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Students protest in lead-up to June 4 Tiananmen anniversary

The Australian - May 21, 2009

Michael Sainsbury, China – Faced with the unexpected prospect of unemployment, China's students are again getting restless in the lead-up to the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Thousands of students are reported to have protested in the streets of Nanjing, in central eastern China – one of the centres of protests in 1989 – following an incident on Monday night in which government security guards enforcing restrictions on peddlers allegedly attacked classmates who had set up footpath stalls.

A bloody clash between thousands of students and riot police reportedly ensued, continuing into Tuesday morning. At least 30 students were injured, and a police car was smashed.

While generally apolitical in nature, such incidents spark deep unease among authorities fearful of a recurrence of campus activism that grew into the massive nationwide 1989 protests, which remain a forbidden topic in official discourse.

Many see the still-nascent student unrest as a result of sharply climbing unemployment for graduates. It is believed half of last year's six million graduates have not found jobs, a situation likely to be repeated this year, given the global recession. The state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has said the overall number of jobseekers is expected to grow to 48 million this year.

The Chinese Government has been keen to lift the sagging economy with the help of an $800 billion spending plan to halt rising social unrest.

The protests this week come two weeks before the 20th anniversary on June 4 of the bloody suppression of student-led, pro-democracy protests centred on Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Security forces are on high alert.

China has seen numerous incidents of sometimes violent campus unrest in recent years, most tied to dissatisfaction over poor living conditions, soaring fees and worthless diplomas.

The incident this week went unreported in national media, although accounts of it, accompanied by photos, were posted on websites and blogs.

Photos apparently taken with a mobile phone camera showed hundreds of people blocking streets, surrounding police vehicles and confronting helmeted riot police.

Signs carried by students carried slogans in English and Chinese, including "non-violence and noncooperation" and "help vulnerable social groups and co-construct a harmonious society," using a favourite phrase of communist propaganda.

Reports from activist groups said crowds grew into the thousands, although the numbers were not possible to verify.

The Nanjing city government spokesman's office referred questions to the Jiangning district Government, and a university spokesman refused to comment. A spokesman for the school's Communist Youth League branch said photos of the incident were being studied, but refused to give any details.

Officers involved in the original incident – known in Chinese as the "chengguan", or urban management corps – are notorious for corruption and violence against small businesses and the poor.

The revelations earlier this year of a corps manual instructing officers on how to beat people without leaving marks prompted condemnation and mockery at home and abroad.

[Additional reporting: Associated Press.]

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