Wu'er Kaixi is an outspoken pro-democracy activist and one of the most prominent student leaders of China's 1989 Tiananmen Square movement. An ethnic Uyghur born in Beijing in 1968, he helped found an independent student union at Beijing Normal University and became a leading voice in the spring 1989 protests. He publicly rebuked Premier Li Peng in a nationally televised meeting that May, becoming a household name across China. After the June 4 crackdown, he was placed second on the government's most-wanted list and escaped through Hong Kong under Operation Yellowbird, living in France and the US before settling in Taiwan in 1996. From exile, he has continued as a political commentator and human rights advocate, today advancing the cause of democracy through his work with the Federation for a Democratic China.
