People of 1989: Yu Haocheng (于浩成)

A well-known legal scholar, Yu Haocheng was a Manchu, one of the many ethnic minorities in China. His father was a student leader during the May Fourth Movement in 1919, who later became a department head in Yenching University, the precursor of Peking University, and participated in the Communist underground. Influenced by his father and elder brother, Yu Haocheng participated in the revolutionary activities led by the Communist Party from a very early age. However, his fortune was not blessed: In 1947, he was labeled as an "anti-Party element" and almost expelled from the Party. Then in 1968, he spent three years in the Qincheng prison as a "counter-revolutionary."

After being rehabilitated in the late 1970s, Yu Haocheng became the head of a small publishing house, as well as the editor-in-chief for the scholastic journal Legal Studies. He became an active figure in the intellectual circle in Beijing. In 1988, he was a part of the effort to launch a magazine New Enlightenment, for which he wrote an essay titled "People should Have the Freedom from Fear."

In February, 1989, Yu Haocheng cosigned an open letter with other intellectuals in Beijing, calling for political system reform. Thereafter and through out the student movement, he maintained a consistent presence in the various demonstrations and meetings among the intellectuals, including as a part of the 12 scholars who went to Tiananmen Square in an attempt to persuade students stop their hunger strike.

After the crackdown, Yu Haocheng was officially expelled from the Communist Party and was jailed for a year and a half. One of his chief offensives was that he had once made suggestions to Liu Gang when the latter was drafting the charter for the new Beijing Students Autonomous Federation.

In his elder years, Yu Haocheng toured several universities in the US and wrote memoirs. In 2008, he was an early signatorie for the "Charter of 2008."


Yu Haocheng passed away in Beijing on November 14, 2015. He was 91.



People of 1989

People of 1989: Chen Wei (陈卫)

When the 1989 Chinese student movement broke out, Chen Wei was just a freshman in the Beijing Institute of Technology. From the very beginning, he actively participated in the campus activities in memory of Hu Yaobang. He helped leading about 4,000 of students from his school to attend the funeral at Tiananmen Square. Soon after, he played a key role in organizing an independent student organization at his school.

At the end of April, he took a trip to his hometown in Sichuan to spread the messages from Beijing movement. When he got back to the capital, he joined the effort of the Dialogue Delegation as a representative from BIT but soon joined in the hunger strike. During that time, he fainted several times and had to be taken to hospitals.

At the night of the massacre, he was on the streets trying to block the advancing troops. He later vividly described how he saw a girl being gunned down, execution style.

Chen Wei returned to his hometown soon after the massacre. He attempted to form an underground organization but was soon captured. He was later released without charge after almost a whole year of detention. That's when he started his career and life intertwined with prison terms. In 1992, he was arrested for organizing opposition parties and sentenced to 5 years. After the completion of his term, he still continued his work in local and regional organizing and became a signatory of the Charter of 08.

He was arrested this past February in a round of suppression in Sichuan. On December 23, 2011, Chen Wei was sentenced to 9 years in prison for "inciting of subversion."


People of 1989

Former 1989 Student Sentenced to 10 Years

There is little public record on what exactly Liu Xianbin (刘贤斌) did in 1989. But whatever he, then a junior in People's University, did was enough for him to be arrested in the aftermath and sentenced to 2 years and 6 months in 1992. That was the first time he saw prison.

After serving that term, he joined forces with fellow student leader Wang Dan, who was also released from his own prison term at the time, and attempted to continue their pro-democracy efforts in China. In 1996, Wang Dan was arrested again and sent into exile shortly after receiving an 11-year sentence. Liu Xianbin stayed put. In 1998, he participated in the organization of an opposition party in China and was once again sentenced to a 13-year prison term.

By now he has been spending a significant chunk of his adult life in jail. But he wasn't done yet. Shortly after his most recent release, he plunged into the then-fledging "Chart of 08" signature drive. On July 5, 2010, he was arrested for the third time.

Today, Liu Xianbin was sentenced to 10 years in prison for "subversion". His last public words were his desperate shouts in the courtroom: "I am innocent! I protest!"

