This Day in 1989: February 12, 1991, Wang Juntao, Chen Zimin, and Liu Gang Sentenced

On February 12, 1991, Beijing Intermediate People's Court announced that Wang Juntao and Chen Zimin had each been sentenced to 13 years of prison for their "attempting to overthrow the people's government and socialist system" during the 1989 movement.

Also announced was that Liu Gang received a 6 year sentence while Chen Xiaoping was released without prison terms.


Days of 1989

Pictures of 1989: "Four Gentlemen" Hunger Strike on June 2, 1989

"Four Gentlemen" Gao Xin, Hou Dejian, Zhou Duo, and Liu Xiaobo (from left to right) launch hunger strike on June 2, 1989.

The one on the lower-left is Chen Xiaoping.

Liu Xiaobo is giving a speech. Next to him are Zhou Dou, Hou Dejian, Gao Xin, Wang Dan, and Wuer Kaixi.

The star power of Hou Dejian attract thousands back to Tiananmen Square.

Pictures of 1989

People of 1989: Pu Zhiqiang (浦志强)

Born in 1965, Pu Zhiqiang graduated from Nankai University as a history major in 1986. By the year of 1989, he was a graduate student of law at the University of Political Sciences and Law.

The school, although small in size, was a major force throughout the 1989 student movement. As early as April 17, teachers and students from that school had launched the first march of the year. Pu Zhiqiang joined Chen Xiaoping and Wu Renhua in that march to lay a giant wreath at Tiananmen Square in memory of Hu Yaobang. On April 22, students marched into Tiananmen Square again to participate the funeral. Pu Zhiqiang was there. He was so overcome by emotion that he smashed his own head with a bullhorn, which caught the attention of Liu Gang. Liu Gang tried to talk Pu Zhiqiang into running for the leadership of Chinese Students Autonomous Federation, but Pu Zhiqiang declined out of modesty.

During the great demonstration of April 27, the lanky Pu Zhiqiang was at the front row of his university with the flag of his school. From then on, he could always been seen at the forefront of each demonstration.

Pu Zhiqiang in a bicycle rally calling for press freedom on May 10, 1989.

Pu Zhiqiang (center) leads the University of Political Sciences and Law contingent to hunger strike on May 13, 1989. 

Pu Zhiqiang in hunger strike, May 1989.

On the night of the massacre, Pu Zhiqiang was in Tiananmen Square throughout the ordeal and was among the last people withdrawn from there. He made a vow then and there that he would return on that day every year to commemorate the victims. For the more than twenty years since, he kept his promise, except for a couple of years when he was detained by police preventing him to do so.

Although an active participant of the movement, Pu Zhiqiang escaped serious punishment thanks to the actions of his school officials. He graduated with a masters degree in 1991 and obtained license to practice law in 1995. He gradually becomes a prominent civil rights lawyer, defending many dissidents against the government prosecution, including the famous case of Ai weiwei. He is also very active and daring in social media, often criticizing government's policy. His accounts were often blocked or deleted.

In February, 2013, the magazine Southern People Weekly published an issue with him being the cover figure. In the issue, he was quoted as saying, "I kept my principle. They didn't. The people in power today, they are more or less at my age. They had experienced the latter stage of the Cultural Revolution, the liberalization in the 1980s. But at some point of their lives, they gave up and perhaps could never keep their principles. Because they no longer have their grounds."

In May, 2014, Pu Zhiqiang participated in a private gathering commemorating the Tiananmen Massacre in Beijing. He was soon detained afterwards. A year later, on May 15, 2015, he was formally charged with "causing nationality hatred and disturbing peace."

On December 21, 2015, Pu Ziqiang was sentenced to 3 years of prison but spared of actually serving them, after he wrote a statement promising good behavior.

Hand-written statement by Pu Zhiqiang when he was in prison on December 20, 2015.

People of 1989

This Day in 1989: April 17, Students March to Tiananmen Square

After spending the entire previous day making a huge wreath, Chen Xiaoping and Wu Renhua were pleasantly surprised that their note had garnered a few hundreds of students at their University of Political Science and Law. At 1pm, April 17, 1989, they headed out of the campus toward Tiananmen Square. It was the first demonstration of 1989, also a first since the Beijing government outlawed such activities two years earlier.

They arrived in late afternoon and placed the wreath on the base of the Monument to People's Heroes. Wu Renhua placed a small bottle of Maotai as a traditional dedication to the deceased. (It was later interpreted as a protest against Deng Xiaoping as "small bottle" is a homophone of "Xiaoping" in Chinese.)


At Peking University, Wang Dan and about 40 students delivered a wrath to Hu Yaobang's residence in the afternoon. But that evening, thousands of students were milling around The Triangle when the news of the demonstration came and shocked the crowd. They could not believe the tiny University of Political Science and Law could have gone ahead of Peking University, the traditional school in leading student movements.

In the darkness, they grabbed a giant banner, dedicated to Hu Yaobang as "China's Soul," and organized a march of their own. Wang Dan and his friends from the Democracy Salon were among the leaders.

