Former Leader Calls for Greater Openness
2009-06-04
An exiled leader of the 1989 student-led pro-democracy movement demands greater political freedom in China and promises to continue working for change there.
Chai Ling at the U.S. Capitol, June 4. 2009
WASHINGTON—A prominent exiled leader of China’s 1989 pro-democracy movement, Chai Ling, called Thursday on Beijing to allow greater political openness and said those activists who fled in the wake of the June 4 crackdown “will never forget” what happened.
Speaking at the U.S. Capitol on the 20th anniversary of the deadly June 3-4 crackdown, Chai said she wanted to send a message to “Chinese people in the mainland, and also those Chinese in Hong Kong and Taiwan who love their motherland very much.”
“We, the last group of students to withdraw from Tiananmen Square 20 years ago, those leaders and those wanted [by the authorities], we are lucky to gather here in the United States to remember this special day,” she said in an interview.
“I want to tell the whole world we will never forget. We will continue to work hard for democracy and freedom in China.”
China’s current leaders “weren’t directly involved in the massacre at Tiananmen Square, and they have no responsibility for that history,” she said.
“I hope they will seize this opportunity to start opening up China politically.”
As a Beijing university student in 1989, Chai—petite and telegenic—became known as “commander in chief” of the Tiananmen protests.
After the crackdown on June 3-4, she went into hiding for 10 months and finally fled China in early 1990.
She now lives and works in Boston, where she and her husband run a software company.
She recently announced a U.S. $1 million initiative through her Jenzabar Foundation to support democracy and human rights in China.
Original reporting by Ho Shan for RFA’s Cantonese service. Cantonese service director: Shiny Li. Written for the Web in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.
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