by Linda Jaivin
It was 1.30 a.m., 4 June 1989. Hou Dejian, who was on a hunger strike, sat in a tent in the middle of Tiananmen Square and listened as the loudspeakers crackled into action.
‘All students and citizens on Tiananmen Square must leave immediately so that the martial law troops can carry out their mission. We cannot guarantee the safety of anyone who refuses; they must take full responsibility for the consequences of their actions.’
The army, with its tanks and armoured personnel carriers, its troops armed with automatic weapons and dumdum bullets, was pushing towards Tiananmen Square, slaughtering all who dared try and stand in its way. Already, the death toll had climbed into the hundreds.
The student leader Chai Ling, in her tremulous, hoarse whisper, spoke to the frightened students. Anyone who wished to leave the square, she said, could go; the rest would remain and defend the square to the death.
Her words alarmed Hou. No one would leave if it meant abandoning the others. He urged Chai Ling to negotiate with the troops for a total evacuation of the square.
She refused.
Hou and the three friends with whom he was conducting the hunger strike decided to take things into their own hands. They decided to approach the soldiers themselves. They would ask for enough time to organise an evacuation and a promise to let the students go safely. Despite the brutal slaughter that had taken place so far on the streets, they figured the country's leaders would rather not have the blood of thousands of students on their hands as well—or on Tiananmen Square, the symbolic heart of the nation.
Everyone agreed that Hou Dejian should head the negotiating team. Television appearances and album covers had made his face familiar to most Chinese. They hoped his fame would be a talisman. Hou suggested that, of the other three hunger strikers, Zhou Duo would be the best to accompany him. The bespectacled Zhou, with his gentle, scholarly manner, was a better choice than Hou's best friend, the excitable Liu Xiaobo, or Gao Xin, another wild card.
They wanted a student leader to go as well.‘I'm the commander in chief here,’ Chai Ling said, refusing. ‘I can't leave my command post.’
Another student leader, Wuer Kaixi, had abandoned the square hours earlier and Wang Dan, another prominent leader, was nowhere to be seen. Troops completely surrounded the square. From all sides came sharp cracks and heavy thuds of gunfire. It was already 3.30 a.m. Time was running out. Hou, Zhou, two doctors from the Red Cross station and a few student marshals jumped into a van that had earlier served as an ambulance. They sped off to the north-eastern perimeter near the Museum of the Chinese Revolution, where the square meets the Avenue of Eternal Peace.
Political commissar Colonel Ji Xinguo looked up to see the van weaving crazily through the square towards his troops. ‘Quick! Stop that van!’ cried his regimental commander.
Several soldiers pointed their guns at the van, screaming, ‘Don't come any closer!’ The van screeched to a halt about fifty metres from where the troops stood.
Half-expecting to be gunned down on the spot, Hou and the others jumped out with their hands up. ‘Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I'm Hou Dejian!’ he yelled.
One of the soldiers walked over and shone a torch in Hou's face.
‘Could we speak to someone in charge?’ asked Hou. By now the soldiers were crowding round to get a glimpse of the famous pop star.
One of the soldiers went to fetch Ji Xinguo, who approached with four or five aides. Colonel Ji, a man of about forty, greeted Hou, shaking his hand. The palm that clasped Hou's cold, bony hand was surprisingly thick, soft and warm, the grasp incongruously firm and amiable; it was as though they were meeting at a social occasion.
‘I had a good look at Hou Dejian,’ Ji later wrote in his account of the negotiations.‘He was very skinny. He wore a jacket and jeans, glasses and long hair—he definitely had the look of someone from overseas…It was funny, but he had looked a lot better on TV.’
As the two were sizing each other up, a few of the soldiers pushed in close to Hou. One asked, ‘What are you doing here?’
Their commander snapped, ‘Get back in line and shut up.’
Hou explained what they were trying to do.
Someone not far away shouted out, ‘The soldiers want to wash the square in blood, but we will fight to the last.’
