Tank Man

"Tank Man" stops the advance of a column of tanks on June 5, 1989, in Beijing. This photo became one of the most famous photographs of the 20th century, and an international symbol at the end of the Cold War era. Photo by Jeff Widener (Associated Press).

Tank Man, or the Unknown Rebel, is the nickname of an anonymous man who stood in front of a column of Chinese Type 59 tanks the morning after the Chinese military forcibly removed protestors from in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. The man achieved widespread international recognition due to the videotape and photographs taken of the incident. Despite his anonymity, he is commonly (though not necessarily correctly) referred to in Chinese as Wang Weilin (王維林), after the Sunday Express.

The incident

The incident took place near Tiananmen on Chang'an Avenue, which runs east-west along the south end of the Forbidden City in Beijing, on June 5, 1989, one day after the Chinese government's violent crackdown on the Tiananmen protests. The man placed himself alone in the middle of the street as the tanks approached, directly in the path of the armored vehicles (). He held two shopping bags, one in each hand.^[1] As the tanks came to a stop, the man gestured towards the tanks with his bags. In response, the lead tank attempted to drive around the man, but the man repeatedly stepped into the path of the tank in a show of nonviolent action.^[2] After repeatedly attempting to go around rather than crush the man, the lead tank stopped its engines, and the armored vehicles behind it seemed to follow suit. There was a pause for a short period of time with the man and the tanks having reached a quiet, still impasse.

Having now successfully brought the column to a halt, the man climbed up onto the hull of the buttoned-up lead tank and, after briefly stopping at the driver's hatch, appeared in video footage of the incident to start calling into various ports in the tank's turret. He then climbed atop the turret and seemed to have a short conversation with a crew member at the gunner's hatch. After ending the conversation, the man alighted from the tank. The tank commander briefly emerged from his hatch, and the tanks restarted their engines, ready to continue on. At that point, the man, who was still standing within a meter or two from the side of the lead tank, leapt in front of the vehicle once again and quickly reestablished the man-tank standoff. Video footage shows that two figures in blue attire then pulled the man away and disappeared with him into a nearby crowd; the tanks continued on their way.^[2] Eyewitness reporter Charlie Cole believes that the man was arrested by secret police and was just one of the many executed in the aftermath of the military crackdown, since the Chinese government was never able to produce him after the images became public.^[3] In April 1998, Time included the "Unknown Rebel" in a feature titled Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century.

Identity and fate

Little is publicly known of the man's identity or that of the commander of the lead tank. Shortly after the incident, the British tabloid the Sunday Express named him as Wang Weilin (王维林), a 19-year-old student^[4] who was later charged with "political hooliganism" and "attempting to subvert members of the People's Liberation Army."^[5] However, this claim has been rejected by internal Communist Party of China documents, which reported that they could not find the man, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights.^[6] One party member was quoted as saying, "We can’t find him. We got his name from journalists. We have checked through computers but can’t find him among the dead or among those in prison."^[6] Numerous theories have sprung up as to the man's identity and current whereabouts.^[7]

There are several conflicting stories about what happened to him after the demonstration. In a speech to the President's Club in 1999, Bruce Herschensohn—former deputy special assistant to President Richard Nixon—reported that he was executed 14 days later; other sources say he was executed by firing squad a few months after the Tiananmen Square protests.^[2] In Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now, Jan Wong writes that the man is still alive and is hiding in mainland China. Other commentary has also insisted that the men who pulled him out of the tanks' way were not the secret police, but rather concerned civilians.

The government of the People's Republic of China has made few statements about the incident or the people involved. In a 1990 interview with Barbara Walters, then-CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin was asked what became of the man. Jiang first stated (through an interpreter), "I can't confirm whether this young man you mentioned was arrested or not," and then replied in English, "I think never killed" [sic].^[8] A June 2006 article in the Hong Kong Apple Daily stated that there are rumours that the man is now living in Taiwan.^[7]

International notability and censorship

While the image of the lone man in front of the tank has come to symbolize the events at Tiananmen Square in 1989 internationally,^[6] it is virtually unknown within China itself, especially among younger Chinese people^[9]. Images of the protest on the internet have been blocked by the so called "Chinese Internet police^[6]." When undergraduate students at Beijing University, which was at the center of the incident, were shown copies of the iconic photograph some years afterwards, they "were genuinely mystified^[10]." One of the students thought that the image was "artwork."

