They took to the streets last month. Tens of thousands of student demonstrators marched in cities from Beijing to Shanghai, in what Western newspapers have heralded as the most serious challenge to the Chinese Communist Party in years.

And some say it was all because of bad food in the dining halls.

Waving banners and shouting slogans, the students have demanded "democracy" and "freedom." But while papers in the U.S. see the rallies as a sign of progress and hope, some Chinese students at Harvard are not so sure.

Many students from the People's Republic of China feel that media accounts--both from the PRC and the West--are skewed in their representation of the current situation. They say that while such Chinese papers as the People's Daily do not offer complete coverage of the demonstrations, American journalists tend to impute political purposes where none may exist.

"Newspapers in the West, when writing about communist countries, definitely have a propagandist slant. They try and connect these movements with those 30 years ago, and I don't think the students themselves have that in mind," says Hu Hong '89, a Biochemistry concentrator from the capital, Beijing.

Hu, a Cabot House resident, says she feels that news stories here may be misleading because they exaggerate the importance of the protests. "This is only a small part of what's going on in China. I don't think it really touches the workers and the peasants," adds Hu, who says she is not a member of communist party organizations.

Li Yuwen '90, a 19 year-old from Shanghai, has similar doubts about the impartiality of American news. "The West has too much concern about the demonstrations themselves, and not full awareness of the possible consequences," he says.

"It's unwise to have such demonstrations because they do not have sufficient, if any, positive consequences to make up for their negative impact. These students are causing traffic breakdowns and social instability; they are responsible, indirectly, for the rise in crime rate in these cities," Li explains. "If public transportation breaks down as a result of the protesters' actions, people cannot go to work; they cannot go home; mothers cannot nurse their children. It disrupts society."

Party Paper Distorts The Facts

But if some students feel that the West does not understand the full negative impact of the marchers, others think that it is the Chinese papers which are presenting a distorted view.

Yu Shibao, a graduate student in inorganic chemistry who came to Harvard in 1983, sympathizes with his fellow students in China. "All the [Chinese] newspapers talk about is that the students are bad. Nothing is good here," he says, referring to the People's Daily Overseas Edition, the Party paper to which he subscribes. "To them it is just fighting police, disorder in the streets. These newspapers are full of news that isn't real news."

Hu agrees with this assessment. "The news from China isn't exactly what's happening. The press is controlled by the government, so the government uses it as a tool."

All the students interviewed say that the current protest in China is the biggest topic of conversation in the close-knit Chinese community here in Cambridge. Many are worried, however, that unless the students are well-organized, they won't have much impact on the policy decisions of Communist Party leaders. Others fear that these marches, which began late last year, could influence the Party to reverse steps made toward political reform.

"Objectvely, the student demonstrators are good for reformers in the Party because the reformers can say, `Look. If we don't do more about political reform, the students and the general public will resist our administration. They will reject cooperation with the government," says Ding Xuelian, a sociology graduate student who was a Red Guard during China's decade-long Cultural Revolution.

"But on the other hand," he argues, "the conservatives could accuse [Paramount Leader] Deng Xiaoping that these protests are caused by his relaxation on political and ideological issues. They will tell him, `You cannot keep political order.' "