by Andrew Quinn

NEW YORK (Reuter) - Yelling ``Long Live the Dalai Lama,'' ''Independence for Taiwan'' and ``Down with the Communist Party,'' a mixed bag of demonstrators protested noisily Tuesday as Chinese President Jiang Zemin met President Clinton.

From a dissident dubbed the ``black hand'' behind the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations to a team of Taiwanese Buddhists and Tibetan teenagers sporting headbands and sunglasses, the protesters championed different causes but shared a common rage at Beijing's communist government.

``We all want to make our voices heard, and that is what democracy means,'' said Yang Zhou, a Chinese dissident recently allowed to leave Shanghai to receive medical treatment in the United States. ``We are all yelling just so that Jiang Zemin can hear us.''

Kept well-clear of Jiang's motorcade by police barricades and secret service men, the protesters screamed and taunted as the Chinese leader swept into New York's Lincoln Center for his summit with Clinton.

``Shame, Shame, Shame!'' yelled the dozens of Tibetans, many of whom waved the Himalayan region's multi-colored flag and held aloft signs proclaiming ``China Out of Tibet!''

``Tibetans are being killed, Tibetans are being tortured, Tibetan women are being brutalized...we think this is a gross violation of human rights by the Chinese government,'' said protester Kalden Lodoe, 28.

While the Tibetans urged Beijing to negotiate with their exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, on greater autonomy for the Himalayan region, the Taiwanese flatly rejected any relations with Jiang's government.

``We respect that there is one China, but we say that Taiwan is not a part of China,'' said Annette Lu, a Taiwanese member of parliament and leading independence campaigner for the island, which Beijing claims is simply a renegade province.

The Taiwanese drew the largest number of protesters, with some 500 people parading earlier Tuesday across crowded midtown Manhattan from the U.N. headquarters to the Chinese Consulate General.

As Chinese diplomats watched nervously from windows high above the crowd, the Taiwanese burned Beijing's red flag and acted out skits depicting their island as the victim of communist aggression.

A chartered boat floated on the Hudson River beneath the consulate bearing a giant banner proclaiming ``Welcome Taiwan into the U.N.''

``We recognize that China is a dictatorial country in the middle of a power struggle. Basically, anything could happen. But we must say what we have to say,'' said Foon-Chung Fan, a Taiwanese emigrant who is now a doctor in New Jersey.

The smallest and most down-beat protest was staged by members of China's exiled dissident community, pro-democracy campaigners who have been driven overseas by Beijing's repeated political crackdowns.

Led by a wheel-chair bound Wang Juntao, whom Beijing dubbed a ``black hand'' behind the failed 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, the group called on the Chinese government to release ailing dissident Chen Ziming and other detainees.

``If no one brings international attention to these people, they will be forgotten,'' said Wang, who currently holds a prestigious Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University.

``We want to tell Jiang Zemin that this kind of immoral behavior cannot be tolerated,'' said Wang, who was on the fourth day of a hunger strike to protest Chen's detention.

Forwarded by Tsering Wangyal tw21@cornell.edu