‘Don't get us wrong,’ Hou quickly clarified, ‘we want a peaceful evacuation.’
Another officer broke in. ‘You people should have been off the square a long time ago.’
‘Yes, yes, we're getting ready to leave.’
‘Our patience is limited. If you don't evacuate, we won't hold back.’
‘That's just what we want, to evacuate,’ Hou repeated.
A soldier standing nearby interrupted, ‘So get out of here already.’
‘All I have to do,’ Hou replied from between gritted teeth, ‘is run and I'm outta here. But there are thousands of students on the square, and it wouldn't be right for me to abandon them. A lot of them want to leave, but they need you to designate a route and promise them safe passage.’
A few other officers now arrived on the spot. After a quick conference, they decided to ask for instructions from the general command at the Bridge of Golden Waters, just in front of Tiananmen Gate. Ji went with them.
Several minutes later, at precisely 4 a.m., the lights that illuminated the square were suddenly extinguished. The entire area was plunged into pitch blackness. Was this a signal that the mopping-up was to begin? The troops in front of Hou and the others began making eerie, howling noises, grinding shards of glass under their heels. Some pitched bottles in the direction of the square; these made sharp, shattering noises as they smashed against the paving stones behind the little group, and gunfire rang out.
Hou had never been so frightened in his life. His first urge was to flee. One of the doctors standing by his side grabbed his arm. ‘Don't run,’ he whispered. ‘It's too dangerous.’
Hou's knees were nearly buckling with fear. Raising his trembling hands, he led the others in shouting, ‘Don't shoot! Please come and negotiate!’
Several minutes later, to their relief, Colonel Ji reappeared to say that headquarters had approved their request. The troops would open a corridor by the south-eastern corner of the square along which the students could leave.
There was just one thing: the square had to be ‘cleared’ by dawn.
Hou and Zhou raced back across the square on foot. By now, the lights had come back on, and they could see clearly. Hou grabbed a megaphone. ‘We've won an enormous victory. I fully believe that you are the best and brightest of our nation.’ The students applauded. ‘No one here is a coward; no one here is afraid of death.’ More applause. ‘But, death must be meaningful.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I've just negotiated with the army for a withdrawal. I didn't consult with you all first and I apologise.’
Disapproval pullulated through the crowd.
‘If you agree to leave now, the army will let you go safely,’ he continued. ‘I know I can't make this decision for you. But we can only contribute to the cause of democracy in China if we are alive. Only if we live will there be hope.’
‘Chickenshit!’ ‘Defeatist!’ ‘Traitor!’ ‘Running Dog of the Fascists!’ As Hou pushed on with his argument for an evacuation, the crowd hurled curses at him.
‘OK!’ he responded, with rising desperation, ‘blame me, blame us all you like! As long as you can all get off the square safely, we don't care what you call us, now or later.’
A line of armoured personnel carriers and troop convoy trucks now rolled heavily up the road alongside the square; the sound of the APCs crunching over makeshift roadblocks as well as the thick, rubbery grinding of tank treads on asphalt made it harder for Hou to make himself heard. Shouting, he pleaded, ‘There's been enough bloodshed. Let's not allow any more people to die. If we all wait here to die then we will have committed a great crime against the nation. I beg all of you, live for the sake of the country, for the Chinese people, and for the democrat
ic work ahead of us. I propose,’ he concluded, ‘that everyone organise themselves according to schools and prepare to withdraw right now.’
At this moment, the Taiwan reporter Wang Shih-chun was standing on the steps of the Museum of the Chinese Revolution that flanked the eastern side of the square. He turned in surprise when, at Hou's final plea, a line of soldiers just behind him broke into applause.
Back on the monument, the other three—Liu Xiaobo, Gao Xin and Zhou Duo—took turns trying to persuade the students to leave. They could see it wasn't going to be easy.
Meanwhile, on the western side of the monument the fusillade grew louder; the troops were moving in. Tear-gas canisters exploded close by.
Hou, Zhou, Gao and Liu promised the students that they would wait till all of them had evacuated before they left the square themselves.
