Fear and loathing pervade Beijing under martial law

Scan page 8

'Soldiers with automatic rifles were at every major intersection and stood back to back with weapons poised. Their faces stony, SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 1989 Socialist Action sent a team of reporters to China following the crackdown there. In our July issue, Ralph Schoenman wrote about his conversations with student activists in Shanghai. In this issue, Schoenman continues the story, writing about his experiences in Beijing.

Our arrival in Beijing brought us face to face with the realities of martial law. We were the only Americans in our hotel, the Jing-lun or Beijing-Toronto, on Chang An Avenue leading to Tiananmen Square.

The hotel manager, Ma Si, received us and advised us to carry our passports, never photograph soldiers, know that it is forbidden to walk in Tiananmen Square, and be careful— particularly at night when shooting could be widely heard and check-points were common. We knew we would have a harder time contacting people in Beijing-without jeopardizing them-than we had faced in Shanghai The wide avenues of central Beijing were bracketed by high-rise luxury hotels, office buildings of glass, and sites cleared of workers' housing. Soldiers with automatic rifles were at every major intersection and stood back to back with weapons poised. Their faces were stony, expressionless. Unlike in Shanghai, on the main streets passersby rarely smiled and averted their eyes. There was fear and tension in the air. We set out quickly for the universities. They were under armed guard, with soldiers surrounding them and security police at the entrance gates.

At Beijing University Beijing University is near the Summer Palace of the Empress Cu Xi, an exquisite series of temples, arcades, and monuments along a lake and endless hills and walkways. We had lived there in 1985, and we knew the area well.

The soldiers at the entrance to Beijing University were determined not to let us in By a combined strategy of emphasizing our tourist status and pretending not to understand, we persuaded the young soldier in charge to let us "walk across the bridge." We kept going. We saw quickly that students were fearful to speak, even when we nodded or greeted them in Chinese. Finally, one student responded, and I began discussing the status of things. "Don't be misled by the tranquility inside the university ground," he cautioned me. "It is very dangerous. People are picked up. We are surrounded by army units. Each entrance and exit is checked. All identity cards are checked. Many are in hiding. Mainly graduate students are here or those needing to take exams in order to get degrees." "Most students are 'away' in the countryside," he added. "I don't know how many will return."

We explained that people were supporting them outside China and mentioned the international appeal we were circulating that demands an end to the repression. [For more about the appeal, see page 11.J He smiled and said that it was welcome. It is a very difficult time, he told us. No one knows what may happen here next.

We quickly shook hands and, wishing him luck, moved on. He flashed a "V" sign as we left.

Walking on throughout the park-like campus, we observed the care with which people averted their gaze, some offering furtive smiles before doing so. Soon we noticed a car approaching. It was the taxi which had brought us to the campus, and we were surprised. The driver indicated that the soldiers had sent him to find us. We thanked him and sent him away.

After five minutes, the soldier appeared. We smiled broadly at him as we continued the charade of not comprehending what he said. When he asked us where we were staying, we asked him his age. His English was limited. We managed to walk out undetained.

A middle-school student In the working-class neighborhoods near the Summer Palace, people were friendly but wary. Walking along a polluted river in which people were swimming, we met a young swimmer who asked us from which country we had come.

His eyes darted around him alertly as we spoke. He was a middle-school student about 16 years old who had been in Tiananmen Square just before the massacre.

There are many soldiers in the center, we said. "In the center?" he replied. "Look 50 feet to your left. They are all over our neighborhood." There, under a group of trees, were six soldiers staring hard. We took pictures of the river and took out our map, pointing to it as we spoke to the student. It is dangerous for you, I told him. If they ask what we were talking about, tell them we were asking you how to find the entrance to the Summer Palace because we were lost. He smiled, appreciatively. We told him that the world knew what happened, that we were here to support the students. We felt we could risk such words as it was clear to us that this 15 or 16-year-old boy was ready to risk communicating his words to us.

