Shanghai Students Defy Regime, Hold Protest : Authorities’ Warning Ignored; Up to 50,000 March to Honor Memory of Victims in Beijing

University students staged a bold pro-democracy rally in central Shanghai on Friday, drawing tens of thousands of people and sending a message of defiance to authorities.

The demonstration, which began with a gathering in People’s Square and climaxed in a somber memorial march past government buildings on the Bund, came one day after Shanghai Mayor Zhu Rongji issued a warning that illegal disruptions will no longer be tolerated.

It was the first major organized rally in China’s largest city since units of the People’s Liberation Army slaughtered hundreds or perhaps thousands of unarmed students and citizens over the weekend while suppressing the nonviolent democracy movement in Beijing.

Recoiling in horror at the news, Shanghai students and dissident workers erected bus barricades that paralyzed traffic in a widespread civil disobedience campaign, but the last of these barricades had been removed by Friday. Public transit lines were back on schedule, China Central Television reported.

The state-run network made no mention of the rally, which brought an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 participants, sympathizers and curiosity seekers to the downtown square early in the afternoon.

Student leaders issued three demands to the government: that flags on public buildings be flown at half-staff to mourn the deaths in the capital; that some sort of dialogue be established between students and Shanghai government officials, and that the government openly distribute videotapes it supposedly possesses documenting the scene early last Sunday at Tian An Men Square, where soldiers beat and shot demonstrators, crushing some with their armored vehicles.

The government asserts that no protesters were killed on the square, a version of events conflicting with eyewitness accounts. More accurate reports by Western and Hong Kong journalists have been widely disseminated in Shanghai through underground channels.

The students gave the government 48 hours to comply with their demands, after which they said they would consider escalating protests.

It was not clear whether students were bluffing, in light of the manner in which they have stood by passively since Wednesday night as squads of government-hired “volunteer worker guards” dismantled their barricades. Students said they are choosing to avoid direct confrontation with authorities for fear they might lose support among the general populace by appearing too radical.

Although the public reaction to Friday’s rally and march was cautious, it appeared that the students still enjoyed a high level of support.

In a scene reminiscent of the largely harmless confrontations between the military and citizens shortly after martial law was declared in Beijing on May 20, throngs of people at the gate to the square in Shanghai pushed away several truckloads of the unarmed volunteer guards attempting to enter.

“I think all the people of Shanghai support the student democracy movement,” said a 40-year-old employee of an art object export company who attended the rally in People’s Square. “We think the students are right. I haven’t met anyone who agrees with the government on this issue.”

A corps of several thousand students, representing many of the metropolitan area’s more than 50 universities, marched from People’s Square down Nanjing Road to the Bund, as Shanghai’s stately riverfront boulevard has been known since colonial days. They carried funeral wreaths festooned with yellow paper flowers, played a dirge on portable cassette players and hoisted black banners with democratic slogans written in blood red paint.

“Jiang Zemin, come out!” the students chanted as they passed in front of Shanghai Communist Party headquarters, pressing their demand for dialogue by calling out the name of the city’s top party official.

Jiang, local general secretary of the party and a member of the Politburo, is considered more closely allied with China’s hard-line rulers than the mayor, who adopted a somewhat conciliatory tone in a speech televised Thursday night. Zhu described pro-democracy protesters as “patriotic,” rather than counterrevolutionary, and said it would be up to history to judge what had happened on the square in Beijing.

Jiang, however, is viewed as a wild card in how the tension in Shanghai will be ultimately resolved. As yet there have been no signs of a major crackdown on Shanghai’s student leaders, although campus raids are rumored to be under way in the capital. State television Friday evening showed a scene of several people being arrested, but it was not clear whether the suspects were students or workers.

“The city leaders may be hoping (Friday’s rally) will be the last gasp of protest,” said a Western diplomat in Shanghai. “If so, there’d be no reason to escalate on their side.”

But, as the narrator said in Friday evening’s state television news broadcast, “Students are more reasonable than the citizens.” Shanghai’s unhappy workers could prove to be a volatile force in the days and weeks to come.

With the full resumption of mass transit schedules Friday, employees were assumed to be showing up at their factories and offices after a three- to four-day wildcat strike. A labor slowdown may still be in process, however.

“The workers are back on the job, but the question is, how hard are they working?” said the Western diplomat. “That might not be known for some time.”