The Chinese Student Movement Moves To America
Riles, Annelise
The Chinese Student Movement Moves to America BY ANNELISE RILES The Chinese character for justice is a simple combination of horizontal and verticle strokes in black ink on white paper. But as Bo...
...Yet the students are moving quickly...
...Chinese student groups have orchestrated massive demonstrations in virtually every major American city...
...What are the points of disagreement...
...American businssmen are there for their business interests," says White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater...
...But Yang Ye, a recent graduate of Harvard's Ph.D...
...So what we want to do is to keep that movement alive in the U.S...
...Shengping Feng did not attend the Chicago convention...
...Before coming to the United States, I thought they were scientific problems...
...I decided then that once China is free I will be a teacher," he says...
...The listening posts are operated by the Chinese, who deliver intelligence material to Beijing...
...Such post-crackdown terror tactics have not stopped at China's borders...
...Everybody wants to control the agenda...
...Virtually every college here has at least one fax machine sending reports to China," says Lixin Yang, secretary of the Columbia Chinese Students Association...
...Chinese students in the United States have also learned to adopt key elements from traditional American politics—fund-raising and lobbying...
...Only two weeks before the massacre, Wuer, then a leader at Tiananmen Square, was forced out of the leadership for advocating that the students abandon Tiananmen Square and go home...
...It's right to have the purpose of overthrowing the present government...
...Chrysler-AMC, which produces Jeeps in Beijing in a joint venture with a Chinese-owned firm, has resumed full-scale operations...
...A reporter needles Fitzwater about the issue...
...While some students call for the revolutionary overthrow of the Beijing government, many others take a middle road...
...I think we should try to educate people, tell them what is democracy...
...Without someone to unite us, I don't think we'd ever agree...
...A New York-based artist, Wang left China several years ago...
...I don't think they need to assume a governmental role in terms of protests...
...The students are learning the tricks of the American lobbyist...
...Feng, a close friend of dissident Fang Lizhi, says he is also responsible for orchestrating Fang's asylum inside the American embassy in Beijing...
...Now, most have formed independent organizations which Lixin Yang of Columbia University calls "extensions of the student autonomous organizations in Beijing," the now-outlawed groups that coordinated the spring demonstrations...
...Indeed, some groups have been plagued by infighting to the point that the larger issues sometimes get lost in the politics...
...There is talk of forming a national and international governing body of student organizations...
...At the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, for example, students met with the state's Congressional delegation to urge a vote for stonger sanctions against China, wrote an open letter calling on the United Nations to condemn the Chinese government, and held forums and discussions to educate Americans about their cause...
...Students are setting up a radio station in Hong Kong to beam articles and news bulletins to Beijing...
...U.S.-based coporations operating in China include some of the most powerful of the Fortune 500—McDonnell-Douglas, Boeing, RJR Nabisco, TRW, Chrysler-AMC, and many others...
...From there it is flown to the United States for analysis...
...The problem," says another, "is that if the Chinese want democracy it will take a long time...
...intelligence to pull its listening stations out of northern Iran, western China became the principal outpost for intelligence-gathering on Soviet missile bases in the western areas...
...Shen's visa expires in two years...
...Now I see that they're political, social problems—part of a larger picture...
...Annelise Riles is a New England-based free-lance writer...
...They postponed the Chicago meeting until the 28th so that Yan Jiqi and Wuer Kaixi could be there...
...Henry Kissinger, whose consulting firm advises some of the largest U.S...
...It will be closer to the Chinese people than Voice of America or the BBC, because the material is written by Chinese students," says one organizer...
...Says Harrison, "These are transactions that are completed and we plan to deliver the planes on the schedule we've been paid to meet...
...One third of China's national income is based on foreign trade, and Deng Xiaoping has revised the country's estimated rate of economic growth for the coming year—once one of the highest— to a modest 2 per cent...
...A.R...
...Now Wang joins students from New York-area universities in a cramped apartment on the edge of Harlem, making posters, writing slogans, and discussing the latest events...
...His work had been too constricted by political forces there, and he lost interest in most events in his homeland...
...I have connections to a group called the Chinese Alliance for Democracy, which was opposing this regime long before the massacre," he says...
...A tall man with an imposing presence, he speaks softly about the changes to come...
...Stupid things," says Cheng Mo...
...When the Iranian revolution forced U.S...
...If we really want to do something about China's problems, in the end it should be from inside China and not from the United States...
...Since the crackdown, U.S...
...The U.S.-China Business Council, an organization of corporations with interests in China, recently surveyed its membership about their outlook...
...Do you want the president of Exxon to go protest or something...
...Although students admit they don't know who is receiving the messages, the method appears to be successful: Chinese authorities have announced they are watching "every single fax machine," and that anyone caught disseminating "counterrevolutionary materials" received by fax will be branded a spy...
...Zhongmin Shen is a student of environmental science at the University of Tennessee...
...We think that regulations should be put into effect recognizing...
