Tiananmen Memorial: Hong Kong Polytechnic University

The Memorial

A replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue:

This is a fairly small and simple replica. The pedestal has the Chinese inscription "Goddess of Democracy" along with the year "1989" inscribed.

These pictures were taken on November 7, 2014, when Hong Kong is in the middle of the "Umbrella Revolution" protests. A couple of protest banners were attached on the statue.

Location

Address: Shaw Amenities Building, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 11 Yuk Choi Road, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR

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The statue is housed inside the Shaw Amenities Building at the center of the campus. It is casually placed by the stair way on the first floor.

The building also houses the student union. There is also a piece of artwork depicting the Goddess nearby:

Tiananmen Memorials

Tiananmen Memorial: City University of Hong Kong

The Memorial

A replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue:

It is a relatively simple and small replica. At the bottom pedestal, the words "1989 - 6 - 4 BEIJING" is franked by the Chinese characters for Beijing.

The above pictures were taken on November 7, 2014, when Hong Kong is in the middle of the "Umbrella Revolution" protests. Calls for class strike and protest banners and notes are placed on and around the statue at the time.

Location

Address: Academic Building 1, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR

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The statue is housed inside the huge Academic Building 1, on the third floor, of the university. It looks casually placed in a corner between the Run Run Shaw Library entrance and the main student bulletin board:

During the annual anniversaries of the Tiananmen Massacre, the statue would be temporarily placed in a more central and prominent location for tributes.

Tiananmen Memorials

Zhou Fengsuo Participates in Hong Kong's Occupy Central Movement

For the first week of November, former 1989 Chinese student leader Zhou Fengsuo (周锋锁) joined in the Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong, demanding a "real popular election" of the chief executive of the local government.

Zhou Fengsuo spent most of his time at the Admiralty occupation site, crashing in a tent for 7 days. As the first and so far only significant figure from the 1989 generation in this movement, he received considerable interest in the local media, resulting numerous interviews and reports. He also gave public speeches and held many discussions with the Hong Kong student leaders.

Sometimes emotional, Zhou Fengsuo expressed his appreciation of the Hong Kong movement for giving hope to China as well as allowing him to relive the days of Tiananmen.

People of 1989: Chen Ziming (陈子明)

Born in January, 1952, Chen Ziming grew up with the Cultural Revolution and the era of reform and openness after that. Right after middle school, he joined the wave of "send-down" students and spent 6 years in the rural area of Inner Mongolia. In 1974, he was fortunate enough to become a student in the Beijing College of Chemical Engineering. Yet, he was soon reported for having written politically incorrect material in his private letters. He was expelled from the school and sent to a reforming labor camp as a counter-revolutionary.

In April, 1976, Chen Ziming happened to be in Beijing and joined in the spontaneous mass movement later known as the April Fifth Movement. He became one of the few visible leaders and participated in the negotiations with authorities. In the ensuing crackdown, he escaped capture only because he was already back in the labor camp. Later, when the verdict of that movement was overturned, he was hailed as a national hero and promised a brighter future.

However, Chen Ziming soon participated in the Democratic Wall movement, advocating democracy and freedom. He founded the popular undergrand journal Beijing Spring. Later in 1980, he became one of the candidates in the first-ever election campaign in colleges and was elected a people's representative in his district.

In the 1980s, Chen Ziming took advantage of the freer environment and founded the Beijing Social and Economic Sciences Research Institute -- the very first private think tank in the Communist China. He grew the Institute to possess its own publishing, remote education, journals, and opinion-polling operations and research efforts. Through the Institute, he also gathered and supported many young intellectuals who had participated in the democratic movements and thus had difficulties with authorities.


Chen Ziming paid close attention as soon as the 1989 student movement broke out. He made donations for the budding Beijing Students Autonomous Federation and also helped students choose their slogans in the early demonstrations. But because of his background, he kept a low profile.

After the hunger strike, Chen Ziming and Wang Juntao set up a temporary meeting place at Jimen Hotel with the resources from their Institute to facilitate communication and coordination among the many factions of intellectuals. Wang Juntao and others from the Institute would then get involved with the efforts to go-between government officials and students and later organizing the Capital Joint Conference to lead the movement directly. But Chen Ziming continued to stay behind the scenes.


After the crackdown and an unsuccessful escape, Chen Ziming and Wang Juntao were designated by the government as the "black hands" behind the movement. They each received a 13 year sentence, the harshest of any leaders of the movement. While serving his time, Chen Ziming was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  He refused the government offer of going abroad as an exile and chose to serve out his sentence in China instead.

After his release in 2002, Chen Ziming spent his time writing and participating in limited social activities, including co-signing the Charter 08. In more recent years, he was allowed to limited travel abroad as well as seeking medical treatment in Boston.

Chen Ziming died of cancer in Beijing on October 21, 2014.



People of 1989

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.