China Students Seethe but Keep Their Heads Down : Dissent: Two years of repression have convinced them that the government cannot be ousted by protests.

Suddenly, the banner flew from a high window of a Beijing University graduate student dormitory. “We Will Never Forget June 4,” the sign said last week, referring to the bloody suppression of the 1989 Tian An Men Square pro-democracy protests.

Political leaflets also rained down briefly, some carrying somber poetry, others calling for students to wear white, the color of mourning, in protest today.

But within minutes, authorities had torn down the banner and launched a hunt for whoever displayed it and distributed the flyers.

So goes the struggle at China’s most prestigious university campus, a hotbed of activism in the protests two years ago in which hundreds, perhaps thousands of Chinese were massacred by government troops.

Since then, China’s government has cracked down, conducting a campaign of repression and ideological indoctrination. Two years of this seem to have convinced the Chinese--especially the students and residents in Beijing--that they cannot overthrow their government through street demonstrations. At least not for now.

And with the ultimate power still in the hands of half a dozen aged revolutionaries led by Deng Xiaoping, 86, the Chinese seem to see little hope for major political change at least until some of the octogenarians die. Many are confident that when they do go, big changes are inevitable.

But for now, the old regime remains firmly in control, and it has made clear that it will not tolerate any outbursts on the June 3-4 Tian An Men Square anniversary.

At Beijing University, for example, officials have warned students that onlookers at any protest will be punished as participants.

The campus is under surveillance by informers and plainclothes security agents, although no one is sure just how many of them are at work. Some on campus say that those who have been put in charge of watching the students have been threatened with punishment if they fail to head off protests. Similar warnings have been issued at other schools.

For months now, police also have been checking drivers’ identifications at late-night road blocks near Beijing’s main university district and around the city.

And late last week, in a sign of the growing tension as the anniversary neared, two soldiers armed with bayonet-tipped semiautomatic rifles patrolled a main street just outside Beijing University.

Ironically, to the casual eye, the campus is calm, offering an almost idyllic spring scene. The tennis, basketball and volleyball courts are packed. Badminton games abound. Young couples on benches embrace, oblivious to passersby. Campus bulletin boards, plastered two years ago with political tracts, now carry information about dances, study in America and training for jobs with foreign firms.

Beneath the surface, however, there is deep discontent.

“Students this year still feel the need to release their anger, to revolt,” said one junior. “But you know, right now. . . . “

The student let his voice trail off without describing the obvious dangers of resisting the stringent political controls that have become a familiar part of life here since that night when the Chinese army shot its way into Beijing.

One year after the massacre, economics major Li Mingqi made a dramatic speech to several hundred students at a midnight memorial rally. Within days, he was detained; he remains imprisoned.

Of the undergraduates at Beijing University, only juniors and seniors experienced the heady 1989 demonstrations, which, until they were brutally put down, were often festive and joyful.

Most seniors, however, already have state-arranged jobs now; the juniors know they soon must start thinking about their careers. The sophomores spent their first year of college in newly required military training and political indoctrination at an army base southwest of Beijing. The freshmen, also undergoing this program, have only visited the campus.

The young people “feel it’s not possible for them to do anything,” said one Western diplomat, discussing campus dissent. “Maybe there will be some more smashing of bottles or singing at midnight” to mark the Tian An Men Square anniversary.

“But,” he said, “I think they feel it wouldn’t achieve anything. And if they get caught, they could suffer a lot--not getting thrown in jail, but getting a bad job assignment or not being able to graduate. And what for? If they thought they could get half the population of Beijing out on the streets and it would lead to the downfall of (Premier) Li Peng and (President) Yang Shangkun, then, ‘OK, go for it.’ But they know that’s not going to happen.”

Instead of social idealism, many students now display an apolitical pragmatism.

Take the case of the Beijing University marketing student who joined the 1989 protests but now is focused on finding a lucrative job.

“All you need to make enough money for your whole life in China is to find a niche with one product,” the student gushed in a recent interview, echoing a dream that has attracted traders for centuries. “There are 1 billion people in China. All you need to do is sell to 100 million and you’re rich!”

Not all the Chinese, of course,have turned from dreams of freedom. Many may hesitate to participate in dangerous public protests. But some have shown friendship to released political prisoners.

“People I don’t even know are greeting me home with flowers,” said a writer who had been imprisoned in 1989 but recently was freed. “People from my old work unit have no qualms about coming to visit me. . . . I also see progress in the way people act in general. They are more pessimistic. That means they are not being hoodwinked any more. They are more and more apolitical, and they believe they should only think about getting ahead and making money. This does not mean they are selfish but only that they want to effect change in another way.”

Hou Xiaotian, 28, may be taking the most public stand on behalf of civil liberties. She is the wife of journalist Wang Juntao, who is serving a 13-year sentence for his role in the 1989 protests.

Hou, imprisoned herself for five months after the 1989 massacre, is waging a risky public battle to win better treatment for Wang and other imprisoned dissidents. She said Wednesday that her husband and several others, including student leader Wang Dan, 23, are in solitary confinement in small cells at Beijing’s Prison No. 2.

In an open letter to international human rights groups, Hou said that her husband and at least four other imprisoned dissidents cannot listen to the radio, watch television or talk with others. They receive insufficient food. They get only one 30-minute visit per month with families. “In such an environment . . . people will lose their normal mental faculties,” she wrote.

“In the end, they will become idiots and madmen.”

Concern for political prisoners is one factor motivating students who still dare to protest and to try to change Chinese society.

One leaflet thrown from the dorm building Tuesday, for example, urged students to remember Wang Juntao, an alumnus, and Li, the speaker imprisoned after last year’s memorial rally. The leaflet said more than 20 students were imprisoned or expelled after the 1989 protests and that more than 120 students received warnings or other university sanctions.

The leaflet also called for a letter-writing campaign to urge the government to release Wang Juntao, Wang Dan and Li.

But a more poetic flyer sought to arouse students’ patriotism by chiding those who have turned from politics to pleasure:

“Let my eyes be blinded and my ears be blocked by the black hair and sweet voice of my lover. I don’t want to see this tragic reality, nor hear the sighs of misery of the older generation.

“Let me bury my mind in the pages of sexy books. Let alcohol blunt my nerves. How painful it is that we live. How happy are those who died. How peaceful is the cool path to the tomb. You can hear the grass growing on the grave mound.

“Just let our Motherland, this wounded plum blossom, sink into a sea of misery.”

Times researcher Nick Driver contributed to this article.