Zhang Wanshu (1938-), also known as Zhang Qinghai, is a journalist and writer. Born in Feixi County, Anhui Province, Zhang began his literary career in 1958. In 1964, he became a reporter for the Anhui branch of Xinhua News Agency, and later served as the director of news gathering and editing as well as vice president; in 1983, he was transferred to the Xinhua News Agency headquarters and served as deputy director of the Domestic News Department, and later as a director. In 1992, he became president and Editor-in-Chief of the Xinhua Publishing House. Zhang is also a member of the China Writers Association and was a deputy to the 6th National People's Congress.
Zhang is the author of several books of poetry and prose. His best-known poem, “Huangshan Pine,” was written in 1962, which praises the Chinese people during the Great Famine. The book <i>Introduction to the Classics of Red Poetry</i> published by Wuhan University Press called Zhang Wanshu an outstanding patriotic poet and his works are considered as “red” poems–in other words, pro-CCP.
However, as the director of the Domestic News Department of China's most authoritative news agency in 1989, Zhang witnessed the June Fourth massacre and directly handled first-hand accounts of Xinhua News Agency's correspondents throughout the country.
Around the 20th anniversary of June Fourth in 2009, Zhang’s book <i>The Big Bang of History: June Fourth Movement Record</i> was published in Hong Kong. It provides an authoritative chronology of events leading up to the bloodshed. The well-known independent historian Yang Jisheng, who was also a reporter for the Xinhua News Agency at the time, considered the authenticity of Zhang Wanshu's accounts to be beyond doubt. He said, “His accounts are true and reliable because he was informed and in the know. He was the director of the Domestic News Department at the time and knew what was going on at the upper levels, and he participated in the discussions of the Xinhua News Agency's leadership group every night.”
Zhang Zuhua (1955-), a native of Danyang, Jiangsu Province, is a constitutional scholar. Zhang graduated from the Political Science Department of Nanchong Normal College in 1982 with a bachelor's degree in philosophy, and has served as a Standing Committee member of the Communist Youth League Central Committee, and secretary of the Communist Youth League Committee of the Central State Organs. After the June 4th incident in 1989, he left government and in 1991-1992 studied the constitutional law of Western countries at the Graduate School of the China University of Political Science and Law. Since 1993, he worked as a researcher at independent civil society organizations including Sanhe Institute of Economics and Technology, and Jiuding Institute of Public Affairs. He also served as a visiting professor at the Department of Political Science and Law at Sichuan Normal University. Zhang was one of the drafters of Charter 08 and one of the editors-in-chief of Minzhu Zhongguo (Democratic China) magazine. He is mainly engaged in research on political modernization, the theory and practice of constitutional democracy, and political reform in China, and has published several books including *How to Build a Constitutional Democracy in China* and *The Rise of Civil Society in China*.
Zhao Dingxin (1953-) is a sociologist. He received his undergraduate degree in biology from Fudan University in 1982, and later received his Master and Ph.D. degrees in Insect Ecology from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and McGill University in Canada, respectively. He then switched to sociology and received his Ph.D. in sociology from McGill University in 1995, and taught in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago from 1996 to 2021, where he served as assistant professor, associate professor, professor, and Max Palevsky professor emeritus. In 2012, Zhao joined the School of Public Administration at Zhejiang University, where he served as visiting professor, professor, Dean of the Department of Sociology, and Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences. In March 2024, Wu resigned from all positions related to the Department of Sociology.
Zhao Dingxin's research interests include political sociology, social movements, and historical sociology, and he is the author of *Social and Political Movements* and *The Power of Tiananmen: State - Society Relations and the 1989 Beijing Student Movement*.
Zhou Hao (1968-) is a documentary film director, screenwriter and photojournalist. He used to work as a photojournalist for Xinhua News Agency and <i>Southern Weekly</i>. Zhou is concerned with social issues, and made photo reports on issues such as industrial pollution, and the Three Gorges dam. In 2001, Zhou began to try his hand at documentary filmmaking, and has made more than 20 films on issues ranging from Chinese internal migrant workers, left-behind children and the elderly, to environmental pollution. In 2006, his second documentary film <i>Senior Year</i> (about Chinese high school students preparing for university exams) was awarded the Humanitarian Award (Best Documentary) at the Hong Kong International Film Festival. In 2014 and 2015, his works <i>Cotton</i> (about China's cotton industry) and <i>Datong</i> (about the demolition and relocation policy in China) were awarded best documentaries at the 51st and 52nd Golden Horse Awards respectively.
Zhu Zheng (1931- ), a native of Changsha, Hunan Province, is a publisher and writer under the pen names Mo Guai (莫怪), and Chen Pu (陈朴). Inspired by Lu Xun’s writings when he was in middle school, Zhu decided to follow the Chinese Communist Party. In 1949, Zhu was admitted to the cadre journalism class of the <i>New Hunan Newspaper</i>, the earliest news organization set up by CCP in Hunan since the founding of the PRC, and then worked for the newspaper before being transferred to Hunan People's Broadcasting Station in 1950. In 1952, because of his leading role in reporting and criticizing the leadership of the radio station, Zhu was accused of leading an anti-Party group, expelled from the Communist Youth League, and transferred back to the New Hunan Newspaper to work under supervision. In 1955, Zhu became a target of Mao’s purge of counter-revolutionaries; and in 1957, because of his comments about the purge and Stalin, he was labeled a Rightist, dismissed from public service, and exiled for re-education through labor. After being released in 1962, he was again labeled a counter-revolutionary and sentenced to three years' imprisonment in 1970. After being rehabilitated in 1979, Zhu worked as an editor at the Hunan People's Publishing House until his retirement, and joined the Chinese Writers' Association in 1985.
As a scholar and writer specializing in contemporary Chinese history, Zhu has written about a dozen books, one of the most popular of which is <i>Summer of 1957: From One Hundred Schools of Thought to Two Schools of Thought</i> (held in our Archive), a panoramic description of the Anti-Rightist Campaign. Zhu is also an expert on Lu Xun, and wrote many books about Lu Xun, such as <i>The Biography of Lu Xun</i>, <i>Lu Xun’s Interpersonal Relationship</i>, and <i>Re-reading Lu Xun</i>.
