Chinese Students in U.S. Join in Protest

Thousands of Chinese college students staged raucous protests Saturday from San Francisco to New York in support of the pro-democracy uprising in their homeland, chanting slogans and carrying banners reading “Freedom or Death.”

“We are all supporting the students in China. They are heroes,” Lewis Lu, a business student at UC Berkeley, said during a rally in San Francisco that included a meeting with Chinese consular officials.

Demonstrations also were held in Los Angeles, Chicago, St. Paul, Minn., Washington and New York. No arrests were reported.

The protests followed the declaration Saturday of martial law for urban Beijing by Chinese Premier Li Peng in response to huge demonstrations there, considered the largest challenge to the nation’s Communist rule since its founding in 1949.

But hundreds of thousands of people continued to swarm through the streets of China’s capital in defiance of martial law and in support of the students who have led the uprising.

The United States is host to an estimated 40,000 students from China.

One of the largest demonstrations in this country took place in Washington, where about 3,500 students marched on China’s embassy, shouting “Down with martial law!” and “Freedom now!” Some were natives of Taiwan or Hong Kong, but the vast majority were citizens of mainland China.

In spite of final examinations going on at many schools, students came from Cornell, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Brandeis, Duke, New York and Johns Hopkins universities and the universities of Virginia, California, Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh, as well as several schools in the Washington area.

“We want to show our support for other people who are fighting for our freedom, and to show our own government that its position is wrong,” said Qiao Chunming of Shanghai, a student at Pitt.

“It’s a critical time for our nation,” said Chen Dingju, 27, a graduate student in applied mathematics from Cornell University, who drove from Ithaca, N.Y., for the protest. “China is now a changed China, and the people have changed. Western culture has influenced us.”

Min Tao, 40, who is studying for a post-doctoral degree in biochemistry at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, said she wants her country “to have democracy. . . . Our leaders won’t step down because they are dictators.”

Zhang Amei, 37, a former Red Guard now studying economics at Yale, said she and other young people were “fooled by Mao.”

More than 3,000 students rallied near the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, chanting, “Down with Li Peng, up with freedom!”

In downtown Grant Park, they placed a sign reading, “Beijing, We Hear You. Do You Hear Us?” at the feet of a statue of Abraham Lincoln.

Among the demonstrators was Huang Ciping, 26, who drove with about 20 others from the University of Toledo.

“It was an emergency call,” she said. “I told my boss I couldn’t stay (at work) any longer because my country is in emergency status.”

Others flocked to the Chicago demonstration from Purdue, Marquette, Illinois State and Michigan State universities and the universities of Notre Dame, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana and Louisville.

In San Francisco, about 1,000 demonstrators, many wearing white headbands, held a rally at the Chinese Consulate, then marched to Chinatown.

They jabbed the air with signs in Chinese and English carrying such messages as “A Billion People, One Press” and “Freedom or Death.” One placard compared senior leader Deng Xiaoping to Adolf Hitler.

Cars crawling through snarled traffic honked in support.

A handful of the protesters were allowed into the Chinese Consulate to meet with officials.