Beijing People's liberation Army and university students face each other

During the time I spent in Beijing as a student, cozily nestled amongst Chinese students, eating at their same cafeterias and freely visiting their dorms, I did not once see any violent actions. From my personal account, this protest was 100% non-violent, which makes the very violent response from the government all the more terrible.

When students were on campus milling about at Sanjiao Di (3 Corner Place) or other places, reading or putting up posters, discussing, organizing, there was excitement in the air. Students shouting slogans, crowding around certain people, then moving on to crowd around other people. I did not once see anyone fighting. This is surprising in that when I travel in China, there is always some small fight that I witness on the road, with pushing and shoving, and shouting from both parties. I expect this in China.

When there were protest walks down to the Square, the number of students could fill the street such that car traffic could not pass. Often there were so many students that both northbound and southbound lanes of traffic were blocked by students walking southbound. Students in the southbound lanes would stop cars and force them to wait until protesters had walked by. Blocking traffic can be thought of as socially disrespectful and possibly illegal but certainly not violent. There were no cars stoned or set ablaze.

On marches I do recall common citizens giving the students food and drink, and encouraging them on their way. Workers from factories, families, and others would stop their everyday lives and watch the protesters go by. Maybe this was common practice because it was novel, but day after day of the same support was surprising.

A lot of university students participated in the protest

One should note that all university students, due to rules of attending university, are forced to do one month of military training. This includes military tactics and strategy, digging ditches, marching, but also includes how to clean and use a gun. University students have the training and potential to take up arms. There was a conscious decision by student leaders to not do this, because they knew that if students posessed arms of any kind the military would not hesitate to shoot.

Student military training is important because very early in the protest military trucks were sent into Beijing. Some of these trucks had soldiers with guns. I recall these trucks being forced to stop by common Beijing citizens, who them pleaded, goaded or embarrassed the soldiers into giving up their rifles. This connection between Beijing citizens and the Beijing People’s Liberation Army is an interesting one, as in the end the Beijing PLA refused to round up and hurt their own residents. There was a clear human connection between these groups that even the PLA high commend could not change. Once these soldiers were disarmed, their guns were given to the students, who collected them and delivered them to the local police station. I did not see one student with a gun or any other weapon of any kind.

Down at the Square, students at times organized against the PLA. I remember a very large protest in front of Renmin Dahui Tang (Great Hall of the People), where students were protesting and shouting slogans right in front of the perimeter fence. The PLA arrived with their soldiers, and asked the students to move backward. The students did comply, moving back about 10 metres. The soldiers marched in unarmed and faced the students, their backs to the Great Hall, 4 soldiers deep and the length of the perimeter fence. Both sides then agreed to sit down, which they did all together. While the soldiers were silent, the students continued their protest.

I do not profess to understand the subtle nuances of Chinese politics then nor now. I’ve also not researched much about the 6-4 protesters. My account of student protesters comes from what I was and lived. These students were peaceful in every way and even mitigated potentially violent situations. They also had widespread support from Beijing residents. How could such a peaceful protest go so wrong?

Can you fit 1 million people into Tiananmen Square?

Some topics are so foreign to Westerners that to encounter something so blatantly different is like running head first into a brick wall. Such is the case for modern Chinese history. I talk specifically about the student movement of May 4 1989 in Tiananmen Square

I am torn by writing because I have contradictory feelings at odds with each other. On one hand there is undisputable proof from eyewitness accounts and news footage that the events did occur and many people were killed. On the other hand, it was 20 years ago, so why bring up such an old and tired topic.

I am not so old and have lived a relatively pampered life here in North America. Not much of great historical interest has happened here in Toronto. What has triggered my ramblings is that in the eyes of official Chinese historians, not much of interest happened on that fateful 6-4. This, to me is puzzling at best and blatantly fraudulent at worst. In the North American view, an event happened, you have proof, you document it, then you move on. Life marches on as before, and the past becomes an event in history. For better or worse, interpretation of cause and effect is left up for debate. I feel slighted that this has not happened in China. Events of history cannot and should not be suppressed according to the prevailing views of politicians in power. Amnesia should not be part of any country’s history.

Naive was I as well as most other Chinese and foreign university students. They marched to protest against government and party corruption, and to fight for freedom and democracy. Or so I was told, and have the t-shirt to prove it. I’m sure most students knew theoretically but not realistically. Actually at the time I did not even know the Chinese word for democracy. Chinese students started skipping classes to join protest marches down to the Square. I saw Dazibao (large protest posters) at Sanjiaodi (3 Corner Place) in Beijing University, though my Chinese was not sufficient to read them. No matter. I had read about Mao’s Hundred Flowers Campaign, where Dazibao was used to protest and used again to punish the writers. But that old tactic could not be used today, right? That was just Chinese history, right? It turns out that they can and did. Stick with the tried and true.

