Chai Ling Lost Court Case Against "Gate of Heavenly Peace" Producer

A couple of years ago, former 1989 student leader Chai Ling, her husband and their company Jenzabar, filed lawsuits in a Massachusetts court against the Long Bow Group, the producer of famed documentary Gate of Heavenly Peace. In 1998, the court threw out claims for defamation, but the case involving a trademark claim dragged on.

This week, a trial judge summarily rejected the trademark claim.

This lawsuit had generated quite some interests. Chai Ling's supporters, led by his former husband Feng Congde, issued an open letter claiming to "defend the name of June 4th". That letter was co-signed by a few more 1989 leaders including Fang Zheng, Zhang Jian, Xiong Yan, Zhou Fengsuo, Cheng Zhen, Zheng Yi, etc.

On the other side, a group of intellectuals published an open letter supporting the Long Bow Group in the name of freedom of speech.

It is quite clear, however, that Chai Ling's lawsuit on the ground of trademark is nothing but a thinly wailed attempt to silence the Long Bow Group, whose use of her "Last Words" video record cast her in a controversial light. With this court ruling, it appears that she had lost this battle.

Book Excerpt: Chai Ling's "Last Word" Interview

The following excerpt is from my book Standoff at Tiananmen, chapter 11, describing Chai Ling's videotaped interview on May 28, 1989. Her message in the videotape became a very controversial topic years after the event.

The Sunday of May 28 was designated as a day of global demonstration. In major cities all over the world Chinese students and nationals marched to support their compatriots at home. But it was a relatively dismal day in Beijing itself. Students here demonstrated on bicycles. In order to reach more residents, they spread their routes away from the city center. It ended up as a far cry from the atmosphere they had gotten used to in the previous weeks. Most alarmingly, there was an obvious drop in support by residents, who now appeared indifferent to the endless marches. The flow of residents coming to Tiananmen Square with food and cash donations had also declined. More students were still arriving from the provinces, however, making up for those who were leaving.

Chai Ling was feeling more depressed than ever. Having demolished the withdrawal plan, she was now haunted by the movement's uncertain future. As she looked around, she actually saw a much improved place. Large quantities of brand new tents had arrived from Hong Kong. Students were busy setting them up and arranging them into neat color-coded sections. By design, these bright red, blue, yellow tents made up ten divisions with specific functions. The new tent city gave an illusion of order and strength. Chai Ling was impressed. Li Lu, her trusted lieutenant, had been hard at work.

Chai Ling had always had a high regard for Li Lu's resourcefulness and leadership skills. She believed that he was the strong leader this movement required. Li Lu's staunch opposition to the withdrawal plan reinforced her opinion. In contrast, she had seen her own weakness.

It was now the eighth day of martial law. Rumors continued to circulate. On this particular morning, there was a "credible report" which said that a group of assassins had infiltrated the Square, ready to take out all the leaders at minutes' notice. The debacle on withdrawal also had a deep psychological impact. Several people came by to offer their resignations that morning. Bai Meng, who had polished Chai Ling's Hunger Striker Manifesto, quit in frustration. Zhang Boli informed Chai Ling that he had to take a leave as well. He wanted to write a book about the movement. Author Zheng Yi and his wife were also packing. They too had become disillusioned. Citing that they had run out of spare clothing, the couple decided that it was time for them to head back home to the remote Shaanxi Province.

So, in a matter of hours, the Headquarters for Defending Tiananmen Square dwindled. It was now just Li Lu, Feng Congde, and Chai Ling with a small group of volunteers who were looking for directions. Chai Ling made up her mind. It was time for her to walk away as well. Before taking off, however, Chai Ling thought she had to take care of a couple of things first. She would like to leave a few words so that her thoughts would not disappear when she did. She also wanted to see her husband one more time and maybe persuade him to go with her.

Alone, Chai Ling crossed Chang'an Avenue to the Beijing Hotel. She found Philip Cunningham, an American graduate student who was studying Chinese history at Beijing Normal University. As events in Beijing escalated, many foreign students had either volunteered or been recruited into freelance reporting work for news agencies. Philip Cunningham was no exception. He was working for BBC News, through which he had gotten to know Chai Ling.

Philip Cunningham immediately sensed that the "flustered, frightened, and crying" visitor was facing some kind of threat and was ready to flee. He was asked for help in recording a few "last words" before she could run away. On the way out of the hotel, they met up with a female reporter from Hong Kong by the name of Liang Shuying, who invited herself to the occasion.