...For example, the China Information Center—a few donated rooms in an old house—has eight computers transmitting coded messages to college campuses across China...
...She is working on a book about the Chinese students' demonstrations...
...Representatives of student groups from across the United States met July 28 in Chicago to draft a charter and choose the new leadership...
...It's the immediate control of their lives they are worried about...
...they're thinking about the dollar in their pocket-book...
...that anything we do on a unilateral basis has a secondary effect of denying markets to American manufacturers and withdrawing possibilities for American workers competing to service that market," says Randy Harrison, a spokesman for Boeing...
...As this article went to press, the favorites were Wuer Kaixi and Yan Jiqi, two dissidents who recently escaped from China...
...We are talking about octogenarians who kill thousands of young people in order to save their own positions and ensure the same fat future for their own children...
...and Chinese officials have reached an agreement not to interrupt the movement of those trucks across the desert...
...Sino-American trade is worth $14 billion a year...
...What they are talking about is a kind of freedom from something, from the domination of the government in their lives," Rosen says...
...Private investors include Prescott Bush, George Bush's brother, who is building a golf course for Chinese dignitaries and tourists in Shanghai...
...Now, that has become almost impossible...
...Companies which sell their products to China report fairly normal business despite the crackdown...
...At a recent forum on China's future held at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, a Chinese student leader argued that the Beijing regime should not be seen as a single, monolithic entity...
...Their methods include the ail-American phonathon, "Long Marches" (spinoffs on the March of Dimes concept), and daytime talk-show appeals for contributions...
...They are not calling for multiparty politics...
...American companies have been adamant about their opposition to proposed trade sanctions...
...But I believe the maximum term for this government is the life term of Deng Xiaoping...
...he and hundreds of others were not invited...
...In the aftermath of Tiananmen Square, most American companies pulled out temporarily, and the Chinese economy felt the pinch...
...In fact, say many, the Chinese are meeting their payments more promptly than usual...
...A multitude of fundraising arms bearing such names as the Foundation of Chinese Students for Democracy and the Alliance of Chinese Patriots have sprung up across the country...
...At the beginning, we were primarily supporting the Chinese student movement in China," says Mo Cheng, a mathematics graduate student at Brandeis University and an organizer of the China Information Center in Newton, Massachusetts...
...Look," he snaps...
...China has serious environmental problems," he says...
...We should spend time thinking of very realistic ways to change China—not demonstrations, not slogans," says one student who has avoided most of the activities...
...That makes America China's third-largest trading partner, after Hong Kong and Japan...
...investment in China since President Richard Nixon's visit...
...Much of the effort is directed against the state-run media blackout...
...I believe in a lot of things, but I don't believe in people...
...Shengping Feng was a Ph.D...
...Threats and break-ins at student-association offices here have forced students to use technology they acquired in America to circumvent Chinese government attempts to tighten the controls...
...Feng left the university and founded the China Solidarity Committee, a lobby in Washington which boasts some of this country's most prominent China scholars on its board of directors...
...The fax is a good method because it is relatively hard to tap into—not like a simple telephone call...
...But the State Department backed down and approved the sale...
...That," he said sharply, "is not important...
...I'm convinced that the people in Washington are well aware of our viewpoint and the viewpoint of American business on this issue," he says...
...They said 'Down with the Nationalists.' I see the seed of another dictatorship in those very words...
...Really stupid things...
...And the groups from the South said that if we held it in San Francisco they wouldn't come...
...Poland is a good example of what we would like to see happen," says one student...
...The United States built these posts in the 1970s after President Richard Nixon's first visit to China...
...instead...
...He has participated in the democracy movement here, but his goal is to return to China...
...Two days after the massacre, 3,000 people demonstrated in front of the White House and 18,000 marched from the United Nations to the Chinese Consulate in New York...
...Using an ingenious mix of communications technology, American-style fund-raising and lobbying tactics, and grassroots organizing, Chinese pro-democracy students here are preparing for what will almost certainly be a drawn-out struggle...
...Even before the crackdown, the May Fourth Foundation—a Boston-area Chinese student group named for the famous student democracy movement of 1919—raised $20,000 for food, clothing, blankets, computer equipment, and start-up funds for a free newspaper in Beijing...
...But as Bo Wang draws it onto posterboard in a stylized, elaborate script, it is powerful, fluid, inevitable perhaps— but also complex, winding, circular...
...All that changed after the June 3 massacre in Tiananmen Square, when government troops fired upon the people, killing an estimated 3,000...
...In 1949 we got Mao, but then he betrayed us...
...As Shengping Feng notes, it's tough to reconcile the movement's need for a charismatic leader with the larger objectives of popular democracy...
...program in comparative literature, voices harsh and specific criticism of the Beijing regime...
...Foundations and corporations have also donated office space and phone lines, fax machines, money, and fundraising expertise...
...Says spokesman John Mc-Candless, "we think that conditions there are stable and returning to normal...
...What I would like to see is a China where all opinions and all parties can exist...
