/'_/\ /'_/| | \ `\ | | | ______ | `\ `\ | | | ______ /'______/\ | |\ `\ `| | | /______/\ | ___ \/| | | |\ `\| | | | ___ \ \ | /'/ \_|/ | | | `\ | | | | | \ \/| | | | __ |_|/' `\__|/' | | | | | | | | \__/_/| | | |__| | | | \/___| |/ China News Digest | |/__/ |/ \_______/(InfoBase June 4 Collection)|_______/ May 1, 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 june4-89.02t # of Lines --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. HEADLINE: Turmoil in China; Troops kill hundreds of protesters in move to crush rebellion in Beijing; Bloody pandemonium as tanks roll into square ..............................................................164 2. HEADLINE: China crackdown will cut foreign investment, economists say ................................................................. 91 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. HEADLINE: Turmoil in China; Troops kill hundreds of protesters in move to crush rebellion in Beijing; Bloody pandemonium as tanks roll into square ..............................................................164 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SOURCE: The Boston Globe, June 4, 1989, Sunday, City Edition KEYWORD: CHINA; DEMONSTRATION; MILITARY; DEATH; GOVERNMENT Chinese troops massacred unarmed civilians this morning, cutting a bloody swath through Beijing and rolling into student -occupied Tiananmen Square with tanks and armored personnel carriers. Hundreds of people were killed and hundreds wounded as the military put a violent end to a peaceful protest. In an attack that began in the middle of the night and was still under way at dawn (around 7 p.m. EST), security forces drove student protesters from the historic square that they had occupied for nearly three weeks. Witnesses and hospital officials said 176 persons were killed and 464 wounded, according to United Press International, while the Associated Press reported that a hospital doctor estimated that 500 people were killed. There was no way to confirm the casualty reports. At least 75 battle tanks and scores of troop transports rumbled into the square shortly after dawn firing 50-caliber machine guns. The tanks and thousands of troops set up positions all around the square. Throughout the night security forces turned intensive fire on hundreds of thousands of citizens thronging the streets in support of the students, who are demanding a more democratic society. It was a night of blood, pandemonium and defiance as tracer rounds flashed over the Statue of Liberty erected by demonstrators in the square and AK-47 rounds ricocheted off government buildings. As heavy smoke rose from the square, a helicopter was seen landing. The firing was too intense for reporters to get to the square itself. Shortly after 10 a.m. Beijing time, soldiers were still firing on unarmed demonstrators remaining in the steets, and this reporter saw 10 persons die in one clash alone. Military helicopters were swooping low over the city, and there were unconfirmed reports of fighting in outlying sections of Beijing. The violence in the heart of the capital was the first since martial law was declared May 20 in an effort to quash China's hitherto peaceful human rights uprising. State-run television reported that the government was suppressing a "counterrevolutionary uprising." Security forces fired directly into the crowds. At 3:30 a.m. on the avenue near the Forbidden City, the ancient center for the Chinese government adjoining Tiananmen Square, several hundred soldiers knelt and fired hundreds of rounds into a great mass of demonstrators who had been driven about a hundred yards down the main artery. This reporter saw at least eight persons killed and dozens wounded in the intense fusillade, which lasted more than five minutes. Most of the wounds were in the chest and stomach. Bicycle rickshaw drivers, the heroes of the violent night, pedaled between the crowds and the military and bundled the wounded into the backs of their flimsy vehicles, then pedaled them to safety. Several people were crushed to death by armored vehicles that roared toward the square. Soldiers were also killed by the vehicles. "Murderers," the crowd screamed as heavy fire continued. "Li Peng, murderer." It was Premier Li Peng who declared martial law. There were pools and smears of blood up and down the avenue as well as bodies of the dead. People dipped their hands in the blood and held it up to the journalists remaining on the scene. "Show the world what the Chinese government has done to its people," said one young man. Shocked women and men knelt on the sidewalks, convulsed by tears. Students hurled chunks of rock at soldiers. The protesters shouted, "Why are you here?" The heaviest firing was in a 10-block area around the square. More than 200,000 troops have been deployed around Beijing since martial law was decreed. At dawn, as the tanks started rumbling toward the square, billows of black smoke rose from burning buses. The millions in the streets had dwindled to a few thousand, but the firing continued. In addition to small-arms fire, heavy machine-gun fire could be heard from the north side of the square. The fate of the people remaining there was not clear as security forces concentrated on firing at people in the streets. This reporter and two others tried to reach the square by a side street at 4 a.m. but were turned back when troops fired on us. One of the reporters, a Norwegian, was slightly wounded by splinters of concrete flying through the air as bullets struck a nearby wall. The violence began at 2 p.m. yesterday when security forces fired volleys of tear gas at demonstrators. Later, crowds confronted several thousand soldiers massed outside the Great Hall of the People, China's capitol, and overturned a military jeep. There were continual broadcasts on government-run television urging people to stay off the streets and telling all foreign reporters to leave the area. At times the government's tactics seemed grotesquely miscalculated. At one point, some 1,500 riot police, wearing soft caps instead of steel helmets, charged up Changan Avenue toward the square. The police were hopelessly outnumbered and almost instantly surrounded by tens of thousands of workers who had turned out in support of the students. There were brawls, and dozens of police were knocked to the ground, pummeled and kicked by the mob until student leaders intervened. The police were finally hustled away, bleeding and bruised, their uniforms ripped from their backs. Loudspeakers in the square blared defiant speeches and endless repetitions of the Chinese national anthem as assault rifles blazed. Students and workers erected barricades of bicycle racks, concrete blocks and commandeered buses on roads leading to the square. At about 11 p.m. a huge blast was heard and a fireball rose about a mile from the square. The cause