Wang Dan

 Wang Dan was the main leader in the protests and hunger strikes that took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989. After the massacre, he became the most wanted man in China, because he was so prominent in the Tiananmen Square protests. He never fled China like the others; he saw that as admitting defeat. Instead, he went in to hiding. He got arrested in July of 1989, and was sentenced to 4 years of imprisonment. He got really sick, and was sent to the states and has been staying there ever since. He was nominated for the nobel peace prize. 

Wei Jingsheng

Wei Jingsheng shares his experience of the protests within the film and explains how China can become a democratic society. He also tells of how the student leaders were sometimes doing things the wrong way and how the years of imprisonment have helped him rethink and thoroughly understand what he had done.
Wei was transferred to a labour camp in Qinghai where he protested about the conditions of his imprisonment and achieved some improvements such as access to books, magazines and newspapers and a colour television set. On the 14th od September, 1993, He was released from prison as a political gesture to persuade the International Olympic Committee to vote for China to host the 2000 Olympic Games. However, this action was useless and China lost to Australia. Wei is thrown into jail for another 14 years for trying to ‘overthrow the government’ on the 21st of November, 1995 and has his political rights taken for three years. During this imprisonment, Wei is awarded with the Olof Palm Prize for 1994, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Though and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Human Rights Award. In the winter of 1997, he is deported to the US with Wang Dan. During 1998, He founds the OCDC and is presented with the Democracy Award by the National Endowment for Democracy. Wei is referred to as the ‘Chinese Mandela’ and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize at least seven times since 1993. Nowadays, Wei continues to attempt to achieve human rights and democracy in China and is the chairman of the OCDC and the president of the Wei Jingsheng Foundation.

Wang Chaohua

Chaohua Wang was one of the key organisers of the protests. She was able to escape to Los Angeles while many of her friends were killed.
After going into hiding, Wang escaped to Los Angeles, leaving her six year old son behind. In LA, she worked as a cleaner while learning English to enrol in UCLA and began writing political essays on her own website. Soon, she received her MA and PHD degrees. Since leaving the mainland, the closest she has been to Communist China was at the Hong Kong International Airport where, in 2004, she met her son again. She is now an accomplished writer and editor living in Los Angeles with a second home in North London.

Wu'er Kaixi

Wu’er Kaixi’s role in the film was one of the most outspoken student leaders. He met with Premier Li Peng in May 1989 where he interrupted Li’s introduction stating that there are people being hungry in the square while Li was exchanging pleasantries. He also stated how Li was too late but was glad that he had come at all.
After the crackdown on the 4th of June, 1989, Wu’er Kaixi became the second most wanted out of the student leaders and was forced to flee to France. He then went to study at Harvard but was unable to graduate. He started in a family in Taiwan afterwards and continues to live there now. Kaixi has been the CEO of an internet Chinese article company, the vice general manager of a broadcasting company, COO of an internet incubation company and the co-founder of a multi-media management software company. Right now, he is running a Taiwan based Asia Pacific operation. On the 3rd of June, 2009, he went to Macau to turn himself in to Chinese authorities but was deported back to Taiwan. This year, he was arrested by the Tokyo police for forcing into the Chinese Embassy to turn himself in, in order to have a chat with the authorities of China. He was released in 48 hours without charge. Now he is still the 2nd most wanted student leader and currently resides in Taiwan, although he would like to return to the mainland to make things clear with the government.

Chai Ling - Then and Now

Chai Ling organized many of the hunger strikes and demonstrations that took place in Tiananmen Square during the protests of 1989. After the shoot out on June 4^th 1989, she fled the country for Paris, and from there was accepted with a full scholarship to Princeton University in the USA. She earned an honorary Masters degree in Political Science from there. She acquired an MBA at Harvard Business School in 1998. Since the making of the documentary “Moving the Mountain”, she now co-runs a software company entitled Jenzabar, with her husband, and is based in Boston, Massachusetts. She also started a nonprofit organization entitled “All Girls Allowed” which is aimed at exposing and stopping the human rights violations caused by the One Child policy in China. She has now been nominated for the Nobel Peace Price twice.

Li Lu - Then and Now

Li Lu - At the age of 19, Li Lu part took in a revolutionary event in Chinese history, the Tiananmen Square incident. He was not one of the bigger leaders, but he did lead part of the movement, which earned him a number 14 spot on the Beijing most wanted list. Since the making of the movie “Moving the Mountain”, Li Lu has gone on to even bigger and better things. Now, he is now at the top of the financial industry. He is preparing to become one of the top investment managers in Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio once Warren buffet steps down. 

Tiananmen Article

Being the leader of the People’s Republic of China is not a piece of cake, and when events like the Incident happen, it makes my job even worse.
I understand the student’s plea for democracy as many socialist governments such as Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria had collapsed and they were certain that corruption was present within the system. But the truth is that our country is strong and will never collapse as a Communist state and corruption is something that has never and will never happen.
Internationally, my reputation is being lowered due to this Incident. The Soviet Union claims that 10,000 people are dead. That is outrageous and unacceptable as a figure as we had ceased fire right after negotiations. There were only a total of 241 deaths, including the heroic soldiers who had lost their lives to rampaging students.
This may be a black spot in my life, but I am known as a great Marxist, great Proletarian Revolutionary, statesman, military strategist, and diplomat not for this but rather for my success in economically opening China to allow trade and manufacturing. I have opened up the door to China for outsiders, have great relations with the USA and the Soviet Union, and have also signed the agreement to revert Hong Kong and Macau to Chinese sovereignty. But people do not see the great achievements I have made, instead, they find every little flaw in me and aggressively protest. To err is human, and may I say, I am quite human.
Although I have ordered the clearing of the Square, the sole reason I have done this is because the students have gone overboard. If somebody must be blamed, it should be the students because they are the root of their own deaths. Hopefully someday, people will begin to see the greater picture in my point of view.


- Deng Xiaoping