Standoff At Tiananmen

Tiananmen Anniversary Remembrance in China

noreply@blogger.com (eddie) — Tue, 29 May 2012 06:07:00 +0000

According to the Internet site Canyu, a group of people in Guizhou, China, successfully staged a two-hour commemorative session in a public park today for the 23rd anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre. It is believed to be the first such occurrence inside China.

The banners shown in the pictures state that "Remembrance of 23rd Anniversary of '89' '64'", "Investigate Murderers, Stop Political Suppression", and "Strongly Demand the Release of Political Prisoner Chen Xi".

Document of 1989: Chen Mingyuan's Speech at Peking University

noreply@blogger.com (eddie) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 03:50:00 +0000

On April 23, 1989, the day after Hu Yaobang's funeral, Professor Chen Mingyuan delivered an emotional and inspiring speech at the Triangle in Peking University. The following is an abbreviated translation from the book Children of the Dragon. For a more complete transcript, please read this version in Chinese.

A Speech given by Prof. Chen Mingyuan at Peking University on April 23, 1989

My name is Chen Mingyuan.
[Applause]

If someone wants to inform on me, he can give my name to the Public Security Bureau.
[More Applause]

I know that whenever students make reasonable requests to demands, whenever people become excluded, there will always be a few who would like to betray their comrades, their friends, and even their own souls, in order to climb a few more rungs up the ladder.
[Applause]

I am forty-eight years old. I am not afraid.

The first thing I want to say is that I attended Hu Yaobang's funeral yesterday. Throughout the service, I was very sad indeed. Hu Yaobang spoke a great deal about education, price control, intellectuals, and reform...
[Applause]

At the end of the memorial service, several other comrades and I suggested that the hearse carrying Hu's body should circle Tiananmen Square, in keeping with convention. We should let Comrade Yaobang take one last look at the Monument to the People's Heroes and Tiananmen Gate. But the government refused. I was profoundly disappointed. I know that many comrades, many Chinese, were very disappointed. If Comrade Yaobang were still alive, he would feel very disappointed, too. We demand an official explanation for this unpopular decision...
[Applause]

I have no wish to instigate trouble, and I have no ulterior motives. But our government, and our news media, have prepared a hat for me nonetheless.
[Applause]

Under the present circumstances, people are terrified to stand up. Anyone who does stand up has to consider the safety of his parents, his children, and his job. Every month, he collects only a small salary. If he goes to jail, what will happen to his family? I have never stood up before so many people, but today I felt that I just could not stay silent. I have to speak out!
[Applause]

I want to protest strongly against official television. I have already called them and told them - through many different channels - that their reports on April 19 and April 20 were totally irresponsible. Did everyone here hear what was reported on CCTV?
["Yes, we heard!"]

Did anyone in the demonstration shout anti-government slogans?
["No!"]

Did CCTV say they did?
["Yes!"]

Did anyone put up anti-government posters?
["No!"]

CCTV said that many unidentified bystanders were there inciting the crowds. I was one of them, but I am not "unidentified," because at the beginning of this speech I told you my name. I think the one who incited the crowds was CCTV. And where is the person who wrote those broadcasts? He should stand up here!
["Yes!"]

He is the one who cannot be identified! He is the one who incited us!
[Laughter]

I think these recent student demonstrations were totally spontaneous. Nobody was behind them.
[Applause]

The demonstration was spontaneous, the petition peaceful, and the mourning of Comrade Yaobang very orderly. I think the students from Peking University should feel very proud of themselves.
["Long live the students! Long live democracy! Long live freedom!" Applause]

When I pronounced the word "freedom," some people became nervous. Some would say, "Freedom is a bad word." Some would say, "We should try to avoid using that word." But I feel that freedom is the most beautiful word in the world. Why should only other people be allowed to use it? Why is it that this beautiful word is not in the vocabulary of our great motherland and our great people?
[Applause]

Yes, we are poor. We are backward. We are undereducated. We are living a bitter life. But we do have this ideal of freedom and democracy...
[Applause]

Many of us are afraid of press freedom. Whenever we talk about the freedom of the press, someone says that "something will go wrong"; they say that we shouldn't publicize our "family scandals." But I believe that truth is the soul of the media...
[Cheers and Applause]

Those who ignored the students' demands - which came from the bottom of their hearts - should ask themselves why they are afraid of students...
[Long Applause]

If you ask all our comrades, "What is the most severe problems in our reforms?" they will say, "inflation." What is the real inflation rate? The government told us it was 18%. I work every day. I do household chores. I shop and buy groceries. But I can't even afford to buy new clothes! Pork used to cost 80 cents a pound. Now it's up to 4 or 5 yuan. In Guangzhou, it has even reached 10 yuan...

When we come to the problem of education, every one of us has spoken about it until our lips have cracked. Why can't we make education a top priority on the list of government expenditures?
["Yes!" Applause]

The government has always told us that this is too difficult, that there's a shortage of funds in industry, that there's a shortage of money in agriculture. It's even very difficult to build houses for all those mayors and governors. But I think that there's one thing that should not be so difficult. That is to confiscate the illegal income from the racketeers and spend that on education!
[Applause]

Students, I'm very troubled these days. There are so many problems in our country today. But the issues we raised here are the most basic ones...

We are the masters of our country.
["Yes!" Long applause]

Meanwhile we have to report truthfully on those corrupt government officials, no matter how high up they may be, and punish them according to law.
["Yes! Well Said!"]

Maybe someone will say, "You students should return and study quietly. You professors should simply teach your courses." But all these problems constantly wear us down. We can't accept this. We shall never accept it!

Documents of 1989

Document of 1989: China's Despair and China's Hope

noreply@blogger.com (eddie) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 00:33:00 +0000

In February, 1989, Fang Lizhi wrote this essay which was published on New York Review of Books in English and in Hong Kong newspapers in Chinese. The Chinese version was also posted as Big Posters at Peking University.

China’s Despair and China’s Hope
FEBRUARY 2, 1989
Fang Lizhi, translated by Perry Link

Nineteen eighty-nine is the Year of the Snake in China. It is not clear whether this snake will bring any great temptations. But this much is predictable: the year will stimulate Chinese into deeper reflection upon the past and a more incisive look at the present. The year will mark both the seventieth anniversary of the May Fourth Movement of 1919 (a major intellectual and political movement marked by nationalism and Western cultural influence) and the fortieth year since the founding of socialist China in 1949. These two anniversaries may serve as telling symbols of China’s hope and China’s despair.

Forty years of socialism have left people despondent. In the 1950s, the catch phrases “only socialism can save China” and “without the Communist party there could be no new China” seemed as widely accepted as physical laws. Today, a look at the “new” China makes one feel that the naive sincerity of those years has been trifled with, the people’s enthusiasm betrayed.

True, the past forty years have not been wholly devoid of change or progress. But the standard of comparison for measuring the success or failure of a society should be this: Has the distance between it and the most advanced societies of the world increased or decreased? To measure our forty socialist years by this standard, not only was the Maoist period a failure; even the last ten “years of reform” provide insufficient basis for any singing of praises.

The failure of the past forty years cannot be blamed—at least not entirely—on Chinese cultural tradition. The facts clearly show that, among other countries and regions1 that began with similar cultural backgrounds, and at starting points comparable to China’s, nearly all have now joined or are about to join the ranks of the developed.

Nor can the forty years of failure be blithely attributed to China’s overpopulation. First, we must recognize that China’s overpopulation is itself one of the “political achievements” of the Maoist years. It was Mao’s policy in the 1950s to oppose birth control as a “bourgeois Malthusian doctrine” and encourage rapid population growth. Moreover, as everyone knows, one of the greatest factors obstructing China’s economic development has been, for years, the parade of enormous “class struggle” campaigns and large-scale political persecutions. Are we to believe that any overpopulated society necessarily generates such struggles and persecutions? Such a view is plainly illogical.

Logic allows only one conclusion: that the disappointments of the past forty years must be attributed to the social system itself. That is why, in China today, pursuit of modernization has replaced faith in any ideology. Socialism of the Lenin-Stalin-Mao variety has been quite thoroughly discredited. At the same time, the May Fourth slogan “science and democracy” is once again circulating, and becoming a new source for hope among Chinese intellectuals.

The reforms of recent years, which were begun against the background of this transition in thought, have indeed changed China considerably from what it was in the Maoist period. We should regard these changes as positive. The new emphasis on economics in domestic policy and the cessation of “exporting revolution” in foreign policy are both important examples of progress. On the other hand, the suppression of “Democracy Wall” nine years ago created the foreboding sense that, when it came to political reform, the authorities were not planning to do much. This fear has been confirmed by the experience of the ensuing years. Consider these examples:

—Even while admitting that the class struggle of the Maoist years was a mistake, the authorities have announced their “Four Basic Political Principles”—i.e., maintenance of 1. the leadership of the Communist party, 2. the dictatorship of the proletariat, 3. the socialist system, and 4. Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. These four principles, in actual content, are hardly distinguishable from Mao’s own “Six Political Standards.” And the latter were the basic political principles that underlay thirty years of “class struggle.”

—Although the Chinese constitution provides for freedom of speech and other human rights, the Chinese government has, so far, failed to make its own endorsement of the UN Covenants on Human Rights. And in actual practice, even a basic right like freedom of scholarship, which has little political relevance, is commonly infringed. There have been instances, even very recently, in which lectures in the natural sciences have been banned on political grounds.

