More than 13 months after the brutal crackdown in Tiananmen Square on democracy, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party insists that outcries from the United States and other western nations were ‘much ado about nothing,’ while an NIU leader claims otherwise.

The South China Morning Post in May reported that CCP leader Jiang Zemin said western reaction to the events of June 3 and 4, 1989, was overblown and he has “no regrets” about how Chinese leaders handled the pro-democracy rally.

Jiang also said any similar demonstrations would be handled with “non-lethal force.”

Chinese officials imposed a martial law on the square about three weeks before the fatal escalation of events in the square. Restrictions were lifted January 11, 1990.

While Beijing (formerly Peking) residents were “generally cool and void of any special signs of elation,” the lifting of the ban received immediate international acclaim, according to reports in the April issue of Inside China Mainland.

President Bush said “those interested in China’s reforms can’t possibly deny that this is an active measure in the right direction,” according to the report.

But at NIU there is a different feeling.

NIU Chinese Mainland Student Association leader Yan Zi Lin said “in China there is a proverb. It says that ‘you snap your face to pretend to be fat.'”

Yan Zi explained the proverb means that having a fat face corresponds with wealth and a thin face with anger. Those who look as though they have fat faces are actually thin with anger and the fatness is deceiving. The people of China are “suffering from anger,” he said.

Although martial law was lifted in Beijing, more than 100,000 troops simply changed uniforms converting themselves into policemen instead of military men. Other troops moved from within Beijing to city outskirts.

“The lifting of the martial law means nothing,” Yan Zi said. “There is still enforcement (in Beijing).

“The nature of the CCP remains the same,” he said. “But they are facing a lot of problems. They want to give a good image.”

Yan Zi said protests which took place around the nation on June 3 and 4 of this year puts pressure on Chinese leaders. About 10 members of the NIU group went to Chicago for one of the many demonstrations around the country to protest Beijing’s human rights policies.