Wuer Kaixi
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Wú'ěrkāixī (Traditional Chinese:吾爾開希; Uyghur: ئۆركەش دۆلەت Örkesh Dölet; 1968–) rose to fame as a Uyghur student leader in the Tiananmen protests of 1989. He achieved prominence while studying at Beijing Normal University as a hunger striker who rebuked the Chinese Premier, Li Peng, on national television.
He fled to France and then studied at Harvard University in the United States. Afterward he emigrated to Taiwan, where he has started a family and continues to host radio programs. He also appears frequently on television programmes as a political commentator, who supports the idea of "One China Under Democracy" (that is, the reunification of mainland China and Taiwan under a democratic political system, which has been touted by the Pan-Blue Coalition in the past). He reportedly expressed his hope of taking part in Legislative Yuan elections as a representative of Kuomintang, but was not nominated as one of the party's candidates.
One of the earliest student leaders to flee from China, he has earned the nickname "Wu'er Kailiu (吾爾開溜)", with "kailiu" meaning "to sneak off" in Chinese (as "Kaixi" means "to open hope").
Wuerkaixi enjoyed a great popularity in China. During the night of the protest, he successfully prevented a greater number of students from dying in Tiananmen Square by negotiating with the army commander, thereby preventing the situation from further escalating. The other protest leader, Chai Ling, indirectly caused unnecessary casualties by asking her follow protesters to stay and stand against army's tanks and APCs. (Later, she left her fellow protesters behind and fled abroad.)[citation needed]
[edit] External links
- Witnessing Tiananmen: Student talks fail - BBC interview
