Student and Government Dialogue during the 1989 Student Movement

Throughout the 1989 student movement in Beijing, China, students demanded a dialogue between Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials and student representatives. The demand for dialogue began on April 22 during Hu Yaobang’s official memorial. Three students knelt on the steps to the Great Hall holding a large paper containing seven demands and waited for a party official to accept their petition. No party official, however, came out to receive their list of demands.[1] The main purpose of dialogue was to resolve growing problems such as corruption and rising living costs within China.[2] In order to prepare for potential dialogue, the Dialogue Delegation was created. It was organized by Shen Tong of Peking University and Xiang Xiaoji of University of Political Science and Law and included elected representatives from various universities.[3] Students requested that any student-government dialogue be broadcast live on television. The government, however, repeatedly failed to meet this request and proposed instead to have it recorded and aired at a different time.[4] Three major student-government dialogues occurred throughout the student movement on April 29, May 14, and May 18. The April 29 and May 18 dialogues were broadcast on television at a later time after the original dialogues concluded.[5][6] All of the dialogues, however, failed to produce a satisfactory result for both the students and the government.

Dialogues

April 29, 1989

The dialogue on April 29, 1989 was the first dialogue between student and government representatives to be recorded and broadcast. It was attended by government representatives Yuan Mu (spokesman for State Council), He Dongchang, Yuan Liben, Lu Yucheng and student representatives from 16 different Beijing institutions.[7] Issues that were brought up by students included official profiteering and freedom of speech within the media.[8] At the beginning of the dialogue, student representatives stated that this dialogue should be regarded as a preliminary dialogue and not the equal dialogue demanded by students. Equal dialogue by the definition of students was one where student representatives are elected by majority of students and where they are not treated as subordinates.[9] From the students’ perspectives, this dialogue did not reach any firm conclusions as Yuan and other officials were evasive the students’ questions.[10] The focus of the dialogue always went back to the need for stability in China. From Li Peng and other leaders’ perspective, Yuan performed very well during the dialogue.[11] The government felt that the dialogue achieved its purpose while the students were unsatisfied with the dialogue.

May 14, 1989

Plans for the May 14th dialogue began on May 9, 1989 when Shen Tong was approached by a government official on campus claiming to be able to arrange an unofficial dialogue for the Dialogue Delegation with Yan Mingfu, the head of the Secretariat of the CCP Central Committee.[12] The Dialogue Delegation raised three points for discussion which included the current student movement, the advancement of real reform, and the clause within the Chinese Constitution that guarantees the right to speak and assemble.[13] The dialogue was attended by Yan Mingfu, Li Tieying, and ten other deputy commissioners. Thirteen students from the Dialogue Delegation were selected to lead the dialogue.[14] Due to the short notice for dialogue, government officials claimed that the dialogue could not be broadcast live. The May 14 dialogue would instead be recorded by China Central Television and aired at a later time.[15] The Dialogue Delegation continued to push for the live broadcast of the dialogue and demanded that the dialogue be at least broadcast live to students in Tiananmen Square. In addition to the Dialogue Delegation, student observers were also present at this dialogue. Disorder occurred in the dialogue proceedings as students observers tried to get their questions directed at the government, detracting the dialogue from the Dialogue Delegation’s original three points.[16] The dialogue came to a sudden halt when a group of students from Tiananmen Square came and demanded for the dialogue to end.[17] The Dialogue Delegation discovered that the dialogue had not been broadcast as promised. As a result of the inability to find an effective solution for broadcasting the dialogue and the disorder during discussions, the May 14 dialogue came to an end.

May 18, 1989

The May 18, 1989 dialogue was the most significant broadcast dialogue to occur between student representatives and the government because it involved Premier Li Peng and 11 student representatives. Among students in attendance were prominent student leaders such as Wu'erkaixi and Wang Dan. Li Peng came into the dialogue with the agenda of ending the students’ hunger strike.[18] Student representatives, however, expected to hold an actual dialogue. They wanted to have an open discussion of issues with the government and come up with resolutions. The course of the dialogue made it clear, however, that Li’s main objective was convincing the students to end the hunger strike. Student representatives brought up the issue of the April 26 editorial and demanded acknowledgement of the student movement as patriotic. Li Peng reaffirmed the April 26 editorial by stating that despite the students’ good intentions, there were people who are taking advantage of the situation and creating disturbances.[19] According to Louisa Lim in The People’s Republic of Amnesia, the dialogue appeared like a show as Wu’er Kaixi showed up to the dialogue wearing “blue-and-white striped hospital pajamas [and] clutching an oxygen tank”.[20] The meeting ended as students saw that they held a subordinate position. It was evident that the government would not compromise or meet any of the students’ demands.