—Chinese education, which for years suffered the ravages of Mao Zedong’s anti-intellectual, anticultural political principles, has left China with a population in which the proportion of illiterates remains about what it was forty years ago. Yet today’s expenditures on education, as a proportion of China’s GNP, are exactly what they were under Mao, or about 30 to 50 percent below the norm in countries whose economic levels are similar to China’s. Ignorance serves dictatorship well. The true reason for the destruction of education is apparent enough.

—In recent years the authorities have repeatedly issued calls for “stability and unity,” especially when any signs of political unrest have appeared. Stability and unity seem to have been raised to a kind of supreme principle. But when it comes to one of the major causes of instability in Chinese society today—the continuing state of civil war with Taiwan—this supreme principle somehow ceases to apply. In their attempt to end the forty-two-year-old state of war, the Chinese leadership has so far refused, at least in theory, to accept the principle of “no military force” in relation to Taiwan.

These various problems have spawned continual conflict beneath the surface in Chinese society. The student demonstrations of 1986, which openly called for freedom and democracy in Chinese society, only brought these conflicts into the open. The authorities, in their efforts to curb the influence of the demonstrations, were obliged to fall back on the following two arguments:

1. Chinese culture lacks a tradition of democracy, and thus cannot accommodate a democratic system. The common people are not interested in democracy; they would not know how to use it if they were given it; they lack the ability to support it; etc.

2. Economic development does not necessarily require a democratic system. A dictatorial system may actually be more efficient in this regard. What best suits China is political dictatorship plus a free economy.

To present these arguments amounts, first of all, to public acknowledgement that what we now have is not democracy but dictatorship, and that slogans like “socialism is mankind’s most democratic system” are simply a kind of fraud. But if this is the case, how can Marxism still claim a place as the orthodox ideology of China?

The first of the two arguments above might be called “The Law of Conservation of Democracy.” It holds that a society’s total capacity for democracy is fixed. If there was no democracy to start with, there also will be none later. Nobody, of course, has set out to prove this law, because the counterexamples are too numerous. The argument cannot save dictatorship in China; it can only provide us with some comic diversion.

The second argument does seem to have a certain basis in fact. There do seem to be some societies that have achieved success by combining political dictatorship with a free economy. But there are examples of failures among this group of societies as well. It follows that the question cannot be decided by enumerating precedents, but must be answered for China by asking this: Can a free economy be made compatible with China’s own form of dictatorial government? A look at China in 1988 demonstrates that, on the whole, the answer to this question must be no.

First, in comparison with other societies that have tried the “political dictatorship plus free economy” formula, China differs in that its system of dictatorship is unable to accept a free economy entirely. This is because socialist dictatorship is closely bound to a system of “public ownership” (in fact official ownership), and its ideology is fundamentally antithetical to the kind of private property rights that a free economy requires. Although the severe inflation of 1988 has demonstrated quite clearly that price reform is unworkable unless it is accompanied by reform in property rights, the Chinese leadership’s response to the inflation has been a resort to “the superior strength of politics.” This is but a retreat into the old rut of “politics in command” of Maoist times.

Second, it has already been shown—repeatedly—that China’s dictatorial system lacks efficacy. One need only look at the corruption within the Communist party itself to appreciate this point. Ten years (since 1978) of “rectifying the Party work-style” has in fact produced nothing but yearly increases in “unhealthy tendencies”—i.e., corruption. What began merely as “unhealthy” misallocation of large living quarters to Party leaders now has grown into extensive profiteering called “official turnaround.” (The term refers to use of official power and connections to procure commodities or other resources at low prices in the state-run sector of the economy, then “turning around” to sell them at huge markups within the private sector.) Our minimum conclusion must be this: that there is no rational basis for a belief that this kind of dictatorship can overcome the corruption that it has itself bred; and that, based on this problem alone, we need a more effective role for public opinion and a more independent judiciary. This means, in effect, more democracy.

China’s hope, at present, lies in the fact that more and more people have broken free from blind faith in the leadership. They have come to realize that the only avenue to social progress is through adoption of a “supervisory” role for the public, which should have the right to express open criticisms of the leadership. The deputy editor of a newspaper in Guangzhou has recently stated quite clearly that the function of his newspaper is to speak not for the Communist party but for the emergent “middle class” of Guangzhou. Not long ago, in an effort to turn back a rising tide of popular commentary on their performance, the authorities sternly announced their intention to “trace the rumor that top leaders and their children hold foreign bank accounts.” The actual consequence of this effort, however, was only to cause further spread of two basic ideas: first, that citizens have the right to evaluate their leaders; and second, that holders of high public office, including Deng Xiaoping himself, do not have the right to reject this public supervision. The old idea that “superiors must not be opposed” is on the way out; democratic consciousness is moving in.

As democratic consciousness spreads, it is bound to form pressure groups that will have ever greater power to weigh against the authority of the leadership. In fact such groups have already begun to appear in embryo. Right now, in many trades and professions, and at all levels of Chinese society, we are seeing the growth of unofficial clubs, associations, discussion groups, and other informal gatherings that have begun, in various degrees, to wield influence as pressure groups. Democracy is no longer just a slogan; it has come to exert a pressure of its own. The purpose of this pressure is to oblige the authorities, gradually and through non-violent means, to accept changes toward political democracy and a free economy. Currently, the following are among the items most commonly discussed:

1. Guarantee of human rights. Most importantly, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly. Also, release of Wei Jingsheng2 and all political prisoners.

2. Establishment of a free economic system. Gradual implementation of economic reforms that will include reforms in property rights.

3. Support for education. Abandonment of the “ignorant masses” policy; provision of the needed and entirely feasible education that would be commensurate with China’s economic level.

4. Supervision of public officeholders. Use of open glasnost-style means to root out corruption.

5. An end to China’s state of civil war; promotion of peace in the Taiwan straits. The mainland side to call for mutual renunciation of force as a means of settling differences. A transition from mutual hostility toward peaceful competition.

6. Establishment of rule by law. Opposition to rule by individuals, whether directly or in disguised form—as when Party documents or policies override the laws of the nation.

7. Revision of the constitution. Deletion of all language that relies on the principle of “class struggle” to support dictatorship. Drafting of a Chinese constitution that provides for political democracy and economic freedom.

The road to Chinese democracy has already been long and difficult, and is likely to remain difficult for many years to come. It may last a decade, a generation, or even longer. But whatever the case, there can be no denying that the trend toward democracy is set. It would be very hard to turn it completely around now. Chinese history since the May Fourth period, including the forty years since 1949, makes it clear that democracy is not bestowed from on high, but must be fought for and won. We must not expect this fact to change in the decades to come. Yet it is precisely because democracy is generated from below that—despite the many frustrations and disappointments in our present situation—I still view our future with hope.

Documents of 1989

People of 1989: Fang Lizhi (方励之)

noreply@blogger.com (eddie) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 22:38:00 +0000

Professor Fang Lizhi was born on February 12, 1936. In the mid-1940s when he was only 12 years old, he witnessed some student movements in his middle school and joined an underground Communist organization. In 1952, he enrolled in the Physics Department at Peking University and formally became a member of the Communist Party upon graduation. But soon he got in trouble in the "Anti-Rightists" movement and was expelled from the Party and sent to countryside to be "re-educated" through manual labor. He was only 23 then.

It was during that dark period that Fang Lizhi married Li Shuxian, a formal classmate at Peking University who had also been expelled from the Party. The couple survived living and laboring in separate countryside locations and gave birth to two sons during that time.

After the Culture Revolution, Fang Lizhi was able to return to academia and by mid-1980s he had become a professor and Vice President of the University of Science and Technology of China in Anhui Province. It was there he launched a fruitful career as a pioneer researching relativistic cosmology in China. But he gained great fame by giving inspiring speeches in many universities advocating liberty, democracy, and human rights, using western examples he had observed from his frequent travels abroad. Audiotapes of his speech were widely copied and passed around in student dorm rooms. At that time, he called for young students to join the Communist Party and "reform it from within."

In December, 1986, when students at USTC were planning a demonstration protesting election rules, Professor Fang Lizhi gave a rousing speech to a student gathering during which he famously declared that "democracy could not be given from above but had to be demanded from below." But nonetheless, he tried to persuade students to limit their actions within the campus. He failed on that as students marched downtown.

A few weeks later, after a wave of student demonstrations that swept the country including cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, Fang Lizhi was once again expelled from the Party and stripped of all his positions in USTC. He was relocated to Beijing and assigned a research position at the Beijing Observatory. In 1988, Liu Gang engineered a campaign at Peking University to successfully elect Li Shuxian as a local People's Representative, partly to salute Professor Fang Lizhi.

On May 4 that year, Fang Lizhi and Li Shuxian participated as speakers the first "Democracy Salon" organized by Liu Gang at Peking University.

In January, 1989, Fang Lizhi suddenly broke his silence again by issuing an open letter to Deng Xiaoping calling for an amnesty of political prisoners including Wei Jingsheng. The letter was echoed by a few similar ones co-signed by prominent intellectuals and the like. In February, he wrote an essay titled "China's Despair and China's Hope" declaring that "the 40 year Socialist experiment in China has failed." The essay was published in New York Review of Books and Hong Kong presses but also posted as a Big Poster at Peking University. By that time, he had abandoned the idea of reforming the Party from within and advocated that "We must also take action from outside of the system. We must force the issue in any way we can."

His words drew attention everywhere. That February, Fang Lizhi and Li Shuxian were invited to attend a state bangquet hosted by the visiting President George H. W. Bush but were brutally stopped near the party by a swarm of police.

