Chai Ling

Chai Ling (Chinese: 柴玲; pinyin: Chái Líng; born April 15, 1966) is a Chinese psychologist who was one of the student leaders in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. According to the documentary Gate of Heavenly Peace, she had indicated that the strategy of the leadership group she dominated was to provoke the Government to use violence against the unarmed students. She had also claimed to have witnessed soldiers killing student protesters inside Tiananmen Square.

She is the founder of All Girls Allowed, an organization dedicated to ending China's one-child policy, and the founder and president of Jenzabar, an enterprise resource planning software firm for educational institutions.

She has made a number of controversial remarks regarding her role in the 1989 protests that were recorded in an interview with Phillip Cunningham in the documentary The Gate of Heavenly Peace, which have since been the subject of various legal and personal disputes.

Chai was born on April 15, 1966, in Rizhao, Shandong. Both Chai's mother and father had been doctors in the People's Liberation Army during the 1950s. Chai is the eldest of four children. In 1983, Chai Ling began her education at Peking University where she eventually earned a B.A. in psychology.

Chai met her future husband, Feng Congde, in January 1987. She became aware of Feng after his arrest on January 1, 1987 for his participation in a democracy demonstration, and met him a few days later on her way to the university library. Chai and Feng were married in the spring of 1988, though they were forced to alter their identification because they failed to meet the age requirements to be legally married. After their wedding, Chai was accepted as a graduate student at the Child Psychology Institute of Beijing Normal University. Chai and Feng became increasingly distant over the course of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, and their marriage ended in divorce soon after the movement ended.

Chai first became involved in the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests through her work as a secretary for the Peking University Preparatory Committee, which had elected Chai's husband Feng into a leadership position. She rose to prominence as a student leader as a result of her involvement in the student hunger strike. Chai has stated that the idea for the hunger strike was given to her by Zhang Boli, another Beijing University student, but has also claimed that a member of the national security force informed her that a hunger strike would elicit a reaction from the government. On May 12, fellow demonstrator Wang Dan approached Chai and informed her that he planned to join the hunger strike, which at the time consisted of only forty members. Chai agreed to join as well, and that evening delivered a speech to the demonstrators that generated a large amount of support for the hunger strike movement, and enabled Chai to gather support from the student demonstrators and endorsement from the Beijing Students' Autonomous Federation.

The growth of the hunger strike allowed Chai's influence over the student movement to grow. On May 13, she participated in a student dialogue with the government that was led by Yan Mingfu. On May 14, a group of intellectuals were invited to speak to come as "teachers" of the democratic movement to speak with the students. The intellectuals' statement, Our Urgent Appeal Regarding the Current Situation, urged "calm rationality" to correct "radicalism and extremism." The students, particularly those engaged in the hunger strike, were offended by what they regarded as the paternalistic tone of the intellectuals. Chai interrupted the discussion between the intellectuals and the student crowd, broadcasting a hunger strike declaration and galvanizing the students against the intellectuals, who withdrew from the square.

On May 15, Chai was elected to serve as commander in chief of the Hunger Strike Committee, one of several student demonstration organizations in Tiananmen Square. On May 19, Chai announced the end of the hunger strike, a decision that was met with criticism from Feng Congde, Wang Wen, and groups of angry demonstrators. Chai and most other major hunger strike leaders went into hiding on May 21 in response to rumors of government troops invading the square that evening, but returned to the square the following day after hearing that no attack had occurred during the night. The retreat of the hunger strike leaders caused a power vacuum that was filled by the Beijing Students Autonomous Union, as well as new organizations which had been created. On May 23, the students of the square voted to transfer leadership from the Beijing Student's Federation to a temporary organization called the Defend Tiananmen Square Headquarters, which selected Chai Ling as its leader and made permanent the following day. During a May 27 meeting with other student leaders, Chai Ling and Feng Congde voted in favour of evacuating the square on May 30. At the press conference that same evening, however, Chai and Feng changed their positions and instead supported the continued occupation of the square. Chai claimed that the meeting had been part of plot to remove the students from the square and defended her change of opinion by stating that she had been pressured into voting to leave. Chai resigned from her role as commander in chief of Defend Tiananmen Square Headquarters on May 29, though she later resumed her position.