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| The tension builds... |
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I received word early that the U.S. embassy had summoned all journalists for a briefing at 10:30 am in the embassy building. Since I had faxed dispatches to the Examiner only hours before, I figured I qualified as a journalist for the purposes of the briefing.
My heart pounded as I pedaled furiously to the embassy under the already-broiling Beijing sun. For the first time since I'd arrived, I was experiencing fear. Surely the fact that the American embassy had contacted all journalists was related to the most recent government warnings to reporters to obey the martial law restrictions on covering the demonstrations. Troop movements were occurring outside the city, military motorcycles were speeding about Beijing's major arteries, dissident generals were back in the fold, and the government's warnings were sounding more ominous. Something was in the air.
No one checked for any press credentials at the entrance to the embassy. I went upstairs and walked into the crowded briefing room to find the meeting already in progress. Everyone was dutifully jotting down notes or running their tape recorders, hanging on every word of the three U.S. diplomats holding court. If there was an alarming situation going on outside, you never would have known it from the substance and tone of the American embassy officials.
"There has been no definitive leadership decision to crack down," said one diplomat authoritatively. "The game goes on. The government is looking for a solution that will save them face. Whatever emerges, probably won't hold. However the leadership is restructured, it will no doubt fall apart."
He referred to a pattern he had discerned in the Chinese press. "The People's Daily will report to the foreign press that no change has taken place. But in their press, there is no mention of Zhao, and they've stopped using titles when talking about the Military Commission."
"The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party operates like a secret society," chimed in another U.S. diplomat. "It runs on tight discipline. That's why Zhao Zhang got into trouble, for making individual decisions, like when he told Gorbachev that Deng was the guy in charge. That was the big no-no."
The third official went out of his way to downplay the significance of the students' erection of the controversial statue.
"The Beijing city government once erected statues of a panda and ox," he said with a straight face. "It isn't really that embarrassing. It is my opinion that the statue will remain in Tiananmen Square for a long time." So much for the sagacity and vision of the American diplomatic corps.
But then he said something that caught my attention, because it coincided almost word-for-word with what Wang had told me Wednesday night.
"The troops didn't arrive exclusively to deal with the students," said the diplomat. "It was also a power play that grew out of the factional infighting that has been going on."
The rest of the briefing produced little in the way of breakthrough developments, but I did get to hear incisive analysis from the American diplomats, such as the news that the Chinese leaders use of "goofy names" like "anti-bourgeois liberalization" was bad for the investment climate; and that Zhao Zhang was definitely out as General Secretary of the Party. But from there, the embassy official piously declared, they really could not say.
Through it all, I was struck by how both the U.S. press and diplomatic corps completely ignored the role of the students and workers in the mass mobilizations. The briefing was permeated by this snobbish, inner club, fraternity chumminess, where everyone was trying to impress everyone else with their knowledge of the inner machinations of the Communist Party bureaucracy.
You'd never know history was being made outside; you'd never suspect that a mass movement had enveloped the capital of the world's most populous nation. To these people, well trained in bourgeois thinking as they were, the focus was strictly on the individual personalities involved, the Deng Xaiopings and Li Pengs and Zhao Zhangs; the diplomats and journalists were totally mesmerized by the inner workings of the Chinese establishment. The heroes who made the Beijing Spring possible--the students and workers who had put their lives on the line in Tiananmen Square and elsewhere--were barely mentioned in all their smug theories and analyses. They were so alienated from and have such contempt for mass movements that they were not able to find it within themselves to include the pro-democracy campaign's prime movers in their briefing dialogue.
But then again, just as the U.S. government knew in advance about the Soviet Union's 1956 and 1968 invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, maybe Washington was well aware that the Chinese government was on the verge of unleashing a brutal crackdown against the pro-democracy demonstrators. Maybe that was behind the diplomats' casual dismissal of a clamp-down. Maybe they weren't really as stupid as they seemed in hindsight; perhaps instead it was a dash of diplomatic deception.
Meanwhile, as the American embassy officials were triumphantly predicting a long reign for the Goddess of Democracy and Freedom, tensions continued to mount in Beijing, as 300 army soldiers were marching within a block of Tiananmen Square. The international press was reporting the details of the government's latest reiteration of the martial law restrictions on press coverage. A city spokesperson, Ding Weijun, told reporters that they were banned from covering "activities prohibited?" in Beijing, obviously including the Tiananmen demonstrations. Mr. Ding announced new rules which forbade "making appointments with Chinese citizens to meet at the offices or residences of foreign journalists," and "at hotels or elsewhere for interviews on activities prohibited by martial law decrees."
Wang and Liu certainly knew what they were doing in steering me away from the Beijing Hotel Wednesday night, but it dawned on me that everything I had been doing all week in the square violated martial law. Thinking back, I realized it was wise to keep moving whenever large crowds gathered around me with the tape recorder, especially with well-founded rumors of undercover agents throughout the square.