As the 1989 student movement was ignited after Hu Yaobang's death, Fang Lizhi chose to stay behind the scenes so that he would not bring unwanted attention or trouble to the movement. Earlier on, he did provide private advices to a few student leaders such as Liu Gang and Wang Dan but refused invitations to make public speeches. Later, he expressed his displeasure of the aggressive tactics in the movement:

Once the hunger strike started, the movement went out of control, and I suspected that the government would use military means to end it. These students just did not understand. They grew up in the generation after the Cultural Revolution and had never seen the Party kill people on a large scale. The students loved that line in L'Intenernationale about this being the final struggle, but I told those who came to my home that this was most definitely not the final struggle. They felt that if they just carried this struggle through, they would be victorious. I didn't think so.

Nevertheless, Fang Lizhi and Li Shuxian were publicly labeled as the "black hands" of the movement by the government. On May 31, several small-scale rallies organized by the government sprang up in the Beijing suburbs, in which "angry peasants" burned effigies of Fang Lizhi's likeness.

By then, Fang Lizhi already found himself followed when he left Beijing for an academic conference. Within hours after the massacre on June 3, he contacted the American Embassy through their American friend Perry Link and eventually gained protection there. Soon, government "Wanted" posters with the couple's pictures were all over the place：

They stayed in the Embassy for about a year while the China and US were engaged in a diplomatic standoff. Fang Lizhi managed to continue his scientific research there and published a paper bearing the diplomatic address. They eventually were allowed to leave China and reached US by way of UK.

Once on the US soil, Fang Lizhi immediately and openly criticized the American government's double standard on China's human rights and quickly lost confidence of the US government and faded from public view. He became a professor at University of Arizona and continued his physics research there.

Other than a few interviews, Fang Lizhi had largely avoided speaking about the 1989 student movement in detail. He was engaged in a few oversea democracy activities but stayed away from controversies and in-fights. In more recent years, he had been writing many witty and moving essays about his life and science, but seldom touched the subject of 1989.

Professor Fang Lizhi passed away in his home at Tucson, Arizona, on April 6, 2012. He was 76 and survived by his wife Li Shuxian and his eldest son. (Their second son, Fang Zhe, who had briefly accompanied them in the US Embassy, died in a traffic accident in 2007.)

People of 1989

Book Review: Tiananmen Moon

noreply@blogger.com (eddie) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 04:19:00 +0000

Philip Cunningham's book Tiananmen Moon starts on May 3, 1989, the eve of a planned student demonstration at the 70th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement. Before long, we are led into a bizarre scene in which the author was accompanying famous rock star Cui Jian and Taiwanese promoter Lao Ni to Peking University at midnight to feel the pulse of next day by surveying the big posters there. The surreal mixture of clandestine, excitement and fear -- Cui Jian would not step out of the car, while the author and Lao Ni pretended to speak Japanese to hide the latter's true origin -- was conveyed with excellent story telling. From there the book leads readers deeper into the "inside stories" of the 1989 student movement.

There are already many first-person experience memoirs of the movement. Some are from student leaders which tend to concern more in how they led it than participate in it. Some are from foreign reporters who cast themselves as outside observers. Cunningham's book is unique in that he is both a no-name participant (although he was frequently bothered by unwanted attentions as a foreigner) and an avid observer; sometimes the mix of the two resulted in spats of anxiety and frustration. When he walked in the May Fourth march, peddled in the May Tenth bicycle rally, and later wandering around Tiananmen Square, he provided the most vivid ground-level experience of the movement. Then he was hired by BBC to help with their coverage of the events, he gained more access to the movement but also struggled with his presumed neutrality in that role. When tanks started to charge into the Square, however, he did momentarily abandon such pretense and join into the crowd to set up road blocks and even throw a rock at a tank.

Unlike some other books of the same nature written by western authors who witnessed the movement and inevitably became enthusiastic cheerleaders and advocates of their subject, Cunningham kept his cool throughout the book. Indeed, he was sometimes even distant and cynical in the face of the excitement and hysteria of a mass movement. He displayed great disdain and concern on the movement being controlled by a few self-claimed and faceless student leaders and the herd mentality, in the name of discipline, displayed by the protesting mass.

While he was observing and interviewing students gathering at Beijing Normal University to launch the hunger strike, he wrote:

It was sad and frustrating to meet such earnest young men and women, all apparently willing to put their lives on the line, only to hear them give pat answers, sometimes even grandiose answers, magnified by peer pressure. Did those nodding in approval realize they were urging psychologically confused, approval-hungry classmates to court death? To what end?

Such sharp observations and valuable insights were frequent in the narrative, although it is not at all clear whether they were formed at the time as the author described them or with the hindsight of history.

For those who have deeper interests in the history of the movement, this book is a must-read for its detailed description of how Chai Ling, the Commander-in-Chief of students at the time, made her famous "Last Word" videotape with the author's help. Since Chai Ling herself had been silent on the details of this highly controversial occurrence, this book, along with other recollections by the author, is the only first-hand account available. As his temporary gig with BBC dragged on to the end of May, Cunningham happened upon a brief meeting with Chai Ling at Tiananmen Square. Chai Ling was planning an escape then and asked Cunningham for help. The book includes many details surrounding this event that could provide perspectives in understanding the tape but still not yet well known, including:

Upon their initial meeting, Chai Ling inquired about the rumor that the British embassy was planning to offer refugee protection to student leaders.
Chai Ling hand-wrote a note to Cunningham authorizing him to speak on her behalf, presumably after her death or disappearance.
Chai Ling had planned to catch the first train out of Beijing after the taping with another student/bodyguard by the name of Wang Li but not with her then-husband and fellow student leader Feng Congde. She later changed her mind after she decided to take one last look of Tiananmen Square
Although Cunningham was worried about the danger this tape could bring, Chai Ling insisted on its publication (contrary to her current claim). They contacted a few western media in Beijing but only found ABC News showing interest.
After reuniting with Feng Congde, the couple still planned to be leave Beijing together, before the tape was to be aired by ABC News (which did not actually happen).

Feng Congde has disputed some of the facts that involved him. In her own recent autobiography, however, Chai Ling chose to ignore all such details when defending herself only on general terms. She blamed Cunningham for making the tape public without her permission.

Published in 2010, Tiananmen Moon is actually a much better organized and narrated version of what the author published with the title Reaching for the Sky previously in 1999. But it is not without its shortcomings. Since the book jumped right in the middle of the movement, it felt sudden and out-of-place. (The author was not in Beijing in that April when the movement initially broke out.) It did not mention the great demonstration on April 27 which preceded and is arguably much more important than the one on May 4 at the beginning of this book.

Tiananmen Moon is restricted to what the author saw and experienced and does not attempt to give the whole picture of the movement. (The Chai Ling videotape story is the only occasion where leadership figures appeared.) The author did try to supplement his own observations with those of several of his female friends who were Chinese students. Although one of them did join the hunger strike, they all appeared to be more of casual participants or bystanders in the larger picture. It may be difficult for readers of this book to understand why the students were protesting and so on -- this may even be intentional on the author's part, as there are no ready answers.

But overall, this is the best Tiananmen book so far in recording the street-level experiences of the movement.

Books about Tiananmen

People of 1989: Phillip J. Cunningham (金培力)

noreply@blogger.com (eddie) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 03:39:00 +0000

Phillip Cunningham describes himself in the year of 1989 as someone caught between China's "inside" and "outside" communities, when he lived in a dorm at Beijing Normal University designated for neither domestic or foreign students. At that time, he was officially a graduate student at University of Michigan studying modern Chinese history. Yet he was not a student at Beijing Normal or doing much research for his thesis there. Rather, he spent most of his time working, according to his biography, "extensively in China since 1983, first as a tour guide, interpreter, and cruise director on the Yangtze, and later as a teacher, media researcher, and freelance journalist."

During those six years, he had learned his way around as well as speaking fluent Chinese. (He also speaks French, Japanese, and Thai besides his native English.) His personal experience in China was not all that typical either -- he was "twice arrested for activities incompatible with being a foreigner and thus endowed with a thick security file," for "pushing boundaries and breaking little rules." In 1987, he staged a rock version of the song East is Red in a new year celebration at Beijing Normal which was censored from broadcasting.

But for those who are interested in the history of the 1989 Chinese student movement, Cunningham will be forever remembered as the American youth who happened to have taped Chai Ling's "Last Word" video speech, a historical record that has ignited much controversy as it shed lights in the inner psych of one of the most important leaders of that movement.

In the April of 1989, as the student movement broke out, Cunningham was in London working on a project filming the debut performance of rock stars Cui Jian and Liu Yuan at the Royal Albert Hall. After returning to Beijing, he quickly became a reluctant participant in the student marches of May 4 and May 10, urged on by his Chinese friends. Soon, he accepted an offer from BBC, for $100 a day, to help them cover the upcoming Sino-Soviet summit which was eventually overshadowed by the student movement. He struggled with his role as a journalist/interpreter while being a deep sympathizer of students. When students gathered at Beijing Normal University to launch the hunger strike, he was there with a BBC crew to record that moment of history.

Phillip Cunningham at Tiananmen Square in 1989

It was with a BBC crew at Tiananmen Square when Cunningham first met Chai Ling by the end of May, just as Chai Ling was privately contemplating an escape. According to Cunningham, Chai Ling inquired him about the rumor that the British Embassy in Beijing was offering refugee protection to student leaders and told him she had made plans to leave Beijing.

The next morning, a distraught Chai Ling found Cunningham at Beijing Hotel seeking help. They, along with another student and a Hong Kong reporter, drove out and made the videotape in an apartment occupied by a family of Cunningham's foreign friends. Chai Ling wrote him a note in the car authorizing him to speak in her behalf. Although still a member of BBC, Cunningham felt that the tape was too important to be handed over to a single media outlet. So they contacted several western media but only found ABC News willing to accept it. (ABC was not able to broadcast it before the massacre, however.)