of the explosion was unclear, but it occurred in an area where security forces were massed. The main attack began in the middle of the night when armored vehicles crashed through the street barricades. Two of the vehicles were set ablaze by the angry demonstrators and were destroyed. Automatic rifle fire crackled continuously in the heart of the city. Battalions of ambulances hauled the wounded from streets covered with broken glass and wrecked vehicles. The flames of the burning armored vehicles cast flickering shadows on the enormous portrait of Chairman Mao Tse-tung looming over the square. Western embassies had personnel deployed throughout the capital, and diplomats said about 2 million students and ordinary citizens had taken to the streets in the vicinity of Tiananmen Square. "The situation is totally out of control," said a diplomat. "It's insane that it's reached this point." The protest rallies began in mid-April with students making a single demand: a public dialogue with China's hard-line Communist leadership to discuss political reform. They had vowed to continue their occupation until June 20, when the ruling body of the Parliament meets. The public unrest apparently panicked the leadership. Moderate members of the party were accused of encouraging dissent and stripped of their powers. Then martial law was declared and leaders pledged to use force, if necessary, to drive the students from the square. The conservatives, led by senior leader Deng Xiaoping and Li Peng, reportedly purged the Communist Party chief, Zhao Ziyang, a moderate who favored talks with the protesters. Twice before security forces sought to recapture Tiananmen Square but were turned back by peaceful crowds using persuasion. "In their evil force, the government will clear the square, but the Chinese people will never surrender," said a 29-year-old economics professor at the square. GRAPHIC: PHOTO MAP, 1. Reuters photo / A wounded demonstrator stands dazed among soldiers near Beijing's Great Hall of the People. 2. AFP photo / Two injured men are carried away today from Tiananmen Square to a Beijing hospital following an attack by army troops on students occupying the square. Scores of tanks and dozens of troop transports rumbled into the square shortly after dawn. 3. AFP photo / A wounded woman is carried away from Beijing's Tiananmen Square yesterday after a clash between the army and students. 4. Associated Press, Globe Staff map / Jim Karaian --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. HEADLINE: China crackdown will cut foreign investment, economists say ................................................................. 91 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- BYLINE: Christine Tierney SOURCE: The Reuter Business Report, June 4, 1989, Sunday, BC cycle DATELINE: NEW YORK KEYWORD: CHINA-INVESTORS The Peking government's bloody crackdown on student protesters could bring foreign investment in China to a standstill, say U.S. business experts who worry that Sunday's violence has ushered in a dark era of instability. "If I were a foreign investor, I'd be extremely nervous now," said economist David Wyss with Data Resources Inc. in Lexington, Mass. "Investors will try to get out of China, and you won't see any new money coming in." "The near-term outlook for investment is extremely grim, in view of the tragic confrontation," agreed David Jones with Aubrey G. Lanston and Co. On Sunday at dawn, armored troops mowed down demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds, according to witnesses who said Peking's streets ran red with blood. The government's decision to use force has radically changed the picture for foreign investors, economists agreed. "The worst-case scenario has come to bear, and there's no way that investment can remain unaffected," said Andrew Brick, a China expert at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation. Aside from their concern that the bloodshed will lead to instability, foreign investors worry the government could halt the economic reforms of the past decade, and that foreign groups will cut off credits to China. Already, congressmen are pressing the White House to use sanctions to put pressure on Peking. The United States, China's biggest investor with total investments of $3.4 billion, is also its third-largest trading partner. But even if China's economic partners do not respond with sanctions, the economy will suffer inevitably from the aftereffects of the violence. "The fact that the students, who figured so prominently in China's modernization plan, have been alienated in such a visible and brutal way is bound to affect the economy for a long time," Brick said. The violence will antagonise professionals and workers who widely supported the students' call for reforms, economists said. Discontent, expressed through demonstrations, strikes and sabotage, could paralyze precisely those parts of China, such as Guangdong province on the east coast, that benefited the most from foreign investment, they said. "One has to anticipate a period of great instability in these parts of China," said Robert Hormats at Goldman Sachs and Co. When the students first began their protests in mid-April, triggering a power struggle at the top levels of China's government, many Western investors remained calm in the belief that even if the reformist wing led by Zhao Ziyang lost out, hardline premier Li Peng and senior leader Deng Xiaoping would not turn the clock back on China's modernization. While economists now agree that the short-term prospects for investment are bleak, they are divided about the extent of the long-term damage. "The (Chinese) government will continue to need Western technology," said Hormats, who met China's top leaders in a visit to Peking last year. "Even though Li Peng is not in the forefront of economic reform, he recognizes the necessity for it. And Deng started the reform process in the first place....They won't go back to the days of Mao Tsetung, who didn't like trade or foreign investment," he said. Other economists are pessimistic, fearing that Sunday's violence has set China back a long way. "There is a possibility that China will close its doors as it did in the 1960s (during the Cultural Revolution)," said Anthony Karydakis, chief economist at the U.S. branch of London-based consultants I.D.E.A. The Chinese government, recognizing now that economic reforms cannot proceed without some political liberalization, may scale back its economic objectives, Karydakis said. "Their vision of economic freedom may be incompatible with the political framework they want. They will have to go back to the drawing board and re-examine these things," he said. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | 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 | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+