...But if you want to unite the students here you have to have very basic aims like we want democracy...
...Said one representative, "People with business in China think about these issues in terms of how they affect their business...
...The Washington Post quotes one unidentified senior Administration official as saying, "Intelligence sharing has been part of a substantial U.S...
...They're not so concerned about moral issues...
...Students here are also widely known to have contacts with the "underground railroad" that led to the escape of Wuer Kaixi, the 21-year-old Beijing student leader, and Yan Jiaqi, a dissident intellectual...
...The United States is also the largest Western investor in China, with a stake valued at $3.5 billion...
...The group helps Congress draft resolutions on China, advises the State Department, and works to influence Chinese politics through private appeals to government contacts in Beijing...
...Because if we do nothing, who knows, history may take a turn...
...Boeing Corporation, which has sold more than sixty airplanes to China since the 1970s, expects to deliver eleven new Boeing 757s to China in the coming months...
...Somehow, they think we're a bunch of radicals or that we'll challenge their authority...
...My confidence is in a system of checks and balances that limits these would-be emperors...
...In 1976 we got Deng, but now he's turned out to be just as bad...
...In Beijing, It's Business as Usual On the other side of the world, far away from the debates over democracy in China, stand several desert outposts that will be directly affected by Washington's China policy...
...It's been difficult even organizing a meeting to sort out our disagreements because the groups from the West Coast said that if we held it in Chicago they wouldn't come...
...I oppose slogans that say, 'Down with the Communist Party.' My heart accepts it but my mind says no, because I remember that just forty years ago the Communists used the same slogan and just changed one word...
...In July, the delivery of the first four planes in the Boeing shipment of eleven ran into a snag: The navigational instruments figured on a list of military equipment that the Administration had embargoed to protest the crackdown...
...I don't believe in any violent overthrow...
...Someone asked a question about divisions within the student camp...
...No one really has the charisma to be the leader at the moment," says another student, echoing a widespread concern...
...We see the current regime as extremely temporary," Shengping Fen continues, "and we will do everything we can to shorten its life...
...Chinese often seem at a loss to describe what the practicalities of democracy might look like in China, notes Stanley Rosen, assistant professor of political science at the University of Southern California...
...There, computer scientists decode the messages, knowing that the technology far surpasses what the Chinese government can intercept...
...Some people are still looking for a new one...
...Using donated fax machines and telephone lines, students are bombarding China with articles from the Hong Kong press, open letters from overseas Chinese communities, and lists of American numbers that Chinese can call collect to report news or simply to speak their mind without fear of reprisal...
...Yet by now most companies are going back, and so far none has publicly announced plans to stop work in China—at least in the short run...
...Says one student organizer, himself a science major, "Although everyone has an interest in political issues now, most of the Chinese students are studying engineering, science, math—not social science or literature—so their understanding of the issues involved is often shallow...
...It is that which we have to balance against our current, justified outrage...
...It is a scene that is becoming familiar in colleges and universities across the United States...
...The government has taken what steps it can to correct the situation, attempting to lure business back with promises of special deals, and issuing a recent national directive urging local officials to draw as little attention as possible to arrests and executions...
...For 3,000 years the Chinese people have been looking for a wiser and more benevolent emperor," he says...
...Even the rotten tree can sometimes sprout a new root...
...That's way down the line, if ever...
...The movement is having its difficulties—mostly in trying to assimilate the ca-caphony of new voices in the chorus of calls for "more democracy...
...But if they can be the leaders, I think everyone will follow...
...companies, scheduled a meeting with Chinese leaders just weeks after the massacre...
...From bases in Qitai and Korla in Xinjiang Autonomous Region in the far reaches of the Gobi Desert, just miles from the Soviet border, trucks bearing top-secret intelligence tapes leave daily for the American embassy in Beijing...
...student at Princeton University when he heard of the massacre...
...There is also some concern regarding possible shortages of foreign exchange if business and tourism remain at their present levels...
...We are talking about a fascist regime which resorts to the same tactics the Nazis used to quell internal dissent in Germany," says Yang...
...Until June, Chinese students were organized into "friendship organizations" under the auspices of the Chinese embassy in Washington...
...Some wonder whether Yan Jiaqi and Wuer Kaixi—whose chief claim to leadership is that they escaped from China-can really unite the students...
...Intelligence data is not the only commodity that figures in the equation...
...Yet he is determined to go home...
...But for now I will be a freedom fighter...
...We are not revolutionaries," he says of his organization...
...The government's own estimates, published by the official New China News Agency, indicated a loss of $270 million in foreign business alone during the weeks before the massacre...
...Still others, citing basic philosophical differences, refuse to participate in the movement at all...
...At a minimum, he will probably face discrimination in the workplace for being abroad at a time when it is assumed all Chinese outside their country have engaged in anti-government activities...
...Consolidating so many groups into a single organization may prove to be the most serious challenge yet faced by the growing movement...
Vol. 53 • September 1989 • No. 9
