Feng Congde

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Feng Congde 封 从 德 at Tiananmen University for Democracy

Feng Congde ( simplified Chinese : 封 从 德, traditional Chinese : 封 從 德; pinyin : Fēng Cóngdé, * 1966 in Szechuan ) is a Chinese dissident . Feng was a PhD student in the Physics Department at Beijing University . Feng became known as the student leader of Beijing University during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests , which placed him on the Chinese government's 21st most wanted list. Feng hid in various locations in China for ten months before being smuggled into Hong Kong on a ship . He then went to Paris, where he worked on a PhD in anthropology .

Feng and Chai Ling , a fellow student and his wife at the time, received special permission from the French government to smuggle their way into France and to fly secretly to Paris accompanied by a French diplomat . Feng lived in France for 15 years . In 2003 he received the doctoral candidate for religious sciences on Taoism and Traditional Chinese Medicine in Sorbonne , Paris. Feng currently lives in San Francisco and continues to campaign for freedom and democracy in China. Feng endeavors to represent the events in Tiananmen Square through his participation on social media and his website 64memo.com. Feng is the author of A Tiananmen Journal: Republic on the Square , published in 2009 in Chinese.

Life before and during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989

During the student pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square from 1986 to 1987, Feng Congde was a PhD student at Beijing University and was briefly arrested for participating in the movement. Immediately after Feng's release, he spoke about his experience of the protest and the government's response to the students. It was here that he met Chai Ling and the two established a relationship that led to a marriage in the spring of 1988. Feng was admitted to Boston University for postgraduate studies.

On April 18, 1989, many students from Beijing University went to Tiananmen Square to mourn Hu Yaobang's death . Hu Yaobang was a symbol of reform and justice and was worshiped by many students and opponents of the regime. Policemen with truncheons attacked the protesters outside Xinhua Gate , and this confrontation led to the formation of organizations to lead the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 . Feng came to the fore and became a founding member of the Preparatory Committee for the Establishment of Independent Student Organizations.

In the course of the movement, Feng was appointed chairman of the Coalition of Beijing Independent Student Associations and deputy superior of the Tiananmen Square Hunger Strike Group, and then deputy superior of Tiananmen Square Defense Headquarters. Despite being a charismatic student leader, Feng is said to have often been disappointed in protests and political struggles by other student leaders, and on certain issues of the movement, he is said to have not participated in the student leadership.

Life after the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protest

Feng Congde and Chai Ling left Beijing soon after the crackdown. Their names were on the list of the 21 most wanted student guides. The couple managed to travel to Hong Kong and finally to Paris in April 1990. Because Feng and Chai had different perspectives on ways and means of handling the aftermath of the June 4th Movement and how to promote democracy in China, the two divorced in late 1990. Feng attended hearings of discussions on China's most favored nation status.

In early 1991, Feng finished the memo of the 1989 student protests (八九 學運 備忘錄), the draft of the book A Tiananmen Journal: Republic on the Square . Feng came up with the idea of ​​setting up a website in 2000 to provide information about the 1989 student movement. The following year he founded the website www.64memo.com.

Reaction on the documentary The Gate of Heavenly Peace

Despite the many positive reviews in the US media for The Gate of Heavenly Peace , Feng Congde, with the support of other Tiananmen survivors as well as participants and supporters, sent an "open letter" to the in 2009 Directors and producers of the documentary . He addressed several issues in the documentary and urged producers to correct "the incorrect reporting and editing" in the film. Feng also criticized producer Carma Hinton for her connection with Chinese officials (notably Zhou Enlai and Zhang Chunqiao ) and her participation in the Cultural Revolution .

  • “… I want to live…” - Chai Ling at the Philip Cunningham interview.

Feng argued that the documentary's producers used Chai Ling's language to manipulate the truth and give the false impression that she ran away from the June 4, 1989 crackdown. Feng claimed that the producers deliberately omitted Chai's June 8 speech in the documentary. Feng said they did this to reinforce the idea that Chai had abandoned the students even though she reportedly knew they would be massacred. The detailed account of the massacre in her June 8 speech would have been evidence that she was in the square until the government cracked down on it. Since this account was omitted during their speech, the film producers misrepresented the historical truth, Feng said.

  • “Women qidai de jiu shi liuxue” (我们 期待 的 就是 流血 / what we actually hope for is bloodshed) - Chai Ling at the Philip Cunningham interview.

