Rocker Who Aided Uprising in Beijing Singing a Different Tune

Beijing residents reacted with disbelief today after seeing a pop star who inspired rebellious students in Tian An Men Square suddenly appear on national television and toe the government line.

Where singer Hou Dejian had hidden over the last 10 weeks and the circumstances of his rehabilitation by the Communist authorities remained a mystery.

Hou, 33, played a leading role in stoking defiance among protesting students in Beijing in the last days of the democracy movement before the army moved in.

After trying to negotiate with a military commander a safe withdrawal for the students from Tian An Men Square on the fateful night of June 3-4, he disappeared.

Looking relaxed, smoking and smiling, he reappeared on state television Thursday night saying that he saw no one hurt in the square and that advancing troops fired into the air.

Hou is the first prominent figure in the student-led movement to appear in public and support the government line on what happened in Tian An Men Square.

Hou defected from Taiwan in June, 1983, and won a wide following for songs written and recorded in China since then.

The night the troops moved in and on the second day of a hunger strike, he sang his biggest hit, “Descendants of the Dragon,” over a makeshift loudspeaker system in the square as students listened, many close to tears, witnesses said.

Foreign journalists in the square during the early hours of June 4 heard gunfire and saw some civilians, including students, fall to the ground, apparently dead.

The government says that more than 200 civilians and several dozen soldiers were killed June 3-4 during the entire military operation but that nobody died in the square itself.