Tiananmen Ten Years On: What Has Become of The Heroes Of 1989?
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Your support makes all the difference.Wang Dan, the most prominent student leader not to be smuggled out of China. He was imprisoned, released, sentenced again but released on medical parole in April 1998 ahead of President Bill Clinton's visit to China. Now 30, he is studying Chinese history at Harvard University.
Chai Ling, self-styled "chief commander" of Tiananmen Square who urged the students to self-sacrifice. Smuggled out of China in a crate, she emerged in Hong Kong in April 1990, signed on at Harvard Business School in 1996 and now, 33, runs a start-up Internet company.
Li Lu, Chai Ling's deputy commander, a rare hero from the provinces. Escaped - and was accused of selling out to capitalism. Graduated in business and law at Columbia in New York and, now 33, deals on Wall Street and acts as spokesman for the Alliance for a Democratic China.
Wu'er Kaixi, an ethnic Uighur and the showman among the leaders, was televised confronting an irate Li Peng, then Prime Minister. Escaped, and drifted until moving to Taiwan in 1997. Married and now 31, he hosts a two-hour current affairs radio show six days a week.
Han Dongfang, a railway worker, in May 1989 formed China's first independent union since 1949. Urged workers to join the students. Jailed, released for TB treatment in the US but thrown out of China when returned in 1993. Now 36, exiled in Hong Kong, still working for original cause.
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