Chinese university and college students arranged a diversity of rich, colorful and healthy activities on Friday to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the "December 9 Movement" and the 60th anniversary of the "December 1 Movement".

Seminars were held at a number of universities in the national capital of Beijing to educate the students about fine Chinese traditions and instill patriotism.

Sports games, torch relays and cross-country races were also held in universities and colleges in northeast China's Heilongjiang provinces as well as in Beijing, while singing and writing contests and poetry composition were arranged in several southern universities.

The historic "December 9 Movement" occurred in 1935 when university and college students in Beijing (then called Beiping), under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, took to the streets and staged a massive patriotic demonstration, with such revolutionary slogans as "Stop the civil war and unite to resist foreign aggression" and "Down with Japanese imperialism."

The movement soon spread elsewhere in China then and gained extensive support, but it was suppressed by the then-ruling Kuomintang (KMT) government.

The "December 1 Movement" was an democratic anti-civil war movement initiated by students in 1945, when the Kuomintang authorities shot more than 60 students in high schools and universities in Yunnan Province for their anti-war advocacy and thus aroused a nationwide patriotic campaign.

(Xinhua News Agency December 10, 2005)