@ Heritage: Dr. Wang Dan, Student Leader in Tiananmen Square, 1989
Gerrit Lansing /
Dr. Wang Dan, the foremost student leader in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, joined Heritage’s Lee Edwards today in a conversation in our Allison auditorium. Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) introduced the slender, soft spoken Dr. Wang, saying that immediately following the forceful breakup of the protests the 20 year-old Peking University student was “branded as China’s enemy #1. Quite an honor and distinction I must say.”
Dr. Wang quickly topped the list of ‘counterrevolutionaries’ for his efforts in organizing the students. He spent almost ten years in jail for his heroics and eventually earned his Doctorate in East Asian History from Harvard University in 2008.
Wang is still very active in spreading his pro-Democracy message and has ruled out running for office, wanting only to be a public intellectual. Despite what he feels is a China split by pro and anti democratic movements, he is hopeful for the future, particularly because of the influence of technology.
“They are trying everything they can do to block information, to censor, to look for any potential threat. But technically I don’t think they can achieve their goal completely. For example, even myself can have my personal blog inside China for almost half a year and the government never knew that. The government just recently shut me down, but I can use another fake name to open a new one,” he said. (more…)