They got into a taxi and drove aimlessly for a while before Philip Cunningham decided to head to an apartment of a friend of his. In the car, Chai Ling wrote a note authorizing Philip Cunningham to speak on her behalf, presumably after her arrest or death. The young American was both shocked and frightened by her seriousness. In a tiny bedroom, he had Chai Ling sit down on a bed facing a video camera while holding a tape recorder in her hands. Chai Ling started talking right away.

She began calmly but depressingly: "I think these are going to be my last words, as the situation is getting more and more cruel. I am Chai Ling. I am twenty-three year old." She recalled the moment when she joined the movement at Hu Yaobang's funeral on April 22. When the three students knelt down for their petition on the stairs of the Great Hall of People, she saw the tears of students in the Square. She saw her husband Feng Congde biting his finger to write words with his blood on a handkerchief. She remembered the launch of hunger strike, the dialogue with Yan Mingfu, and Li Lu's proposal of self-immolation. She sprinkled her retelling of the movement with many negative observations of other student leaders who had opposed the hunger strike and continued trying to compromise with the government. She was distraught. Her voice was hoarse, pausing, and sometimes incomprehensible. Eventually, she broke down and started to sob uncontrollably. She could not face the fact that her beloved movement was disintegrating and losing its purity. As the government side started to unite and toughen up, she cried out desperately, students were moving in the opposite direction. Without giving specifics, she claimed that there were traitors, embezzlers, and special agents working for the government among the student leadership.

Philip Cunningham felt that he had to interject. He asked gently, "When was the darkest moment of the movement?" Chai Ling was ready with an answer: the darkest days had yet to come. She pointed her fingers at "all the people" who had advised students to withdraw and unequivocally declared that Tiananmen Square was the last and only ground for the students to hold. They just could not retreat.

Chai Ling appeared to be particularly upset with people trying to seize power from her. She explained that she had to cling to the post of the commander-in-chief because she needed this power to fight against the forces of withdrawal. The other leaders, including Beijing Students Autonomous Federation, the Capital Joint Conference, and all the other self-proclaimed organizations, she accused, were working to undermine her. Especially Liu Xiaobo and Wuer Kaixi, whom she singled out by name and with anger. All they cared about was seeking leadership position even though Wuer Kaixi had already caused great harm to the movement at least twice. The older intellectuals, on the other hand, only cared about making themselves look good.

Then, as if a pendulum were swinging back, Chai Ling recalled the early days of the hunger strike with fondness and deep longing. That was the best period of the movement when everyone was united as one and the movement was pure. The residents were supportive because the students had wakened their sense of sympathy. The movement reached its glorious peak, she said, when Beijing residents laid down their bodies to stop martial law troops from entering the city. But the happy thought did not last for more than a couple of minutes as the uncertain future crept into her mind immediately. With that, she spoke the words that would forever associate with her in controversy:

The students always ask me. What should we do next? What could we achieve? I feel deeply sad in my heart. I can not tell them that what we are really waiting for is bloodshed. It's when the government reaches the end of its cruelty and uses butcher knives on its own citizens. I think, when and only when blood is flowing like a river in Tiananmen Square, all the people in China could then see clearly and finally unite. But how could I tell students such things?!

Taken at face value, these words carried a sense of conspiracy of their own: that she was willing to steer the movement into bloodshed for the intention of waking up the populace while keeping that goal only to herself. But at the moment, Chai Ling was more worried about other people's conspiracies. She became more and more emotional and incoherent. She talked about her husband, about their original plan to go abroad, about her parents, and about the debt she owed to her family.

Philip Cunningham cut in again. He asked Chai Ling to describe her own plans for going forward. Chai Ling spoke more words that would come back to haunt her later:

For the next step, I think I myself will try to survive. The students at Tiananmen Square, however, will have to stay and persist to the very end, waiting for the government's last resort in washing the Square clean with blood. But I also believe that the next revolution will be right around the corner after that. When that happens, I will stand up again. For as long as I am alive, my goal will be to overthrow this inhuman government and build a new government for people's freedom. Let the Chinese people stand up at last. Let a real people's republic be born.

Carefully, Liang Shuying inquired about the plan to withdraw on May 30. In no uncertain terms, Chai Ling said that that proposal had caused tremendous damage to the movement. She regretted that she had not opposed it from the beginning. Once again, she labeled the plan as a conspiracy. If they did withdraw, China as a country would go backwards.

"Will you continue to stay in Tiananmen Square yourself?" Liang Shuying poked on pointedly.

"No, I won't."

"Why?"

