Born:
February 17, 1968 in Illi Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Wuer Kaixi Is a member of the Uyghur ethnic minority in China. He was raised in Beijing.
Education:
Wuer Kaixi was a student at Beijing Normal University when students mourning the death of reformist politician Hu Yaobang began to protest against the protest of the Chinese government. The outspoken student quickly arose as a prominent leader of the protesters.
Role in Tiananmen Protests:
Wuer Kaixi and others met with Chinese Premier Li Peng on May 18, 1989, where the student rebuked the hardline leader on national television. In 2004, Wuer Kaixi described the meeting to the
BBC News:
"He first shook hands with all of us. He then sat down and went into a long opening monologue of admonitions... we immediately felt an uneasy sense of foreboding about the outcome of the meeting..."
"I said to him: 'I am sorry Prime Minster Li Peng, I have to interrupt you. You may think that you have been late for only five minutes. May I point out you have actually been late for a month, not five minutes."
Escape from China:
After the Tiananmen Square crackdown, Wuer Kaixi went into hiding and was able to escape to France and later the United States. He studied at Harvard University and Dominican College in California.
In 1996, he moved to Taiwan and worked as a managing partner at an American investment banking firm there. He currently hosts a radio talk show in Taiwan.
Civil Disobediance:
On June 3, 2009, a day before the 20th anniversary of the crackdown, Wuer Kaixi traveled to Macao and announced that he would turn himself in to Chinese authorities. He also said he would resist deportation to Taiwan as an act of civil disobedience.
He was detained and ultimately deported back to Taiwan, where he criticized President Ma Ying-jeou for a statement Ma made about China's attention to human rights.
On Tiananmen Twenty Years Later:
In a
Wall Street Journal article on June 4, 2009, Wuer Kaixi wrote:
"I do not regret what we did in Beijing that year the Berlin Wall fell, when there was so much hope of change in the air, but the deaths have haunted me for 20 years."
