TURMOIL IN CHINA : Demonstrations Growing in South China Cities : Hundreds of Thousands Join March in Canton to Demand Democracy

The streets of Canton throbbed with demonstrators Tuesday night as hundreds of thousands of people, including sympathizers from nearby Hong Kong and Macau, marched to demand democracy.

Students, workers and journalists staged the largest rally in a weeklong series of protests in this South China city as lightning ripped through the skies and painted banners blurred in the streaming rain.

Until this week, southern Chinese had played a less prominent role in China’s wave of pro-democracy protests than their beleaguered counterparts in Beijing.

“To start with, we thought it was Beijing’s business, all that political stuff. But it didn’t take long to realize it’s our problem too,” a local taxi driver said.

“In 40 years of the People’s Republic, no one has ever been this rude to the government. It’s from the people, from the heart,” he said.

Student leaders, waving dripping banners proclaiming the solidarity of Canton, the British colony of Hong Kong and the nearby Portuguese enclave of Macau, said at least 600 students had crossed the border to join them.

Hong Kong will revert to Chinese rule in 1997 and Macau in 1999. Both have been the scenes of big demonstrations in support of the protesting students in Beijing.

People on bicycles jammed up at major intersections as marchers streamed past singing humorous songs attacking hard-line Premier Li Peng, who alienated students by ordering troops into Beijing last week.

Police kept a low profile and were unwilling to estimate how many hundreds of thousands were clogging the streets. “Who knows? We just want to let them get on with it,” a policeman said.

In Shanghai, China’s biggest city and industrial hub, tens of thousands of workers have joined the student-led campaign for democracy, far more than in student protests in 1986. Workers say it shows a collapse of confidence in the Beijing government.

More than 100,000 people took to the streets of Shanghai last Thursday after a million people protested in Beijing.

“There has been an awakening,” said one worker.

Productivity at many plants in Shanghai reportedly has plummeted.

“I watched the protests in late 1986,” said a textile worker demonstrating in front of Shanghai’s Communist Party headquarters Tuesday. “Now I’m taking part because I’ve lost all confidence in the leadership.”

Workers from other Shanghai factories echoed his sentiments.

“A lot has changed since 1986. We had hope for reform then but we don’t now,” said another worker as he joined 20,000 people in a demonstration to demand democracy and the removal of Li Peng and senior leader Deng Xiaoping.

“The students were unhappy in 1986, but now there seems to be something for everyone to complain about,” a Western diplomat in Shanghai said.

Angered by Inflation

Many workers are angered by inflation, which reached 18.5% nationally and 30% in major cities last year, according to official statistics.

“It takes three years of wages, assuming I don’t spend anything, to buy a color television,” a worker said in disgust.

“We make extra money in bonuses for extra production, but the government takes most of it away in special taxes,” said a machinery worker. “Where is the incentive to work?”

“Our living standards are dropping, and no one cares about it,” said a worker from one of China’s major steel factories.

But other workers said they would accept rising prices if they had a government they felt was representative.

“Who is Li Peng? Who does he represent?” asked an angry petrochemical worker. “We have no elected representative to speak for us.”