They arrived at Tiananmen Square around midnight. The place was empty and quiet. The Monument to People's Heroes was now decorated with quite a bit of flowers and wreaths, including the giant one from University of Political Science and Law. Guo Haifeng climbed up the base of the Monument and placed the "China's Soul" banner in the middle.

Fearing that the dedications could be removed by the authorities during the night as it had happened during the April Fifth Movement in 1976, the Peking University students decided to stay the night in the Square to guard the wreaths.


Days of 1989

So It Starts, With A Smashed Little Bottle

The spontaneous memorial activities immediately followed Hu Yaobang's death made its first appearance in New York Times on April 17, 1989:

In a nation where there are no opinion polls to assess the popularity of national leaders, what people do with small bottles may be the best indication of the remarkable rise and fall in the popularity of Deng Xiaoping.
''Xiaoping'' in spoken Chinese can mean ''small bottle'' - although the written character for ''ping'' in Mr. Deng's name is not the one used for ''bottle'' - and people seized on the symbolism a decade ago, when Mr. Deng was struggling to power and embodied the nation's hope for non-revolutionary prosperity. At that time, ordinary people registered their support for Mr. Deng by leaving small bottles in conspicuous places. These days, some people are expressing their feelings by smashing small bottles.
A decade ago, it was more talk than action, and these days, too, more people speak of breaking bottles than actually smash them. ''What's the point?'' explained a young man in Beijing. ''If you smash it in public, you might get arrested, and if you smash it at home, you just have to sweep it up.''
In any case, even Communist Party officials acknowledge that the public is growing tired of Mr. Deng. Some of the pent-up hostility has come into the open after the death Saturday of the former party leader Hu Yaobang, who was ousted two years ago after being criticized by Mr. Deng for tolerating intellectual dissidents and student unrest. Deng's 'Stature Isn't Going Up'
In the early hours this morning at Tiananmen Square, the center of Beijing and the political focal point of China, white paper flowers fluttered in the breeze where mourners had left them to honor Mr. Hu. The only sign of litter was a freshly broken small bottle.

The last sentence is particularly interesting as it refers to "a freshly broken small bottle", in the singular form. Was there only one smashed bottle in the Tiananmen Square that morning?

The first big wreath to reach Tiananmen Square came from the University of Political Science and Law. Normally an ultra-conservative school, UPSL was never known for political activism. That was Beida's job. But in 1989, a group of graduates from Beida has settled in UPSL and formed a core of young teachers in that school, including Chen Xiaoping and Wu Renhua.

Chen Xiaoping learned about Hu Yaobang's death on the same day, before it was broadcast. He brought the sad news to UPSL and gathered his fellow young teachers in his dorm room. Wu Renhua proposed to build a wreath and place it under the Monument of People's Heroes at Tiananmen Square. They spent a day building the wreath, a big one indeed, and placed in front of the main building on campus to raw attention. An announcement accompanied the wreath, declaring the intention of sending the wreath to the Square next day. There was no organizer on the announcement, just a note saying anyone interested could join.

At 1pm on April 17 (Beijing Time), Chen, Wu, and others led their contingent of several hundreds out of the campus, with the wreath on a flatbed tricycle. Wu Renhua had a bottle of Maotai, the most famous spirit in China. He tied the bottle to the wreath, as a dedication to the dead in the traditional Chinese fashion. He didn't think much of it. But it would eventually come back to bite him in the aftermath of the Massacre, as the bottle was re-interpreted as an insult to Deng Xiaoping.

On that day, however, the possession marched through main streets of Beijing without incident, under the watchful eyes of police. They reached Tiananmen Square by 5pm. By now they had drawn a crowd of more than 5,000. Fearing for the situation getting out of control, they rushed through a simple dedication ceremony, sang The Internationale, and placed the wreath on the basis of the Monument.

The bottle on the wreath disappeared soon after they left. Someone might have smashed it in the Square. But there is no way to know if that is the one reported by NYT's Nicholas Kristof.

Beida's students, having been late out of the gate, also reached Tiananmen Square in the pre-dawn hour that night. They placed a gigantic banner, inscribed with three huge Chinese characters: China's Soul (中国魂), on the monument. More would be coming in the following days.

The Beida contingent was led by Wang Dan. And they did not immediately leave the Square the next day.

Exiled Tiananmen Leaders Appeal for Rights to Citizenship

Nineteen years after the Tiananmen Massacre, most of the then student leaders and intellectuals have come abroad. Some of them had escaped China clandestinely. But most left China legally, either as private visitors after having served their sentences in China or were "sent out" by the Chinese government in one of her "humanitarian" gestures to the world.

But no matter how they got here, they all share the same fate: their citizenships are forever in a limbo state. Even if they came with valid Chinese passports, the Chinese embassies and consulates here refused to renew them. So their passports had expired years ago. They could still travel as UN refugees, but they are, quite literally, people without a country.

Today, some of these leaders, including Wang Dan, Hu Ping, Chen Yizi, Wuer Kaixi, Liu Gang, Chen Xiaoping, Wu Renhua, and Wang Juntao, published an open letter to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to demand their rights of citizenship. They also appeal to UN and the International Olympic Committee to help.

The letter also indicated that these leaders are ready to try various legal actions against the Chinese government if their demands are not answered within a month. It also hinted that they might try their own ways to return to China.