Fang Lizhi: Liu Xiaobo and Illusions About China

The following is an op-ed piece by Fang Lizhi, published in New York Times today:

Liu Xiaobo and Illusions About China

By FANG LIZHI

Published: October 11, 2010

PHOENIX, ARIZONA — I heartily applaud the Nobel Committee for awarding its Peace Prize to the imprisoned Liu Xiaobo for his long and nonviolent struggle for human rights in China. In doing so, the committee has challenged the West to re-examine a dangerous notion that has become prevalent since the 1989 Tiananmen massacre: that economic development will inevitably lead to democracy in China.

Increasingly, throughout the late 1990s and into the new century, this argument gained sway. Some no doubt believed it; others perhaps found it convenient for their business interests. Many trusted the top Chinese policymakers who sought to persuade foreign investors that if they continued their investments without an embarrassing “linkage” to human rights principles, all would get better at China’s own pace.

More than 20 years have passed since Tiananmen. China has officially become the world’s second largest economy. Yet the hardly radical Liu Xiaobo and thousands of other dissidents rot in jail for merely demanding basic rights enshrined by the United Nations and taken for granted by Western investors in their own countries. Human rights have not improved despite a soaring economy.

Liu Xiaobo’s own experience over the last 20 years ought to be enough evidence on its own to demolish any idea that democracy will automatically emerge as a result of growing prosperity.

I knew Mr. Liu in the 1980s when he was an outspoken young man. He took part in 1989 in the peaceful protests at Tiananmen Square and was sentenced to two years in prison for his efforts. From then until 1999 he was in and out of labor camps, prisons, detention centers and house arrest. In 2008, he initiated the “Charter 08” petition calling for China to comply with the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Consequently, he was again arrested, this time sentenced to a particularly harsh 11 years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power” — even though China is a signatory of the U.N. declaration.

According to human rights organizations, there are about 1,400 people political, religious and “conscience” prisoners in prison or labor camps across China. Their “crimes” have included membership in underground political or religious groups, independent trade unions and nongovernmental organizations, or they have been arrested for participating in strikes or demonstrations and have publicly expressed dissenting political opinions.

This undeniable reality ought to be a wake up call to anyone who still believes the autocratic rulers of China will alter their disregard of human rights just because the country is richer. Regardless of how widely China’s leaders have opened its markets to the outside world, they have not retreated even half a step from their repressive political creed.

On the contrary, China’s dictators have become even more contemptuous of the value of universal human rights. In the decade after Tiananmen, the Communist government released 100 political prisoners in order to improve its image. Since 2000, as the Chinese economy grew stronger and stronger and the pressure from the international community diminished, the government has returned to hard-line repression.

The international community should be especially concerned over China’s breach of international agreements. Besides the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights, China also signed the U.N. Convention Against Torture in 1988. Yet, torture, maltreatment and psychiatric manipulation are extensively used in detention and prison camps in China. This includes beatings, extended solitary confinement, severely inadequate food, extreme exposure to cold and heat and denial of medical treatment.

As the regime’s power grows with prosperity, the Communist Party feels confident in its immunity as it violates its own Constitution. Article 35, for example, says that “citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.” Yet who can doubt that the government regularly violates these rights.

As the unfortunate history of Japan during the first half of the 20th century illustrates, a rising economic power that violates human rights is a threat to peace.

Thankfully, the courageous Nobel Committee has exposed this link once again in the case of a prospering China. The committee is absolutely right to make a connection between respect for human rights and world peace. As Alfred Nobel so well understood, human rights are the prerequisite for the “fraternity between nations.”

Fang Lizhi, a professor of physics at the University of Arizona, was a leader of the pro-democracy movement in China before fleeing the country in 1989.

Vaclav Havel Calls for Nobel Peace Prize for Liu Xiaobo

Former Czech dissident and President Vaclav Havel wrote an op-ed piece in New York Times today calling for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. The letter is cosigned by two other former Czech dissidents who had participated in the Charter 77 movement thirty years ago.

