Tiananmen and Beyond: After the Massacre

Wuer Kaixi, a Chinese student leader, was well known to foreign observers by the time of the crackdown on prodemocracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989. A 21-year-old freshman at Beijing Normal University, Mr. Wuer led the Beijing University Independent Student Union, the group at the center of the protests. His charisma and assertiveness—typified by his outspoken criticism of Premier Li Peng during a televised meeting in May—won him the respect of his fellow students and a place on the Chinese government’s list of 21 most-wanted dissidents. Wuer escaped through Hong Kong to France after the People’s Liberation Army crushed the student demonstrations. He has since become a leader of the Federation for a Democratic China, an umbrella group of prodemocracy Chinese exiles. The following text is based upon remarks presented by Wuer Kaixi in Washington, D.C. on 2 August 1989 at a meeting cosponsored by the Congressional Human Rights Foundation and the National Endowment for Democracy.