/'_/\ /'_/| | \ `\ | | | ______ | `\ `\ | | | ______ /'______/\ | |\ `\ `| | | /______/\ | ___ \/| | | |\ `\| | | | ___ \ \ | /'/ \_|/ | | | `\ | | | | | \ \/| | | | __ |_|/' `\__|/' | | | | | | | | \__/_/| | | |__| | | | \/___| |/ China News Digest | |/__/ |/ \_______/(InfoBase June 4 Collection)|_______/ May 13, 1993 **The CND InfoBase Project collects, among other China-related information, materials and/or bibliographical reference to matericals about the Beijing Massacre on June 4, 1989. Please refer to the trailer for more information. No. Subject june3-89.12t # of Lines --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. HEADLINE: ........................................................... 86 2. HEADLINE: POWER STRUGGLE IN CHINA UNRESOLVED AS TROOPS FIGHT STUDENTS ........................................................... 100 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. HEADLINE: ........................................................... 86 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SOURCE: The Reuter Library Report, June 3, 1989, Saturday, AM cycle BYLINE: May be bylined William Kazer DATELINE: PEKING, June 3 (TEXT OMITTED FROM SOURCE) Doctors and witnesses said at least 42 people died in the assault around the city as troops smashed through barricades on their way to the square. Another 20 people died according to unconfirmed accounts. Western witnesses said they saw limp bodies being carried from the square, the heart of Chinese communism. It was unclear how many people were killed or injured in the assault. Taiwan pop singer Ho Dejian, who had been in the square on a hunger strike for democracy, met with a Chinese troop commander and agreed that demonstrators would withdraw from the square by 7 A.M. (2200 GMT Saturday), Western reporters said. But the troops moved in more than one hour before the deadline and opened fire. People fled into alleyways along the square as troops sitting on dozens of armoured personnel carriers fired in their direction, hitting some residents as they watched from their windows. People shouted: "Fascists, hooligans" and "Kill Li Peng," China's premier who declared martial law in parts of Peking on May 20 to quell the anti-government protests. Chinese demonstrators spoke of people being crushed under the tracks of the armoured vehicles, but this could not be confirmed independently. Gunfire echoed around the city. The smell of gunpowder was in the air and smoke wafted along the Avenue of Eternal Peace. A resident of one of the big foreign compounds said she saw a body slumped over the side of a truck abandoned by the roadside. Soldiers were also shooting at rock throwers near the compound, according to foreign residents. State radio quoted a commentary by the Liberation Army Daily saying that troops had moved in to protect the people of Peking. It gave no tally of the death toll. The radio also quoted a military official as saying: "There has been a rumour that the troops were brought in to suppress the people. Do not believe such rumours spread by a very small number of people." Hospitals on the western fringes of Peking were treating more than 200 people with bullet wounds, doctors said. "They keep coming in. I can't count them for you," said a doctor at Xiehe Hospital in the centre of Peking. To get to the square troops used their armoured personnel carriers to crash through barricades. The troops fired as they moved and a Western reporter outside the square said people fleeing the soldiers screamed "Bandits, bandits." A few workers retaliated with petrol bombs and set fire to two armoured personnel carriers. As the troops made their lightning push into Tiananmen from the west and southeast students broadcast plaintive appeals for calm. "The Chinese government is trying to kill the Chinese people here on the square who have no weapons. We have an anti-people government like Hitler," one student said. Red flares streaked through the sky over the square as the soldiers moved in. People hugged each other in solidarity and fear in the symbolic centre of Chinese communism, where Mao Tsetung proclaimed the foundation of the People's Republic in 1949. The pro-democracy protests began in mid-April with posters pasted up on Peking university campuses. Within a month the unrest had spread to almost all provincial capitals across China, drawing support from people from all works of life who were angry at corruption in the party and government and impatient for political change. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. HEADLINE: POWER STRUGGLE IN CHINA UNRESOLVED AS TROOPS FIGHT STUDENTS ........................................................... 