Chinese students used the event more as an excuse to party, rather than some political protest. Students started skipping classes, walking down to the Square, having parties in their rooms, all laughing and giggles. I learned the term “ba ke” or to strike classes. It felt more like an alcohol free pub crawl rather than anything serious. We foreign students had no clue what was going on and continued going to our classes. Was this such a big deal?

Of course no one forced anyone else to go down to the Square, but intellectual curiosity got the best of us all. They had banners representing the school and their department. All departments organized walks carrying their banners proudly. It was odd for me to see these banners, but what the hell did I know of Chinese university life? If University of Toronto Engineering students could do it, why not the Beijing University English department? Odd, yes, but many things in China are odd. Banners and carrying on was not much odder than the rest. Or so I thought.

As far as I could tell from talking to Chinese friends, social issues were not well thought out. Serious discussions about China’s social and political issues were not so very important. First and foremost these were young university students, eager to learn and try new things, to exercise their independence and stretch their wings on their journey of life. Certainly university students of 2009 are the same. No, the mood was festive, with no thought as to implications. How can one expect young people to think so far ahead into the future?

Some students started camping out at the Square, carrying bedding and food. That’s more than unusual for a liquor free pub crawl. No, all of my friends didn’t do that. It was festive enough to represent your university and department and walk under your banner down to the Square, but not festive enough to stay down there. They all returned to their dorm beds for the night. Conditions down at the Square quickly turned unhygienic. There are no outdoor toilet facilities at the Square then and today. Garbage started to pile up. There was no running water or a place to dispose of dirty water. There was news of various diseases growing and spreading amongst students. The Beijing Health Department had condemned the Square. We did not doubt the authenticity of the news reports. Who would tell a lie in the news about such things?

After a couple of weeks of skipping classes and partying, many students returned to their dorms hungry, sick and dirty. They certainly were partying hardy. I thought this quite odd. Eating poorly and getting sick did not sound like much fun to me. Ditto for not going to classes and losing the opportunity to learn. We were in university, and university students attend classes. Then again I was never the partying type.

After a month, the party had pretty much petered out. Beijing Chinese students returned to their campuses to recover, and were replaced by students from other universities throughout China. Enough was enough. Students were pretty much all in their dorms catching up on their sleep or recovering their health. Showers were in order for all. There were so many tired faces on campus, though Chinese students still did not resume classes. Our language classes continued as normal and I continued to study as normal.

It was at this juncture of time that the unthinkable would happen. The Chinese People Liberation Army would fire live rounds at students down at the Square and kill them. Unfortunately for the students, unlike their Beijing counterparts, they would not be able to return to their campuses, and like good comrades pat each other on the back for a job well done, take hot showers, sleep and regain their health. These students at the Square would never return to their families, and their families will never be able to track them down, to carry them home, and to bury them. The frailties of life and the harshness of Chinese politics were not lost on me.

To the lost students who would never return home, I pay my deepest respects, 20 years too late, and from a foreign country. To their families I offer my deepest condolences, 20 years too late and from a foreign country. I will always have a hint of disbelief, terror and regret when I recall this era of Chinese history. I will certainly not be alone.

Chinese farmer with a traditional hoe. Notice he is not fat.

There are some government social systems that affect society so profoundly that without it we would be much worse off. In Canada, I would recommend our universal healthcare system. China’s hukou system is the mirror opposite, a tool to suppress and control the movements of China’s rural population.

___Every Chinese citizen has a location where they should legally live. This location is codified in law in a document called a “hukou”. A hukou, or residency permit states that you are allowed to legally live in a certain location, and will allow you to access certain social benefits of that location. For urban residents this allows them to access city employment, hospitals, get special disbursements from their work unit, allow their children to attend schools and get proper healthcare, have insurance, be able to legally have children, and many more. Certainly this works very well for city residents. The government also benefits because they can allocate government funding to a geographic location with some certainty of the number of people it will cover.

___Farmers also have a rural hukou, usually the location of where they are born. Unfortunately rural social services are much less than urban settings. Farmers are really on their own, unable to enjoy better schools and hospital care. Their work units are usually very poor and therefore cannot afford to give generous disbursements and benefits. In essence, China’s hukou system provides its farmers very little when compared to their city brethren.

How to Change your Hukou

___There are only 3 ways I know to change your hukou. The first is to go to university, get an education, then get employment in the city. Your employer will then change your hukou. China’s education system is notoriously difficult to enter and rise to the top universities. Chinese graduates comprise 0.01% of China’s population, so competition is fierce. There is also a distinct advantage to urban folk, because in the city they have access to better schools, live in a better environment that is conducive to studying. With the world’s recent financial crisis, more companies are scaling back recruitment from universities. Graduates are forced to find jobs in villages, and are not able to move their hukou to a better location.

The People's Liberation Army is the largest standing army in the world

___The second way is to join the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, who will move you to where you are needed, and therefor change your hukou. Hopefully you’ll work hard and eventually land up in a city. Unfortunately China in recent years has been scaling back recruitment for the army, and there’s also no guarantee you will land up in a city anyway.