Chai Ling eventually changed her mind and remained at Tiananmen Square till the end. In the evening of June 3, as troops were closing in, Cunningham found himself on the Changan Ave as both a guide and a guard for a BBC crew. They tried to film the chaotic scene as the first pair of tanks charged in. At one instant, Cunningham joined the crowd to dismantle fences to construct barricades. He even threw a rock at a tank in the heat of the moment. Moments later, he also became an eyewitness of a group of students' courageous effort to save the soldiers from a burning tank.

Cunningham and his crew eventually withdrew to the safety of his room at Beijing Hotel before the main troop's arrival. They spent the night on a distant balcony unable to disciple definitely what was transpiring in the square down below.

Cunningham spent the immediate years after 1989 working for various media at Hong Kong and Japan. He eventually returned to China a few times and found a country vastly different from that in 1989. He first published his 1989 memoir in book form as Reaching for the Sky in 1999. The same material was later republished, in a much improved version, as Tiananmen Moon in 2010. Currently, he writes a blog at Frontier International.

People of 1989

Wang Juntao's Ex-Wife Active in Beijing

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 03:32:00 +0000

The Daily Beast recently reported that Hou Xiaotian (侯晓天), Wang Juntao's ex-wife, is now back in Beijing as a successful businesswoman.

Hou Xiaotian was Wang Juntao's wife when the latter was involved in a series of dissident activities that culminated in the 1989 student movement. However, she had kept a low profile herself except in the years after 1989 when Wang Juntao was sentenced to 13 years of prison. Then, Hou Xiaotian became a champion in appealing for his release and other human rights issues and was detained by the government numerous times herself.

The couple moved into exile in United States after Wang Juntao was released in 1994. But they were divorced by 1999 and went on separate career paths. While Wang Juntao earned a Ph. D. in political science and stayed active in oversea dissident movements, Hou Xiaotian went to work as a Wall Street financial analyst with a master's degree in public administration. She now has her own research and advisory firm T. H. Capital.

Daily Beast reports that Hou Xiaotian was turned back at the Beijing airport when she attempted to return to China for the first time in 1997. But she eventually gained acceptance in 1999 by "arguing that she never engaged in anti-government activities but merely sought for implementation of China's own laws." Last year, she was able to establish an office in Beijing for T. H. Capital.

Document of 1989: 43 Intellectuals Open Letter to NPC

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 02:43:00 +0000

On March 14, 1989, 43 intellectuals signed an open letter to the National People's Congress which was in session at the time. This is the 4th and last in the wave of open letters appealing for amnesty in the spring of 1989.

The Seventh National People's Congress, Second Plenary Session

At this moment just before the the 40th anniversary of our country, we call on the National People's Congress to follow the precedents since the founding of nation and provide amnesty to some prisoners. A little earlier, some intellectuals called for the release of Wei Jingsheng and others. We believe their suggestion is in accordance to the Constitution and the will of people. Therefore, we once again appeal for the National People's Congress to consider it.

Dai Qing, Su Wei, Xu Youyu, Zhao Shijian, Shi Tiesheng, Li Dan, Zhang Shengyou, Zhao Yuesheng, Nie Zhidi, Wu Fang, Sun Naixiu, Zhou Faxiang, Chen Yangu, Xu Ming, Jin Dacheng, Ruan Xun, Wang Xingzhi, Wang Xing, An Yanming, Sun Xiaoming, Liu Mingjiu, Su Guoxun, Cha Jianying, Mao Chongjie, Yuan Hong, Ling Gang, Wang Hui, Chen Jiaying, Zhu Zhengling, Yan Jiaqi, Wu Yuming, Zhang Aixin, Wu Bing, Chen Xuanliang, Zhang Wei, Zheng Yefu, Chen Kuide, He Huaihong, Yuan Zhiming, Kuan Yang, Li Ming, Li Yinghe, Zhou Fucheng

(For the Chinese names of the signatories, please view the original version here.)

Documents of 1989

Event of 1989: Riots and Martial Law in Tibet

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 23:13:00 +0000

While political discontent was clearly brewing in Beijing in the early months of 1989, a much dicier situation was also developing in the far southwest, in isolation. Tibet hadn't been quiet in the years prior. Demonstrations and riots by Tibetans against Chinese rule had occurred several times during the years of 1987 and 1988 and tensions had been tight since.

On January 28, 1989, Panchen Lama, the second religious authority after Dalai Lama, passed away. The timing was extremely unfortunate as it was just five days before he was to be allowed to visit Tibet after decades of forced residence in Beijing. The death and the subsequent search for his reincarnation became a focal point that exasperated the already fragile situation. Throughout that February as the Tibetan New Year was celebrated, riots frequented.

A large-scale demonstration finally broke out on March 5 at Lhasa, with Tibetan monks, nuns, and youth marched on the streets with the (forbidden) Tibetan flag. Several hundreds joined and, according to the official Chinese reports, looting and arson occurred. The riot continued for a couple of days.

On March 7, then Premier Li Peng imposed a martial law in Lhasa. Soldiers armed in riot gear arrived and brutally put down the uprising. The Chinese government reported that about a dozen people were killed but New York Times reported an unofficial death count of 75. There was also an unsubstantiated claim of more than 450 deaths later.

The martial law at Lhasa was the first time such drastic measure was taken in China since the Cultural Revolution. But it received little attention in the rest of the country. Less than 3 months later, Li Peng once again declared martial law -- and it was in Beijing, the capital.

Later in 1989, Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, an act widely regarded as a gesture of sympathy toward the student movement in Beijing instead. The martial law at Lhasa was lifted on May 1, 1990. But the region continues to see sporadic protests and unrest, including the recent waves of self-immolation. The man who had carried out the crackdown in Tibet, Hu Jintao, is the current president of China.

Events of 1989

Document of 1989: 42 Scientists and Educators Open Letter

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 04:26:00 +0000

On February 26, 1989, 42 prominent scientists and educators in Beijing co-signed an open letter to the nation's top leadership calling for democracy. This is the third such letter following those of Fang Lizhi and 33 writers. This letter is relatively lengthy and detailed. As with the other letters, it called for the release of political prisoners but stopped short of calling for an amnesty. It also did not mention Wei Jingsheng's name.

Open Letter to Party Central Leaders from Beijing Science and Education Community

General Secretary Zhao Ziyang,
Chairman Wan Li,
President Li Xiannian,
Premier Li Peng,
and
Party Central,
NPC Standing Committee
CPPCC National Committee
State Council,

Since the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Party Congress, Our nation's modernization efforts, led by liberation of thoughts and guided by the openness and reform policies, have achieved world-renowned successes. Although some complications and mistakes have appeared, the overall direction of the development is in accord to people's will and the world historical trend. This decade has indeed been the best period since the founding of our nation. Today, however, the reform has encountered serious obstacles in its path: rampant corruption and graft, runaway inflation, deteriorating morale, serious crises in education, science, and culture. Chinese intellectuals with its tradition of taking up the responsibilities of the nation's survival cannot help but to worry deeply. For the purpose of preventing a premature death of the modernization efforts, we, old and middle-aged intellectuals who have worked at the frontiers of research, education, and culture, with our sense of social responsibilities for our nation and people and with our loyal and patriotic soul, sincerely suggest the following:

(A) In the context of openness and reform, the reform of the political system, i.e., the democratization of politics, need to be conducted with the economic reform. This is because that the experiences in world history and the realities in China show us that the democratization of politics (including rule by law) is the necessary guarantee for the economic reform and the entire modernization endeavor. Only with democratization people will be able to fully unleash their initiative and enthusiasm. They will be willing to share the burden of the unavoidable difficulties in the process of reform. With the collective mind and force of the people, no difficulties couldn't be overcome. Also, with market economy, only with democratization and under the supervision of the people and media we could have a "clean" government. In contrary, a government without people's supervision cannot stop corruption. This is a well-known law of history.

(B) The first necessity of political democratization is to effectively guanranttee citizens' basic rights in the Constitution, especially the guarantee of citizens rights of free expression, free press and publication. Only when people can freely express their thoughts, dissenting opinions can be published openly, and criticisms against leaders not be punished that we can achieve an active, comfortable, and harmonic society and that the democratic senses of citizens can be releashed. This is the only reliable guarantee to stability and unity, with which reform can continue smoothly.

(C) To prevent any repeat of historical tragedies of incriminating the publication of dissenting opeinions, please see to that all youths sentenced or detained because of crimes of thoughts be released. No longer incriminating thoughts will open up a new era for the politics of our nation.

(D) Government must provide necessary supports to the education and science endeavors that are critical in deciding the nation's future but do not yield direct economic benefits. It must do all it can to increase funding for scientific research, especially those in fundamental sciences, enhance the living conditions of all intellectuals so they don't face hardships. Right now, a few first-rated professors are already applying for hardship aids. Recently, a 78-year-old senior engineer jumped to his death because he couldn't afford to live. This obviously damages the modernization efforts and also the image of our nation.

If the above suggestions could be adopted, it would be a grand fortune of our nation and people. The concepts of democracy and science spearheaded by the pioneers of the May Fourth Movement 70 years ago would truly bloosom in the vast lands of China. It would also bring a celebratory atmosphere to the 40th anniversary of our nation's founding.

