Wake up（349）

 

349

 

Liu Xiaosheng said: At that time, should we continue to communicate with the students, or maintain a tough attitude towards the demonstrations? Zhao Ziyang and Li Peng have completely different views.

Since Hu Yaobang once served as the top leader of the Communist Party of China, the central government decided to hold a state funeral for him. The ceremony was finally decided to be held on April 22. The Beijing Municipal People's Government issued an order to close the square to hold the funeral.

But some 100,000 students ignored orders the night before and marched to Tiananmen Square. At this time, students from various colleges and universities formed the "Student Action Interim Committee", and then the committee put forward seven demands to the authorities, and mentioned three other demands related to Hu Yaobang, which were to allow students in the square to pay respects to Hu Yaobang's body; Let the student representatives on the square enter the Great Hall of the People to participate in the memorial service for Hu Yaobang; after the memorial service for Hu Yaobang, let his coffin circle around Tiananmen Square, and let the tens of thousands of students present see him off for the last time.

However, the official Chinese funeral committee rejected all the demands of the student representatives, and only agreed to simultaneously broadcast the current situation of Hu Yaobang's memorial service to the students in Tiananmen Square. Authorities also asked students in the square to move east to clear space on the west side of the square to allow vehicles of memorial service attendees to pass, and the students complied.

At 10 o'clock in the morning on April 22, Chinese leaders including Deng Xiaoping, chairman of the Central Military Commission, went to the Great Hall of the People to attend the ceremony. Zhao Ziyang, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, delivered a memorial speech, and Chinese President Yang Shangkun presided over the ceremony.

Although the entire state funeral process was broadcast directly to the students, the students did not see Hu Yaobang's hearse until 11:00 because the commemoration ended after only 40 minutes, which made the crowd in Tiananmen Square even more emotional.

At this time, students began to cross the road west of Tiananmen Square and flock to sit in front of the Great Hall of the People. They made three requests to the government, namely, continue to demand that Hu Yaobang's hearse pass around Tiananmen Square; meet with Premier Li Peng; and hope that the official media can publicly report the students' mourning activities for Hu Yaobang in Tiananmen Square. But officials still did not accept the students' request, nor did they send officials to meet with the students.

Although security personnel blocked the east gate of the Great Hall of the People, several students broke through the blockade together. Then three students, Guo Haifeng and Zhang Zhiyong from Peking University, and Zhou Yongjun from China University of Political Science and Law, knelt on the steps of the Great Hall of the People, expressing their intention to submit a petition and requesting an audience with Premier Li Peng of the State Council.

However, the three students knelt for more than 40 minutes, and no leader appeared from the Great Hall of the People, which made most of the students feel disappointed and dissatisfied.

The Interim Student Action Committee decided to evacuate Tiananmen Square, but prepared to strike in protest.

Around 1:30 p.m. on April 22, students began to evacuate Tiananmen Square. When they passed Xinhua Gate, they shouted, "Peaceful petition, the government ignores it, electrifies the whole country, and strikes in unison."

From April 21st to April 23rd, the students began to plan and set up a real activity organization. On April 20th, the Democracy Salon of Peking University held a meeting. The students decided not to recognize the official Peking University Student Union and organize their own student union. The name is tentatively named "Peking University United Student Union Preparatory Committee". Feng Congde and other seven students led the group.

On April 23, another student organization, the Beijing University Student Self-Government Federation, was established, and Zhou Yongjun, who was studying at the China University of Political Science and Law at the time, was elected as its chairman. Elected as student representatives of their respective schools. However, Wang Chaohua, a graduate student of the Academy of Social Sciences, Feng Congde, a graduate student of Peking University (the third chairman), and Yang Tao, a Peking University student (the fourth chairman), were actually in charge of the work.

Subsequently, the Beijing Higher Education Federation called on all colleges and universities in Beijing to strike indefinitely in order to express their protest demands. However, the establishment of such an organization independent of its jurisdiction challenges the Chinese government's position in the management of students.

On the other hand, students from Xiangtan University in Xiangtan City also initiated protests and received support from many school professors. At the same time, local university students in Wuhan also organized to protest against the People's Government of Hubei Province.

However, on the evening of April 22, serious accidents broke out in Changsha and Xi'an. These included setting fire to vehicles and houses in Xi'an, and looting of shops near Xihuamen. In Changsha, 38 shops were also robbed. In the end, more than 350 people were arrested in these two cities.

As the situation in the country became more turbulent, Zhao Ziyang immediately held several meetings with the Politburo Standing Committee. In this regard, Zhao Ziyang emphasized that students should stop further protests and return to their respective universities; he also demanded that all necessary measures be used to resolve the unrest, and that governments at different levels should have an open dialogue with students.

Li Peng asked Zhao Ziyang to condemn the demonstrators, and believed that more active prevention and control measures should be taken, but Zhao Ziyang finally rejected Li Peng's views.

Although the top leaders have different opinions on how to respond to the student movement, and Vice Premier Tian Jiyun and others who are close to Zhao Ziyang also suggested that Zhao Ziyang stay in Beijing to closely monitor the development of the situation, but Zhao Ziyang still followed the original plan to respond to the North Korean state. At the invitation of Chairman Kim Il Sung, he flew to North Korea for a state visit on April 23.

Liu Xiaosheng said:

After Zhao Ziyang went to visit North Korea, Li Peng, Premier of the State Council who stayed in Beijing, acted as the head of various agencies.

