Twenty years have passed since the Tiananmen crackdown, and Wang Dan is almost the sole remaining guardian of the Goddess of Democracy, the statue at the heart of the student protests.
'I've never considered myself the leader of the democracy movement,' said Dr Wang, who earned a PhD in history and East Asian languages from Harvard University last month. 'But I've never given up my ideals just because there are so few people willing to devote themselves to opposition movements.'
The 40-year-old from Shandong was at the top of Beijing's most-wanted list after the crackdown. The Peking University student was arrested in 1990 and sentenced to four years in prison in 1991. He was rearrested for 'subversion' after his release in 1995 and sentenced to 11 years in jail. He was released on medical parole in 1998, and went into exile in the United States. In September, he will be a visiting scholar at Taiwan's National Chengchi University.
'As a history scholar, I believe the government's attempt to erase the June 4 Tiananmen incident has been a disaster for our new generations,' he said. 'It is terrible to deny a nation the truth about its history. This phenomenon makes us wonder how young people can still accept this government.'
Dr Wang said there were some positives to emerge from the wreckage of the student movement - chiefly, a loss of faith in the government's ability to achieve political reform.
'The cruel crackdown has awakened the Chinese people to the fact even open-minded leaders like Deng Xiaoping would choose to shoot people when facing problems,' he said. 'Such disillusion has distanced the people from the government. They aren't prepared to gamble on it [the government achieving reforms], which I believe will benefit social development.'