Tiananmen leader Zhou Fengsuo vows solidarity after secret China trip

A top leader of the Tiananmen Square protests said he found that the movement’s message resonated more than ever after he slipped into China to mark the 25th anniversary quietly.

Zhou Fengsuo had been number five on the government’s wanted list as it crushed the student-led pro-democracy protests on June 3-4, 1989. Like most leaders at Tiananmen Square, he lives in exile with no prospect of returning back legally.

To his own surprise, Zhou said that he managed to return briefly for last week’s anniversary of the crackdown even though Beijing took extraordinary measures to prevent public observances. Now a US citizen, Zhou said he took advantage of China’s policy of allowing 72-hour transit stops without a visa.

Zhou said he commemorated the bloodshed by driving with a friend in a loop around Tiananmen Square where he said he saw at least 10 groups of police. He resisted the temptation to carry out a public protest, knowing he would be quickly muzzled.

“If I couldn’t hold back my emotion, I may have just jumped out of the car to shout, but then I would be gone in a minute,” Zhou said on Monday after his return to San Francisco.

But Zhou said he saw small signs of mourning. At Tsinghua University, where Zhou studied physics, he snapped a picture of white flowers laid at what had been a monument to the Tiananmen dead. Inside the square itself, Zhou saw people dressed in black in what he interpreted as a protest.

China’s leaders have tried to stamp out memories of the uprising, with many young people unfamiliar with the mass movement. Troops killed hundreds of unarmed civilians, with some estimates putting the death toll at more than 1,000.