China Beijing Spring

• Share

(2 of 4)

The most extraordinary phenomenon was the support shown for the students by workers, an allegiance that had not been so evident in earlier demonstrations. Thousands of workers streamed from their offices and factories into the spring sunshine to watch and cheer. Food vendors handed out free drinks and popsicles. Those who did not join in the march climbed atop buildings, billboards and subway entrances for a better view. At one intersection workers broke through a line of 200 police to clear a path for the procession.

The tensest moment came when the students burst through the last police line before Tiananmen Square, the symbolic seat of power and the scene two weeks ago of a violent confrontation between students and police. According to students, two were seriously injured and 300 briefly detained. As the activists proceeded down the Avenue of Eternal Peace toward the north side of the 100-acre square, they were met by truckloads of troops. But the soldiers made no move to stop the demonstrators, who swarmed around the trucks. After a few minutes, the vehicles and their bewildered passengers slowly drove away to thunderous cheers from the gathered throng. Surprisingly, the students did not stop at the square but, wishing to avoid confrontation, marched past it and returned peacefully to their campuses.

The day before Thursday's protest, there was every indication that the government was ready to crush even the smallest sprig of dissent. On Tuesday Premier Li Peng and President Yang Shangkun reportedly informed Deng that the movement had spread "to high schools, the countryside and even among the workers." Deng, whose sole official government title is Chairman of the Central Military Commission but whose ironhanded control of the government has led the students to dub him the "Emperor," agreed that the protesters intended to overthrow the Communist Party. Referring to the turmoil that has accompanied political reform elsewhere in the socialist world, Deng said, "Look what happened in Poland, Hungary and the Soviet Union." He called the demonstrators "a black hand against the party and myself," and told Li and Yang that "we must take strict measures to deal with this movement, or there will be nationwide turmoil." Vowed Deng: "We must use a sharp knife to cut the flaxen threads."

The following day the People's Daily, the Communist Party newspaper, came close to accusing the demonstrators of treason in an editorial that was broadcast and reprinted all over China. "This is a planned conspiracy that . . . aims at negating the leadership of the party and the socialist system," said the editorial. It called the students' independent unions illegal and said that new demonstrations would be put down. As a first step in the expected crackdown, Shanghai party officials restructured China's most outspokenly liberal newspaper, the weekly World Economic Herald, and fired its editor, Qin Benli.

Jia Guangxi and his fellow students took these actions as provocations and immediately began organizing their largest protest yet. "The government wants to intimidate us, but the measures they have resorted to only make us angry," he said minutes before the giant march began. Meanwhile, tear gas, helmets and ammunition were being readied for the police.