For several years after the June 4, 1989 military crackdown crushed student-led protests at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, a group of Hong Kong supporters supplied more than HK$11 million to Chinese dissidents and pro-democracy activists. They gave to those in jail or exiled, helped dissidents start businesses to finance pro-democracy activities in mainland China, while a big chunk went towards the secret Operation Yellow Bird, which smuggled about 150 dissidents out of China. The Hong Kong Federation of Students paid for all this from a kitty of about HK$12 million raised in 1989 from Hongkongers who supported the pro-democracy protests in Beijing. Among those who received help was dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 and died in custody seven years later. Richard Tsoi Yiu-cheong, former chairman of the federation’s Foundation for China’s Democracy, has kept a detailed record of the sums handed out in secret over the years. In 1997, when Britain handed Hong Kong back to China, he took the records to Canada and left them there for safekeeping until 2011. “I was concerned about the risks of keeping the documents in Hong Kong,” he said. “These are precious documents of the pro-democracy movement and will be put on display at the June 4 museum which has reopened in Mong Kok.” Tsoi, 51, is a community organiser and vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which organises the annual candlelight vigil at Victoria Park to remember those killed in the crackdown. He was a student at Chinese University in 1989. Why China stands by Tiananmen crackdown, 30 years on Cheung Man-kwong, an alliance committee member since its founding in May 1989, said: “The federation enjoyed the trust of the public at the time and people across the political spectrum supported the student protesters in Beijing. The federation’s role in supporting China’s democracy movement since 1989 is indelible in history.” Tsoi said that between 1989 and 1996, the foundation spent HK$3.5 million to help more than 40 mainland Chinese students and intellectuals flee China. Among those smuggled out by Operation Yellow Bird were protest leaders Wuer Kaixi and Chai Ling. The foundation also handed out hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong dollars in humanitarian assistance to mainland dissidents including Liu Xiaobo and Liu Gang, as well as the families of those killed during the crackdown. Why June 4 still casts shadow over Hong Kong politics 30 years on Tsoi said that in 1991 he handed several thousand dollars to Wang Shengli and Liao Jiaan, graduate students at Beijing’s Renmin University, to fund underground magazines circulating among universities in the Chinese capital. The pair, who were involved in founding the underground China Progressive Alliance in the early 1990s, were arrested in 1992 for “counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement”. Wang and Liao were students of linguistics professor Jiang Peikun who, together with his wife Ding Zilin, founded the Tiananmen Mothers group after their only child, Jiang Jielian, 17, was shot dead during the crackdown. On a visit to the United States in 1994, Tsoi met Wang Juntao, a mainland Chinese intellectual who had recently arrived to start his life in exile. Now 60 and living in New York, Wang had been accused of being one of the “black hands” behind the pro-democracy movement of 1989 and was sentenced to 13 years in jail. He served nearly five years before being released in 1994 on medical grounds, following international pressure on China to free him. “Wang asked the foundation to provide funding for a group of mainland intellectuals to start companies to help sustain the democracy movement in China,” Tsoi said. The following year, the foundation approved sending HK$560,000 to the dissidents to conduct research and start a law firm on the mainland. “We also approved HK$450,000 as an investment fund for a company set up by those intellectuals,” said Tsoi. “We later sent HK$500,000 to those intellectuals and the work done included a signature campaign for political reform spearheaded by Liu Xiaobo. Our conscience would not allow us to let others shoulder the responsibility and go to jail Wang Juntao “But the plan to set up companies and do research was subsequently aborted, probably because of suppression by mainland authorities.” Wang Juntao said that after several intellectuals were arrested by mainland authorities, they decided setting up such groups would not work. The cost of sweeping the Tiananmen crackdown under the carpet “Our conscience would not allow us to let others shoulder the responsibility and go to jail,” Wang told a seminar in Taipei on May 19. Cheung Man-kwong said the financial assistance from the foundation made a huge difference in the years after the 1989 crackdown. “It’s good that the details of its deeds are made known, to highlight the contribution of the federation in those difficult times towards China’s pro-democracy movement,” he said. Additional reporting by Lawrence Chung in Taipei