One theory as to why the "Unknown Rebel" (if still alive) has never come forward, is that he himself is unaware of his international recognition.

Photographic versions

"Tank Man", far off in the background to the left of the loader, prepares to face down the row of oncoming tanks. Photo by Terril Jones (Associated Press).

Four photographers managed to capture the event on film and get their pictures published in its aftermath.^[3] On June 4, 2009, another photographer released an image of the scene taken from ground level.^[9]

One of the most widely reproduced photographs of the event was taken by Jeff Widener of the Associated Press, from a lower vantage point in the Beijing Hotel, about half a mile (800 meters) away from the scene. Widener was injured and suffering from flu at the time. Though he was concerned that his shots were not good, his image was quickly reproduced all over the world.^[3] The image was taken using a Nikon FE2 camera.^[11]

Another version was taken by Stuart Franklin of Magnum Photos from the fifth floor of the Beijing Hotel. His has a wider field of view than Widener's, showing more tanks further away. He was on the same balcony as Charlie Cole, and smuggled out his film of Tank Man in a tea box with a French student.^[3]

Charlie Cole, working for Newsweek and on the same balcony with Stuart Franklin, hid his roll of film containing Tank Man in a Beijing Hotel toilet, sacrificing an unused roll of film and undeveloped images of wounded protesters after PSB raided his room and forced him to sign a confession. Cole was able to retrieve the roll and have it sent to Newsweek.^[3] He won a World Press Award for a similar photo.^[12] It was featured in Life's "100 Photographs That Changed the World" in 2003.

Arthur Tsang Hin Wah of Reuters took several shots, but the one shot of Tank Man climbing the tank was chosen from his batch of photos.^[3]

On June 4, 2009, in connection with the 20th anniversary of the protests, A.P. reporter Terril Jones revealed a photo he took showing the Tank Man from ground level, a different angle than all of the other known photos of the Tank Man. Jones has written that he was not aware of what he had captured until a month later when printing his photos.^[13]

Variations of the scene were also recorded by BBC film crews and transmitted across the World. One witness recounts seeing Chinese tanks early on June 4 crushing vehicles and people, just one day before this man took his stand in front of this tank column.^[14]

See also

• Chinese democracy movement
• History of the People's Republic of China
• Human rights in the People's Republic of China
• Tiananmen Square protests of 1989

Notes

References

• June Fourth: The True Story, Tian'anmen Papers/Zhongguo Liusi Zhenxiang Volumes 1–2 (Chinese edition), Zhang Liang, ISBN 962-8744-36-4.
• Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now, Jan Wong, Doubleday, 1997, trade paperback, 416 pages, ISBN 0-385-48232-9 (Contains, besides extensive autobiographical material, an eyewitness account of the Tiananmen crackdown and the basis for an estimate of the number of casualties.)
• The Tiananmen Papers, The Chinese Leadership's Decision to Use Force Against their Own People—In their Own Words, Compiled by Zhang Liang, Edited by Andrew J. Nathan and Perry Link, with an afterword by Orville Schell, PublicAffairs, New York, 2001, hardback, 514 pages, ISBN 1-58648-012-X An extensive review and synopsis of The Tiananmen papers in the journal Foreign Affairs may be found at Review and synopsis in the journal Foreign Affairs.

External links

• "Behind the scenes: Tank Man of Tiananmen" (New York Times), with link to video of the incident.
• The Stuart Franklin photo at Life magazine 100 photos that changed the world.
• (Chinese) Professor disclosed heroic Wang Weilin still in world, dajiyuan.com. Retrieved June 1, 2006.
• PBS Frontline documentary "The Tank Man", 2006, Program viewable online. Last accessed July 29, 2008.
• The Tank Man documentary, viewable online.
• TIME 100: The Unknown Rebel, TIME Magazine, 1999

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