Students in China

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Reading "Marching in the Streets: What Harvard's Chinese Students Think about Protests at Home" (Crimson, Jan. 12), I was disturbed by some of the statements quoted in the article. As a Chinese student myself, I am writing to you to present an alternative view.

There are three issues here. One is the motivation of the student demonstrators, the second is the effect of student demonstrations and the third is the meaning of these demonstrations. On these three issues, some of the statements quoted in the article are, in the opinion of this author, fundamentally flawed.

Bad food and desires to impress members of the opposite sex were cited by some as among factors that motivated students to take to the streets. No doubt, on the margin, both factors could have played a role. But they cannot constitute even partially sufficient--not to mention necessary--explanation. Without much better information than those quoted in the piece, I venture two reasons to reject this explanation.

The first reason is that bad food and making an impression on members of the opposite sex have been, as far as I know, perennial concerns of college students; but relative to these concerns, student demonstrations of this character have been extremely rare in communist China's history.

The second reason is that the imputed causes simply defy rules of proportionality. This point requires an understanding of the high stakes that were involved in these student demonstrations: students could be subject to very unpleasant consequences ranging from criminal prosecutions--and sure convictions--to assignment of undesirable jobs at the end of college careers. If we had a faint faith in human rationality, we would most likely assume that students would pursue their culinary pleasures and vanity in less heroic avenues.

One of the interviewees was quoted as saying that the effect of the demonstrations has been socially disruptive--traffic breakdowns, workers showing up late and mothers failing to nurse their children as a result. But isn't causing traffic breakdowns and other related alterations of normal life exactly the appropriate way to express some deep psychological frustrations on the part of the students about the way the government controls and regulates their lives?

But most of all, I was disturbed by the value judgment one of the interviewees cast on the student protesters. According to him, student demonstrations are pointless because "freedom is for qualified people only," and they mostly arise from ignorance and naivete. These are value judgments and like all other value judgments it is difficult to offer logical counterarguments. But I have to say this statement deeply offends my civic sense of morality.

As to the ignorance and naivete, there is no denying that these may exist in those students as much as in other fallible human beings. But at least those who took to the streets had the distinction, in sharp contrast to some of us, of acting upon their true faith. China should congratulate itself upon having such courageous young men and women among its best and brightest. And it is extremely gratifying for me to realize that, despite so many years of repression, Chinese youth still retains ideals and visions--the best and most precious things of being young.

It is one thing to speculate about the short-and long-term consequences of student demonstrations. It is quite another to denigrate these courageous acts, especially from a safe and complacent distance. Yasheng Huang '85