"Because I am not the same as everybody else. I am a person who is already marked as 'Most Wanted.' I will not be content to be murdered by such a government. I want to live. That's what I am thinking right now. I don't know if people will think that I am selfish. But I believe that the work I am doing now needs someone to carry on. Because such a democracy movement needs more than one person. Could you not disclose these words, please?"

The last question seemed to indicate that Chai Ling had finally realized that her words were not appropriate for public consumption. With her "last words" taped, all Chai Ling had to do was to say farewell with her husband before she took off.

This Day in 1989: May 15, Gorbachev in Beijing, a New Headquarters Forms

On May 15, 1989, Mr. Mikhail Gorbachev landed in Beijing. A small welcoming ceremony was held at the airport and his motorcade had to dodge traffic while avoiding Tiananmen Square, where students continued their hunger strike.

The collapse of the dialogue with Yan Mingfu the day earlier was a significant blow to the hunger strikers' morale. In the early morning of this day, Wuer Kaixi had made a desperate plea for the students to move away from the Great Hall of People so a proper ceremony could still be held for Gorbachev. He succeeded in doing that but paid a heavy price in personal reputation from which he would never recover. His good-will effort would also be in vain.

Upset with Wuer Kaixi, Chai Ling and Li Lu decided to formally launch their own leadership for the hunger strikers. In the morning, Chai Ling announced the new Hunger Strike Headquarters, with herself as the commander-in-chief. She assigned Li Lu as her deputy. Li Lu carried out a census and found that there were a little more than 1,000 hunger strikers at the scene this morning.

Support was also gradually building as the hunger strike entered its third day. Prominent intellectuals, organized by Zheng Yi, marched along Chang'an Avenue. They refused Dai Qing to join, claiming that she was a mole. Zheng Yi would stay at Tiananmen Square and became an advisor/aid to the hunger strike students.

In the evening, a huge thug gathered at the front gate of the Great Hall of People, threatening to storm the building where a state banquet was held in honor of Gorbachev. Chai Ling led her weakened students onto the stairs and forced the crowd to back down. Back at the Square, Chai Ling and Li Lu were confronted by other leaders who challenged their unelected headquarters. The challengers were particularly upset and alarmed at Li Lu, who claimed to be a student from Nanjing University but could not produce any proof for his identity. Chai Ling emotionally defended Li Lu's credibiilty and honor.

As the night fell, the future of the hunger strikers was as gloom as ever.


Days of 1989

Book Excerpt: Hunger Strike Decision

The following excerpt is from my book Standoff at Tiananmen, chapter 7, describing how the students reached the decision to launch a hunger strike.

On the same day as Shen Tong made his speech at The Triangle, a Big Poster showed up there. Signed by "a few graduate students," it called for an immediate hunger strike. It did not provide specific rationale for the proposal but it mentioned that the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was coming for a state visit within a week. So, it would be a good time to stage a protest at Tiananmen Square for the biggest impact.

The idea of a hunger strike was, of course, nothing new. Within every student movement in the past, the cry of "Hunger Strike" had always been heard, together with "Protest," "March," "Boycott Class," etc. But it had always been more of a menacing outburst than a serious proposal. Yet, this time it felt different.

More than a week earlier, the famous author Zheng Yi had found himself with a roomful of young, exhausted, and angry students who had just returned from Hu Yaobang's funeral. Having failed his earlier attempt in calling for a hunger strike at Xinhuamen, Zheng Yi found this audience, which included Wang Dan, Guo Haifeng, and other active student organizers, more receptive to his ideas. With a flare of drama from a seasoned writer, Zheng Yi laid out his personal experience during the Cultural Revolution: "Hunger strike is the most powerful and tested weapon in a mass movement." He advised the younger generation, "Should the government impose martial law, should they disallow Big Posters and demonstrations, you could immediately declare a hunger strike." He painted a vivid picture of how a hunger strike would develop: "As soon as there are dozens of people declaring a hunger strike, there will be hundreds joining in to support. Thousands will gather and watch. There will be donations and great attention paid to hunger strikers' petitions. In twenty four hours, the weaker ones will start to faint. Within forty eight hours, many will collapse. Seventy-two hours will be a critical juncture, there will be ambulances taking strikers to hospitals every minute. The shuttling ambulances will be the most dramatic scene in the city. The whole society will erupt!"

Zheng Yi did not say anything about what would happen after the seventy-two hour limit. The strikes he had experienced were resolved within that time frame. It did not occur to the students to ask that question either. They were the new generation, the best and the brightest, and the future of the nation. There could be no way for the government to allow a hunger strike to go past seventy two hours, when their health could be seriously compromised. Surely a dialogue would have commenced by then. Besides, there was an international law that required a government to intervene in a public hunger strike within seventy-two hours, or the government would be considered illegitimate.

