Beijing Students Stage Rallies, Seek to Spread Protests

Political activity engulfed a dozen or more university campuses here Monday as tens of thousands of students continued to boycott classes and tried to spread their pro-democracy protests.

An afternoon rally at Beijing University broke up in disorganization, however, after student leaders got into disputes among themselves. In another setback for students’ hopes, there was no immediate evidence of any major spread of the boycott movement to campuses in other cities.

The current wave of demonstrations began a week ago in the form of memorials to the reformist Hu Yaobang, former Communist Party head who died of a heart attack April 15.

But the protests, which have broken out in at least six cities, have developed into a broad drive to pressure the government to speed up political reform. Students are demanding freedom of speech and press, higher pay for intellectuals, more money for education and an attack on corruption.

The official newspaper People’s Daily, in a front-page commentary Monday that responded to the protests without describing them, warned that “social turmoil can only do good to an extremely small number of people with ulterior motives, and do harm to China’s modernization.”

5,000 Students at Rally

The afternoon rally at Beijing University, which drew about 5,000 students from a student body of 15,000, was called primarily to promote the creation of a student association free of control by university or Communist Party officials. But in less than an hour it degenerated into disputes between student leaders over tactics and personalities.

A student organizer named Zhang Zhiyou called for wisdom and restraint in making the transition from street demonstrations to a new stage of class boycotts. He was immediately accused by other leaders of being tainted by previous membership in an officially sponsored student association, and of trying to infiltrate the new organizing committee. Other leaders said they had expelled Zhang from the committee.

The committee then announced it would hold a Monday evening press conference on campus. The event was intended primarily for foreign reporters, as severe restrictions prevent the official Chinese media from full reporting of demonstrators’ activities. But when the time came, a student leader appeared and said the conference had been canceled because the committee was not ready. He denied the change resulted from pressure from school authorities.

Students sought other methods to spread their protest.

Practical Advice on Mailing

A speaker at a Monday morning gathering at Beijing University, which drew about 1,500 students, urged listeners to write letters spreading word of the boycotts and demonstrations throughout China and the world. He issued several practical warnings, however, about mailing such letters.

“The post office has great experience in opening mail,” he said. “So don’t mail letters from post offices on or near the campus. Don’t write ‘Beijing University’ as the return address. And remember to use the new zip codes.”

Qinghua University, Beijing Teachers University and the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute were among the other institutions where large percentages of students boycotted classes Monday.

At Qinghua University, rallying students applauded Chen Mingyuan, a philosopher from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, when he said that the Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of speech, press and association and the right to demonstrate.

“They (China’s leaders) have trampled on the constitution,” Chen declared. “We are defending it.”

Groups of students from Beijing Teachers University solicited contributions from pedestrians near their school in an attempt to strengthen their organization and broaden their support.

“We want to buy printing equipment, and we want to buy things like medicine for students who were injured by the police,” said a student holding a white cardboard donation box.

Although the police generally showed restraint in confronting demonstrators last week, foreign reporters observed a few cases in which protesters were manhandled or beaten. Students contend that dozens of people were injured when police broke up a pre-dawn protest Thursday outside Communist Party and government headquarters.

The student holding the donation box said money is not the main point of the solicitations. “The point,” he said, “is to spread the word, to let the masses know what happened.”

Chinese print and broadcast media, which are tightly controlled and censored by the government and the Communist Party, have imposed a virtual blackout on the pro-democracy aspects of the student protests. There has been some mention of major demonstrations, but they have been portrayed either as straightforward memorials for Hu or as reactionary confrontations with police.

Terse Report

The official New China News Agency covered the student boycotts Monday with a terse four-paragraph report that “students at a number of colleges” were striking but that “authorities say that teaching and studying at most of the city’s colleges and universities remained normal.”

This report charged that striking students at Beijing University and Beijing Teachers University “stopped other students from attending classes” and that “at the China University of Political Science and Law, some students were prevented by protesters from taking examinations.”

After what were reported as fierce internal arguments, the relatively liberal Beijing-based Science and Technology Daily came out Sunday with a delayed edition that carried many, but not all, of the facts about a massive student rally Saturday in Tian An Men Square. It was the first newspaper to carry photographs of the rally, which drew at least 60,000 people.

Even this article did not make clear the degree to which the rally was a pro-democracy protest. But on Monday, students--who were delighted at even moderately objective coverage--posted copies of the report and photographs on walls on and near campuses.

It was not clear how the nation’s top leaders were reacting to the student protests. But an appearance of normalcy has continued. Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang left Beijing by train Sunday and arrived in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang on Monday for a long-scheduled official visit.