NEW GANG IN TOWN

If Mao Zedong had a “gang of four” to lead his Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, there is a new “gang of four” in action in Taiwan, challenging the legitimacy and human rights record of the Chinese government. They are Wuér Kaixi, a Tiananmen Square massacre survivor from Xinjiang; Lam Wing-kee, a bookseller from Hong Kong; Kelsang Gyaltsen, the Tibetan representative in Taiwan; and  Lee Ming-che, a Taiwanese activist who was jailed for five years in China. During Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, she met with members of the “gang”, showing the importance of the geopolitical hotspots represented by them. The four activists briefly shared their experiences with THE WEEK.

- NAMRATA BIJI AHUJA

Wuér Kaixi, Tiananmen Square massacre survivor

When I met Speaker Nancy Pelosi, I gave her chocolates. She loves chocolates. The chocolates were made by connoisseur Wu Kui Ni, who won four gold medals at the International Chocolate Awards (Asia Pacific) competition. I have met Pelosi at least two dozen times, but our latest meeting in Taiwan was a message to Chinese President Xi Jinping that democracy can never be defeated and that the US continued to support Taiwan. During the meeting, we talked about human rights violations in Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang.

I belong to the Uyghur heritage and my parents worked in China as translators. They were not working for the Communist Party, but everything was controlled by the CCP back then. In the 1980s, the Chinese people, especially the students, thought that the CCP was committed to making China an open society and they wanted to nudge the party in that direction. But when they went out to the Tiananmen Square in 1989, the true nature of the CCP was revealed. The party wanted power, but not reforms, and responded with military suppression. I managed to escape somehow, and I was put as number two on the CCP’s most wanted students’ list.

I escaped to Hong Kong and then to Europe and the US, before moving to Taiwan in 1996. I was distraught when China arrested Liu Xiaobo, a prominent intellectual and my mentor throughout the student movement. He was sent to jail in 2008 for challenging the CCP rule. Hearing that, I tried to turn myself in, yet I was not arrested. In 2010, Liu became the first Chinese citizen to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but it was tragic that he remained a prisoner till his death in 2017.