Sincerely,

Qian Linzhao, Wang Ganchan, Shi Yalang, Xu Liangying, Guo Xingguang, Xue Yugu, Ye Wuzheng, Huang Zongchen, Hu Shihua, Zhu Zhaoxian, Zhou Mingzheng, Xu Guozhi, Jiang Lijin, Sun Keding, Wang Rong, Liu Yuanzhang, Mao yuShi, Hu Jimin, Yan Rengeng, Zhang Yisan, Du Yuji, Yu Haocheng, Zhang Xianyang, Li Hongling, Bao Zunxin, Liu Shengji, shao Yanxiang, Wu Zuguang, Wang Laidi, Gu Zhihui, Ge Ge, Liu Liao, Zhang Zhaoqing, Liang Xiaoguang, Zhang Conghua, Hou Meiying, Wu Guozheng, Cai Shidong, Cao Zhunxi, Xiao Shuxi, Zhou Liquang, Liang Zhixue

February, 26, 1989

(For the Chinese names of the signatories, please view the original version here.)

Documents of 1989

Document of 1989: 33 Writers' Open Letter

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 23:54:00 +0000

On February 13, 1989, five weeks after Fang Lizhi's open letter, 33 prominent writers in Beijing co-signed an open letter to the National People's Congress and the Party Central in support of Fang Lizhi's suggestion of an amnesty.

After the crackdown, a few individuals claimed that their signatures were either forged or obtained under false pretense.

After we learned the open letter by Mr. Fang Lizhi to Chairman Deng Xiaoping on January 6, 1989, we would like to express our deep interest in this issue.

We assert that, at the time of the 40th anniversary of our nation and the 70th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement, a general amnesty, especially the release of Wei Jingsheng and other political prisoners, will produce a harmonic atmosphere beneficial to the reform efforts. It is also in accordance to the general trend of respecting human rights in today's world.

Bei Dao, Shao Yanxiang, Niu Han, Lao Mu, Wu Zuguang, Li Tuo, Bing Xin, Zhang Jie, Zong Sui, Wu Zuxiang, Tang Yijie, Le Daiyun, Huang Ziping, Zhang Dainian, Chen Pingyuan, Yan Wenjing, Liu Dong, Feng Yidai, Xiao Qian, Su Xiaokang, Jin Guangtao, Li Zehou, Pang Pu, Zhu Wei, Wang Yan, Bao Zunxin, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Liu Qingfeng, Mang Ke, Gao Hao, Su Shaozhi, Wang Ruoshui, Chen Jun

February, 13, 1989

(For the Chinese names of the signatories, please view the original version here.)

Documents of 1989

New York Times' Reporting in 1989

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 23:32:00 +0000

In 2008, while preparing for the book Standoff at Tiananmen, I went through the archives of New York Times and read through its reporting during the period of student movement in 1989. A daily summary was published in this blog at that time. They are now listed here as a "table of contents," with each post containing one or more links to the actual NYT reports in it. All dates below are for 1989 while the titles are that of my own summaries, not NYT articles or necessarily their intent.

3/21: Economics and Tibet
3/23: Power War at the Top
3/29: Wei Jingsheng's Anniversary in Prison
3/30: No Amnesty

4/2: China's Economic Reform, So Far
4/4: Li Peng Rejects the Soviet Example
4/5: The Charm of Comrade Gorbachev
4/6: Second Thoughts on Reform
4/7: Taiwan's First Official Delegate to Beijing
4/8: Open Letter Signature Gatherer Deported
4/9: Professor Salary and a Dissident's Release
4/12: Christianity in China
4/13: Hu Yaobang Hospitalized
4/15: Hu Yaobang Died
4/16: Dissidents' Lives in the Early 1980s
4/16: First Mention of "Democracy Salon"
4/17: So it Starts, with a Smashed Little Bottle
4/18: Memorial Turns into Protest
4/20: From Tiananmen to Xinhuamen
4/20: Protest at Xinhuamen, Again
4/21: China's Date with Destiny
4/22: Hu Yaobang's Funeral
4/23: After the Funeral
4/24: Students Start to Organize
4/25: The Banning of the World Economic Herald
4/26: The Infamous People's Daily Editorial
4/27: Gathering Storm
4/28: A Glorious Day of Protest
4/30: A Dialogue with Officials

5/1: Emerging Student Leaders
5/2: Gearing up for May Fourth
5/4: Students' Ultimatum for Dialogue
5/4: Students' Ultimatum Rejected
5/5: Recapping the Wide-Spread Demonstration
5/6: Press Freedom in May
5/7: Tactics and Sincerity of Students
5/10: Journalists Speak Up
5/11: Students Bike to Support Jouranlists
5/12: Waiting for Gorbachev
5/13: Protesting against "Satanic Verses" of China
5/14: The Eve of Gorbachev's Visit
5/15: Hunger Strike Took the Center Stage
5/17: Sino-Soviet Summit
5/17: Zhao Ziyang's Disclosure
5/19: Millions are in the Square
5/19: Focus on the Hunger Strikers
5/21: Martial Law
5/21: Residents Block Troops
5/22: Second Day of Martial Law
5/23: Rumors are Flying
5/24: Reading the Tea Leaves
5/25: Power Struggle Continues
5/26: Li Peng Appears on TV
5/27: Threat of a Crackdown
5/28: Students Talk about Withdrawing
5/29: Global Demonstration
5/30: Goddess of Democracy
5/31: The Beginning of the End

Document of 1989: Fang Lizhi's Open Letter

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 04:25:00 +0000

On January 6, 1989, Fang Lizhi wrote a personal letter to Deng Xiaoping, suggesting a general amnesty for political prisoners. It soon became an "open letter" through foreign reporters in Beijing and drew the curtain of the 1989 student movement.

Chairman Deng Xiaoping
The Central Military Commission

This year is the 40th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. It is also the 70th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement. There will certainly be a lot of commemorate activities for these anniversaries. However, compared to looking back, far more people would perhaps concern about the present more. They are concerning about new hopes these anniversaries could bring for the future.

For this purpose, I sincerely suggest to you that, at the cusp of these anniversaries, a nationwide amnesty is called for, especially to release Wei Jingsheng and all political prisoners like him.

I think that, however one would judge Wei Jingsheng himself, releasing someone like him who had been in prison for 10 years is consistent to the humanitarian principle. It will enhance the social atmosphere.

Coincidentally, this year is also the 200th anniversary of the great French Revolution. No matter how we see that event, the values symbolized by that revolution, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and Human Rights, have become universally respected by the human kind. Therefore, I sincerely appeal to you once again to consider my suggestion, so that we can add on more respect for the future.

Best Regards,

Fang Lizhi
1/6/1989

Documents of 1989

A Life In Drift: Review of Chai Ling's Autobiography

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:11:00 +0000

More than 20 years after being one of the most visible leaders in the 1989 Chinese student movement, Chai Ling finally published her autobiography, A Heart for Freedom: the Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, her Daring Escape, and her Quest to Free China's Daughters, last fall.

When the book was published, it caused a minor publicity stir because of the author's surprise revelation that she had had four abortions during her younger years, the last two being almost immediately before and after the 1989 movement, respectively. But as that faded away, so seemed the book itself. Several reviews came from the religious community, focusing on Chai Ling's journey to Christianity. Her experience in that movement was mentioned only as a backdrop. Little was said about that movement more than 20 years ago.

Little could be learned from this book in that regard, either. A Heart for Freedom is a chronological account of the author's life so far, but lacks the details and depth necessary for readers to gain a real understanding of her intellectual and emotional development. In particular, as the Commander-in-Chief who dominated the second half of the 1989 movement, her account of that life-altering event was sketchy at the best and sometimes borderline on disingenuous.

Her Tiananmen Experience

In this book, Chai Ling framed her initial participation of the movement as motivated by her love and concern to her then husband, fellow student leader Feng Congde. She then provided little explanation or perspective as how she emerged to become the leader of the hunger strike and latter the commander-in-chief at Tiananmen Square. She did disclose, however, that she had held a personal grunge from the beginning as she felt mistreated by Feng Congde and his male-dominated circle of young leaders.

The book did provide some previously unknown hints, perhaps unintentionally, on her emotional state at the time. One particular puzzling aspect was Chai Ling's inner-despair, most obviously expressed first in her speech to launch the hunger strike and her later disastrous "Last Words" video tape (more on that later). That raw emotion, while powerful and influential, was at odds with the mode of the general student public. In this book we learned that Chai Ling had experienced a series of personal and family traumas just before the movement broke out. By that time she already had had 3 pre-marital abortions (only the last pregnancy was with Feng Congde). Her mother suffered a severe nervous breakdown at home after being falsely accused of stealing. She was nearly raped (she was not even sure if it was an actual rape since she had blacked out) by an acquaintance on campus. Then she had a couple of bad encounters with the campus police, which led her to believe that her relation with Feng Congde was in trouble. All this was probably too much for a 21-year-old girl, who later framed her call for hunger strike as imperative "at this life-and-death moment of our people's survival" as an effort to see if China, as a country, still had any hope left. Maybe that desperation had a deeper root at a personal level.

Meanwhile, the book glided through many critical moments at Tiananmen rather superficially, without going into any detail on her or others decision making process. Indeed, whether it was the start and end of the hunger strike, the dialogue with government official Yan Mingfu, the failure of withdrawing from the Square near the end of May, and even the final moments of the massacre, our Commander-in-Chief appeared in her own book more of a bystander or follower than a leader.

Chai Ling did devote quite a few pages specifically to her "Last Words" video. She defended herself with a rather, well, defensive tone. She made the excuse that she didn't know her conversant at the time, an American youth by the name of Phillip Cunningham, was working for a western media outlet. She attributed the most damaging passage of "expecting bloodshed" to Li Lu, one of the deputy commander-in-chiefs, and blamed him for not "owning up" to it. She also claimed that Cunningham disclosed the video to the documentary Gate of Heavenly Peace producers without her permission.

