By PATRICK BOEHLER April 19, 2015
Xiong Yan, center, one of the leaders of the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, at a march in Hong Kong in 2009 marking the 20th anniversary of the protests and their suppression by the military.
Kin Cheung/Associated Press
On June 9, 1992, Xiong Yan embarked on the fishing boat that smuggled him out of China.
The former law student had once been one of China’s most wanted: one of the 21 men and women the government accused of orchestrating pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989.
Xiong Yan, right, with his mother, Xiong Yuanwu, and brother, Liu Yufeng, in an undated photo provided
Now an American citizen and a United States Army chaplain, Major Xiong said in a telephone interview on Friday that he had asked to return to his homeland. His mother, who is in her 70s, is dying, he said, and he has asked the Chinese authorities to allow him to travel back to say goodbye.
But Chinese consular officials have so far ignored his request, he said, reflecting how the country has yet to come to terms with the protests 26 years ago.
Only seven of the 21 most-wanted protest leaders from 1989 now live in mainland China. Most, like Wang Dan and Wu’er Kaixi, have never returned from exile.
Although Major Xiong has been able to visit Hong Kong, his requests for visas to the mainland have been consistently rejected, he said.
Earlier this month, Major Xiong wrote an open letter to President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, asking permission to return to see his mother.
“Last night, I found a photo my mother gave me,” he wrote in the letter. “She had taken me to a photographer when I was 100 days old. I took it out and held it next to a photo of my mother, now close to death at the Hunan City Loudi Rehabilitation Hospital Building No. 3, and I cried. The pain in my heart is unspeakable.”
The letter circulated widely among civil rights advocates over the past week. Several have since gone to the Hunan hospital to visit Major Xiong’s mother, Xiong Yuanwu, and have shared online photos of themselves standing next to her hospital bed.
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