Chinese Students Demand Reforms

BEIJING, China--More than 150,000 students and supporters of their pro-democracy campaign burst past a police line today and triumphantly filled Tiananmen Square, defying Communist leaders' threat of a crackdown.

"We have created history today. History will not forget us. The people will not forget us," a student leader shouted through a megaphone to students in the 100-acre square, China's symbolic seat of power.

A line of trucks filled with soldiers had circled the square to act as a barricade, but the marchers swarmed onto the trucks.

They shouted, "Welcome 38th Army," and handed out leaflets to the soldiers explaining their demands for sweepings changes in China's autocratic system, including press freedom and accountability of the country's leaders.

The trucks were immobilized by the mob, and within minutes the vast square was turned into a sea of waving white and red student banners as protesters chanted pro-reform slogans.

The students did not try to occupy the square, but continued their march down Changan Boulevard, the capital's main thoroughfare. Students said they had scored a victory by reaching the square and wanted to continue their march around the city to reach as many people as possible.

The Communist Party and Beijing government had on Wednesday issued stern warnings that the student protests, now in their 11th day, are illegal and that further street demonstrations would be crushed.

But students and a growing hoard of supporters pushed their way through police barriers across half a dozen intersections along the ninemile route from campuses in northwest Beijing to the center of the city.

When three truckloads of armed police pulled up at one intersection, they were surrounded by a crowd shouting, "People love the people's police, the people's police love people."

By the time the students reached the square, more than eight hours after the march began, they were far outnumbered by workers and residents who joined them, and the soldiers who had been guarding the square faded out of sight.

Thousands of people had leaned out of windows and cheered as the marchers surged by. Kindergarten children stood at the gate of their school and applauded, and patients wearing bathrobes emerged from a hospital to accept pamphlets the students were handing out.

A sea of red and white banners calling for democracy, human rights, and an end to corruption and bureaucracy were visible in the crowd.

Students with arms linked sang the national anthem and shouted "Long live democracy."

Others shouted "Down with bureaucracy, down with corruption," oft-repeated phrases during the past 11 days of demonstrations and class boycotts that have shaken the Communist government.

The Beijing city government has declared the protests illegal. On Wednesday, Beijing Communist Party Secretary Li Ximing told a special meeting of 10,000 party officials, "We must firmly stop such riots."

Earlier, loudspeakers at Beijing University appealed to the students "to think what kind of problems will arise if you leave the university. Think what kind of effect this will have on your family and parents."

The students have called for Premier Li Peng to resign and say senior leader Deng Xiaoping, 84, is too old to rule. But most say their campaign is not anti-government.

They have appealed for free speech and press, and end to rampant corruption in government and more funding for education.