Controversial student leader talks of reconciliation with Liu Xiaobo before June 4
Chai Ling, known as 'commander-in-chief' of the student protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, was fourth on the 21 most wanted list after the crackdown, and a controversial figure in the movement.
'For the past 20 years I have been searching for an answer,' she said. 'On June 3, when I heard machine guns and saw tanks roll in, I felt so much pain.
'For all these years, I've had this survivor's guilt. I blamed myself - why couldn't we foresee that there would be a massacre? How come I lived and so many died?'
She and her then husband, Feng Congde, went into hiding for 10 months before fleeing to Paris. She later moved to the United States, where she now operates a software business.
Chai was accused of advocating that students remain in Tiananmen Square to continue the face-off with the central government, while intellectuals such as Liu Xiaobo were admonishing them to leave. The People's Liberation Army opened fire on the night of June 3, killing hundreds, or thousands, around the city. Liu and other intellectuals negotiated with the army for a peaceful exit of students from the square in the early hours of June 4.
Some hold students such as Chai responsible for not leaving the square earlier and have said they were not qualified to be present at the Nobel ceremony to share Liu's glory.
But Chai said Liu and the students reconciled in the final hours on the square. 'In the last hours, Liu Xiaobo went to help negotiate the withdrawal,' Chai said. 'He came back ... and said if we left before a certain hour the military wouldn't come to crack down on the students.' Then the student leaders passed a verbal vote and agreed to withdraw from the square, she said.
'Liu gave me a hug and said: 'Chai Ling, I finally understand you and the students now.' That was really a beautiful moment,' she said. 'I felt those were the moments of true unity between the students and the intellectuals.'
Chai has also been accused of advocating bloodshed. A week before the crackdown, Chai told a foreign journalist in an interview that 'only when the square is awash with blood will the people of China open their eyes'.
'When I said 'blood flowing like a river', it was just a poetic expression,' she said. 'At the time nobody thought there really would be a massacre.
'Our mentality was that whatever was going to happen we wanted it to happen under broad daylight.'
Chai said that for years after the crackdown she felt depressed and hopeless about why good could not overcome evil, but Christianity had changed her outlook. 'After believing in God, I can see the victory of God.
'Bit by bit, I can see God's plan working in China ... it will be freed.'
Chai said that her life mission now was her charity work. Her company last year pledged to donate US$1 million to Tiananmen victims and to promote humanitarian activities on the mainland. She also recently founded an advocacy group opposing forced abortions on the mainland.