Results

None of the student-government dialogues held produced any significant results for the student movement. The April 29 dialogue produced negative reactions from students who were unsatisfied with the chosen representatives. They were chosen by the government and considered to be undemocratically elected by students in the student movement.[21] On an international scale, more positive feedback was provided regarding this dialogue. Sheryl WuDunn of the New York Times wrote “what was remarkable was not just that the meeting took place but that the Government televised nearly all of it, apparently as a concession to a student’s demand”.[22] From an outside perspective, progress occurred in the student movement as the government compromised to the students’ demands by holding a broadcast dialogue. The May 14 and 18 dialogues were also seen as unproductive by students as Li Peng addressed the students in the movement as “children”.[23] Student-government dialogues were not a two-way street as students were allowed to express their opinions but the government was not inclined to answer their questions. In the end, an equal standing dialogue was unachievable for the students.

Sources

  1. ↑ The Tiananmen Papers, ed. Zhang Liang, Andrew J. Nathan, and Perry Link (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), 51.
  2. ↑ Joint Committee on Women and Youth of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the Central Office of the Communist Youth League, “Report on a survey of the current state of ideology among youth,” in The Tiananmen Papers, ed. Zhang Liang, Andrew J. Nathan, and Perry Link (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), 12-13.
  3. ↑ Shen Tong and Marianne Yen, Almost a Revolution (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990), 223.
  4. ↑ Shen Tong, Almost a Revolution, 247-248.
  5. ↑ “Yuan Mu Others Hold Dialogue with Students [April 29, 1989],” in Beijing Spring, 1989: Confrontation and Conflict – The Basic Documents, ed. Michel Oksenberg, Lawrence R. Sullivan, and Marc Lambert (New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1990), 218.
  6. ↑ “Li Peng Holds Dialogue with Students,” in Beijing Spring, 1989: Confrontation and Conflict – The Basic Documents, ed. Michel Oksenberg, Lawrence R. Sullivan, and Marc Lambert (New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1990), 269.
  7. ↑ “Yuan Mu and Others Hold Dialogue with Students [April 29, 1989],” Beijing Spring, 1989, 218.
  8. ↑ “Yuan Mu and Others Hold Dialogue with Students [April 29, 1989],” Beijing Spring, 1989, 224.
  9. ↑ Graduate Students of Beijing Normal University, “Is it a Dialogue or an Admonitory Talk? On the “Dialogue” of April 29,” in China’s Search for Democracy: The Student and The Mass Movement of 1989, ed. Suzanne Ogden, Kathleen Hartford, Lawrence Sullivan, and David Zweig (New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1992), 149.
  10. ↑ Anonymous, “True Story of the So-Called Dialogue,” in China’s Search for Democracy: The Student and The Mass Movement of 1989, ed. Suzanne Ogden, Kathleen Hartford, Lawrence Sullivan, and David Zweig (New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1992), 143.
  11. ↑ “Yuan Mu’s Dialogue,” in The Tiananmen Papers, ed. Zhang Liang, Andrew J. Nathan, and Perry Link (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), 96.
  12. ↑ Shen Tong, Almost a Revolution, 229.
  13. ↑ Shen Tong, Almost a Revolution, 224.
  14. ↑ Shen Tong, Almost a Revolution, 244.
  15. ↑ Shen Tong, Almost a Revolution, 244.
  16. ↑ Shen Tong, Almost a Revolution, 246.
  17. ↑ Shen Tong, Almost a Revolution, 247.
  18. ↑ “Li Peng Holds Dialogue with Students,” Beijing Spring, 1989, 269.
  19. ↑ “Li Peng Holds Dialogue with Students,” Beijing Spring, 1989, 279.
  20. ↑ Louisa Lim, The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 60.
  21. ↑ Anonymous, “True Story of the So-Called Dialogue,” 143.
  22. ↑ Sheryl WuDunn, “China Hears Out Students, and Lets Millions Listen,” New York Times, April 30, 1989. http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/30/world/china-hears-out-students-and-lets-millions-listen.html
  23. ↑ “Li Peng Holds Dialogue with Students,” Beijing Spring, 1989, 270.
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