Her Accuracy

That leads nicely into the question of accuracy and trustworthy of her contents. Indeed, Chai Ling might not know that Cunningham was working for a press agency, but she knew full well that another female reporter from Hong Kong was also present and answered a few questions from her. According to Cunningham, Chai Ling wrote a note specifically authorizing Cunningham to publicize the video. They then tried to "shop" it to several western media companies in Beijing right away but failed to find any takers. Maybe Cunningham was not truthful here, but none of these was even mentioned in this book. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the video first became public in Hong Kong days after the massacre and years before that documentary was planned.

Upon the publication of this book, Feng Congde issued a public statement claiming that many details in it are not accurate. He said that he had sent Chai Ling a list of "up to 100" mistakes and more than 300 notes after reading her earlier drafts, but was largely ignored by the author. Of course Feng Congde is not an unbiased critic either. As the author's ex-husband, he was described as handsome and brilliant as well as temperamental and abusive in the book.

Indeed, there are many occasions in the book where the author's descriptions differ from known facts or consensus from recollections of others. The book only contains scant endnotes, almost all of which are not helpful as references of her story.

Her Life in Drift

A Heart for Freedom narrates Chai Ling's life from her childhood to her recent rebirth as a Christian and a triumphant return to public life through charity work against China's population policy. It is indeed an interesting story. She had attended top universities in both China and US, led a popular uprising that fixated the attention of the whole world, met with numerous world leaders and dignitaries, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, became a successful entrepreneur, and transformed herself from an atheist to a Buddhist and then to a Christian.

Given the author's background, most readers would rightfully expect to read about a determined leadership personality. Despite the obvious effort to portrait a strong-willed and independent woman, however, the book reveals a fragile soul that was constantly influenced by others at every stage of her life. It's a life in drift.

In her own words, Chai Ling confirmed that, although being the Commander-in-Chief, she was not the actual leader of the movement but a figurehead largely controlled by Li Lu, who made most of the important decisions from behind the scenes. Her initial participation was due to her feelings for her then-husband. Her decision of launching hunger strike was influenced by a few graduate student friends. Her veto of the plan to withdraw from Square that she had originally agreed on, her most critical decision throughout the whole movement, was entirely Li Lu's idea. And so on. At least from this book, we do not see the author as being and acting as her own person in that critical junction of history. Yet she occupied, and stubbornly refused to relinquish, the most important leadership position.

She also confirmed that she cried almost every time she faced a tough situation or choice.

The 1989 movement aside, the main theme of A Heart for Freedom seems to be the journey to Christianity: the spiritual awakening of a girl who was born and raised atheist. The "freedom" in the book title has dual meanings: a free life from the Communist oppression in China and a free soul under the protection of her newfound God. With her conversion, Chai Ling indicates that she has finally ended her decades of drifting and reached her destination. She had claimed that it was God who was writing this book through her hand. But it is difficult to find her conversion convincing or inspiring. Instead, it appeared more of an act of circumstances and convenience. Years earlier, when Chai Ling and Feng Congde were on the run after the massacre, they were protected by a group of devoted Buddhists for an extended period of time in southern China. In isolation, both of them were moved enough to convert themselves to Buddhism. Later in her life, Chai Ling found herself surrounded by devoted Christians including his new husband, friends, and fellow former student leaders who had become ministers. She quickly found her new Lord and became a Christian. (Unlike Chai Ling, Feng Congde has held on to his strong Buddhist faith to this day.)

Her Self Perspective

In her story, Chai Ling often displayed her own way of selective truth telling. She spent quite a few pages describing her difficulties of getting a high-profile consulting job after her graduation in US because of potential threats from China. (She eventually got one when a firm forced her to work under a fake name -- is that even legal?) She regarded it as an issue threatening her very survival in this country. It never occurred to her that she could try working for a smaller firm without ties to China. While complaining about such obstacles, she conveniently neglected any possibility that her past and fame might have helped her to gain entries to such privileged institutes as Princeton and Harvard, not to mention important connections during her career development and launching her own company.

She repeatedly asserted that she "led" the students' final withdraw from Tiananmen on the night of the massacre. Yet even her own book confirmed that she didn't do anything herself other than walking in front of the student formation with other leaders (while a large group of students were still refusing to leave). The withdraw was initiated and negotiated by older intellectuals on site despite objections from her and other student leaders and finally orchestrated and led by Feng Congde.

In her defense of the "Last Words" video, she continued to claim that criticisms aimed at her are vicious attacks to student leadership and the student movement as a whole. (Feng Congde has been making the same claims through the years defending her.) Yet she found no problem in shifting the same criticisms to her then-deputy Li Lu, blaming the latter for not taking the responsibilities for her, the Commander-in-Chief. She also gravely underplayed her recent predatory lawsuit against the producers of the documentary Gate of Heavenly Peace.

Her Book

A Heart for Freedom traces Chai Ling's life and adds to the existing and expanding literary collection of characters associated with the 1989 student movement. But to readers who are not familiar with the nuances of that history, this book may be hard to follow as many events and names are casually mentioned without introductions. The author assumes her readers either already well versed in or not care much about them. It may find a ready audience in the religious community who are never tired of such stories of a celebrity conversion. For others, the book may provide a few insights to Chai Ling's back story and emotional state as a leader of that movement. But unfortunately it lacks details, depth, and accuracy to be a valuable historical account.

Books about Tiananmen

People of 1989: Kong Qingdong (孔庆东)

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 03:55:00 +0000

Professor Kong Qingdong (孔庆东) has never been your typical academic. Rather, his outspokenness, which sometimes borderlines on intentional offensiveness or even insanity, makes him a frequent media darling or villain, depending on your point of view. He is also a self-claimed descendant of Confucius.

And every time he causes a public stir, people with varied motives love to dig up his past - that he was once an active participant of the 1989 Chinese student movement.

In 1989, the 24-year-old Kong Qingdong was a graduate student of literature at Peking University. Little was really known about his activism before the movement.

In late April of 1989, just when the Preparatory Committee at Peking University was busy organizing itself amid confusion and bitter infighting after the initial protest wave, Kong Qingdong emerged as one of the student representatives and elected into the inner circle, eventually becoming the head of the Committee on April 25.

Kong Qingdong worked with Shen Tong and others in the Committee in an effort to arrange an official dialog between top school officials and their rebellious organization, in lieu of an official recognition. Their negotiations showed promise but were interrupted by the infamous April 26 People's Daily editorial and the subsequent April 27 demonstration. Along with Shen Tong, Kong Qingdong tried in vain to keep that demonstration on campus. They henceforth lost the trust of some of their fellow student leaders and were even suspected as moles. Kong Qingdong eventually lost his post in another election on May 2 and appeared to have dropped out the movement from then on.

It is not known what repercussion, if any, Kong Qingdong had suffered in the aftermath of the suppression. He left Peking University and spent three years wandering in remote areas of China. But he was able to make his way back to the same school as a graduate student again to earn his doctoral degree in literature.

Since mid-1990s, he has become a prolific writer, publishing numerous popular books. He also became a professor at Peking University. But it is his public persona, as an outrageous commentator in TV shows and other media, that garnered most attention for him. His political views now align with those "ultra-left wing" who displays nostalgia of the old Maoist China and strong nationalist pride, defending the legitimacy of the Communist rule. It is a far-cry from the days when he was standing among his fellow students in Tiananmen Square.

People of 1989

Review of My Book: From a Next-Generation Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 01:35:00 +0000

The following review is written by a 16-year-old "bibliophile" growing up in the US, whose mother was an active participant in the 1989 Chinese student movement. It was originally posted on the author's own blog and is reproduced here with permission.

STANDOFF AT TIANANMEN - EDDIE CHENG

Can I have a congratulatory pat on the back? BECAUSE I. HAVE. FINISHED!
Though how much I actually remember is a different story.

Trying to collect my thoughts about it is something of a different story, because had one thing gone differently, I might not even exist. So obviously, it’s something I feel strongly about, something I feel strongly connected to, beyond just the “human spirit” and the human desire for free will and a voice that was so exemplified here.

But being emotional doesn’t help anyone in a review of a nonfiction book. So, I will try not to.

Accuracy/History:

To be honest, I don’t know shit about the Tiananmen Square Protests (and subsequent massacre) beyond the (little) that my mother has told me of her own experience (she was a grad student at Beijing Normal University at the time, and was among the protesters in the Square). So I don’t know how accurate it is — and, given the secrecy of the Chinese government, I doubt we’ll ever get acompletely accurate account of what went down in the Square — especially concerning the number dead (Chinese officials say that only a few hundred died, whereas most estimates rank it in the thousands).

I am inclined to trust this account, though, simply because there is a level of objectivity in the book — though many of the protesters were his peers, the author was studying in America at the time, and he does not seek to glorify the students or the student leaders as many (mainly Westerners, I find — in watching a short Al Jazeera documentary, Wu’er Kaixi, one of the main student leaders from Beijing Normal University, does express certain amounts of regret about how they handled the incident, whereas people like my APUSH teacher and my art teacher tend to romanticise the incident as an exercise in democracy) do. He does not seek to make martyrs of the people dead — though martyrs they were — there were flaws and in-fighting and factions and a highly hierarchical "government," as it were.

And because he is a peer of the student leaders, he does have access many first-hand accounts and primary resources that make his book credible.

