In Hong Kong, Echoes of Tiananmen

For the last few days, people of Hong Kong have been engaged in a massive street protest for their democratic rights to elect their governor without the pre-approval of central government in Beijing. Inevitably, the echos of the 1989 student movement in Beijing can be seen in the numerous photos of this event. Such as these, including one that cleverly employed what looks like an order of French fry from McDonald's to mimic the famous Goddess of Democracy:

People of 1989: Xiao Jianhua (肖建华)

In the very early days of the 1989 Chinese student movement, among the first things the students did was to "disband" their official student union by massive demand. In Peking University, this happened in the evening of April 19.

The official student union, if not officially dissolved, became defunct since then. Nobody had paid any attention to them until now, 25 years later, when New York Times published a profile of the head of that union in Peking University at the time: Xiao Jianhua.

The NYT piece describes Xiao Jianhua as:

There was no public mention then — and there have been very few mentions since — of the head of the official student union of Peking University at that time. His name is Xiao Jianhua. Mr. Xiao never opposed the government, and the events of June 1989 did not make him one of China’s “most wanted.” Instead, they catapulted him into the ranks of its most wealthy. 

After a tepid attempt to represent fellow students to university administrators that volatile spring, Mr. Xiao shifted course, agreeing with administrators that street protests had become out of hand. People who knew him at the time said he even worked with them to try to defuse the protests before Chinese troops descended on Beijing and crushed them with force. 

The rewards were immediate. Just after he graduated, Mr. Xiao stepped into the world of business with direct financial support from Peking University, one of China’s most prestigious institutes. In the quarter-century since, he became the prototype of the politically connected financier. He has assiduously courted the party elite, including the family of its current president, Xi Jinping, becoming something of a banker for the ruling class and a billionaire in his own right. 

Now 42 years old, Mr. Xiao controls a sprawling business empire with interests largely in state-dominated industries, including banking, insurance, coal, cement, property and even rare-earth minerals, and largely managed by his holding company, the Tomorrow Group.

It goes on to claim that Xiao Jianhua's personal fortune is now estimated at $2 billion and speculate and imply that much of it came through official connections and corruption.

Through a spokesperson of the Tomorrow Group, Xiao Jianhua issued an immediate response. While agreeing that he, as an 18 years old at the time, had grown disillusioned with student protests and politics and retreated to study in library rather than participating in the movement, he strongly denied any "rewards" of his actions, or the lack thereof. His riches, he claimed, are the result of legitimate and hard-working efforts, following the example of the famed American investor Warren Buffet.


People of 1989

Former Student Leader Visited China Briefly

Zhou Fengsuo (周锋锁), a former 1989 student leader, managed to sneak into China at the 25th anniversary. He paid a brief visit to the Tiananmen Square before being detained and deported.

In 1989, Zhou Fengsuo was heavily involved in the works with the Beijing Students Autonomous Federation as a representative from his Tsinghua University. That landed him on the fifth spot in the 21 Most Wanted list. After the massacre, he was arrested and jailed for a year, but was never formally charged or sentenced. The arrest and release should have technically cleared his "wanted" status.

According to his interview with the New York Times, Zhou Fengsuo now holds an American passport and has already had two previous, low-profile visits to China in recent years.

Among the 21 Most Wanted, so far only Li Lu was able to visit China without consequences, albeit under a specially arranged circumstance.

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