Western correspondents and television networks vowed to continue their coverage of the protests, despite the fact that Mr. Ding's statement included a ban on photographs and videotapes of military troops. Actually, before this week, most journalists were not having any more trouble covering the demonstrations than I was. But things were changing. Two U.S. television networks and a Japanese network were warned by the government that their crews were violating the martial law restrictions. Then, reporters from the Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun and the BBC were summoned to hear the same admonition.
The Herald Tribune reported that an other pro-government rally was staged on Thursday in a village north of Beijing. Workers and farmers were again ordered by local party officials to show up at the event and chant slogans of support for Prime Minister Li Peng, but this time they were drowned out by hundreds of students shouting for Li's resignation. I was heartened by this additional evidence that refuted the Tribune's headline earlier in the week: "Tired Students Wilting Under Li's Pressure."
I met Wang, Liu and Yang at our designated rendezvous point at five o'clock. From there we headed to Liu and his wife 's arts and stamps store in Beijing's free market. The trio was buoyed by two recent developments--the news that the authorities had bended to public pressure and released the three activists from the Beijing Autonomous Workers Federation, and the commencement of another hunger strike in Tiananmen Square. Professor Bai's information turned out to be accurate after all, although his prediction of 100 participants was somewhat inflated. Wang was especially excited about the hunger strike for one of the participants was a close friend of his--36-year-old Taiwanese singer Hou Dejian. Mr. Hou was joined by three prominent intellectuals--Liu Xiaopo, lecturer at Beijing Normal University and a Doctor of literature; Zhou Tuo, a lecturer from the Institute of Sociology at Beijing University, with connections to the Stone Company; and Gao Xin, former editor of Beijing Normal University Gazette and member of the Communist Party.
The bad news was that Liu had not brought along the agreement he had negotiated with the army during the people's blockade of the troops on May 23rd. The good news was that Wang had procured an excerpt of the June 2nd Hunger Strikers Declaration, which had been translated into English. It read:
"We are going on hunger strike! We want to protest and call for support from the people.
"We are not seeking our own extinction. We want to live as real people.
"Under the tyranny of martial law imposed unreasonably on us, we Chinese intellectuals must change our tradition of being all talk and no action by law. We don't want to promote the democratization process by peaceful means. We are against all kinds of force. But we are not afraid of force. We are using peaceful means to show the people's strength and solidity, to smash the rule of bayonets and falsehood.
"We protest against the lack of freedom of the press, against the martial law imposed on our press media. The people must have freedom of the press. We appeal to the people to gradually eliminate all feelings of hatred and give up the political propaganda of 'class struggle.' Let us bring about democracy with a spirit of tolerance and cooperation. Li Peng has committed serious mistakes and must resign from his post as premier. However, if he can do so we need not consider him our enemy. He can still live as an ordinary citizen.
"We should all abandon the attitude of onlookers. We are all equal. We should all have the responsibility of participating in state affairs. This is the duty of every citizen.
"What we want is not a heaven-sent saver, but a better political system. Absolute power in the hands of one man is unacceptable.
"We should all criticize ourselves. We have all made mistakes. Democracy as a political system is still new to us. We should all study democracy, this includes everybody.
"We must correct our past weakness and mistakes. We are all responsible for the backwardness of our nation.
"Through our hunger strike, we want also to tell the people that what the government media refers to as a small bunch of troublemakers is in fact the whole nation. We may not be students, but we are citizens whose sense of duty makes us support the democracy movements started by the college students. All we have been doing is within the boundaries of law.
"Our basic slogans:
"1. We are not against anybody. Do not let hatred and violence poison our fight for democracy.
"2. We are all responsible for our own past backwardness.
"3. We are Chinese citizens.
"4. We are not seeking death, but a real and better life.
"The time and place:
"1. The place is under the martyrs? memorial in Tiananmen Square.
"2. Seventy two hours starting from 4 pm, June 2nd to 4 pm June 5th. (Since Hou Dejian has to go to Hong Kong to make his recordings, he will only carry on for forty eight hours.)
"3. We will only drink water, we will not accept food or other forms of nourishment like sugar, starch, fat, glucose, etc."
Wang, Yang and Liu were bursting with pride over the hunger strikers and their moving declaration. Wang was particularly proud because of his relationship with Hou Dejian. He told me that Hou had defected from Taiwan several years earlier and had been living in the People 's Republic, so he was no flaming reactionary. Wang said that Hou had written a song recently called "Beautiful Chinese," which contained the lyric: "We ugly Chinese, how beautiful we are today."