100 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SOURCE: The Reuter Library Report, June 3, 1989, Saturday, AM cycle BYLINE: By Guy Dinmore DATELINE: PEKING, June 3 China's communist leaders were believed to be still locked in their own private conflict as security forces clashed with students and workers in central Peking on Saturday for the first time since martial law was imposed two weeks ago. Orders for troops to clear Tiananmen Square of 10,000 pro-democracy students encamped there did not necessarily mean that reformist party leader Zhao Ziyang had completely lost a power struggle to hardliners, diplomats said. "The students are still there for the moment and so is Zhao," a Western diplomat said on Saturday evening. A senior Asian diplomat said Zhao was believed to have played a round of golf -- his favourite sport -- on Thursday, indicating at least that he was not under arrest. But his powers as party leader were believed to have been stripped from him by the time Premier Li Peng announced martial law on May 20 with the backing of senior leader Deng Xiaoping. Diplomats said it appeared however that Deng was unable to muster enough support within the party to get rid of Zhao completely and to openly resolve China's worst leadership crisis since the death of Chairman Mao Tsetung in 1976. It was even possible that the 84-year-old Deng suddenly found he needed the support of Zhao's reformist faction in the face of criticism from such veteran hardliners as Chen Yun and Peng Zhen who were eased into retirement by Deng in 1987. "I think the power struggle continues. They may not be able to humiliate Zhao too much," a Western diplomat commented. "People are not cowed," a second Asian diplomat said, referring to thousands of people blocking long convoys of military trucks heading into Peking on Saturday evening. "The Chinese will not behave like sheep. The hardline leadership does not know what to make of it. Will this grow into an insurrection?" he said. Diplomats said the failure, once again, of troops to enforce martial law raised doubts over the commitment of the military to its task. Pro-democracy students in Tiananmen Square had long been expecting a military assault on their crude encampment but not in the shape of fresh-faced teenagers on foot and unarmed. Thousands of civilians easily blocked the path of such young soliders in the early hours of Saturday with "people power," trucks and buses. The young troops, estimated up to 10,000 strong, retreated after a few hours under a hail of abuse and friendly advice. A feeling of euphoria swept the square but this was dashed in the afternoon when a barrage of teargas fired by troops hit demonstrators outside the nearby Communist Party and government headquarters. Troops and police poured out of the Great Hall of the People, where China's parliament meets in full session once a year, and clashes erupted. Teargas and truncheons against bricks and stones produced the worst violence seen in the Chinese capital for 13 years. Nobody was believed killed but more than 20 people were injured. Units -- possibly the Peking garrison army -- had refused to carry out martial-law orders at the risk of bloodshed. But as if to underline the military's unity and determination to end the Tiananmen occupation, Defence Minister Qin Jiwei appeared in public for the first time since Premier Li announced martial law. State television showed the smiling general inspecting troops on the outskirts of Peking in a visit said to have taken place on Saturday morning. Qin is believed by Western military experts to have gone against the decision to use the armed forces to put down civilian unrest. His re-appearance emphasised Zhao's isolation. "It seems that Li Peng is on top for the moment," the Asian diplomat said. But whatever solution is reached in the short-term, diplomats said it was likely that China's 1.1 billion people would face more turmoil and another power struggle when Deng died. Deng, the architect of China's economic reforms launched in 1978, has not been seen in public since he met Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on May 16. A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Thursday described press reports that Deng was ill in hospital as "sheer fabrication". +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Executive Editor: Bing Wen in Ottawa, Canada | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | China News Digest (CND) InfoBase covers the following areas: | | History : WWII, Cultural Revolution, June 4, Olympics | | Service : visa/PR, PRC-doc, tax, insurance, travel/living | | Academics : job, conference/workshop, societies, projects | | Other : org intro, book review, community activities | | ------ * ------ * ------ | | To contribute, please send to CND-IB@CND.ORG | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+