Tiananmen protester: ‘We were all idealists’
Posted: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 3:09 PM
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Beijing, China
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
BEIJING – Twenty years ago, a handful of university students from some of China’s most elite institutions shot to stardom when they led a series of mass demonstrations in Beijing calling for greater freedoms and economic reforms that challenged the supremacy of the Chinese Communist Party.
For some of us who remember clearly the events of those days, the names roll off the tongue – student leaders like Wang Dan, Wu’er Kaixi, Chai Ling, and labor organizer Han Dongfang – even today, 20 years after the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests.
Many of the bright lights of 1989 wound up in exile and in the intervening years have prospered in the West, Hong Kong, or Taiwan. But dozens of other organizers who came under the glare of the spotlight but didn’t flee the country were rounded up and imprisoned.
One of them was Peng Rong, a native of Hunan Province, who was pursuing a graduate degree in biology at Beijing University when he became involved in the protests. As a result of his activism, he was imprisoned for two years and expelled from the university.
"We were all idealists," he said one recent sunny afternoon in northeastern Beijing. "We were taught to be idealists by the party." But the Communist Party, the students believed in 1989, had fallen short of its goals of pursuing freedom, equality, and fraternity.
‘There was no pressure then’
The party was struggling with how best to transform the country’s economy from socialism to something more dynamic. Back then, China was still in the early stages of economic reform, but corruption was endemic and inflation was high. Everyone – especially intellectuals – was feeling the pinch.
"At the early stage of economic reforms, farmers joined enthusiastically and they benefited," recalled the now 40-something Peng. "But intellectuals didn’t. Their paychecks were the same."
He recited a popular saying from that time, "A nuclear expert earns less than a tea-egg vendor."
But Peng noted there were other motives that drove him to participate in the demonstrations. Student campaigns had been popular throughout the 1980s – some of them over commonplace issues like demanding the university keep power on through the night. (In fact, universities today still cut the power at 11 p.m.). "In that environment, you get involved no matter what," he explained.
There was also the luxury of unburdened youth. "There was no pressure then," said Peng. "So there were a lot of students enthusiastic about engaging in politics when they didn’t have too much to worry about themselves. They worried about big issues like the country’s future or the people’s future."
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| Peng Rong shows NBC News Cameraman David Lom photographs from his student days. |
‘Politically, we didn’t quite achieve what we pursued’
Peng, who slowly rebuilt his life, now has a family, owns his own apartment, and runs an art gallery on the fringes of Beijing. He speaks cautiously about the events of 1989 and the politics of today in China, and although his manner is free and easy, he doesn’t offer too many personal opinions.
Looking back, he said he doesn’t regret his past, but he does have regrets about whether he and his peers had been successful. "I think politically, we didn’t quite achieve what we pursued," he said. "In some areas, there have been improvements, but in other areas there is even tighter control than before."
He cited the Internet as an example of greater openness, although he noted this was less a reflection of government policy than the fact it is so difficult for officials to police the Web.
(Nonetheless, this has not stopped the Chinese authorities from trying to block Internet sites they find unpalatable. Recently Twitter, Hotmail, and YouTube were blocked in China, and when we tried to search certain words or phrases in combination with "1989," the messages "Page Load Error" and "Connection Interrupted" appeared.)
Corruption, too, remains a serious problem in China, perhaps more so than 20 years ago. Peng – who dabbled in real estate and other entrepreneurial projects before he opened his gallery three years ago – expressed concern that his country’s great economic strides will be fleeting or undone without further substantive reform.
He thinks the government still has too big a role in the country’s economy, hindering its development. "Resource allocation seems to be favoring government officials. Corruption… is a burden."
‘We Shall Overcome’Before we parted ways, Peng showed us some albums containing pictures of him from his youth. As he flipped through them for our cameraman to film, I suddenly recognized one.
It was a shot of the cover of the New York Times Sunday magazine from 20 years ago. On it is a young Chinese man with a mustache, wearing an oversize white T-shirt that proclaims in a handwritten scrawl, "We Shall Overcome," a bullhorn raised to his mouth, the portrait of Mao Zedong facing Tiananmen Square in the background. It was Peng as a young man.
He didn’t comment on the photo, but his eyes lit up when I told him that I own a copy of that very same magazine. It’s sitting in my home inside a folder of yellowed newspaper clippings from that spring of 1989. "It was amazing to see those photographs [at that time]," I told him.
The former student activist didn’t say anything in response. He just nodded.
Related links:
China bars reporters from Tiananmen
China territory denies entry to dissident
Newsweek: Mother still waits for apology for her son's death
Archival video: NBC News coverage of the June 4, 1989 crackdown
