30-Year Feud Ended by Gorbachev, Deng : Festive Rally of 50,000 in Plea to Kremlin Chief
Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters rallied outside the Great Hall of the People in Tian An Men Square today as Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping met inside for the first Sino-Soviet summit in 30 years.
“We urge Mikhail Gorbachev, as a great political reformer, to talk to the government on our behalf for humanitarian reasons,” Wang Dan, a student leader from Beijing University, told a morning news conference at the square.
Takes Back Entrance
About 50,000 demonstrators, supporters and onlookers were in the square when Gorbachev’s motorcade arrived shortly before 10 a.m. at a back entrance to the hall, out of the line of vision of the protesters in the square.
The protest has been centered around students on a hunger strike that began Saturday with about 1,000 participants and has now grown to include at least 2,000.
As today’s historic summit meeting got under way, thousands of additional banner-carrying students and individual citizens poured into the square. The general atmosphere was festive. But an air of tension was added by the frequent sirens of ambulances coming to treat or take away student hunger strikers, dozens of whom had begun to faint as their fast entered its fourth day.
At the north side of the Great Hall, which faces Beijing’s main street, Chang An Boulevard, 12 hunger strikers lay in apparent exhaustion on the pavement under a banner that proclaimed: “Mother, I’m refusing food and water on Changan Boulevard.” Medical workers and an ambulance were present to provide care, but there was no immediate attempt to remove them.
Elsewhere in the square, groups of students sang songs, paraded behind banners calling for democratic reforms, and listened to speeches. “I don’t have freedom. I don’t have human rights. I want to rise up and struggle,” a woman speaker declared over a student-installed loudspeaker soon after Deng and Gorbachev began their talks.
Pedestrians Blocked
Hundreds of police blocked pedestrians from approaching the back side of the Great Hall, but there was no attempt to force the protesters to leave Tian An Men Square. Cancellation of plans for Gorbachev to lay a wreath this morning at the Monument to the People’s Heroes in the middle of the square was announced Monday evening after Chinese authorities decided they could not clear the demonstrators from the square.
“It is physically impossible--the place has been taken over by demonstrators,” Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov said late Monday in announcing cancellation of the wreath-laying ceremony.
Gorbachev also was forced to use a back entrance to the Great Hall of the People to attend a meeting and banquet with Chinese President Yang Shangkun on Monday evening. A scheduled formal welcome in front of the hall had earlier been replaced by a welcoming ceremony upon his arrival at Beijing airport at noon.
Crowd Even Larger
An even larger crowd, numbering about 100,000, was in the square late Monday afternoon when Gorbachev arrived for his meeting with Yang. Thousands of police and soldiers were used to secure an indirect route to the Great Hall to allow Gorbachev’s motorcade to reach the building. Fewer police and soldiers were used today.
During his rides to and from Monday evening’s banquet, Gorbachev leaned slightly out the open window of his black limousine and waved to onlookers. At one point on his way to the hall, he exchanged waves and smiles with passengers in a crowded city bus. Chinese spectators standing behind police lines applauded and cheered when he waved to them on his return route.
Chinese officials played down the significance of the disruption.
“The actions taken by some students are entirely internal affairs of China. They do not affect China’s foreign policy and will not affect the top-level meeting with the Soviet Union,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Jin Guihua said at an evening briefing.
Gerasimov expressed Soviet sympathy for the problem faced by Chinese authorities in dealing with the demonstrations.
“What is happening here we regard with the necessary understanding,” he said at his press briefing. “We sometimes have similar things ourselves--demonstrations and sit-ins. Recently we lived through a very hard period.”
The Soviet spokesman was apparently referring to the suppression of Georgian nationalist demonstrations in Tbilisi in April. In an incident that now is under investigation, the use of tear gas, other chemicals and police beatings left 20 people dead.
The Chinese students are demanding that top government officials agree to a formal public dialogue with protest leaders on how to accelerate democratic reforms in China. Specific demands pressed since the protests began in mid-April include increased press freedom, better treatment of intellectuals and an attack on corruption.
High government officials have held a series of formal “dialogues” with selected groups of students, including another such meeting Monday, which was reported on the state-run television news. In a conciliatory gesture at Monday’s meeting with students that was reported by the official New China News Agency, Yan Mingfu, a member of the Communist Party Secretariat, described the student movement as “good and patriotic” but said “there has been a negative impact on the dignity of the country.”
Demonstrators have rejected the series of meetings between students and officials as irrelevant because they have not been with representatives selected by the protesters.
An official statement issued on behalf of the Communist Party and the government at midnight Monday urged students to abandon their protest in consideration of the interests of the state and the importance of a successful Sino-Soviet summit.
“The success of the summit meeting is in the interests of both the Chinese and the Soviet people and conducive to peace and stability of the world,” the statement said, according to a report by the New China News Agency.
“As the hunger strike has been going on for several days and it is cool at night, some students have fallen ill,” the statement added. “Leaders of the party Central Committee and the State Council are deeply concerned about this and they hope the students will return to their campuses as soon as possible.”
The statement said that party and government leaders “are considering the reasonable suggestions and demands raised by students and will take effective measures to solve the problems” but that this must be done “in a stable environment.”
‘Calmness, Restraint, Order’
“What is most needed now is calmness, reason, restraint and order,” it said.
Protesters reject the argument that their actions run counter to stability.
“The greatest pity is feudal dictatorship,” declared a student speaker addressing a primarily non-student crowd at the edge of the square late Monday. “Stability can be established on the basis of broad democracy. With our present system, which is not so democratic, we cannot have true stability and unity.”
The students have shown considerable organization and discipline in their protests, but the growing involvement of non-students has added a new element of unpredictability.
Late Monday, with close to 100,000 people still gathered in the square, a crowd of thousands of mostly non-student protesters pressed against a single line of soldiers on the broad stairs of the main entrance to the Great Hall of the People.
Soldiers on Stairs
While not seriously attempting to break through, the crowd repeatedly became unruly, and for a period it forced the line of soldiers to move back up the stairs toward the glass doors of the hall.
“We’re showing support for democracy and freedom,” said a young worker in the crowd on the stairs. This man and others said people were pushing against the soldiers simply because the area was too crowded.
“There are so many people that it’s hard to maintain order,” he said.
A group of hundreds of well-organized students then pushed their way to the base of the stairs and began verbally and physically pressing the non-students to move back from the hall.
“Of course, they’re supporting our demands, but we hope they won’t take rash actions that would be a pretext for the government to take action against us, “ said one of the students.
Various groups of students, workers and intellectuals staged marches to the square Monday and today to join the demonstrators. Those marching Monday included a group of more than 1,000 intellectuals composed primarily of Beijing University professors and instructors, plus some well-known writers and scholars.
KEY SITES IN BEIJING 1. Diaoyutai State Guest House: The Gorbachevs are staying here during their visit.
2. Zhongnanhai: The walled compound where many of China’s top leaders live and work. Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s meetings with some Chinese leaders may be here.
3. The Great Hall of the People: Some official meetings may also be here. Formal welcoming ceremonies are usually held in front of the great hall.
4. Tian An Men Square: The Great Hall of the People stands on the west side of this square.
5. Tian An Men: located on the north side of Tian An Men Square, this is the entrance to the Forbidden City.
6. The Forbidden City: The old Imperial Palace is now a museum open to the public.
7. Wangfujing St. The most famous shopping street in Beijing.
8. The Soviet Embassy.
More to Read
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.