Chinese Students in U.S. Back Protests

Chinese students in the United States have written an open letter to their government expressing strong support for the pro-democracy student demonstrations in China.

The message was read by telephone Tuesday to students at Beijing University who tape-recorded it for dissemination in China, Guyang Huang, a University of Massachusetts graduate student, said Thursday in a telephone interview.

Students at the University of Massachusetts wrote the five-paragraph document last Saturday and placed it on the two-year-old computer network that allows Chinese studying in the United States, Europe, Australia and Japan to communicate about events in China. Some of the 230 Chinese students at UC San Diego, one of the largest such communities at an American university, took part in the effort.

“All over the world from the east to the west, democracy has become an irresistible historical trend. . . . How about China?” part of the statement reads.

“Please let the people speak and know the truth . . . . We appeal for a dialogue between the (Communist) Party and the people and students to answer people’s questions instead of suppressing them. . . .”

Huang said Thursday that overseas scholars have raised $15,000 from among their peers in the United States, Canada, West Germany and Norway to help in disseminating the letter to students throughout China.

The Voice of America said Thursday that it has received calls from Chinese students at 30 American universities asking that the letter be broadcast. The VOA has requested a copy and its East Asian division chief will decide, based on its newsworthiness, whether to put it on the air, a VOA spokesman said.

There is strong support for the demonstrations among the approximately 20,000 Chinese students in the United States, according to students at several universities. All are anxiously awaiting the Chinese government’s response to the three weeks of demonstrations.

“Chinese people now want a real government system, not just a good king like Deng Xiaoping (China’s paramount leader) was,” Dan Hu, a graduate student in electrical engineering at UC San Diego, said.

Said colleague Li Sen, who is working for a doctorate in biochemistry: “I think the concerns of Chinese students have changed, and we are now as concerned about the political future as well as the economic future.”

Chai Xiaoyong, a University of Chicago graduate student in sociology, used the computer network last week to help organize a demonstration by students at 11 Midwestern universities in front of the Chinese Consulate in Chicago.

“All students abroad have the same feeling, the responsibility to do whatever we can to support those back in our country . . . to give them courage and a loyal boost,” Chai said.

The great number of Chinese students who have received degrees abroad since 1980--an estimated 30,000 from the United States alone--is contributing to the demands for more openness, several UC San Diego students said.

“I think there is a large indirect influence, and because of our country’s more open policy on travel, and so forth, we are much more able to make comparisons,” said mathematics graduate student He Zhengxu, who has accepted an assistant professorship at Princeton next year rather than return to China.