The letter praises Liu Xiaobo's efforts in leading the Charter 08 movement in China as an echo of the Charter 77:

As in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s, the response of the Chinese government was swift and brutal. Dozens if not hundreds of signatories were called in for questioning. A handful of perceived ringleaders were detained. Professional promotions were held up, research grants denied and applications to travel abroad rejected. Newspapers and publishing houses were ordered to blacklist anyone who had signed Charter 08. Most seriously, the prominent writer and dissident Liu Xiaobo, a key drafter of Charter 08, was arrested. Liu had already spent five years in prison for his support of peaceful Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. Held for more than a year with limited access to his wife or his lawyer, Liu was put on trial for subversion. In December 2009, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Despite Liu’s imprisonment, his ideas cannot be shackled. Charter 08 has articulated an alternative vision of China, challenging the official line that any decisions on reforms are the exclusive province of the state. It has encouraged younger Chinese to become politically active, and boldly made the case for the rule of law and constitutional multiparty democracy. And it has served as a jumping-off point for a series of conversations and essays on how to get there.

Perhaps most important, as in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s, Charter 08 has forged connections among different groups that did not exist before. Before Charter 08, “we had to live in a certain kind of separate and solitary state,” one signatory wrote. “We were not good at expressing our own personal experiences to those around us.”

Liu Xiaobo and Charter 08 are changing that, for the better.

The authors "ask the Nobel Committee to honor Liu Xiaobo's more than two decades of unflinching and peaceful advocacy for reform, and to make him the first Chinese recipient of that prestigious award."

People of 1989: Liu Xiaobo

In 1989, Liu Xiaobo was a 34-year-old professor in Chinese literature and philosophy in Beijing Normal University. He was just starting to make a name for himself in the small circle of elite intellectuals with his sharp criticism of Chinese tradition and culture.

When the student movement broke out that spring, he was at New York visiting Columbia University in the middle of his multi-nation lecturing tour. He felt that he could not stay abroad any more, so he purchased a plane ticket for Beijing. On April 27 of that year, he was in transient at Tokyo airport when he heard the news of the People's Daily editorial which labeled the budding movement as "turmoil." Sensing the coming danger, he hesitated. But eventually he still boarded the flight and returned to Beijing.

Once there, he became a close friend and advisor to student leader Wuer Kaixi, who was from the same school. So much so that, during a critical meeting on May 27 of the Capital Joint Conference, he proposed to have Wuer Kaixi formally elected as "China's Lech Walesa." The proposal enraged fellow student leaders Feng Congde and Chai Ling, and contributed to the failure of a withdraw plan.

Later, he grew personally angry when he saw most prominent intellectuals chose to hide and run away when a severe suppression became imminent. In order to gain credibility so that he could influence students directly, he launched a hunger strike along with three others on June 2, barely more than a day before the massacre.

On the night of the massacre, he and his fellow hunger strikers were at the base of the Monument of People's Heroes with thousands of students. In an important incident, he led the efforts to destroy a gun that had appeared within their own ranks, preventing the possibility of a direct armed confrontation with the military. Initially, Professor Liu Xiaobo favored to persist and was against the idea of a voluntary withdraw. He was persuaded by his fellow hunger strikers and used all his power and persuasion to ensure students followed the withdraw plan.

In the immediate aftermath, he was arrested and briefly blamed as the "black hands," or conspirators, behind the movement. But eventually he was released without a formal sentence, after a detension of 20 months. Liu Xiaobo later wrote extensively on his thought process and feeling during the time, criticizing himself for behaving not strongly enough under pressure.

After losing his university job, Liu Xiaobo became a free-lance writer who frequently published his views on current events in oversea Chinese media. He is also active in efforts on assisting victims of the 1989 massacre, both financially and in other means. In October, 1996, he was sentenced for three years for criticizing the government.

In 2008, he initiated and drafted the "Charter of 08," calling for human rights and free elections, among other things. The document has collected more than 8,000 signatures.

Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to an 11 year prison term on December 25, 2009.

On October 8, 2010, Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his "long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."

Liu Xiaobo died on July 13, 2017, of liver cancer, after briefly paroled from prison for hospital treatment. He was 61.