___The third way is to join the Chinese Communist Party or CCP. This exclusive club is very difficult to enter. Other party members judge you for many years and watch your every move and word. They also research your family background, which usually gives urban dwellers an advantage. Again, there is no guarantee that the CCP will send you to work in a large city, but if you get in the likelihood is quite high.

___I cannot verify this fourth method, but it makes some sense. If a villager can somehow marry someone in a city, their hukou can be changed. Though not impossible, it is plausable.

China’s Growing Migrant Worker Population

___As China’s population increases, the number of people living in rural communities also increases. China’s farms have gotten to the point where more manual labour does not increase their crop yields and therefore income. Logically this means that to make a living, young people must leave their farming community in search of greener pastures. They there join the ranks of China’s migrant labour class, traveling to the cities in search of work. In the past 20 years there has been ample work opportunities in the southern coastal special economic zones or SEZ, in factories that made products for export. There is an estimated 130M migrant workers in China. Recently as many as 20M of these workers have been laid off from their factory jobs.

Chanty Shoes, China makes shoes for the USA, Canada, Japan, Russia

Managers use a variety of tactics to prevent workers resigning. Internal migrants are typically owed back pay, meaning those who quit their job lose at least 2-3 months wages. Employers often purposefully withhold wages before the lunar new year to ensure workers come back to their jobs after the festive period — meaning millions of migrants are unable to buy train tickets home for the holidays. Managers often illegally force workers to pay a deposit to prevent them switching jobs. Because of their insecure status under the hukou system, internal migrants are not likely to complain.

One complaint to the police and they get a fine, and forced to take a one way trip back to their village. Housing is usually inferior. Work can be very dangerous, and with no additional health care. Workers who get hurt or killed cannot claim full compensation from their employer because they are migrant workers without an urban hukou. Young girls are more apt to be taken advantage of, preyed on because of their lack of hukou and therefore city social services. Children of migrant worker parents cannot get access to proper schooling.

A migrant worker returns home, Nanjing, Jiangsu province, Nov 2008

Side Effects of the Hukou System

___A multitude of negative side effects have occurred because of this hukou system. Migrant workers are forced to leave their children in the village with their grandparents, maybe seeing their children only a couple of times a year. Husbands and wives are similarly separated and meet only a couple of times a year. In essence, the hukou system has made peaceful and happy family living impossible for China’s rural population.

___China’s migrant workers also live without worker’s rights and are taken advantage of by factory employers. While they are not indentured slaves, they can be forced to work 7 days a week, 14 hours a day, and may have to pay for room and board expenses back to their employer. In fact very little in the government will protect them from being taken advantage of by their employer. Many migrant workers get hurt in industrial accidents that result in amputation, injury and death. Workers who get hurt and cannot work are let go and face an uncertain future back on the farm. There are many more workers in line to replace the fallen.

Benefits of the Hukou System

___The hukou system allows China’s domestic and international factory owners to have an unlimited supply of inexpensive labour who lack the ability to protest unsafe work and living conditions. This allows China’s factories to offer the world less expensive products, while providing China with much needed foreign exchange. The world benefits from being offered very inexpensive but useful products from China.

___Migrant workers also benefit because are able to work, make a living, and provide for their families back on the farm. Income from migrant workers can more than double the income from farming, allowing the village and their families to prosper.

___Anyone who has purchased a product that is made in China has a near certainty that the product was made by a migrant worker. The world surely benefits from their fight for survival, but they pay a heavy social cost. China’s success has greatly benefited the urban worker at the expense of the rural worker, and this will not change for the foreseeable future. China’s hukou facilitates this system of migrant workers to the overall benefit of the People’s Republic of China.

the pros of the hukou (Beowulf) – because we never ever talk about them (the china discussion is general a blame and hate discussion without any depth)

I. the hukou system controls mass migration and therefore is helping to avoid the development of slums and its connected evils (crime rate, poverty etc.) in the big cities.

II. the hukou system forces the families of the worker to stay at their homeplace. This has two benefits:
Number one – migrant worker will return to their hometown and develop the rural area. Money, knowledge and experience which was earned at the east or south coast is coming this way to central China.

Number two – the rural country is also a insurance. The people with a country hukou have the right for farmland (the Chinese blogger we are talking about, wants to have the user right for farmland so that he can sell it later to a company for a high price). During world economic crisis, many migrant workers returned to their fields and could use them to get over this hard time. This is one of the reason, why the crisis did not have that disastrous effect on China, which many so called “experts” in the west predicted.

Other Resources

• Hire graduates without local hukou
• Hukou Reform Targets Urban-Rural Divide
• Strangers in the City: Reconfigurations of Space, Power, and Social Networks Within China’s Floating Population
• Deng Ray: Photojournalism on the Hukou System
• University Education = Hukou in China
• Rural College Student’s Household Registration Dilemma