On April 24, 35 universities in Beijing went on strike, and colleges and universities in Shanghai, Tianjin, Changsha, Xi'an, Nanjing and other major cities responded one after another.

On April 24, Li Peng met with Li Ximing, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, and Chen Xitong, State Councilor and mayor of the Beijing Municipal People's Government, hoping to learn about the situation in Tiananmen Square.

Beijing officials wanted to resolve the crisis as soon as possible, and determined that the protests were a conspiracy to overthrow China's existing political system and key leaders, including Deng Xiaoping.

In the absence of Zhao Ziyang, the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China decided that it was necessary to take immediate and resolute action against the demonstrators.

On April 25, about 60,000 students from 43 colleges and universities in Beijing continued to strike. The Beijing Federation of Higher Education made three requests to the government, and classes will resume only if the government agrees. These three requirements are: 1. Dialogue with representative officials of the State Council; 2. The government publicly apologized for the Xinhuamen incident and punished the perpetrators; 3. The domestic media reported the student movement truthfully.

On the morning of April 25, Yang Shangkun and Li Peng went to Deng Xiaoping's residence to meet Deng Xiaoping, who agreed with the government to take a tough stance. Deng Xiaoping also stated that "warnings" should be properly issued through the mass media, so as to suppress the demonstrations that have expanded due to continuous spread.

The meeting became the first official assessment of the protests by top Chinese officials, and decisions on important issues still depend on Deng Xiaoping's opinion.

Li Peng then ordered the drafting of a communiqué based on Deng Xiaoping's opinion, and demanded that various institutions and high-level officials of the Chinese Communist Party should find ways to deal with the demonstrators.

On April 26, the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, published an editorial on the front page, "We must oppose unrest with a clear banner" (Editorial April 26), accusing "a very small number of people with ulterior motives" of plotting to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party and the current political system . But the statement angered students, who saw it as a deliberate effort by Chinese officials to deal with the protests. In the end, the editorial did not make students give up on the demonstrations, but instead led to more students being willing to unite and express their support for student activities.

On the night when the editorial was released, demonstrations of various scales took place in Changchun, Shanghai, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Xi'an, Changsha, Hefei and other cities to protest the April 26 editorial.

In order to protest the government’s characterization of the April 26 editorial, millions of students and the masses launched the April 27 March. The parade team held up banners that read “Long live democracy, long live the people!” and “Long live the clean Chinese Communist Party.”

Organized by the Beijing University Student Self-Government Federation, 50,000 to 100,000 students from various universities in Beijing gathered for a parade on April 27 and marched through the streets to Tiananmen Square. The student group successfully passed through the cordon set up by the police and received widespread support from citizens, led by factory worker groups, along the way.

The student leaders who organized the event hoped to show their patriotic nature through this parade, and deliberately downplayed the slogans against communism; the students in the parade mainly emphasized the issue of "anti-bureaucracy, anti-corruption, and anti-cronyism", but the students still emphasized that they would continue "Support the (Chinese) Communist Party".

The demonstrations forced the Chinese government to back down by agreeing to meet with student representatives.

On April 29, Yuan Mu, director of the Research Office of the State Council, met with representatives of student associations approved by the government. Although the meeting discussed a wide range of topics including newspaper editing, the Xinhuamen incident, democracy and freedom, and achieved some substantial results, student leaders including Wuer Kaixi refused to attend.

On April 30, Zhao Ziyang returned from Pyongyang, North Korea and regained power. However, as the outside world called for the Chinese government to soften its attitude towards student demonstrations, internal conflicts intensified.

The moderate faction headed by Zhao Ziyang advocated continuing dialogue with the students; the hard-line faction headed by Li Peng advocated that the protests should be firmly opposed to continue.

At the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held on May 1, Zhao Ziyang and Li Peng once again clashed over this issue.

Zhao Ziyang believes that the previous hardliners' actions have proved to be ineffective, so the government's only option is to allow this activity.

Regarding Li Peng's belief that the country's stable development should take precedence over anything else, Zhao Ziyang countered that Chinese officials should express support for the expansion of democracy and transparency.

Finally, under Zhao Ziyang's strong push, the government decided to start further dialogue.

Zhao Ziyang then opened up the news media to actively report on the development of the protests, and made two speeches sympathetic to the demonstrators between May 3 and May 4.

In Zhao Ziyang's speech, he mentioned that it is legitimate for students to be concerned about the corruption of government officials. At the same time, he believed that this student movement should be regarded as a patriotic display.

On May 4, 100,000 students marched through the streets of Beijing to commemorate the May 4th Movement and reiterate the demands of previous demonstrations.

News media workers participated in the parade for the first time. Most of these journalists and editors from central media held banners such as "Capital Journalists" and shouted "News must tell the truth", which was the most shocking slogan of the day. "People's Daily" In the parade of journalists, journalists rode bicycles to the square, holding some placards with words such as "People's Daily, Belonging to the People", "One person decides, the collective is responsible, and the whole people suffers."

On the same day, the Beijing Higher Education Federation announced the "New May 4th Manifesto", calling for the promotion of democratic governance. Students from Shanghai, Nanjing and Guangzhou also took to the streets, calling for dialogue between the government and students.

In fact, Zhao Ziyang's speech basically negated the content of the editorial published by the People's Daily on April 26, which made many college students satisfied with the concession made by the government.

At the end of May 4th, except for Peking University and Beijing Normal University, all universities in Beijing announced the end of the strike action. Afterwards, most students gradually lost interest in participating in the protests. Freedom of the press was verbally guaranteed. Dialogue progressively advances democracy.