Word: hungering
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...great philosopher Lao Tze said two milennia ago, "The people do not fear death; to what purpose is it to try to frighten them with death?" Even those Chinese who would prefer to be apolitical were touched by the hunger strikers. One million people gathered for days and nights in front of the Forbidden City, defying and challenging the reluctant, if not entirely untouchable, authority...
...struggle, remained out of sight even longer. During this period of uncertainty, solid information was the scarcest of commodities in China, and wild rumors abounded. There were even reports that Deng was fleeing into retirement in the U.S. Protesters in Shanghai, Xian and Lanzhou staged memorial services for Beijing hunger strikers, although none had died. "People are learning about major government changes and about the biggest student movement in China's history from Popsicle sellers and newspaper dealers," said Zhang Weiguo, a reporter on Shanghai's World Economic Herald. "This is not a way to inform the people...
...achievement almost proved short-lived. As the number of demonstrators in the square dwindled to nearly none, the students decided to employ one of civil disobedience's most sacred weapons, the hunger strike. With a large contingent of foreign press on hand for the Gorbachev visit, the decision seemed a brilliant public relations ploy. But the choice of tactics also harked back to the sensibility of a much earlier...
...demands may be amorphous, but there can be no doubt about the passion, as evidenced by the willingness of ordinary people to obstruct tanks and of hunger strikers to court death. If anything, the absence of an ideology with specific long-range aims indicates just how powerful is the public revulsion at the party and the entire status quo. The immediate reasons for the discontent -- the government's condescending treatment of the student demonstrators and its general repressiveness -- are clear. But the anger also stems from the less political aspects of everyday life. Economically and socially, China is experiencing many...
...heart of the Tiananmen spectacle were some troubling questions: What exactly did the hunger strikers and their supporters want? Did they even know...