In 1989, Wang Dan was one of the two principal student leaders who led the Tiananmen Square protest.
Following the massacre that suppressed the student-led protests, Wang become the most wanted man in China. After being arrested, he was incarcerated in Beijing’s notorious Qincheng Prison on and off for more than seven years. Finally, he was permanently exiled from China and came to live in the United States. Here he earned master’s and doctorate degrees in history from Harvard and began a teaching career in Chinese political history.
Several years ago, Wang launched a think tank in Washington called “Dialog China.” He has written more than 20 monographs about his experiences dealing with Chinese authorities and recently published a new book, his first in English, titled “The Fifty Questions on China.”
To introduce Wang to the college community, William & Mary’s Global Research Institute is organizing a talk by him at 5 p.m. on Sept. 26 at the Tucker Hall theater. The free talk will be followed by a reception and book signing and is open to the public.
Wang, who also visited William & Mary in 2019, is known not just as a very level-headed scholar of Chinese history, but also as someone who lived through the various upheavals of Communist China’s political landscape.
“I want to tell students at William & Mary who are interested in China that China is a very complex country, where seemingly contradictory phenomena coexist,” he said in an interview with The Gazette. “This makes it difficult to understand China correctly. It is important to listen to the voices of ordinary Chinese people. If you visit China, you should know that not only is the government’s narrative unreliable, but ordinary people often have to tell lies.”
Wang casts a skeptical eye on how the U.S.-China relationship is viewed.
“Currently the situation is that the U.S. hopes to treat China as a competitor, but the Chinese government continually tells its people that the U.S. is China’s enemy,” he said. “More importantly, the Chinese Communist Party is trying to export its political governance model worldwide, including the U.S.
“In this context, saying that the U.S. and China can compete is self-deception. The premise of competition is that both sides must follow the rules, but the CCP does not abide by the rules.”
I asked Wang, what changes would have taken place in China if Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader, had not approved the military intervention and the massacre at Tiananmen?
“If the CCP had not suppressed the protests and had accepted the students’ demands, China would likely have begun political reforms in 1989,” he said. “If that had happened, not only would society be more stable, but economic development would be healthier. The former because the abuse of power by officials would have been curbed, and the latter because less corruption would result in a fairer distribution of wealth.”
I asked him, what does the reaction of the United States — and the West — to the Tiananmen Square massacre tell him about how democracies respond to actions by dictatorial regimes?
“In 1989, when the Tiananmen Square massacre happened the whole world condemned and sanctioned China,” he responded. “However Deng Xiaoping’s CCP group kept spreading the narrative that China’s reforms would not stop. Western countries were deceived into lifting the sanctions. Today, not only has China not continued the reforms, but actually regressed. This is a big lesson, showing (you can) never believe the promises of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Although the Chinese Communist Party’s rule is often described as pervasive, there are lapses.
According to Wang, after the Tiananmen Square massacre, the government issued a nationwide warrant for the arrest of 21 student leaders. Wang was listed as the No. 1 most wanted. However, the warrant was riddled with errors. His personal information was full of inaccuracies. He was 20 years old at the time, but listed as 24 years old. The warrant said he was from Shandong, but he was from Jilin.
When arrested, Wang firmly denied that he was the person listed on the warrant. Nevertheless, he spent seven years in prison.
Frank Shatz is a Williamsburg resident. He is the author of “Reports from a Distant Place,” the compilation of his selected columns. The book is available at the Bruton Parish Shop and Amazon.com.
