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Xin Haonian

Xin Haonian

Xin Haonian (November 2, 1947-) is a writer and scholar. Born in Nanjing, Xin Haonian was admitted to Wuhu No. 1 Middle School in 1964, and went to work in the rural area of Wuhu as a sent-down youth after graduation. In 1968, he worked as an elementary school teacher, a middle school teacher, and a staff member of the local education bureau. In 1976, Xin began to publish long novels, joined the Chinese Writers' Association in 1982, and worked as a full-time writer in the Anhui Federation of Literary and Arts Circles. He was later awarded by the Ministry of Education as a "first-class writer", and was appointed as a professor by Nankai University in 1994. Xin was also a representative and a Standing Committee member of the local people’s congress. In March 1994, Xin did not accept to go to Nankai and traveled to North America instead, where he has since dedicated to research on modern Chinese history, especially Republican history. He was a visiting scholar at the Institute of East Asian Studies at Columbia University, where he was also appointed as a post-doctoral researcher in history. In 2001, Xin founded a history magazine *Huanghuagang* (named after the location of an important Republican uprising ) and served as its editor-in-chief, and established the Institute of Modern Chinese History. In October 2014, he announced the reorganization and renaming of the Institute as the Working Committee for the Restoration of the Republic of China (Mainland). In May 2018, he founded the Greater Republic of China Restoration Society in New York with supporters of the restoration of the lost lands of the Republic of China. Xin has written and published several novels and academic monographs, including *Chronicle of the 1980s*, a trilogy satirizing China's polarization between the rich and poor and authoritarian rule, and *Who is the New China*, a monograph on modern history criticizing the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist government.
Cong Weixi

Cong Weixi

Hong Kong Journalists Association

Hong Kong Journalists Association

Tiger Temple

Tiger Temple

Zhang Shihe, (September 27, 1953—) known by his artist name Laohu Miao (Tiger Temple), is a native of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, a citizen journalist, a documentary filmmaker and human rights activist. Born into a family of CCP cadres, Zhang's father had been a Public Security Bureau official in China’s Northwest, and served as a vice minister of the Ministry of Forestry after the Cultural Revolution. During the Cultural Revolution, Zhang's parents were persecuted and both imprisoned. He spent several years traveling the country by rail. In 1970, when Zhang was still a teenager, he was sent off to the mountains to help build a railway line. I was sent to work on the Xi’an to Qinghai railway. More than 190 people died building that. We had to carry 40-pound sacks of cement on our backs. We were teenagers. Of course, it ruined so many people’s health. Most were broken when they came home. They’d carry two sacks, one on the end of each pole, and carry it up the mountain. Professional track layers did 28 meters a month. We did 37. After the Cultural Revolution, Zhang worked at a Shaanxi steel mill, and from 1983 to 1990 he opened China's first private bookstore, Tianlai, which was shut down after the 1989 democracy movement because it was unable to sell foreign books and was harassed by the local writers' association. In the late 1990s, when the Internet took off in China, Zhang began to use the name Tiger Temple, recording what he saw and heard with a video camera, and publishing it online. In 2004, he filmed a killing in Beijing and published it online, and was then called "the first practitioner of citizen journalism" by several media outlets. Zhang has documented the plight of the grassroots, including miners, displaced persons, and petitioners. He has published nearly 1,000 videos, as well as initiated a number of aid initiatives. In 2013, the New York Times did a <a href=“https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000002225772/a-long-ride-toward-a-new-china.html?searchResultPosition=6”>video profile of Zhang as he biked through China doing reports on the countryside</a>. Today, he is more active on the Chinese short-video site Bilibili, where <a href=“https://space.bilibili.com/569775098”>he posts video interviews on a variety of topics</a>, including with elderly survivors of the Cultural Revolution or with the Chinese lawyer and public intellectual Chen Hongguo. For six years, from 2015 to 2021, Zhang was part of a group including Chen and the independent journalist Jiang Xue who ran a public-meeting space in Xi’an called “I Know I Know Nothing” (<i>zhiwuzhi</i>). In addition, Zhang is concerned with human rights activism. He has filmed videos and documentaries for Gong Meng, a Beijing-based NGO that provides legal assistance to the disempowered and promotes the New Citizens’ Movement, and one of its founders Xu Zhiyong. He has also participated in filming a video series entitled “Diligently Strive for Civil Society,” (held by CUA), which interviewed more than 50 activists, artists, scholars etc. about their views on civil society. In 2011, in the wake of the Arab Spring, Zhang was sent back to Xi’an, where he lives today. In an interview, Zhang was asked why he continues to make films, even though they cannot be shown in China. He answered that he hopes that he is creating a record for future generations, an ark that can survive the current flood. “You keep asking me why, but I’m not so good with those theoretical questions,” he said. “I just know I’m going to keep going; it’s my responsibility to history.” Other resources: - Ian Johnson, Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future - 《中国猛博: 新媒体时代的民间话语力量》,编著翟明磊,香港天地图书。 - <a href=“https://www.chinafile.com/library/nyrb-china-archive/my-responsibility-history-interview-zhang-shihe ”>My Responsibility to History</a>.
Chang, Jung