The gunfire grew louder. Hou saw troops approaching from behind the monument in the south, some on foot and some in APCs. Fearing that this new development would make it even less likely that the students would trust the army to let them leave safely, Hou, Zhou Duo and the doctors took off once more for the north-eastern corner of the square to see if Ji could stop the troops and give the students just a bit more time.
They had only just left the monument when they ran into Ji and a handful of his men.
This time, Colonel Ji was less personable.
‘What the hell is going on? Why isn't there anyone evacuating yet?’ Ji demanded. ‘Time's up. The troops must complete their mission. Mr Hou,’ he said, ‘if you don't get off the square immediately, I'm afraid that we cannot guarantee your personal safety.’
‘If we were only worried about ourselves,’ replied Hou,‘we'd have left here long ago.’ A soldier standing next to Ji didn't like Hou's attitude. Muttering angrily, his face and neck flushed red, his eyes bulging, he lifted the barrel of his AK-47 and was about to strike at Hou with it when others standing behind him restrained him.
‘Shit! Let's get outta here!’ Hou, Zhou and the doctors ran for their lives, back to the monument once more. The troops continued their advance. They reached the rows of pup tents which until a few hours earlier had been occupied by the student demonstrators.
Hou arrived back at the monument just in time to hear another student leader, Feng Congde, conducting a poll among the students as to whether or not they would withdraw.
‘CHE!’ (Withdraw!)
‘LIU!’ (Stay!)
It was impossible to tell which was louder. Liu Xiaobo insisted the decision had been for a withdrawal.
A small clutch of soldiers on the third tier opened fire on the student loudspeaker above his head with their semi-automatics.
‘Go! Hurry!’ shouted Hou, dashing up the steps of the monument.
But the students took their time, organising themselves by schools, raising their flags. As they went, some called out ‘Fascists’ at the troops. Some waved the V-sign. Some sang ‘The Internationale’ or ‘Heirs of the Dragon’. Others just wept.
Several soldiers pressed in from behind, their guns pointed at the students' backs. Hou hurried over. Desperately, he gestured for them to aim their weapons in the air. Some did, others didn't.
Someone called out in a Sichuan accent, ‘Mr Hou!’
Hou looked around.
The speaker was a young soldier who begged him to clear out. ‘It's for your own good, Mr Hou.’
Was he a fan? Would he go back and listen to Hou's records when this was all over and boast that he'd met Hou Dejian on Tiananmen?
From the first tier of the monument, Hou watched the students making their final march out of the square. One group was just standing there. ‘Go on!’ he shouted. ‘Hurry!’
They were waiting for him. He waved them on ahead. They went reluctantly. Then, together with Zhou Duo and two of the student marshals who had stayed by his side from the beginning, he went to check on what was happening on the north side of the monument.
To their horror, they discovered a group sitting stubbornly on the ground, determined to become martyrs to the cause. Frantically Hou began pulling people up and pushing them towards the others. ‘Listen,’ he pleaded, ‘say what you like about me. Say it's all my fault you had to leave. Just go!’ This time, there were no replies of ‘chickenshit’ or ‘defeatist’.
One student took Hou's hand and held it, saying nothing. His voice cracking with anxiety, Hou cried out, ‘What's the point? Why do you want to die here?’
No reply.
‘All right. If that's what you want, I'll stay and die with you,’ he said, unable to think of any other way to persuade them to go.
Some students stood up. Addressing Hou as ‘teacher’, one assured him, ‘We don't blame you. Thank you for what you've done.’
Hou broke down in tears. As he wept, he continued to haul up more students from the ground. A platoon of soldiers approached from the west; by the time the last of the students were on their feet, the troops were less than ten metres away. They now all joined what had become a mad rush to get out of the square.
Hou had eaten almost nothing for two days and had hardly slept; the last few hours he had been going on adrenalin. At last, he had accomplished what he had set out to do: the students were all evacuating the square. He felt his energy sapping away. His breath came in gasps. He was slipping into a state of shock. He would probably have slid down onto the cool paving stones of the square if it hadn't been for those two loyal marshals. One on each side, they supported him and helped him through a stream of people so dense it practically lifted them along.