This use of sarcasm was evident in Tiananmen Square on Friday. Wang chuckled when he told me he had seen students wearing demon masks and Chiang Kai-shek costumes while chanting derisively "Support martial law, down with democracy, support oppression." Others carried a banner reading "Support Li Peng, earn 10 yuan ($20), the amount workers and farmers allegedly received for attending the pro-government rallies.
After a 20-minute walk through Beijing's hot, dusty streets, we arrived at Liu's shop in the free market. Liu's attractive wife was working the store, and when introduced she greeted me with a warm, friendly smile. She could not hide her concern for her husband's safety, however. Her voice was laced with urgency as she told Liu to come home early that evening.
It turned out that Liu and his wife owned not one but four shops in the free market district. The young man was quite the successful entrepreneur, and for this was constantly teased by his less affluent friends, especially Yang, who was apparently struggling as a photo journalist. Liu was also not above trying to impress his American friend with his prosperity.
"The next time you come to China, you can stay in one of my apartments. For nothing. Nice, modern apartment, not like Yang's," he said with a smile. Not even a solid revolutionary democrat was immune from the effects of Deng's embracement of free enterprise. Class differentiations were finding their expression even among close friends. Indeed, some things are the same the world over.
After kissing his wife and assuring her he'd be home early, Liu and his friends took me to a crowded restaurant off the Avenue of Eternal Peace, a half mile from Tiananmen. The place was jumping with the news that earlier in the day, the Party had sent hundreds of unarmed troops jogging into Tiananmen Square in an attempt to intimidate the student demonstrators. The mission failed as the students, taking advantage of their numerical superiority and the fact that the soldiers were not armed, repulsed the invaders and even mocked them as they retreated.
We enjoyed another stellar Chinese dinner while Yang and Liu got good and drunk. The latter did his best to land me in the same condition. Liu thoroughly enjoyed drinking with his new American friend, but I was able to get away with nursing three or four great-tasting Chinese beers. Wang was anxious to take me to Tiananmen to visit his famous hunger-striking friend.
"I'll arrange for you to meet my friend Hou Dejian. I'll get you inside the tent he is staying in," he said confidently.
It was nine o'clock before we left the restaurant and headed for the square. The Avenue of Eternal Peace was already simmering with electricity. The bicycle and pedestrian brigade was streaming toward Tiananmen. It seemed as if the entire city was turning out Friday night to show support for the four newest hunger strikers, and in doing so were sending a message to Deng Xiaoping: If the army was sent in to forcibly clear the square, there would be an international price to pay for it.
I followed Wang, Liu and Yang through a filled to capacity Tiananmen, passing the tent city below the Goddess of Democracy and Freedom and on to the Monument of the People's Heroes, still the command center of the student movement. As we approached the tents housing the hunger striker, we were met by several layers of highly agitated, disciplined security marshals. Between Liu's authority as a square commander and Wang's connections to Hou Deijian, we made it all the way to the hunger strikers' tent.
Here our paths were abruptly stopped by three marshals who were taking their jobs very seriously. Wang spoke first, all excited and animated, obviously telling security that he was a close friend of Hou who was bringing an American journalist to interview him. Security was not impressed. They were not letting anyone inside. There was much tension in the air, and the marshals guarding the hunger strikers reflected it. Wang argued vociferously that they let us in to see Hou, but the marshals would have none of it. Then Liu took over in his belligerent, drunken manner, an approach which did not go over well with security. Tempers flared and it looked like Liu and one of the monitors were going to go at it, but they were pulled apart before anything physical ensued. Wang was frustrated, Liu was enraged, and Yang was poised to attack anyone who laid a hand on Liu.
I stepped back from the fray and sat down a minute to catch my breath. The situation seemed chaotic on the surface, but the discipline and organization was strong enough to just barely keep things together. There must have been a quarter of a million people in Tiananmen. If the government had thrown down the gauntlet with the introduction of troops jogging into the square and the deployment of military motorcycles, the people of Beijing were responding by marching into the square to show their solidarity with the students and the hunger strikers. The game of chicken was coming to an end.
After several minutes, Wang came over to me and sat down.
"My friend Hou Deijian is sleeping now. They do not want us to disturb him now. They will not let us in. I tried everything. I am sorry. As you can see, the situation up here is chaos."
Indeed, a squad of marshals were struggling to prevent the pushing and shoving crowd from breaking through and entering the tent. We were not the only ones desiring to see the celebrity hunger strikers.
Wang and I talked for a little while, then bade each other good night, but not before making plans to meet for another dinner on Sunday night. Wang promised that he the would have the copy of Liu's May 23rd pledge from the army. Yang and Liu were off to the side, the former nursing his friend's drunken, wounded ego. He could not look his American friend in the eye, for his authority as square commander had been challenged. I wanted to tell him it didn't matter at all, but now wasn't the time, and I knew he'd be over it in the morning. I looked at them one more time before making my way back to the Minzu. I would not see them again.
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