The student leaders were excited about the possibilities. But, at the time, they were not fully convinced that the situation had warranted such a dramatic tactic. It should be attempted only as a last resort.

Three weeks had passed since that night. Their patience started to run short. At Beijing Normal University, Wuer Kaixi had also been talking about a hunger strike as early as May 8 to give the stalled movement a new push.

Liu Gang had been having the nagging feeling that he had overstayed his welcome in Beijing Students Autonomous Federation, the organization he had founded almost single-handedly. As a non-student, he knew his presence was awkward. So he stayed behind the scenes as much as possible and worked hard in providing logistical support for the endless meetings. When he needed to advance an idea, he relied on friendly delegates as surrogates. But more and more, he felt that his words, along with his presence, were being ignored. On the eve of the April 27 demonstration, he had strongly advised students to stay inside their campuses. The huge success thereafter, in the eyes of exuberant student leaders, had proved his conservative attitude wrong. The movement, although only weeks old, was slipping out of his grasp.

As the idea of a hunger strike was gaining traction, Liu Gang made a strong case to stop it. The Federation agreed with him this time. But the debate got so heated that it deteriorated into a shouting match. Ma Shaofang, who had come back from his earlier resignation, pounded on tables and claimed that he had confirmed intelligence that the "reform wing" in the government was hoping for an escalation of the student movement. A hunger strike should help the reformers at the top to gain the upper hand. He was not convincing enough. Wang Chaohua cautioned that they should not base their decisions on unfounded rumors. With a vote, the Federation reached a resolution that, based on the government's softened attitude toward the Dialogue Delegation, they would not organize any large-scale event in the near future. Rather, it instructed schools to follow the guideline of "denouncing the April 26 People's Daily editorial and supporting Zhao Ziyang's May Fourth speech."

The idea of a large-scale hunger strike, however, was too tempting for some to pass on. Right after the Federation meeting, Wuer Kaixi, Wang Dan, Ma Shaofang, along with several other delegates, went along for dinner at a little restaurant near Peking University. Over the meal and after much persuasion, they made their own decision to go ahead with a hunger strike. They would launch and lead it as individuals unaffiliated with Beijing Students Autonomous Federation. The federation, they were sure, would have to come around once they had the momentum going.

They were not alone. That same evening, Chai Ling reached the same conclusion on her own. She came to see her husband Feng Congde in a very excited mood. She could not stop talking about a chat she had with Zhang Boli and his classmates in the "authors class." They had mapped out a strategy to pursue a hunger strike. With a mischievous smile, she said that they planned to sneak in bread and chocolate once they got started. It was, after all, just a show to pressure the government. It was not that serious of a deal.

Chai Ling had already left Peking University a year earlier and was now a graduate student in psychology at Beijing Normal University. But living with her husband, she continued to spend most of her time at Peking University rather than her new school. Both of them got involved in the Preparatory Committee early on. Although not a central figure herself, Chai Ling had been in charge of the organization's secretarial work.

In the early morning of May 12, Wang Dan found Chai Ling at Peking University and they immediately joined forces on the hunger strike. But the Preparatory Committee, the leadership in the school, was not on board. Just as Beijing Students Autonomous Federation, the committee had decided several days earlier that it was not time for hunger strike. However, the committee did not want to, and could not, stand in the way of Wang Dan and Chai Ling as they were taking the initiatives on their own.

Wang Chaohua, on the other hand, was furious when she found that Wang Dan and Wuer Kaixi, the public faces of Beijing Students Autonomous Federation, had signed on to a hunger strike as individuals despite the resolution they had passed. Yet she was also keenly aware of the predicament she was in. If a hunger strike did take place and her Federation chose to oppose it publicly, it might be the end of the Federation itself as a student leadership organization. With great reservations, she agreed to organize student marshals to protect the hunger strikers per their request. Without a strong picket line, the dozens of hunger strikers could be easily hustled away by police.

Wang Chaohua still had hopes for personal persuasion. She thought she could talk some sense into the hunger strikers. But it was Chai Ling who sought her out first to question the Federation's stand. Their conversation turned sour immediately. Chai Ling spoke emotionally and made it abundantly clear that the hunger strike would go ahead with or without the Federation's support. A strong sense of helplessness submerged Wang Chaohua.

The hunger strikers decided to formally launch their action in Tiananmen Square the next day, two days before the scheduled visit of Mikhail Gorbachev. It should give the government enough time to respond. The stakes would be too high for the government not to.