People of 1989

"Charter of 08" Co-signers Pledge to Share Responsibility

As Liu Xiaobo is facing trial for his role in initiating the "Charter of 08", some of his fellow co-signers of that document issued an open letter to pledge that they will shoulder the same responsibilities for their actions. "Should Liu Xiaobo be judged to be 'guilty', it would mean that each of us would have been judged as 'guilty'. We will have to serve the same terms as Mr. Liu Xiaobo," says the open letter.

Among the many signatories of this open letter are a few prominent names who were involved in the 1989 student movement and are currently still live in China: Bao Tong, Ding Zilin, Jiang Peikun, Chen Ziming, Gao Yu, Zhou Dou, Ma Shaofang.

Liu Xiaobo Likely to Face Trial

It was a year ago when Professor Liu Xiaobo was detained for his role in leading the "Charter of 08" movement in China. He was in a state of legal limbo for a while before being formally charged with subversion in June. Yet he continued to be kept out of public sight as the official "investigation" dragged on.

Guardian reported that his case is now sent to prosecutors, signaling the end of the investigation phase. It's not clear whether a trial is imminent. Liu Xiaobo's lawyer was quoted in the report saying that "over the next month and half, prosecutors also have the options of ordering additional investigations or throwing out the case."

Liu Xiaobo Formally Charged

After being detained in early December and spending the months since in isolated confinement, Liu Xiaobo is now finally being formally charged for the crime of subversion. Reuters reported that

State news agency Xinhua said on Wednesday that prosecutors approved Liu's arrest on Tuesday for "alleged agitation activities aimed at subversion of government and overthrowing of the socialist system."

There had been hope that Liu Xiaobo's detention would end after the passing of the June 4th anniversary. Liu Xiaobo had played a key role in the later stages of that movement. His current arrest stemmed from his leadership in the "Charter of 08" activities last winter.

Liu Xiaobo in Legal Limbo

Professor Liu Xiaobo, the leader of the "Charter of 08" movement, was never formally arrested but had "only" been detained since early December. In early January, his wife Liu Xia was allowed a brief visit with him at a "neutral location". Other than that encounter, she has no idea where her husband is or under what condition he was living in.

At the time, the police informed Liu Xia that Liu Xiaobo has been put into "living under supervision" (监视居住), the equivalent of a house arrest. But Liu Xiaobo has not been allowed to live at home with his wife, which is usually the case for house arrest situations.

Liu Xia finally decided to seek legal help. Yesterday, a lawyer with her authorization visited the Beijing Public Security Bureau to demand information on Liu Xiaobo's whereabouts, accused crimes, and terms of his current status. They are awaiting for a response.

Here Comes 2009

Twenty years ago, the year 1989 came with a slew of conspicuous anniversaries which inspired Professor Fang Lizhi's open letter to Deng Xiaoping and the later student movement. The same anniversaries fall into this calendar year, with another twenty years added to them:

• the 90th anniversary of the famed May Fourth Movement
  
• the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China
• the 220th anniversary of the French Revolution

Of course, another significant one has to be added this time around:

• the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Student Movement and Tiananmen Massacre.

There has not been much chatter about the French Revolution or May Fourth Movement this time around, although the anniversary of the 1989 seems to be in many people's mind. On Internet forums inside China, cleverly designed posts appear here and there trying to reminding audiences of the anniversary without explicitly running into automated censorship. They are usually followed by knowing comments.

The budding "movement" of Charter of 08 seems to have stalled with its main leader Liu Xiaobo still detained. Liu Xiaobo's wife was recently allowed to meet him briefly at a "neutral location" and told that Liu Xiaobo was not formally arrested. All other participants who had been detained or called in for questioning one way or another has been released. It looks like the government is being cautious in how to nevigate through this sensitive Spring-Summer season of political minefiled wihtout major incidents.

The economy is not helpful either. Hampered by the global recession, the manufactary sector in South China, long the engined of China's "peaceful rising", is in collapse. Unemployment is rising fast and spontaneous mass protests are becoming a common occurances in small cities. Twenty years ago, it was the rampant inflation and corruption that had helped feuling the popular support to student movement.