Chang, Jung

Jung Chang (1952- ) is a Chinese-British writer. Born in Yibin, Sichuan Province, Chang's maternal grandfather was Xue Zhiheng, a military general in the Nationalist government, and her father was the deputy propaganda minister in Sichuan. During the Cultural Revolution, Chung briefly joined the Red Guards, and worked as a farmer, in a sand foundry, and as an electrician. Her parents were later labeled capitalist roaders and persecuted because of her father's mild criticism of the Cultural Revolution. In 1973, Chang enrolled in the department of foreign languages of Sichuan University, where she stayed on to teach after graduation. In 1978, she was sponsored by the Chinese government to study linguistics at the University of York, where she received her PhD in 1979, making her the first Chinese mainlander to receive a doctoral degree from a British university since the CCP came to power. She has taught at SOAS University of London, where she is an honorary fellow. Chang is the author of a number of historical biographies influential in the West, including <i>Madame Sun Yat-sen</i> (co-authored with her husband Jon Halliday, 1986), a family autobiography <i>Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China</i> (1992), <i>Mao: the Unknown Story</i> (co-authored with Halliday, 2005), <i>Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China</i> (2013) and the story of the Soong sisters <i>Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister</i> (2019).
Xu Ping

Xu Ping

Wang Fuxing

Wang Fuxing

Wang Fuxing, a first-hand witness of the Cultural Revolution. When the Cultural Revolution broke out, Wang was a first-year student in the Department of History of Peking University. Wang's father had been labeled a Rightist in 1957, which made Wang a child of one of the Five Black Categories, which formed what was essentially a permanent underclass in Mao's China (the others were landlords, rich farmers, counter-revolutionaries, and bad elements). Wang actively participated in the Cultural Revolution and formed a group with his classmates to oppose the then-dominant theory that held that family origin determines the development of an individual. After graduating in 1970, he was sent to work in the countryside of Ding County, Hebei Province. A year later, he was assigned to work in the Propaganda Section of the Anguo County party committee, later to teach in the county high school, before moving to the United States. Wang has written and published <i>Rescuing Memory: Memoirs of a Peking University Student of the Cultural Revolution</i> and edited the book <i>Retrospect of Stormy Days: An Anthology of Peking University Students' Experiences in the Cultural Revolution</i>.
Yin Hongbiao

Yin Hongbiao

Yin Hongbiao (1951-), earned his bachelor’s degree from the Department of History of Jilin University, and a master's degree from the Department of International Politics of Peking University, where he majored in the relationship between the Communist International and the Chinese Revolution. He stayed at the university after graduation to teach, and obtained a doctoral degree. He later served as a professor at the School of International Studies of Peking University, and is now retired.  Yin's teaching and academic research areas include the history of the Chinese Communist Party and the history of the People's Republic of China, especially the history of the Cultural Revolution. His doctoral dissertation was on the Cultural Revolution, which was later expanded into a monograph Footprints of the Missing: Trends of Youth Thought During the Cultural Revolution. He has also published academic papers such as "The Main Factions of the Red Guard Movement" and "Social Contradictions in the Cultural Revolution."
Xun Guangming

