The electrician who pasted “The Fifth Modernisation” on Democracy Wall, deported after eighteen years in prison
Raised in a senior-cadre family in Beijing, he wandered the countryside as a Red Guard and saw the traces of famine before becoming an electrician at the Beijing Zoo. In December 1978 he pasted “The Fifth Modernisation — Democracy” on the Xidan Democracy Wall, arguing that Deng Xiaoping’s four modernisations were hollow without democracy, and published the journal Explorations. Arrested in March 1979, he received fifteen years for “counter-revolutionary propaganda and leaking military secrets”; released in 1993, he was rearrested and sentenced to fourteen more. Deported to the United States on medical grounds in 1997, he continues the democracy movement in exile.
Career Timeline
- 1978–1979Democracy Wall activist and editor of Explorations
Related historical events
- 1976–1992Reform and opening: the Deng Xiaoping eraAuthor of “The Fifth Modernisation”Demanded democracy at Democracy Wall; arrested in 1979 and sentenced to fifteen years.
- 1989The Tiananmen protests and the crackdown of 4 June 1989Political prisoner named in the petitionsIntellectuals demanded his release early in 1989.