When a handful of Peking University students began holding occasional sessions of an informal “Democracy Salon” in late 1988, it seemed unlikely their influence would reach beyond the long grey walls of the campus and its Chinese-roofed halls of residence.

But the mop-haired participants in their ill-fitting trousers earnestly discussing the principles of democracy and political reform were quietly claiming a place in the modern Chinese tradition of youthful intellectual activism. Gathered on a lawn under a statue of Cervantes, they were following in the metaphorical footsteps of the young intellectuals who led the 1919 “May Fourth Movement” that introduced mass urban politics to China. Like their predecessors, they blended idealism with political naivety. Many railed against the dictatorial Communist party’s control over their careers and conduct – resentment sharpened by the erosion of their already meagre student stipends by high inflation.

Then came the death in April 1989 of Hu Yaobang, a former party chief toppled for his liberal policies. Democracy Salon organiser Wang Dan, a history student, led an early demonstration to Tiananmen Square to mark Hu’s passing and call for political change. Joined by discussion groups from other Beijing colleges, the student protests suddenly became a new mass movement.

It did not last. On June 4 1989, soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army shot their way into Beijing – killing unknown numbers of citizens on their way – and cleared the students from the square.

The Communist party continued the economic restructuring that is turning China into a global powerhouse, but political reform was frozen. Wang Dan was jailed and eventually forced to join other former student leaders in exile.

These days, the fashionably clad students strolling past Peking University’s ponds and pagodas are more likely to be talking of MBA entrance requirements than the merits of popular elections. But somewhere there lingers an echo of the discussions of the Democracy Salon, a reminder that they too might someday choose to take another kind of course.