At Beijing Normal University We left and made our way to Beijing Normal University, one of the most militant. This is the teachers' college. Many of the principal student organizers, such as Wu'er Cai-Xi, were from Beijing Normal. The gates were patrolled by army units and were shut. We were determined to find a way in. After reconnoitering, we found an entrance some two streets further which had only campus security personnel guarding it. We walked through unimpeded, only later to realize that we had stumbled on the road expressionless.' leading to the Foreign Students' Dormitory. We soon made contact with a student from Mali. I had been in Bamako, its capital, and it developed that we knew people in common. Epsi, as we shall call him, told us that the situation was very precarious for the students at Beijing Normal. The soldiers would periodically seal the campus and stage raids, checking I.D. cards and arresting students at random. People were fearful. Chinese students had been warned not to speak to the foreign students-even those with whom they shared classes.

Epsi was a physicist. He and his fellow West African students were told to avoid talking politics by university administrators. "Here is what we should do," he began, after we had established rapport. His French was elegant and he had a soft-spoken charm. "I'll walk through the campus with you. Get the lay of the land. Then come back at 9 p.m., when it gets dark. It will be easier for students to talk to you at night."

We walked through the campus, and Epsi showed us the sites where students had mobilized to get to Tiananmen, where the strikes and strategy were prepared.

Students in the underground We returned at night and spent three hours talking to Epsi, a West African friend making the introductions, and other students. Many were underground; many carried leaflets, photos, and appeals into the countryside. All those on campus were now being forced to attend special classes where the writings of Deng Xiaoping were read aloud by a party official. Students were made to repeat passages and voice approval. They were actually tested on the Deng decrees, and doing well was a condition for graduation. "We must regurgitate Deng's garbage," one student told us. "He is our leader!" said another with contempt. Here were the militants of the student democracy movement forced to listen to Deng's denunciations of their movement, to learn the words, and to praise them.

What was clear was the futility of trying to impose authority by such crass totalitarian methods. This was an awakened generation, and the old tools of coercion were now used as weapons by the rebellious young—who cited them by way of negative example. "We tell them anything they want to hear and then go to our rooms to plot against them." We would spend three nights there, meeting students, discussing cautiously. One student obtained a copy of the tape of an underground song performed by Cui Jian, the most popular Chinese rock singer and a voice of his generation. It is called "I have nothing" and is sung widely by students.

The song describes unrequited yearning, aspiration, each stanza ending in the bitter refrain "You laugh at me; I have nothing.

One student leader had just returned from going underground, since the authorities appeared unaware of his role.

He described to us his odyssey. After the massacre, as troops entered the campus, he fled. He walked for hours and then took buses to an area of the empress' tomb and gardens— where he slept several days. He slept in train stations too, making his way to Hunan province and to an industrial city where he stayed.

He was back now. We spoke on and realized that time had sped by. It was midnight, long past curfew. Epsi got us to a telephone and we called the hotel. After much arguing, we arranged for a taxi to come to a specific location.

Returning, we encountered four army barricades. We were stopped each of the four times but waved on after our passports were examined. At checkpoint three, a young Chinese was being slapped around by a soldier.

At Ching Hua University Ching Hua University had been among the militant centers of the student movement. Now it was also under guard by security police. We found an entrance where we were let through because we said we were looking for the foreign students' dormitory. We met a graduate student who gave us an hour-long account of the struggle at Ching Hua—the M.I.T. of China. Students were still under attack by the army. Three of his friends had been killed and 22 arrested. The army was omnipresent.

The readings of Deng's speeches and four principles as well as his analyses of the "counterrevolutionary rebellion" were instructive. One passage from Deng's account contained a revealing observation: "If the party had hesitated or retreated at this point, all would have been lost and the party would have been overthrown. It was a critical juncture."

Clearly, students by themselves could not do this and, although the passage is part of a self-serving rationale for the repression, it offers an important insight into the minds of the leading bureaucrats.

