by Ian Buruma
YUAN ZHIMING: Co-author of River Elegy, Yuan supported the students in 1989, and later fled to the U.S. where he was converted to Christianity. He hopes to convert his native country to the Christian faith.
XIE XUANJUN: Co-author of River Elegy, he lives in the U.S., where he is a devout Christian.
XIAO QIANG: A former student of Fang Lizhi in China, Xiao runs the Human Rights in China organization in New York City.
LIU QING: A prominent activist, together with Wei Jingsheng, during the Democracy Wall period in 1978 and 1979. He published the court transcripts of Wei’s first trial in 1979. After many years in prison, he went to the U.S., where he works for Human Rights in China.
YAN JIAQI: A reformist intellectual who advised Party general-secretary Zhao Ziyang, Yan became the first director of the Institute of Political Science in 1985. In 1989, he became a radical supporter of the student demonstrations, and was forced to flee after June 4. He lives in New York City.
HARRY WU: After spending nineteen years in forced-labor camps for being a “rightist,” Wu went to the U.S., where he is actively trying to expose the conditions in the Chinese gulag.
RICHARD LI: Former science teacher in China, now a cyberspace activist who puts together a dissident website from Washington, D.C.
YANG LIAN: Member of the “Misty Poets” group in Beijing during the early 1980s, he left China before 1989 and now lives in London.
DAI QING: Journalist and historian. Though not living in exile, she spends much time abroad. While critical of the Communist government, she is also known for her harsh line on the “radical” student leaders in 1989.
POLITICIANS
DENG XIAOPING: Paramount leader of China from 1978 until he died in 1997. A liberal reformer in economics, he took a harder political line. Deng decided to crack down on the 1989 student movement.
ZHAO ZIYANG: Party general-secretary in 1989, he was ousted from his post and put under house arrest for being too sympathetic to the students. Zhao was never a democrat, but he played a major role in liberalizing the economy. Unlike his boss, he was in favor of talking to the student activists to reach what he called a “democratic” solution.
HU YAOBANG: A reformist Party general-secretary before Zhao, he was removed from his leadership role in 1987 for not opposing “bourgeois liberalism” with enough vigor. His death in 1989 sparked the student demonstrations.
LI PENG: Prime minister in 1989, blamed by many for the killings. A conservative Communist apparatchik, he persuaded Deng to crush the Tiananmen demonstrations with force.
JIANG ZEMIN: He was promoted just before June 4 from Party secretary in Shanghai to Party general-secretary. Not as hard-line as Li Peng, he was nevertheless regarded by Party conservatives as a safe pair of hands.
SINGAPORE
LEE KUAN YEW: Former prime minister, now senior minister of Singapore.
CHIA THYE POH: Former Socialist member of Parliament. He was a political prisoner, accused of being a Communist, from 1963 till 1989. He now lives a quiet life as a researcher of developmental economics.
CHEE SOON JUAN: Leader of the Singapore Democratic Party. He sacrificed his career as a neuropsychologist to engage in politics.
TEO SOH LUNG: A lawyer, accused in 1987 of being involved in a “Marxist conspiracy to overthrow the government.”
PATRICK SEONG: Lawyer who took up the cases of Catholic social workers in 1987, accused of being part of the “Marxist conspiracy.” He was detained along with them.
J. B. JEYARETNAM: Leader of the Workers’ Party. In 1981, he was the first opposition politician to win a parliamentary election since 1965. He has been hounded by the PAP government ever since.
TAIWAN
YU TENG-FA: Political patriarch in Kaohsiung County. Sided with the opposition to the KMT in the 1970s. He died under mysterious circumstances in 1989.
YU CHEN YUEH-YING: Yu Teng-fa’s daughter-in-law, who became the leading non-KMT boss in Kaohsiung County in the 1980s and early 1990s.
YU JENG-DAO: Successful candidate in Kaohsiung County for the DPP. Son of Yu Chen Yueh-ying.