I get the sense that the protesters were not truly protesting for democracy but rather against totalitarianism, which is a very interesting concept, as many people regard them as one and the same. The students were very careful not to make themselves opponents of the government, but rather patriots who wanted to reform it. (My mother and her peers were raised in a society that taught reverence to the government and to Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-dong) — she remembers saying “万岁万岁万万岁 (essentially — “long live”)” to portraits of Mao, as you would to an emperor, so it’s very hard to openly and abjectly criticise something which has had a more paternalistic role in your life for so long.)

People:

I didn’t realise how hard it would be to feel any sort of sympathy for the student leaders. I came into this wanting to revere them for their bravery and their idealism and their sacrifices, but it’s so hard to do that, especially in retrospect, when you see that if they had just listened to those who were older and wiser than they, instead of just rushing impetuously into drastic action (the hunger strike, the sit-in), they could have prevented so much bloodshed. When you see how, if they’d only kept their mouths shut at certain critical periods, if they’d only opened them during others, if they’d only done a better job organising and uniting the other students, China may have been a democracy — a true democracy, perhaps even a socialist democracy (I will not deny that that is my favourite form of government) — by now.

Maybe I’m influenced by my mother’s opinions (of course I’m influenced by my mother’s opinions), but I found Chai Ling and Li Lu to be extremely unlikeable (and I don’t mean that to be critiques of their representation, and certainly I would never say such a thing in a review of a novel, where likeability isn’t a factor into how strong the novel is, but these are real people whose actions have had real consequences for thousands of people who lost their lives or their loved ones or their futures that day). Wu’er Kaixi I can tolerate, if only by virtue of the remorse he showed. Liu Gang and Feng Congde and Shen Tong I can stand — I can like, even (I’m following Shen Tong on Twitter) — but that Chai Ling took every suggestion Li Lu had without even critiquing or thinking about them first, that she was the one who lead the students into the hunger strike (there had been rumours that the government was willing to cooperate prior to this), that she let her tears instead of her brain do the reasoning — is extremely obnoxious to me. These are real people she was toying with, not tin soldiers.

Writing:

If I were honest with myself, which I should be — this whole Tumblr is supposed to be dedicated to my growth as a person, as pretentious as that inevitably sounds — the writing kind of…sucked.

It wasn’t horrid, but it was so boring. He was trying to cover too much ground. The book had neither flow nor form, and the only reason I read it is because this movement means so much to me. Had it meant only a smidgen less, I would have surely put it down. (I would recommend that everyone read it, because I think it is a relatively unbiased portrayal of one of the most important events of the 20th century and has severe implications in the 21st, but it takes a certain amount of gumption, I would say, to a person with my reading tastes.)

There was endless history about the movement — the stressing of the April 15th (was it 15th?) and May 4th movements, Tiananmen’s connection with the French Revolution, the backgrounds of each of the student leaders, the background of the American-founded Beijing University — and not enough about the movement itself (it seemed to be more of a rundown of events, and did not discuss the impact or the implications of the movement — globally and domestically — enough for my taste).

For a book about the “Standoff at Tiananmen,” rather than a detailing of each of the student leaders’ lives, I read far too much about where they came from and who their families were.

When he does get to the movement — and the massacre itself, though, it’s probably best to have a box of tissues nearby. I was literally sobbing into my pillow — not because the language he used was particularly evocative (I can’t exactly fault him for that — his English is better than my mother’s, and like her, he was an immigrant), but because what happened was simply so awful.

Overall, I would hesitate to say that this was a bad book, though certainly there were aspects of it that could have been so, so much better. The language was stilted, much of the background unnecessary (for example, we do not have to know the geography of the Beijing University, merely that it has a tradition of heading political movements), but nevertheless, it is an important chronicle of an important event.

Sorry about this rambling, half-incoherent wall of text, though. And also the lack of a conclusion. Can I blame it on my tiredness? Or is that not sufficient?

Reviews of My Book

People of 1989: Chen Xi (陈西)

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 18:24:00 +0000

When the 1989 Chinese student movement broke out in Beijing, then 34-year-old Chen Xi was a political staff in a college in the remote Southwestern Guizhou province. But unlike most of his peers in that profession, he was open-minded and already active in the local scenes, organizing a series forums and making many friends. Early that May, when students in Guizhou started to act in support of their compatriots in the capital, Chen Xi coordinated with authorizes in schools and law enforcement agencies to ensure an orderly student demonstration, escorted by the local police forces. He maintained his contacts with student leaders throughout the movement.

Yet his most daring move was on June 5, after tanks had already rolled in Beijing. That night, he and a few others gathered to form a "Guizhou Patriotic Democracy Association," calling for a general strike to protest the massacre in the capital. They were all arrested within days. A year later, Chen Xi was sentenced to 3 years of prison for "counter-revolutionary propaganda and agitation."

After he served his sentence, Chen Xi soon took part in the activities of organizing opposition parties while insisting on demanding a re-evaluation of the 1989 movement. In March, 1996, he was arrested again and sentenced to 10 years for "organizing and leading counter-revolutionary organizations." He only walked out the prison in 2005.

Yet Chen Xi never stopped what he does. In the recent years, he organized a series of symposiums in Guizhou on human rights and published hundreds of articles on Internet forums to commemorate the 1989 movement as well as calling for democracy. It is some of these articles that landed him in jail one more time.

On December 26, 2011, Chen Xi was sentenced to another 10 years for "inciting subversion."

People of 1989

People of 1989: Chen Wei (陈卫)

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 05:40:00 +0000

When the 1989 Chinese student movement broke out, Chen Wei was just a freshman in the Beijing Institute of Technology. From the very beginning, he actively participated in the campus activities in memory of Hu Yaobang. He helped leading about 4,000 of students from his school to attend the funeral at Tiananmen Square. Soon after, he played a key role in organizing an independent student organization at his school.

At the end of April, he took a trip to his hometown in Sichuan to spread the messages from Beijing movement. When he got back to the capital, he joined the effort of the Dialogue Delegation as a representative from BIT but soon joined in the hunger strike. During that time, he fainted several times and had to be taken to hospitals.

At the night of the massacre, he was on the streets trying to block the advancing troops. He later vividly described how he saw a girl being gunned down, execution style.

Chen Wei returned to his hometown soon after the massacre. He attempted to form an underground organization but was soon captured. He was later released without charge after almost a whole year of detention. That's when he started his career and life intertwined with prison terms. In 1992, he was arrested for organizing opposition parties and sentenced to 5 years. After the completion of his term, he still continued his work in local and regional organizing and became a signatory of the Charter of 08.

He was arrested this past February in a round of suppression in Sichuan. On December 23, 2011, Chen Wei was sentenced to 9 years in prison for "inciting of subversion."

People of 1989

Book Review: From the Square to QinCheng

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 18:33:00 +0000

Li Jinjin's personal memoir, From the Square to QinCheng, published in Chinese language by Mirror Books, 2011, consists two separate parts: The first is a brief autobiography of the author and two recollection essays of the author's experience participating in the 1989 Chinese student movement. The second part narrates the author's life, feelings, as well as reckonings during his detention in various jails after his arrest. The "QinCheng" in the title refers to the most notorious prison in China, in which the author had been a resident briefly.

In 1989, on April 18, just days after Hu Yaobang's passing, Li Jinjin stepped up at the stairs outside of the Great Hall of People and led a day-long sit-in which finally forced three People's Representatives to come out and publicly receive students' petition. Then, in the final weeks of the movement, he helped founding the Workers Autonomous Federation and became one of its core leaders. He had recorded these experiences in two articles "The First Organized Sit-in in the Square" and "Remembering the First Workers' Independent Organization," respectively. These essays had previously been published in newspapers and other books before. They were also sources for my book Standoff at Tiananmen. Now republished in this book together with the author's autobiography, they lead to a deeper appreciation and perspective for the stories.

The book's subtitle, The Study of Law of a Law Ph.D. Student in Prison, indicates that the book's main content is centered on the author's experience in prison after the movement. Before his college years, Li Jinjin had served first in the army for 6 years and then as a policeman. In 1989, he had already earned his Masters degree in law and was pursuing his Ph.D. degree. With such a background and statue but being put in jail and forced to observe everything from the perspective of a prisoner was quite a unique opportunity. It is therefore remarkable that Li Jinjin never complained or involved in self-pity but spent all his time carefully observing and reflecting. He also helped his cellmates analysing their cases and fought with diginity for more humane conditions and treatments of prisoners.

One particular interesting aspect is that, although the author was a Ph.D. student, he was not jailed together with his fellow student or intellectual prisoners. Rather, because of his involvement with the workers union, he was treated as a worker and therefore imprisoned with other "odinary criminals," a distinction the government had been careful of in its handling of punishments. Therefore, his recollection of the prison experience sheds an entirely different light from those of other student leaders. His "study of law" is also more of actual legal merits, not swayed by the differences and confrontations in political opinions at the time.

From the Square to Qincheng is not a massive book and is very easy to read. (Unfortunately it is only available in Chinese.) The book provides several snapshots of the 1989 student movement and the inside operations of chinese prisons at the time. It's most valuable in its calm and matter-of-fact narrative, which greatly enhances its credibility. Perhaps because of the author's intentional carefulness, the content is confined strictly within his own experiences without much mentioning of other student leaders or participants. This somewhat limits its scope as a historical reference for the movement itself.

Books about Tiananmen

People of 1989: Li Jinjin (李进进)

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 18:07:00 +0000

On April 18, 1989, three days after the death of Hu Yaobang, Li Jinjin found himself sitting on the stairs of the Great Hall of People at Tiananmen Square among younger students trying to petition their government. He was excited but not quite ready to act himself.

At the time, Li Jinjin was a graduate student of law at Peking University. Unlike most of his classmates there, he had already acquired quite a bit of experiences outside of campus.

