In theory, protesting students praising the Cadre is breathless nonsense. In practice, it looks like nationalism is looking for leadership. Not the Cadre.
Chinese Students Rally, but Often
In Support of Government
By JASON LEOW
June 4, 2008; Page A14
BEIJING -- Nineteen years after Beijing's bloody crackdown on the Tiananmen Square democracy movement, China's college students today are more likely to favor nationalistic causes and work within the one-party system.
Reuters
A group of women with stickers of the Chinese flag pasted on their cheeks gather to watch the Olympic torch relay at Wenzhou in Zhejiang province.
The patriotism that drove young people to criticize authorities in the 1980s is now seen by many students as best expressed by supporting China's leadership for the progress it has achieved in expanding China's economy and raising its international profile.
That sentiment has been strengthened in recent months by the political crisis in Tibet, the Sichuan earthquake and the approach of the Beijing Olympics.
Students rallied against foreign criticism of Beijing's policies in Tibet, where violent antigovernment riots in March were met with a harsh crackdown, and they have often lauded the state's response to the devastating quake. Thousands of Beijing students have volunteered to help with logistics of the Summer Games, which they see as a national triumph.
The student support for the government is a sharp contrast to the image of Chinese students shaped by the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests that still lingers for many in the West. China's government has never said how many people died in the June 3-4 crackdown that ended those demonstrations. Outside groups say the number was anywhere from several hundred to several thousand. Ahead of the Olympics, international groups like Human Rights Watch have renewed their calls for Beijing to release some of the estimated 130 people who remain in jail for their involvement in the demonstrations.
Associated Press
A Beijing University student leader argued with a policeman in April 1989.
In some ways, much of the symbolism of the Olympics appears aimed at redefining an international view of Beijing still darkened by the Tiananmen crackdown. The square has been used for such Olympic functions as the starting ceremony for the global torch relay. At a routine press conference Tuesday, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Qin Gang declined to answer a question on the Tiananmen protests. The question was omitted from a transcript of the briefing posted on the ministry's Web site.
Many young people in China don't know what took place in 1989 and don't seem especially keen to find out. China's students today aren't especially antiestablishment or openly critical of authority -- a product both of their own experiences and of an active effort by Communist Party leaders to better shape and co-opt student opinions.
Last year, Peking University's administrators tore down three notice boards at a corner on campus called the "sanjiao di" that students had long used to display social and political commentary. In the spring of 1989, at China's most prestigious school, the boards had helped rally student sentiment for the Tiananmen Square demonstrations.
Now sanjiao di boasts just a few pine trees and some wispy grass. Wang Jianbin, an undergraduate studying law, says students stopped posting political content on the boards several years ago, long before they were removed. "Students were posting rental requests and information about test-preparation programs," he says.
In the 1980s, China's leadership sometimes encouraged constructive criticism from students, believing that public criticisms could foster national unity. But today political challenges are frowned on, and Chinese schools teach virtually nothing about the Tiananmen protests, or June 4, as the event is known in China. "All I know is that on June 4, the school authorities get a little bit antsy," says Yang Linyan, a senior in international politics at the Beijing International Studies University. "Any student activity you want to organize on June 4 is usually scrutinized extra carefully," she says.
Virtually all Chinese universities house student groups and clubs allied with the party's Communist Youth League, which claims more than 75 million members, including most college students. That makes antigovernment activism immediately taboo and encourages public displays of support for the authorities. "China is a very well-run country, and our future will be better," says Ren Shaopeng, an engineering student and vice chairman of the Students' Union at the Beijing Science and Technology University.
Young people in China often equate the notion of government with country. Student support is also rooted in the tremendous economic progress experienced by most Chinese young people -- all of whom were born well after market-oriented liberalization began three decades ago. Grass-roots affection has reached a peak after the earthquake, as many express appreciation to the central government for mobilizing troops and supplies and for Premier Wen Jiabao's rapid arrival in the disaster zone.
"The authorities have performed very well," says Xu Xuexin, a senior at top-ranked Tsinghua University in Beijing. "I hope foreigners can see the unity of the Chinese people and their government."
Economic prosperity has played a major role in generating student support for the government. In the 1980s, students were angered in part by huge social problems, like double-digit inflation rates and remnants of the old communist system that impeded opportunities, such as the government work-assignment system that dispatched them to state jobs after graduation, with no heed paid to their personal preferences.
Today's Chinese students live in an era of relative prominence and plenty -- and there are far more of them, thanks to a major expansion of college enrollment. Higher-education funding rose sixfold between 1996 and 2005, the last year for which China's government has numbers.
Major universities boast new sports complexes where some Olympic events will be scheduled. In April, the education ministry said it planned to increase student subsidies amid soaring food prices, a policy that will affect some 20 million students across the country.
"Chinese students are pragmatists now," says Ruth Cherrington, author of "China's Students: the Struggle for Democracy," and a lecturer at Warwick University in the United Kingdom. "They have a lot more economic incentive to stay with the present brand of patriotism."
Young Chinese have far greater access today than their parents did to international media and other sources of information from abroad. Yet many feel their country and their government are deeply misunderstood in the West. That feeling flooded out amid protests in some Western cities against the Olympic torch relay. The protests upset many Chinese students, who counterattacked with demonstrations and campaigns to boycott Western conglomerates.
Many students accept the Chinese government's argument, which might seem anathema on college campuses in the U.S. or Europe, that unfettered freedom of expression can be destabilizing.
Mr. Wang, the Peking University law student, plans to head to law school at Duke University after he graduates in July. He rejects the idea that "democracy" and "human rights" are universal notions. "Unlike in the West, we don't stand on a higher plane and spot problems with democracy and human rights in other places," he says. "You have your values, we have ours.
No comments:
Post a Comment