Dreaming of Freedom in China : Government: After the Tian An Men Square Square nightmare, a student still holds hope for democracy in his homeland.

Far, far from home, Shen Tong writes on a computer in his office on a tree-lined street here. He is a biology student, but this passage was about China, for a speech that he would deliver to the Asia Society in New York.

The land of Shen’s birth is never far from his thoughts or from his dreams.

“The story that I want to tell is the story that lies behind the closed door,” he wrote in the preface to “Almost a Revolution,” (co-written with journalist Marianne Yen and published this month by Houghton Mifflin) about his life and the events leading up to the massacre at Tian An Men Square on June 3, 1989.

“There is my childhood, the silent Changan Avenue that holds our history and our future. There is my family, that splendid earth and my people. There is my dream and my friends in prison who wait for that dream to come true. That dream belongs to the young, who love to imagine.”

Shen Tong was 20 years old, when he brought his dream of democracy to Tian An Men Square. He established the Dialogue Delegation that negotiated with government officials. From a wing of his dormitory at Beijing University, he ran the student news center.

Sitting at his computer here, the Brandeis University student dreams still.

“Just like an earthquake, change will come to China,” he says.

“The big earthquake will come, even if you try to stop the little ones.”

Shen became involved in Chinese student politics when he was 17. He arrived at Beijing University, known as Beida, and soon became an official in the Beida Student Assn. In early 1989, he established the Olympic Institute, an independent student organization that promoted discussion of new ideas about science, philosophy and, eventually, politics.

Shen’s dream of freedom for China was so powerful, he said, that he could never have been prepared for the nightmare that happened in Tian An Men Square.

“I didn’t imagine the outcome,” Shen said.

From his home near Changan Avenue, Shen saw people cut down by tanks and felled by soldiers’ bullets. Most were citizens and workers, not students. Horrified by what he was witnessing, Shen challenged a soldier, “Tell the other soldiers that they cannot shoot any more.”

In response, an officer got up and aimed a pistol at Shen’s head. An uncle dragged Shen away. He heard firing and screaming and turned around to see the girl who had been standing next to him lying dead.

Shen was not in Tian An Men Square during the turmoil. So while he doubts, he cannot challenge the Chinese government claim that no one was killed there.

“Not a lot of people died in Tian An Men Square, but that is not the point,” Shen said. “First of all, they were killing people and a lot of people did die. Not in the square but nearby.

“I was one mile west of Tian An Men Square, and that turned out to be the No. 1 most brutal killing field in Beijing.

“People left the big cities. They went into hiding; some went into exile, like me.

“A lot are still in China. They are in danger. The government keeps arresting them.”

Shen cites a well-publicized figure from Amnesty International, which has reported that 30,000 protesters were arrested following the democracy movement.

Shen’s prominence in the demonstrations in Tian An Men Square made him a target for government retribution. Had he remained in China, he certainly would have faced imprisonment--or worse. Naively, he admits now, he participated in anti-government activities with a kind of devil-may-care defiance.

“I was even thinking, well, to put me in jail for a year is fine,” Shen said. “I thought, ‘It’s a terrible thing. I’ll be in jail, then they’ll release me and I’ll go back to college.’ ”

But that was impossible. When the tanks turned on the people of Beijing on June 3, Shen saw that he had no choice but to flee.

In his book, Shen offers just two cryptic sentences about his escape. In person, too, he hesitates to describe details about how he came to board a Northwest Airlines flight from Tokyo to the United States. But he does not rebut a story attributed to him that his airline ticket out of Beijing was issued to him directly, without ever being recorded in the airline’s computers, and that sympathetic customs agents were among those who shepherded him to safety.

“Many people helped,” is all he will say, including “quite high-ranking officials.”

His escape left him with mixed feelings.

“I felt so guilty, especially for the close friends of mine who were working in the democracy movement,” Shen said. “They are in jail, they cannot continue their studies, and some are dead.”

Shen also carries the burden of having left his family under trying circumstances. A week before the massacre, Shen’s father, Shen Tiansen, was admitted to a hospital. His mother pleaded with Shen to pay a visit. But, “I didn’t think anything was seriously wrong with him; my mother had told me he suffered from gallstones.”

While Shen Tiansen’s condition worsened, his son’s political activities continued to consume him. The afternoon of June 3, hours before the massacre, a friend of Shen Tong’s sister told him Shen Tiansen had leukemia.

“I didn’t feel anything,” Shen Tong says now. “My mind was full of things in the square.”

Shen disguised himself just before he left China and sneaked in to visit his father at the hospital.

“Get out of this country as fast as you can,” his father told him.

Shen Tong was traveling around the United States with several other Chinese students when he learned that his father had died. The news came in a letter from his sister’s old boyfriend.

Shen longed to return to China, but friends persuaded him it was too dangerous. “Almost a Revolution” is dedicated to Shen’s father.

Tall and slender, Shen has an impeccable command of English. His comfortable style of speaking and his intense commitment to his cause make Shen “a very special person,” said Marshall Strauss, executive director of the Democracy for China Fund Inc. Shen, chairman of that organization, often disarms listeners by his mere appearance, Strauss said.

“You forget he’s only 22,” said Strauss.

Shen said he and other Chinese exiles remain in close contact with their colleagues in China, and that the spirit of cooperation with the dissidents continues.

“The underground movement is very much alive,” he said.

On the one hand, he said, “the central government polices what is going on. There seems no chance you can take. But meanwhile, people are very sympathetic. Not just individuals, but people in government, lower government officials.”

Shen remains in contact “with people who worked with me, but who are not in jail.” All sorts of information is exchanged, he said--”people, their escapes, how many people are arrested by the government.” This information is vital, Shen said, “because the government lies all the time.” Shen also maintains “indirect” contact with his family in Beijing.

To return to China now would be so perilous as to be unthinkable. But as an exile there is a question as to how great his involvement and influence on his own country can be.

Although he says his age may hinder his effectiveness (“In . . . the Chinese culture, you don’t have much influence on the nation’s politics when you are 22”), there are things he can accomplish while living here. “There is so much we can do (as exiles) with cooperating with international organizations, and with lobbying to influence various governments’ actions toward China.”

And exile does afford certain benefits, Shen said.

“This exile life is a wonderful opportunity for us to learn democracy,” he said. “It gives us the chance to see what kind of road, or means, China must take for democracy.”

When the democracy movement took force in spring, 1989, “we weren’t ready,” he said. “We need time for different factors to develop.”