Born in 1955, he grew up in the midst of the Cultural Revolution when the education system was disfunctional at the best. When he was only 15, he joined the People's Liberation Army (with his age altered by a recruiting officer). Six years later, he was discharged and became a policeman at his hometown Wuhan city. That was the time when the national college entrance exam was reinstated and he became one of the hundreds of thousands youngsters fighting for a precious spot in higher education. In 1978, he became an undergraduate student of law near his hometown at the age of 23.

He then became a graduate student in Peking University in 1982 and graduated with a masters degree in 1985. After a couple of years of teaching, he returned to Peking University in 1987 to pursue a Ph.D. in law. During his second stinct there, he became active and campaigned to become the chairman of the school's Graduate Student Association in 1988. But he soon got into trouble by publicly voicing dissents and organizing controversial seminars. In early 1989, he was replaced in a reelection meeting that he himself was not aware of.

Having been cautioned to stay out of trouble, Li Jinjin had decided to focus on his academics in that spring of 1989. But when he observed the faltering sit-in at Great Hall of People, he nonetheless stepped up and took a leadership role. He led the latter stage of the day-long sit-in and achieved success: publicly and peacefully submitting students' Seven Point Petition to three People's Representatives. He left the scene immediately afterwards. But the crowd did not disperse and marched to the site of the government instead. It later led to quasi-violent confrontations with police at Xinhuamen.

That could have become the single odd apperance for him in the movement as he immediately disappeared. In early May, he even left Beijing to get back to his family in Wuhan due to their concerns of his involvement. It was not until May 18, when the hunger strike had greatly escalated the confrontation in the streets and a crackdown was immenient, that he got himself involved again. But this time, he took a different route.

On May 18, 1989, Li Jinjin was back on the streets of Beijing, delivering improptu speeches. That night, he happened upon a couple of workers who were trying to organize workers. He volunteered his service and immediately became the de-facto legal counsel of the budding Workers Autonomous Federation. Along with Han Dongfang and Zhou Yongjun, etc., he helped to launch the organization and drafted many of its documents and public statements.

When several members of the federation were detained on May 31 as a precursor of the coming crackdown, Li Jinjin and Han Dongfang led a group of workers and students in another day-long sit-in at Beijing police headquarters. They eventually won the release of their detained members.

Quite amazingly, Li Jinjin then left Tiananmen Square on June 2 and returned to Peking University for his Ph.D. qualification exam. In the morning of June 3, he successfully passed the exam and was spending the rest of day preparing documents to formally register the federation when news of massacre altered all his planning. He tried to return to the Square that night but didn't get past Muxudi, scene of the bloodiest battle that night.

After the massacre, Li Jinjin left Beijing and returned to his home in Wuhan, where he was arrested on June 10, 1989. He was released without a formal indictment on April 24, 1991. He travelled to US in 1993 and earned his US law degrees. He is now practicing law in the state of New York and active in the oversea Chinese democracy movement.

In June, 2011, Li Jinjin published his memoir, documenting his experience in 1989 and the subsequent prison life in China.

People of 1989

Shen Tong Joins Occupy Wall Street

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 02:33:00 +0000

The Wall Street Journal reports that former Chinese student leader Shen Tong has joined the Occupy Wall Street movement at New York City:

Now, Mr. Shen, 43 years old and a successful businessman, can be found in the Financial District's Zuccotti Park, where he has become a sort of father figure for Occupy Wall Street.

Nearly every day, he holds planning meetings with the protesters in an unremarkable Broadway office. His responsibilities range widely—from mundane tasks like hunting down paperwork for the unwieldy group to lending advice to younger, self-styled revolutionaries.

"It's a lot of wise old man comments," said protester Max Bean, 29.

Mr. Shen didn't plan to devote all his time to Occupy Wall Street. On Oct. 17, he simply ventured 10 blocks from his home to Zuccotti Park and was intrigued to meet some protesters who knew of his efforts in China. "I was curious about the movement," he said. "Pretty soon, I realized it was not going away. But no good deed goes unpunished."

Mr. Shen soon found himself working a full day for Occupy Wall Street, seven days a week.

The paper also quotes Shen Tong commenting: "Last time we wanted a different China, we got shot at. America can still afford to do this nicely."

During the 1989 student movement in China, dozens of 40-something intellectuals had also stayed in Tiananmen Square doing the same thing for much younger student leaders like Shen Tong himself.

People of 1989: Liu Di (刘迪)

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 04:19:00 +0000

The name Liu Di (刘迪) did not appear in many historical records or literature of the 1989 student moment. That was probably how he liked it.

Born in 1950 in Beijing, Liu Di belonged to a slightly older generation to the students at Tiananmen. He first became famous for participating in the April Fifth Movement in 1976 and landed himself in the most wanted list back then. He was captured and put in jail later that year and served 10 months until the verdict of that movement was overturned by the government.

Along with his fellow "April Fifth Heroes" Chen Ziming and Wang Juntao, Liu Di quickly got himself involved in the 1978 Democracy Wall and then 1980 election campaign in Beijing. His home in the city often served as the publishing house of the underground journal Beijing Spring and gathering place of various dissidents. Later, Liu Di helped Chen Ziming in the founding of their influential and independent think tank.

During the 1989 student movement, Liu Di was one of many older intellectuals who volunteered to assist and advice student leaders from behind the scenes. He was one of the organizers of the Capital Joint Conference which tried but failed to gain leadership to the movement as it was falling apart after the end of hunger strike.

After the massacre, Liu Di was arrested on July 10, 1989 and spent 9 months in jail. During the 1990s, he was active in raising international awareness of the human rights conditions of political prisoners in China. For the past decades, he was consistently denied of jobs or rights to travel abroad and had to survive by his wife's wage and his parents' help. But he never hesitated to help others who are in political trouble.

Liu Di died of cancer on October 19, 2011. He was 61 years old.

People of 1989

Fang Zheng Enjoys New Life in America

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 05:33:00 +0000

Fang Zheng, who lost both his legs during the Tiananmen massacre, is enjoying his new life in America. In the picture above, Fang Zheng is celebrating his 45th birthday with his daughter, wife, and mother-in-law (photo courtesy of Feng Congde). The happy couple is also expecting their second child.

Fang Zheng was also granted his green card recently. He is currently studying in a local community college and has his own driver's license.

Chai Ling Recalls her Abortion Experience while as Student in China

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 18:50:00 +0000

In a recent testimony to the American congress, former student leader Chai Long recalled her painful experience of having multiple abortions while as student in China. It is the first time that she had revealed such a private secret and how she suffered from it. The testimony was part of her work with the "All Girls Allowed," a non-profit organization that she had founded.

Chai Ling stated that she had first become pregnant as a sophomore at Peking University when she was only 18 years old. Her father helped arrange an abortion for her at the time. She then had another one while as undergraduate student.

Her third abortion came after she had become a graduate student at Beijing Normal University. This time it was with her then soon-to-be-husband Feng Congde, who went to the clinic with her at the time.

After the couple escaped China shortly after the 1989 crackdown and reached the safety of Paris, Chai Ling had her fourth and presumably last abortion there. She said that their marriage was already falling apart at the time and she was persuaded to end that pregnancy.

By all account, Chai Ling is currently happily married to her second husband and has two kids. Nonetheless, her testimony provides a glimpse of her painful inside, already existing at the time of the 1989 movement, that was previously hidden from the public.

Her entire testimony can be read here.

Boston Globe Updates on Chai Ling's Nonprofit Work

noreply@blogger.com (Eddie Cheng) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 03:16:00 +0000

Linda Matchan reports on Boston Globe today updating the status of Chai Ling's work in her nonprofit organization "All Girls Allowed," which fights against gender-selective abortion in China influenced by the country's one-child policy.

The newspaper describes her efforts as

Into this battle steps [Chai] Ling, who has had brushes with controversy even in this country. In civilian life she is the founder and president of Jenzabar, which makes educational software; her husband, Robert Maginn Jr., is chief executive. Jenzabar’s charitable foundation has committed $1 million to All Girls Allowed, which, with the help of private donations, dispatches volunteer foot soldiers to run four projects in China. A “Baby Shower’’ program gives financial incentives to mothers who keep their daughters. A scholarship program enrolls orphan girls in schools. All Girls Allowed provides legal aid to women who have been the victims of forced abortion.

It also operates antitrafficking campaigns, in one case crossing vast rural areas north of the Yellow River, distributing 60,000 pamphlets, and setting up a hotline in a successful search for a 3-year-old girl named Little Bean who’d been snatched in front of her house in 2010. The organization also hosts a website featuring profiles of kidnapped children and practical information on how to keep kids from being tricked or snatched. A typical post: “When walking with your child along the road, always have the child farthest away from the road to prevent traffickers from grabbing them as they speed by in a motorcycle or van."

[Chai] Ling reports that so far 550 mothers have received financial gifts, 25 orphans have enrolled in schools, and four children have been reunited with their parents. It’s modest progress considering the scope of the problem: according to the group’s own data, there are 1.3 million forced abortions in China every year, 1.1 million infants abandoned, and 200,000 children trafficked.

It describes Chai Ling as passionate in her endeavor, driven by her recent conversion to Christianity.

The paper also mentions controversies surrounding Chai Ling and her software company Jenzabar, including lawsuits brought by their former investors and employees. It says the court had cleared Chai Ling for any wrongdoings.

The other, perhaps more prominent, lawsuit is the one Chai Ling brought upon the producers of documentary "Gate of Heavenly Peace." Although that suit has been rejected by the court, the paper states that "Jenzabar is appealing."