Xun Guangming

Roderick Lemonde MacFarquhar

Roderick Lemonde MacFarquhar

Roderick Lemonde MacFarquhar (1930–2019), also known by his Chinese name Ma Ruode, was a British historian and political scholar, an expert on Chinese affairs, and a specialist in the history of the Cultural Revolution. He served as a professor in the Government Department at Harvard University. MacFarquhar was born in Lahore, British India (now part of Pakistan), to Sir Alexander MacFarquhar, a British diplomat. In 1953, he graduated from Keble College, Oxford University, with a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He continued his studies at Harvard University, earning a master's degree in Far Eastern Studies in 1955. In 1960, he founded The China Quarterly, an academic journal on Chinese politics and economics, published by Cambridge University. In 1974, he was elected to the British House of Commons as a Labour Party candidate but lost his seat in 1979 amidst the conservative wave led by Margaret Thatcher. He joined Harvard University as a faculty member. MacFarquhar was a senior scholar of the Cultural Revolution, renowned for his three-volume work <i>The Origins of the Cultural Revolution</i>, which is considered a classic in the field. His research not only focused on the violence and power struggles of the Cultural Revolution but also delved deeply into the elite factional struggles of Mao Zedong's era, exploring the political strategies and ideological motivations behind Mao's actions. In addition to this work, he co-authored <i>The Cambridge History of China</i>, Volume 15, <i>The People's Republic of China: Revolution Within the Revolution 1966-1982</i> (with John K. Fairbank), and <i>Mao Zedong's Last Revolution</i> (with <a href=”https://minjian-danganguan.org/s/china-unofficial/item/28”>Michael Schoenhals</a>). <a href=”https://cn.nytimes.com/obits/20190214/roderick-macfarquhar-dead/dual/”>In MacFarquhar's obituary published in the New York Times, his early student, China researcher Minxin Pei remarked</a>, "He was deeply interested in political purges, and the Cultural Revolution was one of the largest political purges in history. Unlike many historians who focused on the violence of the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, MacFarquhar concentrated on the factional struggles that began in the 1950s. He had also worked as a journalist and served as a member of the British Parliament in the 1970s, which helped him understand political operations. By focusing on Mao Zedong's brutal political maneuvers, MacFarquhar illuminated the leader's mindset and uncovered the disaster of the Cultural Revolution.” MacFarquhar's scholarly work significantly influenced understanding of contemporary Chinese politics. His books were translated into Chinese and circulated among unofficial historians, influencing contributors to samizdat Chinese publications, such as <i>Remembrance (记忆)</i>. He served as the director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University from 1986 to 1992 and again from 2005 to 2006. Under his leadership, the center attracted a wide range of individuals—from entrepreneurs and diplomats to journalists—who sought to understand China through debates and academic research. After the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, he welcomed Wang Dan, a leader of the student protest, to study at the Fairbank Center, providing a crucial platform for exiled Chinese scholars to research Chinese history and politics. MacFarquhar passed away on February 10, 2019, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the age of 88.
Wu Yongkuan

Wu Yongkuan

He Lan

He Lan

Shi Weimin

Shi Weimin

Pei Yiiran

Pei Yiiran

Pei Yiran (1954—), a native of Hangzhou, is a scholar and writer. During the Cultural Revolution, Pei worked in the northernmost China as a send-down youth. In 1978, he was admitted into the Department of Chinese Language and Literature of Heilongjiang University, and went to work in the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference after graduating in 1982. In 1984, Pei began to teach literature in the Zhejiang College of Political Science and Law. From 1986 to 2000, he served as a lecturer, and later an associate professor, in the Zhejiang Broadcasting and Television College, during which he earned a master degree from the Department of Chinese Language and Literature of Hangzhou University, as well as a doctorate from the same department of Fudan University. In 2000, Pei became a professor in the School of Humanities at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and later became vice dean of the School and head of the Department of Journalism. Pei faced suppression from authorities for writing and publishing articles and books critical of the CCP, and went into exile in the United States since 2017. He was a visiting scholar at the School of Historical Studies of Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and became an associate research fellow at the East Asian Institute at Columbia University in 2020. He also served as the ninth president of the Independent Chinese PEN Center from May 2020 to September 2022. Pei's research interests include Chinese literature, Chinese intellectuals, and twentieth-century Chinese history, and he has published a large number of books and academic papers, including *Choices and Explorations of Chinese Intellectuals*, *Red Life History - The Revolutionary Years (1921-1949)*, *Historical Evidence of the Red Disaster: Causes of the Great Famine*, and *Why Is This? – Causes of the “Right” Disaster*.
Wu Renhua

