For Tourists in Square, a Brush With History

A bus filled with foreign tourists stopped Tuesday before Tian An Men Square, the austere plaza that is the symbolic center of power in China. It was a common sight in the square, except for one thing: The bus was stranded in a human sea, amid tens of thousands of demonstrators flowing into the square and calling for hard-line Premier Li Peng to step down.

The tourists leaned out of the bus’ windows with cameras in hand, perhaps realizing that although they were unable to make the obligatory shuffle through Mao Tse-tung’s drab mausoleum, they were seeing Chinese history in the making.

“We certainly didn’t expect all this when we signed up,” said a grinning Swedish woman as the bus snaked its way through the exuberant protesters. “Their faces are so serious, but I think they’re friendly. Anyway, tomorrow we see the Great Wall.”

A short while afterward, vandals threw paint on the giant portrait of Mao that watches over Tian An Men Square, one of the holiest icons of Chinese communism. Workers quickly covered the defaced portrait with a tarp and, by evening, had replaced it. Outraged students reportedly seized the culprits and turned them over to authorities.

But the villain of the day was not Mao, who is still honored as the founder of modern China. It was Li, the premier, who declared martial law in the capital Saturday and exhorted the People’s Liberation Army to crack down on students holding a vigil in Tian An Men Square to demand democratic reforms.

So far, troops have failed to make headway past citizen blockades on the outskirts of the city. A few thousand hard-core student protesters were still holed up in an increasingly squalid encampment around the Monument of the People’s Heroes in the center of the square, vowing to remain there until the government opens a dialogue with them on reform.

In the third major outpouring of public support for the students since they challenged authorities by starting a hunger strike May 13, more than 100,000 people filed down Chang An Avenue to the square, hoisting national flags and banners, singing “The Internationale,” the socialist anthem, and chanting, “Li Peng, step down!”

In the atmosphere of a Fourth of July parade, onlookers cheered and flashed victory signs at battalions of professionals, intellectuals and workers who made their way to the square, walking, riding bicycles or coming in on the backs of trucks.

“I’m here to ask Premier Li Peng to go away,” said a 30-year-old physician, one of 200 health professionals from the Japan-China Friendship Hospital who marched in white medical smocks. “What he has done is against the law.”

A contingent from the Foreign Ministry joined the protesters, because “the people now think this government is not legitimate,” one young official explained.

Bureaucrat for Zhao

A man in a sports jacket who identified himself as an auto worker said he had drifted to the square because no one at his plant was working Tuesday. A Communist Party bureaucrat said he came because he wanted to voice his support for Zhao Ziyang, the party secretary general who reportedly had a falling out with Li after advocating a conciliatory stance against the “democratic students.”

“If the troops come into Beijing to suppress the students, I’m going to resign from the party,” the 33-year-old functionary said.

The parade filed past the front of the Great Hall of the People and spilled into the central part of the square until a sudden storm scattered many of the participants. There were strong winds carrying dust from the Gobi Desert, followed by chilling rain.

One of the protesters taking cover in the nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant was Liu Wen, 25, a mechanical engineering student who stuffed into his pocket a headband emblazoned with the characters for “true-hearted person.” He emphasized that protesters stop short of denouncing China’s system of government. The problem, he said, is with corrupt officials who do not embrace political change that will keep pace with China’s economic reforms.

Leaders ‘Gone Astray’

“The Chinese Communist Party has done many great things for the country, and I think most of its members are very good,” Liu said. “But this year, some of the leaders have gone astray.”

Back in the square, about 5,000 die-hard students hunkered down in the rain under tarpaulins and sheets of plastic. Volunteers were attempting to sweep up garbage that had been strewn about in the 10-day occupation. Huge canvas-walled open latrines lined either side of the grand plaza.

After dark, the protesters dug in for yet another night at the ceremonial center of the Middle Kingdom, apparently safe now from any crackdown by the People’s Liberation Army.