The change of the Chinese student in 20 years.( FT)
Zhang Hao first heard about China's 1989 student democracy movement when he was in high school. But now that he is a university student himself he is eager to declare that his views are worlds apart from the generation who gathered in Tiananmen Square to demand democracy.
At 25 the second-year graduate student at Beijing Sports University is worried about his future, but he believes the Communist party is taking China in the right direction. "Our generation thinks that ours is a government which helps us raise our heads and grow up," he says.
"We are not like them," Mr Zhang declares of the students who grabbed the world's attention in 1989. "I can understand that they wanted to pursue freedom and democracy, but I think they were partly misled. They knew nothing."
Dozens of students interviewed at Peking University, Tsinghua University and Beijing Sports University in recent weeks said they knew about the 1989 movement.
Many had seen "The Gate of Heavenly Peace", a 1995 US-produced documentary on the Tiananmen movement and the June 4 crackdown that brought an end to the protests thanks to copies obtained online or from friends. Most heard about 1989 from their parents or high school teachers. Many confess to disillusionment with the Communist party.
"My father told me about 1989. He said it was all plotted by Jiang Zemin single-handedly," said a 23-year-old female student from Tsinghua University. "What kind of government is it which guns down its own people?"
But in online debates students spend most of their energy discussing corruption and patriotism. Their biggest personal concern is unemployment. The government estimates that up to 3m from the classes of 2008 and 2007 have yet to find a job, and another 6m will join them on the market next month.
The only job Mr Zhang can look for with his martial arts degree is teaching, but he says selection in the education system is plagued by corruption. He might have a better chance of finding work in his home province of Anhui, but is terrified of going back to the poverty of the farming village he came from. "Sometimes I worry so much that my stomach hurts all the time. I'm so depressed," he says.
Shi Guoliang, who researches the political and social attitudes of the young generation at China Youth University for Political Sciences in Beijing, says those sorts of pragmatic concerns are the main difference between the Tiananmen generation and those of today. "The '89 student movement was a generation of fanatics while today's students are a generation of reason," Mr Shi says.
His view is very much that of the political establishment, but some civil rights and freedom of speech activists agree. Zhou Shuguang, a 28-year-old university drop-out who is one of China's best-known bloggers, says to him the 1989 student leaders' speeches feel like over- emotional grandstanding. "They were brought up in a socialist tradition, and that's what they knew."
Today's students view themselves as more mature in their approach to politics, the outside world and China's future.
"In 1989, the door had just opened a little bit, and they had no reliable information about the reality in the west, they were led by an idea of democracy," says Mr Zhang. "Look how much more access to information we have. Many people have been abroad to study, and we can read about everything online."
Although Beijing controls and censures the internet, it still provides new avenues for information and debate. "Students don't do sit-ins, they blog and use Twitter," says Mr Shi.
Tight surveillance of universities ensures students rarely erupt. With armed police stationed on campus and every gate manned with police asking for identification, Peking University students have "become a flock of sheep," says Mr Zhou.
But tensions occasionally burst into the open. Students in Hangzhou held a candlelight vigil for a young man killed by a speeding driver and thousands of students clashed with police in Nanjing after a female student was beaten by a local official. According to the Hong Kong Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, 30 students were injured and a police car smashed up.