If concessions had been made, or if the Communist Party had vacillated about massive repression, the rebellion would have led to working-class actions at the point of production, with subsequent fractioning of the army, notably among conscript soldiers. How 1à 7ữ 11 Kitt 1-3231 fit: 3-862780 862780 much weaker would the party bureaucrats be in the next round?

Construction workers

We walked into many neighborhoods. In the shadow of the China Trade Center, under construction, we began to talk to people in the working-class housing-small, one-room brick hovels crammed together.

These people were astonishing. As Mya [one of the Socialist Action reporters] took Polaroids, they crowded around our group of six. They were construction and factory workers. Their meager homes were scheduled for demolition. They had no prospect of replacement housing and they were furious. They held back nothing from us. "All the party [CCP] officials are rotten bastards. These miserable sons-of-bitches don't give a damn about whether we live or die," said one. "In order to do anything you need 50 stamps on up the line-and you have to bribe these swine each step of the way," said another. "This bureaucracy is hopeless. Nothing ever gets done-that is, for us-they look after themselves."

There was no caution here. They let it all hang out in loud, fearless voices. "Look, why don't you Americans buy this land. It's valuable. Buy it before these bastard officials destroy our houses. Then you can build us some housing. "See all these office blocks? All it does is destroy our homes, poor as they are. Who knows where we'll end up? So buy this land, why don't you? These bureaucrats won't do anything for us. Anything that goes through economic reforms are wrong?

them will be bad. "And they will force us to leave our homes on valuable land in order to build a highrise. We never get replacement housing. If they need to build 10 houses, they provide two! We can't afford to bribe them like others do. So if they build 10 houses, they'll keep eight. New housing is not given to families. We will have to scramble and fight each other over it. We hate them."

"No reporting!"

Suddenly six soldiers marched over to interrupt our animated discussion. They warned us: "No photos. No reporting." They checked each of our passports. Then they interrogated the workers, who were unimpressed. "Look, these are foreign businessmen, and we are telling them to invest in China. What's wrong with that?" The soldiers and officer were unsure how to respond. They hemmed and hawed, finally leaving. The workers continued, "We'd rather put ourselves under foreigners than under these party bureaucrats."

We noticed a series of pool tables that the construction workers were using. Nat and Rod [Nat Weinstein and Rod Holt were members of the Socialist Action team] played a couple of games as workers crowded around. We learned that they had come in from the farms, often from great distances to take part-time work or whatever they could get.

Some were brought in by bus. They told us that they are paid two yuan a day by the jointventure owned by the Chinese government and a Japanese investment corporation. They work but two weeks a month, earning about 30 yuan, or about eight dollars. "How can you survive on that?" we asked. "By stretching our stomachs," we were told. One of the workers looked no more than 14. I asked his age. He smiled and said "18"—the minimum legal age. It was obvious he was underage. Local workers get full-time work at this pay. The temporary workers were living outside Beijing in the countryside.

A factory militant We walked on a considerable distance and entered an alleyway. As we were passing small brick huts with garbage strewn nearby, we stopped to speak to workers. One of them, a man of 38, spoke to us in impeccable English that, we would learn, was self-taught. "We live in slums," he said.

He was a worker militant and quickly invited us into his home. He was home from work this day to build a small window in the back of the one-room house for crossventilation. There was just enough room for a bed and a few small chairs.

He had organized the workers at his plant to strike and to go to liananmen square with their own banner. "All the workers want independent trade unions—all of them. But we lacked time. We just got started." "My mates have warned me," he went on. "I am marked as an organizer. It is clear that it is necessary to overthrow this system, and we workers are the ones to do it." He estimated the number of workers who had been shot in greater Beijing to be over 800. Ten thousand are under arrest. They direct their repression to the workers primarily. "We're the ones they really fear," he said. "Price increases and inflation are swamping