2008年06月04日14:49

LAST YEAR, Peking University's administrators tore down three notice boards at a corner on campus called the 'sanjiao di' that students had long used to display social and political commentary. In the spring of 1989, the boards had helped rally student sentiment at China's most prestigious school for big democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.

Now, 19 years after the government's bloody June 3-4 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square democracy movement, sanjiao di boasts just a few pine trees and some wispy grass, a stark reflection of how student sentiment has changed in China.

Wang Jianbin, an undergraduate studying law, says students stopped posting political content on the boards several years ago, long before they were removed. 'Students were posting rental requests and information about test-preparation programs,' he says.

Instead of staging protests for democracy, today's college students in China are more likely to favor nationalistic causes, and to look for ways to work within China's one-party governmental system, than to challenge it. The patriotism that drove young people to criticize authorities in the 1980s is now seen by many students as best expressed by supporting China's leadership -- despite its flaws -- for the progress it has achieved in expanding China's economy and raising its international profile.

That sentiment has been strengthened in recent months by the political crisis in Tibet, the Sichuan earthquake and the coming Beijing Olympics. Students rallied against foreign criticism of Beijing's policies in Tibet, where violent antigovernment riots in March were met with a harsh crackdown, and they have often lauded the state's response to the devastating quake. Thousands of Beijing students have volunteered to help with logistics of the Summer Games, which they see as a national triumph.

The student support for the government is a sharp contrast to the image of Chinese students shaped by the Tiananmen Square protests that still lingers for many in the West. China's government has never said how many people died in its crackdown that ended those demonstrations, but outside groups say the number was anywhere from several hundred to several thousand. Ahead of the Olympics, international groups like Human Rights Watch have renewed their calls for Beijing to release some of the estimated 130 people who remain in jail for their involvement in the demonstrations.

In some ways, much of the symbolism of the Olympics appears aimed at redefining an international view of Beijing still darkened by the Tiananmen crackdown. The square has been used for such Olympic functions as the starting ceremony for the global torch relay. At a routine press conference Tuesday, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Qin Gang declined to answer a question on the Tiananmen protests. The question was omitted from a transcript of the briefing posted on the ministry's Web site.

Many young people in China don't know what took place in 1989 and don't seem especially keen to find out. Unlike young people in many countries, China's students today aren't especially antiestablishment or openly critical of authority -- a product both of their own experiences and of an active effort by Communist Party leaders to better shape and co-opt student opinions in the years since 1989.

In the 1980s, China's leadership sometimes encouraged constructive criticism from students, believing that public criticisms could foster national unity. But today political challenges are frowned on, and Chinese schools teach virtually nothing about the Tiananmen protests, or June 4, as the event is known in China. 'All I know is that on June 4, the school authorities get a little bit antsy,' says Yang Linyan, a senior in international politics at the Beijing International Studies University. 'Any student activity you want to organize on June 4 is usually scrutinized extra carefully,' she says.

Virtually all Chinese universities house student groups and clubs allied with the party's Communist Youth League, which claims more than 75 million members, including most college students. That makes antigovernment activism immediately taboo, and encourages public displays of support for the authorities. 'China is a very well-run country, and our future will be better,' says Ren Shaopeng , an engineering student and vice chairman of the Students' Union at the Beijing Science and Technology University.

Young people in China often equate the notion of government with country -- a phenomenon they acknowledge could be puzzling to the West. Student support is also rooted in the tremendous economic progress experienced by most Chinese young people -- all of whom were born well after market-oriented liberalization began three decades ago. Grass-roots affection reached a peak during the earthquake, when many expressed appreciation to the central government for mobilizing troops and supplies and for Premier Wen Jiabao's rapid arrival in the disaster zone.

'The authorities have performed very well,' says Xu Xuexin, a senior at top-ranked Tsinghua University in Beijing. 'I hope foreigners can see the unity of the Chinese people and their government.'

