have been enthusiastically reported in China’s state-controlled media as evidence of democratization.

A speech by Beijing University President Ding Shisun endorsing some common complaints of students and intellectuals--delivered during a small group discussion session at the Political Consultative Conference last Monday and reported the next day in the newspaper Chinese Youth--apparently helped touch off the poster writing at the university and the subsequent demonstration Sunday.

In his speech, Ding urged the government not to worry that students might make trouble and instead to be glad if they care about affairs of state. Some students at Beijing University later said they believed that the speech signaled increased tolerance--within limits--of student activism.

“I believe it is a good thing for students to pay attention to the political affairs of our country,” Ding said. “What I’m afraid of is that students won’t care about state affairs and will only pay attention to their personal matters.”

Ding criticized low pay scales for intellectuals and said that Chinese students who study abroad should not be blamed for refusing to come back to China when the salary of an assistant professor is only 122 yuan ($33) per month.

The major theme of the posters at Beijing University has been that policies now being promoted by China’s leaders single-mindedly emphasize rapid economic development without paying sufficient attention to long-term educational needs. During the week, at least half a dozen separate posters--some consisting of as many as eight large sheets of paper--were put up near the campus canteen, drawing small crowds of readers.

“Funding of education should be greatly expanded, professors’ salaries should be raised . . . and universities should be more independent,” one poster said.

On Sunday, according to Beijing University students, educational issues were discussed at an outdoor gathering on campus that drew a large crowd.

A front-page article on Sunday in the People’s Daily, China’s leading newspaper, said that the country could not afford to improve the lot of dissatisfied intellectuals and teachers.

The article, written by Wang Xiancai, a delegate to the Political Consultative Conference, said that the disparity in income between intellectuals and workers would only get worse.

“In the near future, it will be extremely difficult for the country to find money to resolve this problem,” Wang wrote.

The small group of protesters at Tian An Men Square on Sunday included students from Beijing University, Qinghua University and Beijing Teacher’s University, according to a report by the official New China News Agency.

The agency said the protesters’ demands “did not go beyond what National People’s Congress deputies and (Political Consultative Conference) members had proposed.”

A Western reporter who witnessed the protest said that the students “were just sitting there quietly with a small sign in Chinese and English saying, ‘We Want More Money for Education.’ ”

Several dozen uniformed police officers, he added, politely asked passers-by to allow room for the demonstrators, saying that they had the right to express their views.

Last week, a group of Beijing University students came to the square with shoeshine kits in an attempt to satirize a government proposal that students and professors take part-time jobs in industry. The students said they wanted to offer to shine shoes of National People’s Congress delegates, but police quickly escorted them out of the square.