Student Union, Autonomous Student Federation, and “Student Spy”: Revisiting the Dynamics of Student Organizations in the 1989 Tiananmen Movement

Based on personal experiences of working in official Chinese college Student Unions, meeting with 1989 student activists, primary sources, newly published studies on the 1989 pro-democracy movement in Beijing, and personal correspondence with former student leaders, this study focuses on the institutional dynamics and predicaments of student organizations in China. Chinese university campuses all have their official Student Union under the guidance of the school's Communist Youth League (CYL). When the college student protest broke out in Beijing in the spring of 1989, protesters soon felt they needed an alternative organization to lead and coordinate the movement and to “represent” themselves. Some old Student Union members who were sympathetic to the new movement also joined the inaugural meeting of the new Federation, but they were accused of being “student spies.” After the unofficial city-wide Student Federation in Beijing gained legitimacy to steer the movement, they authorized another election-based Dialogue Delegation to engage with the government. In the meantime, other students formed a “Hunger-Strike Squad” despite the Autonomous Student Federation’s reservation. The organizational relationship between the overarching “Student Federation” and contingent task forces such as the “Dialogue Delegation,” the “Hunger-Strike Squad” and the later “Protecting Tiananmen Square Headquarters” became so opaque and uncertain that the task forces kept upstaging the Federation and spearheading the movement. This study argues that the new institutions in new spaces provided a venue for some students to stand out as well-known “student movement leaders,” but their “charisma” constantly overrode institutions and undercut students’ own Autonomous Federation.