Wu Renhua

Wu Renhua (1956-) is a scholar of historical documents, a participant in the 1989 pro-democracy movement, which he has long studied.  Born in Pingyang County, Zhejiang Province, Wu was admitted to the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Peking University in 1977, majoring in Classical Chinese Literature, and received his bachelor's and master's degrees. In 1986, he was assigned to the Institute of Classical Legal Literature at the China University of Political Science and Law and worked as an assistant researcher and office director. During the 1989 pro-democracy movement, Wu was present throughout, participating in the organization of a special picket to maintain order and protect students, and witnessing the scene of tanks running over people. In February 1990, Wu swam from Zhuhai to Macao, and then took a fishing boat to Hong Kong under the arrangement of “Operation Yellowbird" (a Hong Kong-based operation to help Chinese dissidents escape arrest by facilitating their departure overseas via Hong Kong); on July 5, Wu arrived in the U.S.  From May 1991 to July 2005, Wu was the editor-in-chief of the Chinese newspaper *Press Freedom Herald*, founded by Chinese media workers living abroad. He was also a member of the China Democratic Solidarity League, a board member of Federation for a Democratic China, a board member of the *China Spring* magazine, and the secretary-general of the China Constitutional Reform Association. Over the years, Wu has been dedicated to collecting information on the 1989 pro-democracy movement, searching for and compiling names of those who were arrested, died and injured, participated in the rescue of the injured, and those who did the harm. He has written and published three books, *Tiananmen Massacre in 24 Hours*, 1*989 Martial Law Troops*, and *Major Events, Tiananmen 1989*, which provide a comprehensive record of the 1989 pro-democracy movement and the June 4 Tiananmen Square incident. Since 2018, Wu has settled in Taiwan. He was a visiting scholar at Soochow University and Chung Cheng University, where he offered courses on the June 4 Incident.
Liu Yuanchen

Liu Yuanchen

Liu Yuanchen (1987-) is a director and screenwriter. A native of Wuhan, Hubei Province, Liu graduated from the School of Journalism and Communication of Wuhan University in 2009, and then went to the United States to study journalism documentary at NYU's School of Journalism, where he received his master's degree in 2011. He then co-founded a film production company with two classmates in New York, where he worked as a producer and director of photography. His graduation project at NYU, the movie <i>To the Light</i>, tells the story of three coal miners and their families in eastern Sichuan.
Jiang Qisheng

Jiang Qisheng

Jiang Qisheng (November 5, 1948-), a native of Changshu, Jiangsu Province, is a writer and scholar. Jiang was a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution, after which he went to work as a farmer in the countryside. Jiang enrolled in the Beijing Aeronautics College in 1977, where he received his bachelor's and master's degrees in aerodynamics, and then taught at Tsinghua University from 1985 to 1988. He began his doctoral program in Philosophy of Science and Technology at the Renmin University of China in 1988. In 1989, Jiang participated in the student movement, serving as a member of the standing committee of the student dialogue delegation and the standing committee of the Renmin University autonomous student union. In September of that year, Jiang was detained in Qincheng Prison, released without charge in February 1991, and expelled from Renmin University in June. After his release, Jiang became a freelance writer and has been a contributing commentator for Radio Free Asia since 2006. Jiang has written numerous articles on human rights and social justice issues in China, and has been persecuted on several occasions. In May 1999, he was arrested and sentenced to four years' imprisonment for inciting subversion of state power, released in May 2003. Jiang is the author of several books including <i>Civilian Report on the Situation of June 4 Victims in China</i>, <i>Notes from the Detention Center</i>, and <i>Lighting the Candle of Conscience</i>.
Liang Zhiyuan

Liang Zhiyuan

Carma Hinton

Carma Hinton

Bao Pu

Bao Pu

Bao Pu runs New Century Press, a small but highly influential Hong Kong-based publishing house that specializes in works about Chinese politics that would be banned on the mainland. The son of Bao Tong, the well-known policy secretary to deposed Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang, the younger Mr. Bao participated in the 1989 Tiananmen protests, and then moved to the United States where he became a citizen and worked as a consultant. In 2001, he moved to Hong Kong, working first at a high-tech start-up. In 2005, he and his wife Renee Chiang founded New Century. The books Bao publishes tap into a vein of political writing that challenges orthodox interpretations of Chinese Communist history; they include the secret journal of Zhao Ziyang (translated as Prisoner of the State), and <a href="https://cn.nytimes.com/china/20150225/c25tiananmen">Xu Yong’s photos of the 1989 Tiananmen protests</a>.
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