Wuerkaixi (1968– )

Chinese dissident, one of the leading figures in the May–June 1989 pro-democracy movement that was crushed in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. He was a second-year student at Beijing Normal University when he became caught up in the student-led pro-democracy demonstrations. He left Tiananmen Square on 27 May 1989, but returned on 3rd June for the dénouement of the crisis. Following the Red Army crackdown, he escaped Beijing on 4th June, via the ‘underground railway’ to Hong Kong and later moved to Paris.

Outspoken and brusque when he came into contact with the hard-line communist premier Li Peng, Wuerkaixi was one of the most charismatic and radical of the student leaders.

In Paris, in September 1989, he was elected vice chair of the Federation for a Democratic China, which sought to unite the various exiled pro-democracy bodies. Wuerkaixi later studied at Harvard University, but lost his place and became a teacher in the USA.

He came from the predominantly Muslim autonomous region of Xinjiang Uighur.