THE leaders of the 1979 Democracy Wall movement and the 1989 student movement have come face-to-face for the first time in Beijing. Wang Dan, widely considered to be the brains behind the 1989 student movement paid an impromptu visit to the home of China's best-known dissident Wei Jingsheng on Thursday evening. Wang was only nine-years-old when Wei was arrested in the spring of 1979 for writing articles critical of senior leader Deng Xiaoping. But Wei became a cause celebre of the student movement 10 years later and demands for his release became one of the focal points of early demonstrations Wang helped organise. The former Beijing University student has publicly voiced his admiration for Wei and, after hearing that Wei had been released, was one of the first to arrive at the family's apartment last week. Wei, however, was kept away from his parents' home for a week and has been besieged by journalists in the days following his return. Wang turned up at the apartment, accompanied by Beijing-based literary critic Liu Xiaobo, at about 8 pm and the three men talked for about an hour about the situation in the capital. ''I just wanted to see him because I think he is a great guy and see how his health was,'' Wang said yesterday. Wang left copies of articles he had written with Wei. Although Wei professed himself a little surprised how young Wang, 20 years his junior, actually was, his initial impression of the former history major was favourable. ''He's quite an intelligent child,'' Wei said, ''his mind is still relatively pure''.