Economic prosperity has played a major role in generating student support for the government. In the 1980s, students were angered in part by huge social problems, like double-digit inflation rates, and remnants of the old communist system that impeded opportunities, such as the government work-assignment system that dispatched them to state jobs after graduation, with no heed paid to their personal preferences.

Today's Chinese students live in an era of relative prominence and plenty -- and there are far more of them, thanks to a major expansion of college enrollment. Higher-education funding rose sixfold between 1996 and 2005, the last year for which China's government has numbers.

Major universities boast new sports complexes where some Olympic events will be scheduled, a plan aimed at conferring prestige on the nation's elites. In April, the education ministry said it planned to increase student subsidies amid soaring food prices.

'Chinese students are pragmatists now,' says Ruth Cherrington, author of 'China's Students: the Struggle for Democracy,' and a lecturer at Warwick University in the U.K. 'They have a lot more economic incentives to stay with the present brand of patriotism.'

Young Chinese have far greater access today than their parents did to international media and other sources of information from abroad. Yet many feel their country and their government are deeply misunderstood in the West. That feeling flooded out amid protests in some Western cities against the Olympic torch relay. The protests upset many Chinese students, who counterattacked with demonstrations and campaigns to boycott Western conglomerates.

Many students accept the Chinese government's argument, which might seem anathema on college campuses in the U.S. or Europe, that unfettered freedom of expression can be destabilizing.

Mr. Wang, the Peking University law student, plans to head to Duke University's law school after he graduates in July. He rejects the idea that 'democracy' and 'human rights' are universal notions. 'Unlike in the West, we don't stand on a higher plane and spot problems with democracy and human rights in other places,' he says. ' You have your values, we have ours.'

Jason Leow

天安门广场上的代沟

2008年06月04日14:49

去年，北京大学校方拆除了三角地的信息栏，很久以来那里都是学生们张贴社会和政治评论的地方。1989年春天，三角地曾帮助在北大这所中国最好的学府中把学生们的民主热情调动起来，学生们之后在天安门广场举行了大规模民主示威活动。

如今，在政府血腥镇压了6月3日-4日的天安门民主运动19年之后，三角地只剩下几棵松树和一丛丛的青草，这清楚地反映出中国学生情绪发生了怎样的变化。

北大法律系本科生王建斌（音）说，学生们好几年前、在信息栏被拆除前很久就已经不在三角地张贴政治性内容了。他还说，学生们张贴的都是些租房和考试辅导班之类的信息。

今天中国的大学生不再组织民主抗议活动，他们做得更多的可能是支持国家的兴起，寻求在中国一党专政的政治体系内行得通的方法，而不是挑战这套体系。爱国主义情绪曾在上个世纪80年代推动年轻人对政府提出批评，而如今很多学生认为，政府在发展经济和提高中国的国际地位上取得了成绩，尽管尚有不足，但支持它的领导才是爱国主义的最佳体现。

最近数月，西藏政治危机、四川大地震和即将举办的北京奥运会让这种情绪变得越来越强烈。学生们集会抗议外国对北京西藏政策的指责。3月份西藏暴力反政府骚乱受到政府强力镇压。学生们也常常称赞政府在四川大地震中的反应。数千名北京学生成为奥运志愿者，参与奥运会的后勤保障。他们把北京举办奥运会看作是国家的一大胜利。

广告学生对政府的支持与天安门抗议活动中定格下来的中国学生形像形成了鲜明的对比，如今那些画面仍留在很多西方人的记忆中。中国政府从未公布过在对抗议活动的镇压中有多少人死亡，不过外部团体估计，死亡人数可能从数百名到数千名不等。奥运在即，人权观察(Human Rights Watch)等国际组织再次发出呼吁，要求北京释放因参与天安门示威活动而被关押的部分人员，目前估计仍有130人在押。