Feng claimed that Carma Hinton mistranslated “qidai” and took it out of context to give viewers the impression that Chai Ling and other student leaders provoked and hoped for the bloodshed during the crackdown. Feng indicated that “qidai” correctly translated means “hope with anticipation or waiting”. He said that the occupiers of the square knew about the crackdown and wanted it to be done in public so that the international community could see the oppressive nature of the Chinese government. Feng also said the producers should have made it clear that the student leaders tried hard and done everything possible to ensure that the students who stayed in the square before the crackdown voluntarily stayed there and knew the risk . At the last moment, at 4:30 a.m. on June 4, 1989, when the Tiananmen Square massacre had been going on for six hours, it was Feng himself who gave the order to withdraw from the monument in the middle of the place. Before giving the order, Feng said he had consulted with Chai Ling and other student leaders who were still in the square.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Principal Characters in The Gate of Heavenly Peace , Long Bow Group, The Film, accessed August 21, 2017
  2. ↑ Ling Chai, A Heart for Freedom: The Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, her Daring Escape, and her Quest to Free China's Daughters , Carol Stream: Tyndale Momentum Publishers, p. 217, October 1, 2012, ISBN 978-1- 4143-6247-2 , accessed August 21, 2017
  3. ↑ Ling Chai, A Heart for Freedom: The Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, her Daring Escape, and her Quest to Free China's Daughters, Carol Stream: Tyndale Momentum Publishers, p. 224, October 1, 2012, ISBN 978-1- 4143-6247-2
  4. ↑ a b c d e Philip Sherwell, David Eimer, Tiananmen remembered 20 years on , The Telegraph, May 30, 2009, accessed August 21, 2017
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Congde Feng, Open letter of Tiananmen survivors, participants, and supporters , Long Bow Group, May 28, 2009, accessed on August 21, 2017
  6. ↑ a b Yu Wang, Compassion in dark places: escape, exile, memories , February 18, 2003, accessed August 21, 2017
  7. ↑ a b Ling Chai, A Heart for Freedom: The Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, her Daring Escape, and her Quest to Free China's Daughters, Carol Stream: Tyndale Momentum Publishers, p. 60, October 1, 2012, ISBN 978- 1-4143-6247-2
  8. ↑ Ling Chai, A Heart for Freedom: The Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, her Daring Escape, and her Quest to Free China's Daughters, Carol Stream: Tyndale Momentum Publishers, p. 79, October 1, 2012, ISBN 978-1- 4143-6247-2
  9. ↑ Chongde Feng, A Tiananmen Journal: Republic on the Square , Hong Kong: Suyuan Books 2013, p. 68, ISBN 978-988-16442-6-8 , accessed August 21, 2017
  10. ↑ Ling Chai, A Heart for Freedom: The Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, her Daring Escape, and her Quest to Free China's Daughters, Carol Stream: Tyndale Momentum Publishers, p. 85, October 1, 2012, ISBN 978-1- 4143-6247-2
  11. ↑ a b Ling Chai, A Heart for Freedom: The Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, her Daring Escape, and her Quest to Free China's Daughters, Carol Stream: Tyndale Momentum Publishers, p. 90, October 1, 2012, ISBN 978- 1-4143-6247-2
  12. ↑ Ling Chai, A Heart for Freedom: The Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, her Daring Escape, and her Quest to Free China's Daughters, Carol Stream: Tyndale Momentum Publishers, pp. 91, 103, October 1, 2012, ISBN 978- 1-4143-6247-2
  13. ↑ Ling Chai, A Heart for Freedom: The Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, her Daring Escape, and her Quest to Free China's Daughters, Carol Stream: Tyndale Momentum Publishers, p. 154, October 1, 2012, ISBN 978-1- 4143-6247-2
  14. ↑ Chongde Feng, A Tiananmen Journal: Republic on the Square , Hong Kong: Suyuan Books 2013, p. 541, ISBN 978-988-16442-6-8 , accessed August 21, 2017
  15. ↑ Chongde Feng, A Tiananmen Journal: Republic on the Square , Hong Kong: Suyuan Books 2013, pp. 544-548, ISBN 978-988-16442-6-8 , accessed August 21, 2017
  16. ↑ Chongde Feng, A Tiananmen Journal: Republic on the Square , Hong Kong: Suyuan Books 2013, p. 555, ISBN 978-988-16442-6-8 , accessed August 21, 2017
  17. ↑ Chongde Feng, A Tiananmen Journal: Republic on the Square , Hong Kong: Suyuan Books 2013, p. 562, ISBN 978-988-16442-6-8 , accessed August 21, 2017
  18. ↑ Stephen Holden, Film Festival Review: Assessing Both Sides in Tiananmen Square Massacre , The New York Times, October 14, 1995, accessed August 21, 2017
  19. ↑ David Ansen, Raise a Red Flag , Newsweek, October 9, 1995, accessed August 21, 2017
  20. ^ Charles Taylor, Gate of Heaven, A Tiananmen Square documentary is the holiday movie of the year ( October 30, 1996 memento on the Internet Archive ), The Boston Phoenix, January 5, 1996, accessed August 21, 2017
  21. ↑ Chongde Feng, A Tiananmen Journal: Republic on the Square , Hong Kong: Suyuan Books 2013, pp. 558-561, ISBN 978-988-16442-6-8 , accessed August 21, 2017
  22. ↑ Chongde Feng, A Tiananmen Journal: Republic on the Square , Hong Kong: Suyuan Books 2013, p. 556, ISBN 978-988-16442-6-8 , accessed August 21, 2017


Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Feng is the family name here, Congde is the first name.
personal data
SURNAME Feng, Congde
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese dissident
DATE OF BIRTH 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH Szechuan