Xiang Qu, a second-year UNH graduate student, expressed his sentiments with a red and yellow sign reading "Splitism Go To The Hell."

"We just love our country; we want to keep it united. There's no way Tibet should be liberated," he said.

"The American people should go to Tibet to see what it's like. I think most of them get paid to protest against the Chinese government."

Others, like Yong Zhou, a fifth-year Boston University graduate student who had a close friend shot at the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, were more critical.

"We still have a lot of room for progress. I feel sorry for what happened," he said.

With 10 years hindsight, however, he said it's time to move on to more immediate issues, like the economic crisis that took Asia in its grip in July 1997.

"It's hard to talk about democracy on a hungry stomach," he said.