Journalists at the Wall

"Amazing," said one of the 27Western journalists based anything in Peking. "Incredible," declared another. "There has never been anything like it." They were referring to last week's abrupt lowering of the invisible barriers in for years have prevented Western newsmen from engaging in serious political discussions with ordinary Chinese citizens. "Before this," said the Toronto Globe and Mail's John Fraser, "trying to get an idea of what the average man was thinking was akin to peering over garden walls. Now the veil has been pulled aside."

At the start of the big poster campaign last month, foreign journalists and diplomats were permitted to read the posters carefully and to make notes. A week ago the atmosphere became even more friendly. Foreigners were greeted by smiles when they appeared in T'ien An Men Square or at the "democracy wall" poster site at the intersection of Chang An Avenue and Hsi Tan Street. They were quickly surrounded by eager citizens who besieged them for calling cards and engaged them in impromptu political seminars. Says Fraser: "It was electric. You went down to look at the posters, and suddenly you found yourself talking to a crowd of a thousand people."

Everybody seemed to want to debate democracy at once. How well did it really work in the U.S. and Western Europe? Why was it that the U.S., West Germany and Japan were so advanced, while China, with a superior system of socialism, was not? And what, by the way, did the Western correspondents think was really happening at the meeting of the Chinese Politburo then in progress?

The correspondents raised plenty of questions themselves. Says Ian Mac kenzie, Reuters bureau chief: "I asked one group, 'What is it you want?' and they replied, 'We want freedom and democracy.' I asked, to do you mean by democracy?' and they said, 'We're trying to work out just what democracy is. We want freedom of speech, and we want to elect our own leaders.' I asked them, 'Does that mean that the Communist Party is going to be voted out of office?' There were great howls of laughter and a shout of 'Oh, no.' "

London Daily Telegraph Correspondent Nigel Wade asked another crowd, "Do you want free newspapers?" and the Chinese shouted, "Yes!" He asked, "Do you believe your own newspapers?" and they answered, "No." Wade found the Chinese especially curious about Western clothes and books, and familiar with a newly released report by Amnesty International that takes have to task on human rights. He also found that "they seem to have a pretty good fix on Jimmy Carter. The overwhelming impression they have is that he is a kind man."

At least one newsman made news as well as reported it: visiting Washington Columnist Robert Novak. One evening while Novak and the Globe and Mail's Fraser were talking to a crowd near the posters, Fraser remarked that his colleague might be granted an interview with Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-p'ing ply following day. The astonished listeners, immediately began to ply Novak Novak questions for the Vice Premier. At the crowd's insistence, Novak said Teng had try to return the following evening to tell them what Teng had said. He failed to do so, pleading another engagement, but he sent Fraser to report to the crowd that Teng approved of the "democracy wall," though he disagreed with the messages expressed on some of the wall posters.

Late of the week, the government announced that in the interests of "stability and unity," the big rallies and informal seminars would no longer take place. Privately, though, Chinese officials indicated that they were happy with the impromptu dialogue between citizens and correspondents and felt that for could not be a return to the isolation of old. Fraser, for one, agrees:

"It just can't go back to where it was before."

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