Plea to students to end demonstrations

Press, 13 May 1989, Page 13

Plea to students to end demonstrations

NZPA-Reuter Peking

With the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, due to arrive in only a few days, China’s ruling Communist Party yesterday pleaded with demonstrating students to end their almost daily protest marches.

Students have demonstrated in recent weeks for more freedom and democracy and are threatening to continue their protests into next week, when Mr Gorbachev will be in town, and even to invite the Soviet leader to hold discussions with them.

Asked at a news conference about student plans to demonstrate in central Peking around the time Mr Gorbachev is due to arrive, a top Government spokesman, Yuan Mu, told reporters, “I am sure the overwhelming majority of students would proceed from the standpoint of maintaining political and social stability and protecting the international prestige of China.

“I am sure students will act in a soberminded and rational way, obey orders and

exercise restraint.” A front-page editorial in the “People’s Daily,” mouthpiece of the Communist Party, called on students to return to class, saying their continual marches were disrupting traffic and the lives of other residents.

“More and more people realise that the problems our country is facing, including some of those raised by students, can only be solved gradually in a stable environment along democratic and legal lines.”