Non-Profit Media Campaign Award Winner

Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars

Yongchuan Liu, Chairman

by Serena Chen *

 

Historians in the 21st century may report that 5,000 years of feudal history were brought down by a relatively recent invention - the fax machine. Despite attempts by the Chinese government to stifle freedom of speech and free flow of information, students were able to transmit the latest news of the unrest gleaned from U.S. newscasts back to China via fax. One of those courageous individuals who kept the lines communications open was Yongchuan liu, a Stanford graduate student and current chairman of the newly formed Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars in the U.S.

Liu started out as a mechanical engineer, working in Jiangxi province after his graduation from college in 1982. But once he began working, he realized that there was a surplus of trained engineers like himself working far below their skill level. He talked with friends in similar situations and realized that "we needed to change the system before China could successfully modernize."

In 1983 he entered Beijing University to study sociology. Before long he was in the thick of a movement protesting the government's decision to stop allowing graduate students to buy half-price train tickets. As executive director for the graduate students' association at the university, Liu organized "peaceful dialogues" with officials; as a result, graduate students could continue purchasing tickets at the lower rate.

After several years of organizing in Beijing University, Liu decided to study abroad and entered Stanford's doctoral program in sociology in 1986. By 1988, he was the president of the Association of Chinese Students and Scholars at Stanford, one of the first groups to organize Chinese students after the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Emboldened by the changes going on in China, Liu opened up a dialogue with officials from Taiwan, discussing such issues as reunification. "I was perceived as being pro-PRC (People's Republic of China)," Liu said, "I maintained good relations with the Chinese consular office in San Francisco and was invited last summer by the [PRC] state committee on education to visit Beijing and Guangzhou [as a representative of overseas Chinese students]."

But the visit also demonstrated that China was not all that ready to listen to dissenting opinions. "I said things the Chinese government didn't like and they refused to let us meet with any of the higher rank leaders," Liu said. "Later on I heard they said that was the 'last time they wanted to talk to overseas Chinese students.' "

A need to collect dissertation data brought Liu back Beijing on April 10 of this year and into the midst of growing students protests. Liu said he played a supportive role in the democracy movement by advising other student leaders.

He thought there was one point where the "students had a chance. On may 17 and 18, both the conservative and reform sides contacted the students," he said, but nothing came of it due to the students; "lack of political technique."

When Liu left China to return to Stanford on May 27, Chinese customs officials took his materials related to the democracy movement despite protests that they were part of his dissertation. In retrospect, Liu considers himself fortunate that he was able to get out at all.

Back in the U.S., Liu redoubled his efforts to organize Chinese students, linking up student organization from different colleges and universities. Local and national press converged on Stanford's student group, talking to Liu and other leaders and photographing and taking video of students constantly faxing news reports back to China.

In early July, he helped form the United Association of Chinese Students and Scholars in California. By the end of July, he also helped form the first nationwide coalition of Chinese student groups, the Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars in the U.S., which was created at the end of a congress of resident Chinese students and scholars held in Chicago July 23-30.

More than 380 official delegates and 100 nonvoting delegates from 202 universities throughout the U.S. attended the Chicago congress. There were also some 20 delegates from Canada, Japan, Australia, West Germany and Hong Kong. Special guests included recently escaped pro-democracy leaders Yan Jiaqi, Wuerkaixi Duolaite, Li Lu, Xin Ku, and a representative from Poland's Solidarity Union.

The group's purpose is to promote democracy in China and to push for such "basic human rights as life, freedom, property and pursuit of happiness and the right of the Chinese people to choose their own government." They seek to support US laws protecting Chinese students from retribution, support efforts to get news and information to China, and to sponsor conferences to analyze the social, political and economic conditions in China and to explore possible paths that will lead China to democracy.

* Serena Chen is the editor of East/West News.

 

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