Suddenly, club-swinging troops descended on the group from the north-west. Shrieking in fear and pain, students fell to the ground, clutching bloodied heads or broken bones. Rushing eastwards to escape the onslaught, they hurtled straight into the low iron balustrades bordering the central part of the square. The first line of students tumbled painfully over these barriers; several more lines fell over in a heap on top of them before the forward surge was checked, but not before one of the student marshals who'd been supporting Hou was caught in the pile. Hou tried with his remaining strength to pull him out, but the student yanked Hou up on top of him instead, so that Hou could scramble up over the pile to safety. The evacuation had degenerated into chaos.
‘Dejian! Dejian!’ Incredibly, it was his best friend and fellow hunger striker Liu Xiaobo. Liu had come back to look for Hou. He'd lost the others, he said. Seeing the shape Hou Dejian was in, Liu put one arm around his waist and the other around that of the second marshal, who'd broken his leg in the crush, and they hobbled over to the Red Cross station on the western side of the square.
Glancing back at the square, Hou glimpsed tanks rolling steadily towards the monument. Near them, he saw several students supporting three people covered in blood. Hou could barely stand. When they reached the Red Cross station, Liu and the nurses helped him onto a stretcher. The wounded continued to stream in; through a semi-conscious haze, Hou heard the sound of weeping and felt a cold breeze blow over the square. A female student covered him with a red coat.
‘The army's surrounded the medical station!’ Liu Xiaobo shouted.
Hou sat up. A doctor quickly motioned to him to lie down again. Covering his face with the coat, they picked up the stretcher. Liu walked with them. They struggled on with the stretcher for more than ninety minutes. From under the coat, Hou heard the sound of gunshots, cries and more weeping. When, at last, they set him down and pulled the coat off his face, he discovered he was in an operating room in the Capital Hospital, not far from the square, surrounded by fresh corpses and the grievously wounded. Soon, someone came in and moved him to another room.
It was nearly 8 a.m., 4 June 1989, exactly six years to the day since Hou had defected to the mainland. He closed his eyes and slipped into a deep sleep.
At the same time that Hou was lying in the Capital Hospital, I was in the Australian embassy, desperately trying to get news of him. He was one of my closest friends; we'd known each other for ei
ght years. I'd heard he'd been last spotted in the middle of the square. I called everyone who might have had any news; no one could tell me anything.
In my desperation, I even called the home of the rock star Cui Jian. He was a friend of Hou's. Cui Jian's father told me, with no doubt in his voice, that both Hou and Liu Xiaobo were dead, crushed by tanks. I hung up. I felt nauseous and faint. Then an Australian diplomat burst into the room, a great grin on his face, with the news that Hou and Liu were alive—they'd just called him minutes earlier from the hospital.
I went with Nick Jose to his flat. Hou and Liu made it over to Nick's place shortly afterwards. We embraced and cried and laughed hysterically. For the next several days, as the massacre continued and the arrests began, Hou, Liu and I stayed in the flat. Then, on 6 June, when the Australian government decided to evacuate its citizens, we were told to spend the night in the embassy. I wanted to take a flight out to Hong Kong with Hou the following day. I feared that if we separated, given the chaos in the capital, we would have trouble meeting up again. So Nick and I snuck Hou into the Australian embassy with us for what we thought would be just one night. But, shortly after we'd left the flat, Liu ventured outside on his bicycle and was nabbed by security forces. The girl who was with him, weeping hysterically, called me at the embassy to tell me how they'd knocked him off the bike and bundled him into an unmarked van.
We began to cry as well. It was clear that Hou was in danger—he'd never make it out of the country. So he stayed in the embassy, an accidental refugee. It took nearly two months of discussions between Australian and Chinese officials before it was deemed safe enough for him to return to his Beijing flat.
