After failed attempt to enter China, Tiananmen dissident says he will keep trying
Originally published by The Canadian Press,07 June 2010
By Tomoko A. Hosaka
TOKYO — A prominent student leader in Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy protests said Monday he will keep trying to return to his native country even if it means getting arrested by Chinese authorities.
Wu’er Kaixi — now a Taiwanese citizen — spent the weekend in a Japanese jail after police arrested him Friday for trying to force his way into the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo in a failed bid to turn himself in to authorities.
“A person with a warrant on his head cannot get himself surrendered to the regime,” Wu’er said at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. “How absurd is that?”
The 42-year-old activist was No. 2 on China’s list of 21 wanted student leaders after the crackdown on the protesters, in which at least hundreds of people were killed. He escaped and has since lived in exile in Taiwan, where he has been a businessman and political commentator.
Wu’er said he wishes to be reunited with his parents, whom he last saw 21 years ago. He also wants a public dialogue with Beijing about Tiananmen Square and hopes to stand in solidarity with other detained political dissidents like his mentor Liu Xiaobo.
He told reporters he jumped over a low barrier in front of the embassy and made it about 3 yards (meters) into official Chinese territory before being overpowered and apprehended by police.
Calls for comment to the Chinese Embassy rang unanswered Monday.
“I want to be in prison today in China,” he said. “It was an honour in 1989 to be a student leader. And if I can go back to China and become a fellow cellmate of my teacher, my good friend Liu Xiaobo, it will be a great honour for me.”
Liu is currently serving an 11-year sentence for inciting to subvert state power.
Wu’er gained attention as a pajama-clad hunger striker haranguing then Chinese Premier Li Peng at a televised meeting during the protests in Beijing.
China has never fully disclosed what happened when its military crushed the weekslong, student-led protests on the night of June 3-4, 1989. Beijing has long maintained that the protests were a “counterrevolutionary riot,” and public discussion or displays referencing them remain forbidden on the mainland.
The student leader who topped the most-wanted list, Wang Dan, was jailed for seven years after the crackdown before being expelled to the United States in 1998 amid international calls for his release.
Last year, Wu’er tried but failed to enter the southern Chinese territory of Macau on the 20th anniversary of the on the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen protests.
Wu’er, who is part of China’s Uighur minority, said his parents live in the riot-torn western region of Xinjiang and have not been allowed to travel out of China. The recent ethnic conflict in the region has exacerbated their stress, he said.
The Xinjiang region was the site of last July’s deadly rioting that was China’s worst ethnic violence in decades and left nearly 200 dead.
The Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs) see Xinjiang as their homeland and resent the decades-long influx of Han Chinese, saying they have unfairly benefited from the riches of the strategically vital region with significant oil and gas deposits. Han Chinese in Xinjiang accuse Uighurs of being more concerned with religion than business, and unfairly favoured by quotas for government jobs and university places.
“The hatred between Uighur and Chinese people is the biggest obstacle to ease the tension to solve the problem there,” Wu’er said.