Tiananmen protest student leader Wang Dan plans China think tank
Dissident to return to US from Taiwan to promote democracy in policy change on the mainland
Former Tiananmen protest leader Wang Dan said he planned to set up a think tank calling for policy change and democracy in China when he returned to the United States later this year, but still hoped to return to his homeland one day.
Wang said he would leave his teaching positions in Taiwan and return to the US in June to “advocate human rights and democracy” on the mainland, in a video post on his Facebook page.
“Of course I still hope to return to China one day,” Wang said in a reply to a question from the South China Morning Post. “The changes I hope to advocate can only happen from within China.”
The exiled student leader, now 47, was jailed after the Chinese Communist Party cracked down on tens of thousands of university students and other protesters who demanded democracy and an end to corruption in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989.
After spending more than six years in prison, the government permitted him to go to the US on medical parole where he stayed until he started teaching politics and history at different Taiwanese universities in 2009.