从某些方面看，利用奥运会的象征意义很大程度上是为了重新定义中国因天安门事件而受损的国际形像。奥运火炬全球接力启动仪式等奥运活动都在天安门举行。在周二举行的一次例行新闻发布会上，外交部发言人秦刚拒绝回答有关天安门事件的一个问题。在外交部网站上发布的会议纪录上，这个问题也被删除了。

中国有很多年轻人不知道1989年发生了什么事，而且似乎也不特别热切地想去知道。和很多其他国家的年轻人不同的是，现在的中国学生并不是特别地反叛、也不怎么公开批评政府，这是他们自己的经历和1989年以来共产党领导层积极影响并同化学生观点的综合产物。

上个世纪80年代，中国的领导层有时会鼓励学生提出建设性的批评意见，他们相信公众的批评有利于国家的团结。而如今，向政治发出的挑战并不受到欢迎，中国的学校对天安门事件（在中国国内被称为“六四事件”）也几乎只字不提。北京第二外国语学院国际政治系大四学生杨林燕（音）说，我只知道每到6月4日，学校领导就会有些紧张；6月4日组织的任何学生活动通常都会受到格外严格的审查。

实际上，中国所有大学都有与共产党领导的共青团相联的学生团体和组织。目前共青团员据称已有7,500万人，大部分大学生都是共青团员，这就使得反政府的激进主义立即成为禁忌，它同时也鼓励了对政府公开表示支持的行为。北京科技大学理工科学生、学生会副主席任少鹏（音）说，中国国家治理得很好，我们的未来会更美好。

中国的年轻人常常把政府和国家两个概念划上等号，他们也承认这种现象对西方人来说可能会很难理解。学生对政府的支持很大程度上源自于中国大多数年轻人都经历过的经济腾飞，这些年轻人都是在30年前中国开始改革开放之后出生的。群众对政府的拥戴在四川大地震期间达到了高潮，很多人都对中央政府调派部队和救灾物资、以及总理温家宝迅速赶赴灾区的做法表示赞赏。

中国名校清华大学的大四学生许雪新（音）说，政府表现得很好，我希望外国人能看看中国人民和中国政府的团结。

经济繁荣在政府赢得学生支持的过程中起到了主要作用。上个世纪80年代，学生们的愤怒部分来自于两位数的通货膨胀率等严重的社会问题，还有就是共产主义旧体制的残留限制了年轻人的机会，比如在就业分配制度下，学生们在毕业后被分到了国企工作，完全没有考虑到他们的个人偏好。

今天中国的学生们生活在国家相对富强的年代，而且由于高校扩招，现在大学生的数量也大幅增加。1996年至2005年，中国高等教育的资金投入增长六倍。

重点大学新建了一批体育场馆，部分奥运项目将在这些场馆举行，这样做也是为了增加大学生们的自豪感。教育部4月份表示，因食品价格上涨，计划提高学生补助。

《中国的学生：为民主而战》(China's Students: the Struggle for Democracy)的作者、英国华威大学(Warwick University)的讲师鲁思•彻林顿(Ruth Cherrington)说，中国的学生现在都是实用主义者，他们有更多的经济理由来坚持当前的这种爱国主义。

今天中国的年轻人比他们的父母有更多的渠道可以接触到国外媒体和其他信息来源。不过，很多人感觉他们的国家和政府在西方被严重地误解了。当奥运火炬全球传递在一些西方国家城市遭遇抗议时，这种感情更是迸发出来了。这些城市的抗议令很多中国学生非常不安，他们举行抵制西方企业的示威和活动进行反击。

很多学生接受中国政府关于不受约束的言论自由可能产生不安定因素的说法，虽然这种说法在欧美大学校园里可能会遭到唾弃。

北京大学的王建斌计划7月份毕业后去杜克大学(Duke University)法学院继续深造。他不赞同民主和人权的概念全球适用的观点。他说，和西方不同，我们没有站在一个更高处去指出其他地方存在的民主和人权问题；你们有你们的价值观，我们有我们的。

Jason Leow

会不会被hx掉啊。。
那偶也贴一篇mg文来。。