CHEN SHUI-BIAN: Longtime opposition activist, elected first as DPP mayor of Taipei, then, in 2000, president.
“BEN” WEI RUI-MING: Activist, who returned from exile in the U.S. in 1994 to help Peng Ming-min in the first free presidential elections in 1996.
KATHY WEI: Ben Wei’s daughter.
CHIANG KAI-SHEK: Loser of the civil war in China. After 1949, the first president of the Republic of China on Taiwan.
CHIANG CHING-KUO: Chiang Kai-shek’s son, former security chief, premier of the ROC from 1972 to 1978 and president from 1978 until his death in 1988.
“MARK” CHEN TAN-SUN: Independence activist, returned from exile in the U.S. in 1994, and elected mayor of Tainan County.
“PETER” HUANG WEN-HSIUNG: The man who tried to assassinate Chiang Ching-kuo in 1970. He is now the director of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights in Taipei.
BO YANG: Writer, born in mainland China in 1920, moved to Taiwan in the late 1940s. He was arrested in 1967 for “defaming the leadership.” His most famous book is The Ugly Chinaman.
SHIH MING-TEH: The main organizer of the Kaohsiung Incident in 1978. A political prisoner between 1962 and 1977, he is now a DPP senator in Taipei.
“ANNETTE” LU HSIU-LIEN: Famous feminist and political activist. Jailed after the Kaohsiung Incident. Elected vice-president in 2000.
HONG KONG
MARTIN LEE: Barrister and legislator. Leader of the Democratic Party.
SZETO WAH: Leader of the Democratic Party. Founder in 1989 of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movement in China.
TUNG CHEE-HWA: Shipping tycoon who became chief executive in 1997.
EMILY LAU: Former journalist, democratic activist, and legislator for the Frontier Party. She is the most popular politician in Hong Kong.
LAU SAN-CHING: Trotskyite who tried to help Wang Xizhe and other activists in China build “real socialism” during the 1970s. Arrested in 1981, he spent ten years in prison. He is now a Democratic Party candidate for the Hong Kong legislature.
HAN DONGFANG: Founder in 1989 of the first independent workers’ federation on Tiananmen Square, he was jailed until 1992, when he was released on medical grounds. He became a Christian in the U.S. A citizen of Hong Kong, he now hosts a call-in radio show for Radio Free Asia, aimed at workers in China.
THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
HE QINGLIAN: Journalist of the Shenzhen Legal Daily and author of the bestselling Pitfalls of Modernization, she was forbidden to publish anymore in 2000.
ZHOU LITAI: Lawyer in Shenzhen, specializing in cases of victims of industrial accidents.
CHEN YIYANG: One of the authors of the 1974 Li Yi Zhe manifesto, calling for democratic socialism in China. Gong Xiaoxia’s first boyfriend; currently working as a librarian in Guangzhou.
LI HONGZHI: Founder of the Falun Gong, now living in the U.S.
DING ZILIN: Professor at Beijing University who started a movement to record the names of victims of the 1989 Beijing Massacre.
SU BINGXIAN: The mother of Su Zhaolong, one of the victims of the Beijing Massacre in 1989.
BAO TONG: Secretary of Zhao Ziyang and leading economic reformer. Accused of leaking plans of the government crackdown to the students in May 1989, he was sentenced to seven years in prison. He is still under house arrest in Beijing.
Acknowledgments
I cannot, alas, mention everyone who helped me with this book. Most people in the People’s Republic of China will have to remain anonymous until times change for the better.
Without the help of Dimon Liu, Perry Link, and Gong Xiaoxia, I would hardly have known where to begin. Jason Epstein was there from start to finish, as a friend, and as the finest editor I could have hoped for. Richard Nations offered his thoughts, companionship, and hospitality in Hong Kong. Robin Munro did the same in London and Hong Kong. In Beijing and Washington, D.C., Da
i Qing was a most generous guide, interlocutor, interviewee, colleague, and friend.