Meanwhile, the government is preparing for a major celebration of the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic, in which the mighty military will once again march through Tiananmen Square. The last time a celeration of this kind was done is way back in 1984, which was a joyous occasion for Deng Xiaoping. Partyly due to Tiananmen Massacre, it has been staged for a quarter of century.

May we live in interesting times.

World Wide Call for Liu Xiaobo's Freedom

New York Times reports that more than 160 prominent writers, scholars, and human rights advocates, including three Nobel laureates, had signed an open letter asking for the release of Liu Xiaobo.

The paper also indicates that Liu Xiaobo is now the only signatory of the Charter of 08 who is still in detention. All others who were detained and questioned have since been released.

Fallout Continues for Charter of 08

Various news reports show that the "Charter of 08" is receiving more attention in the forms of both additional signatures and government crackdown. It is reported that more than 3600 people in China have signed the document so far.

A web site Chinese Human Rights Defenders had published a map of known detentions related to the Charter of 08. The web site is currently being reported as an attack site, presumably having been hacked.
Besides Liu Xiaobo, the map shows several names of veterans of 1989: Pu Zhiqiang, Jiang Qisheng, Gao Yu. A couple of them have been active in a few Internet forums until recent days.

According to a source close to this fledging movement, the "Charter of 08" is a well planed and thoughtout action. Many of its initiators are prepared for going to jail. As the twentieth anniversary of the 1989 movement apporaches in a few months, more activities could be expected to test the limits of an extremely nervous and anxious government.

The Charter of 08

The "Charter of 08" which led to the arrest of Liu Xiaobo has been translated into English by American Professor Perry Link. Taking at its face value, the charter does not contain any ground-breaking material by itself. Mainly, it is a list of liberties people have long taken for granted in the "free world".

However, the significance of this charter lies in the fact that it is cosigned by 303 known scholars and the like. Additional signatures are still being collected. A collection action by the intellectual community in China on such a scale has not been seen for decades. In fact, the last time this happened was precisely in 1989.

The precursor of the 1989 student movement started when Professor Fang Lizhi wrote an open letter to Deng Xiaoping for the release of political prisoners. His letter was followed by several supporting ones, each co-signed by dozens of prominent intellectuals. Later that year, in the heat of the movement, various statements co-signed by hundreds were frequently published.

Indeed, the 303 signatures of this Charter of 08 included many familiar names who had in one way or another directly involved in the 1989 student movement: Yu Haocheng, Bao Tong, Liu Xiaobo, Gao Yu, Dai Qing, Jiang Qisheng, Chen Ziming, Li Datong, Zhou Duo, Pu Zhiqiang, Ma Shaofang, Liang Xiaoyan, and Zheng Xuguang.

It also includes a few parents and relatives of the victims of Tiananmen Massacre, known collectively as the Tiananmen Mothers.

If nothing else, this collective action demonstrates the power and sophistication in organization or at least networking skills within the suppressed dissident community.

Liu Xiaobo Arrested

Another round of crackdown is quietly in progress in Beijing as hundreds of activists cosigned a "Charter of 08" on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the U. N. convention on human rights. One of its initiators, scholar Liu Xiaobo, was arrested and charged with "conspiracy and inciting subversion".

Liu Xiaobo was a professor in Beijing Normal University in 1989. He was visiting Columbia University in New York that Spring when he decided to return to Beijing. On June 2, he led a hunger strike by what to be called "Four Gentlemen" in Tiananmen Square, hoping to be able to assert more adult influence to the students there. The effort paid off when the "Four Gentlemen" were instrumental in leading the students safely out of the Square in the night of massacre.

Liu Xiaobo was initially blamed as the "black hands" of the movement but eventually was released without a formal charge. He did serve 20 months in detention however.

Also arrested is an activist by the name of Zhang Zuhua (张祖桦). Unconfirmed report has also been circulating on the internet in recent days that former student leader Zhou Fengsuo has been arrested while attempting to return to China.