Wang Dan
A history major at Peking University, Wang was an active organizer the year before the demonstrations and quickly became a leader in the square. No. 1 on the list the Chinese government released on June 13, 1989, of the 21 most-wanted leaders, Wang was arrested and jailed for four years. He was detained a second time in 1995 after writing articles in foreign publications calling for a reassessment of the events of 1989.
Upon his release for medical parole in 1998, he was exiled to the United States. He completed a Ph.D. in Chinese history at Harvard University last year and is now on a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford.
Wu’er Kaixi
A student at Beijing Normal University when the demonstrations started, Wu’er took a leading role in the student hunger strike. When the government met with the students on May 18, Wu’er was among the student delegates to the Great Hall of the People, showing up in his hospital clothes and famously interrupting Prime Minister Li Peng on national television. Second on Beijing’s most-wanted list after the crackdown, Wu’er fled to the United States, where he studied at Harvard University and completed a master’s degree in political science at Dominican University of California. He now lives in Taipei, where he manages an investment fund.
Wang Chaohua
A master’s student at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences when the demonstrations broke out, Wang became a voice for moderation in the square. She appeared on the most-wanted list after June Fourth and went into hiding in China for six months before escaping to the United States. Last year she graduated with a Ph.D. in Asian languages and culture from the University of California at Los Angeles. Wang now lives in Los Angeles, where she is writing a book about Cai Yuanpei, the early 20th-century Peking University chancellor whose educational reforms helped pave the way for the May Fourth movement.
Liu Xiaobo
A literature professor at Beijing Normal University and one of China’s most prominent cultural critics in the 1980s, Liu was on a fellowship at Columbia University when the demonstrations began. He flew to Beijing to support the students, assuming a prominent role by participating in a hunger strike of four older intellectuals. He was jailed for 21 months following June Fourth. In the 1990s, he was twice detained for his political activities, once spending three years in a labor camp. He is now being held in a windowless room outside Beijing for co-authoring Charter 08, a document released last fall that calls on the Chinese government to respect its Constitution.
Li Lu
A graduate student at Nanjing University in 1989, Li Lu journeyed to Beijing to take part in the demonstrations. He later fled to New York, where he enrolled at Columbia University, eventually obtaining degrees from the college, the law school, and the business school. In 1996 he began a successful career in business, working as an investment banker before starting his own hedge fund and venture-capital firm. He now runs an investment firm in Pasadena, Calif., that focuses on international investments. He recently advised Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company run by Warren Buffett, on an investment in China.
Chai Ling
A graduate student in psychology at Beijing Normal University at the time of the protests, Chai was among the leaders who presided over the square until the final hours. After June Fourth, Chai went into hiding before fleeing to the United States, where she completed an M.B.A. at Harvard University. She now runs the software company Jenzabar, which provides free Web portals to universities in exchange for students’ contact information. Chai recently sued Long Bow Group, the makers of the 1995 documentary The Gate of Heavenly Peace, including the China scholars Carma Hinton and Geremie Barmé. The suit alleges that Long Bow’s excerpting of articles critical of Chai from popular news sources, including The Chronicle, on the film’s Web site constitutes an infringement of trademark. The filmmakers have responded with an appeal letter that has garnered signatures from dozens of Sinologists and activists around the world.
Feng Congde
A graduate student at Peking University’s Institute of Remote Sensing in 1989, Feng was married to Chai Ling and, like her, assumed a pivotal role in the square. He had been offered a scholarship by Boston University for a Ph.D. program beginning that fall ; he jeopardized that opportunity to become one of three deputy commanders at the movement’s student headquarters. After the crackdown, Feng went into hiding in China with Chai. He eventually fled to Paris, where he pursued a Ph.D. in religion at Paris-Sorbonne University. Now divorced from Chai, Feng lives in San Francisco, where he maintains Web sites about Chinese human rights.