Wang Juntao, Hu Ping, David Welcker, Tong Yi, Margaret Scott, David Rieff, Carma Hinton, Richard Gordon, Xiao Qiang, Merle Goldman, Christopher Hitchens, Carol Blue, Barbara Epstein, Roderick MacFarquhar, Susan Sontag, Li Hong-kuan, Yan Yunxiang, Ge Yang, Smarlo Ma, Judy Chen, Andrew Nathan, Richard Wich, Lyman Miller, Ramon Myers, Bei Ling, Cheng Xiaonong, Reuel Gerecht, Diane Zeleny, Nancy Hearst, and Leon Wieseltier all helped me in various ways during my stay in the U.S.
A scholarship from the invaluable Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars enabled me to do my research in the perfect environment. I owe special thanks to Warren Cohen, Robert Hathaway, and Mary-Lea Cox. The Alistair Horne Fellowship at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, provided precious time and space in Britain.
Mary Lee and Gopal Baratham were enormously helpful in Singapore. Gopal was also kind enough to read parts of my manuscript. Others who made my trip to Singapore a stimulating pleasure include Philip Jeyaretnam, David Martin-Jones, Lena Lim, Wang Gungwu, and Kwong Yuen-chung.
In Taiwan I would like to thank Antonio Chiang, Chen Tsai-tung, Julian Baum, Kathy Wei, Richard Vuylstek, Dirk Bennett, Matei Mihalca, Hu Ching-fang, Yang Ze, Hsu Lu, H. C. Chen, Stephen Lee, Su Tzen-ping, Chang Fu-mei, and Sisy Chen.
Liu Kinming was invariably generous with his help in Hong Kong, as were Christine Loh, Emily Lau, Jimmy Lai, Johnson Chang, John Minford, Harvey Stockwin, Frank Lu, and Sophia Woodman.
Others who smoothed my passage on the road were Geremie Barmé, Mia Turner, Fang Lizhu, Leonardo Griglie, Ying Ma, Kate Saunders, Jonathan Napack, Koh Siew-eng, and Li Feifei. And it is hard to imagine how I could have finished my book without the inspiring company of Yang Lian, You You, Huang Bao-lian, Tsering Shakya, Jonathan Mirsky, Tong Yi, and Wang Chaohua, who were unfailingly helpful and generous with their time.
With Andrew Wylie, Jin Auh, Rose Billington, and Sarah Chalfant of the Wylie Agency I always knew I was in the friendliest of professional hands. I am grateful to Robert Silvers of The New York Review of Books for being the most encouraging and stimulating editor in the English-speaking world. Commissions from him, as well as from David Remnick of The New Yorker, Kyle Crighton of The New York Times Magazine, and Sheila Glaser of Travel and Leisure, enabled me to travel and produce some of the material that appears in a revised form in this book. Finally, a special thanks to Jason Epstein’s efficient assistant, Judy Sternlight, and the fine copy editor Veronica Windholz.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ian Buruma studied Chinese in the Netherlands and cinema in Japan. He has spent many years in Asia, which he has written about in God’s Dust, Behind the Mask, and The Missionary and the Libertine. He has also written Playing the Game, The Wages of Guilt, and Anglomania. Buruma lives in London and writes for The New York Review of Books and The New York Times Magazine, as well as other publications.
ALSO BY IAN BURUMA
NONFICTION
The Missionary and the Libertine: Love and War in East and West
Anglomania: A European Love Affair
A Japanese Mirror: Heroes and Villains of Japanese Culture
God’s Dust: A Modern Asian Journey
The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan
FICTION
Playing the Game
Copyright © 2001 by Ian Buruma
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York.
RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Buruma, Ian.
Bad elements: Chinese rebels from Los Angeles to Beijing / Ian Buruma.—
p. cm.
1. China—Politics and government—1976– 2. Dissenters—China. 3. Human rights—China. I. Title.
DS779.26 .B864 2001 951.05′7—dc21 2001019365
Random House website address: www.atrandom.com
eISBN: 978-1-40003-332-4
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