The Soviet Union and China, two giants in the communist block, famously broke up their brotherly alliance amid an ugly spat of verbal barrages, accusations, and ideological confrontations. It culminated in a long freeze interrupted only by small-scale border battles between the two armies. It was only after Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika and Deng Xiaoping's reform in their respective countries that they found a reconciliation possible and necessary. It would be the first summit of these neighbors in forty years to normalize the relationships between the two communist parties and the two nations. It had been billed as one of the crown jewels in Deng Xiaoping's reform.

The public enthusiasm for the hunger strike was however less than anticipated even at Peking University, the hot spot of the movement. During the day, only forty students signed up. Other campuses fared much worse, as their numbers failed to reach double digits. By dusk, hundreds of students crowded The Triangle as usual. They were debating the merits of a hunger strike and the opposing voices appeared to prevail. Above all, nobody was able to come up with a solid reason for this desperate action.

As darkness fell, Chai Ling got hold of the microphone. It was the very first time she gave a public speech. Her voice was low but determined. Her flow was frequently interrupted by emotional chokes and tears. The spontaneous speech jumped randomly from one train of thought to another. Yet somehow it was a gripping voice that demanded everyone's full attention. As she went on, The Triangle, always a rowdy locale, fell into a silence it had never experienced before.

Chai Ling started with her own personal story. Like many other students, she had plans to go abroad to study and was feeling a deep sense of guilt and confusion. She was not sure if going abroad at this time of the student movement could constitute a traitorous act. On the other hand, she could not decide if it was worthwhile to stay in China either. Seemingly getting carried away by her personal struggle, she framed the hunger strike as her last ditch effort to see if China, as a country, still had any hope at all:

For several years, we have had student movement after student movement, but we got nothing. Why? We ask for democracy and freedom from the government. But why could we never get it? We chant "Long Live the People" all the time. But why do people always run away when the police come? We chant "Police Love People" all the time. But why do police always beat us up? Why should we go on a hunger strike? Because we want to use this method, the only freedom we have left, to see the true face of our country and the true face of our people. I want to see if this country is worth our sacrifice and contribution.

We are fortunate to have parents who raised us to become college students. But it is time for us to stop eating. The government has time and again lied to us, ignored us. We only want the government to talk with us and to say that we are not traitors. We, the children, are ready to die. We, the children, are ready to use our lives to pursue the truth. We, the children, are ready to sacrifice ourselves.

We want to fight to live. We want to fight to live with the resolve of death.

Upstairs in his room, Shen Tong had turned off the lights and tried to catch some sleep after a long day at the media center. As he lay in darkness, Chai Ling's voice, out of the loudspeakers just outside of his window, penetrated his ears and into his heart. As the co-leader of the Dialogue Delegation, Shen Tong was against the hunger strike and had argued with Chai Ling during the day. But this night, Chai Ling's voice hit him hard. He found tears rushing out of his eyes, the first time he had cried during the movement. He could not stay in bed any longer. He rushed downstairs. He wanted to get closer to Chai Ling but an equally emotional crowd was in his way.

Indeed, most in the crowd were crying, including grown up teachers and graduate students. Among them was a writer by the name of Bai Meng from the "authors class". With tears streaming down his face, Bai Meng rushed out of the campus and bought dumplings for Chai Ling. He made Chai Ling write down her spontaneous speech as much as she could remember. Bai Meng would spend the whole night polishing it off. An "official" Hunger Strike Manifesto was thus born. Meanwhile, the tally of hunger strikers swelled past a hundred. It was a sleepless night for many students.

Two hours past midnight, Xiang Xiaoji, Shen Tong and other Dialogue Delegation members were simultaneously and quietly informed that the government was now ready to have a dialogue with them, six days after their petition.

This Day in 1989: May 10, Students Launch Bicycle Rally

The public petition and protest by young journalists continued to receive attention just as the student movement itself was in a somewhat hiatus. On May 10, 1989, several official newspapers, including the flagship People's Daily, reported the news of petition. In this morning, tens of thousands of college students rode through the city in their bicycles in an unusual form of demonstration to show their support and solidarity with the journalists.

Many famous authors in Beijing also participated in the demonstration on this day, a first for the normally dormant community. Zheng Yi was busy organizing his fellow intellectuals. At People's University that evening, Dai Qing and Bao Zunxin delivered rousing speeches in praise of the students demonstration on April 27.

Within the government, the Chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee Wan Li announced that a regular meeting of his committee will commerce on June 20. The agenda of that meeting would include a hearing on the student demonstration and class strike as well as an evaluation of a draft demonstration law.


Days of 1989