People of 1989: Gao Yu (高瑜)

Gao Yu started her journalist career from the year 1980 at the official China News Service (中国新闻社). She mostly produced interviews with various famous personalities and provided her articles to oversea Chinese language media in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other countries. As a result, she was better known abroad than in her home country.

In 1988, Gao Yu joined the fledgling magazine Economics Weekly (经济学周报) which was taken over by the famous dissidents Chen Ziming and Wang Juntao. She immediately published a few popular interviews, including one with Yan Jiaqi and Wen Yuankai on political reform that December.

During the 1989 student movement, Gao Yu joined her fellow journalists in a few protest marches. After the martial law, on May 21, Gao Yu went to Tiananmen Square as a representative of Hu Jiwei to persuade hunger strike students to withdraw. She managed that with Wang Dan and drafted a statement of withdraw for him. But the effort was eventually in vain.

On June 3, just before the bloody crackdown, Gao Yu was kidnapped in front of her home and then was secretly imprisoned for 15 months. Thus, she became one of those who were arrested the earliest in that movement.

Gao Yu remained active after her release. In 1993, she was arrested for the second time for "leaking national secret" and received a 6-year prison term. While serving that sentence, she was bestowed several prestigious awards from various international media organizations.

On April 24, 2014, Gao Yu was once again arrested for "leaking national secrets." On April 17, 2015, she was sentenced to a 7-year term.


People of 1989

A Beijing Gathering Memorizing Tiananmen Massacre

According to the web site China in Perspective, more than a dozen citizens in Beijing gathered today to recall the 1989 student movement and memorize those who died in the massacre. Among them are mothers who had lost their children in the event and movement participants such as Liang Xiaoyan and Pu Zhiqiang.

Tiananmen Massacre Museum Opens in Hong Kong

An 800-square-foot museum dedicated to the 1989 Tiananmen massacre has just opened in Hong Kong. It displays a small replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue and hundreds of documents, books, and photographs of that historical event. This is the first museum of its kind in the world.

The museum is the fruition of years hard work by the Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, an organization that has been hosting the annual candle light vigil at the anniversaries.

South China Morning Post reports that the museum is also under a lawsuit threat by the building owner on a dispute in property use.

People of 1989: Chen Yizi (陈一咨)

Born in 1940, Chen Yizi studied theoretical physics at Peking University before he changed his major to Chinese literature. But in any case, his study appeared to be in vain when he was forced to spend 10 years in the countryside to be "reformed through labor."

In 1980, he was finally called back to Beijing and founded a group to study agriculture development, upon which he spearheaded the very successful reform in countryside in early 1980s. Thus, he became one of the most significant figures of the socalled "in-system" (体制内) reformers, being very close to the highest power. Later, he also became one of the closest advisers to Zhao Ziyang.

Chen Yizi avoided direct involvement in the early days of 1989 student movement. However, by May 19, when hunger strike entered a critical phase, Zhao Ziyang's position in grave danger, and martial law was imminent, he organized four official organizations close to Zhao Ziyang and published a statement that disclosed the split within leadership and supported the student movement. Then Beijing mayor Chen Xitong cited this document as an intentional act of disclosing state secret.

The day after the massacre, Chen Yizi wrote a statement to withdraw from the Party and then escaped from China. He spent rest of his life in exile, during which he chaired a program at Princeton University for fellow exiled intellectuals and published his personal memoir in 2013.

Chen Yizi passed away on April 14, 2014, at the age of 74.


People of 1989

Wang Dan and Wuer Kaixi, with Student Protesters 25 Years Apart

As hundreds of students in Taiwan occupied the legislature there in a massive protest of policy, Wang Dan and Wuer Kaixi showed up to lend their support:

25 years ago, the two of them had stood together in front of an even bigger student protest at Tiananmen:

This Day in 1989: Fang Lizhi Unable to Attend Bush's Banquet

In the evening of February 26, 1989, Professor Fang Lizhi and his wife Li Shuxian, accompanied by their American friend Perry Link and his wife, were on their way to the Great Wall Sheraton Hotel, where the visiting President George H. W. Bush was hosting a banquet. In a somewhat surprising and controversial move, Bush had invited this prominent dissident as a gesture of support.

Their car was soon stopped by the police, citing a traffic violation. They walked instead, but were refused entry to the hotel. The police even ordered taxi and bus drivers not to pick them up when they tried to go to the American Embassy instead.

They eventually ended up at the Shangri-La Hotel and told their stories to the foreign press there. Fang Lizhi protested that "this is a fresh example of the human rights violations in China."

The Bush administration had only muted response to the incident.

Days of 1989

This Day in 1989: 33 Writers Sign Open Letter Supporting Fang Lizhi

On February 13, 1989, 33 prominent writers in Beijing co-signed an open letter to the National People's Congress and the Communist Party Central Committee, supporting Fang Lizhi's call for an amnesty of political prisoners.

The signatories are: (A few of them later claimed that their signatures were forged or obtained under false pretense.)

• Bei Dao 北岛
• Shao Yanxiang 邵燕翔
• Niu Han 牛汉
• Lao Mu 老木
• Wu Zuguang 吴祖光
• Li Tuo 李陀
• Bing Xin 冰心
• Zhang Jie 张洁
• Zong Sui 宗璞
• Wu Zuxiang 吴组缃
• Tang Yijie 汤一介
• Le Daiyun 乐黛云
• Huang Ziping 黄子平
• Zhang Dainian 张岱年
• Chen Pingyuan 陈平原
• Yan Wenjing 严文井
• Liu Dong 刘东
• Feng Yidai 冯亦代
• Xiao Qian 萧乾
• Su Xiaokang 苏晓康
• Jin Guangtao 金观涛
• Li Zehou 李泽厚
• Pang Pu 庞朴
• Zhu Wei 朱伟
• Wang Yan 王焱
• Bao Zunxin 包遵信
• Tian Zhuangzhuang 田壮壮
• Liu Qingfeng 刘青峰
• Mang Ke 芒克
• Gao Hao 高皋
• Su Shaozhi 苏绍智
• Wang Ruoshui 王若水
• Chen Jun 陈军

Days of 1989