Wang Dan

Independent activity 1969–

Tiananmen student leader, later an exiled historian

A Peking University history student who organized discussion groups and independent student activity during the 1989 protests. He took part in the hunger strike and demands for dialogue, was arrested after the crackdown and was imprisoned twice. Exiled to the United States in 1998, he earned a Harvard history doctorate and later taught in Taiwan. He was one leader among several in a movement divided over tactics and withdrawal, rather than its sole representative.