Wu Renhua (; born September 12, 1956) is a Chinese scholar and participant in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. He has published three books about the crackdown: The Bloody Clearing of Tiananmen Square () in 2007, The Martial Law Troops of June Fourth () in 2009, and The Full Record of the Tiananmen Movement (六四事件全程实录) in 2014. Wu now lives in California in the United States.
Early life
Wu was born in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, China. After graduating from high school in 1974, Wu took part in the Down to the Countryside Movement and became an elementary and middle school teacher. From 1976 to 1978, Wu was a cadre in the People's Armed Police border defence force in Wenzhou. In 1978, Wu attended the ancient Chinese classical philology program in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature in Peking University. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1982. After his graduation, Wu worked as an editor at Zhonghua Press for five months. In the same year, Wu continued his education in classical philology at Peking University and received a Master of Arts degree in 1986. Before the events of 1989, Wu was working as a philologist at Chinese University of Political Science and Law in Beijing.
Role in the Protests
In the spring of 1989, Wu Renhua actively participated in the Tiananmen Movement from the beginning to the end. He was one of the organizers of the first protest, and was in charge of the hunger strike petition in Xinhua Gate during the hunger strike period on May 13, 1989. After separating from the main hunger strike camp, according to Wu, he and other teachers and students from Chinese University of Political Science and Law stayed at Xinhua Gate for a few days; they entirely blocked the main entrance to Zhongnanhai. He later on received the message that Zhao Ziyang had already been deposed and martial law was imminent in Beijing. Then he immediately dispatched a trusted student leader to the Square with this information. In Wu's book The Bloody Clearing of Tiananmen Square, he claimed that he was also among the last few thousand protesters who left Tiananmen Square in the early morning of June 4 and experienced the entire force cleanup implemented by People's Liberation Army.
Exile
Right after the events of June 1989, the Chinese government soon created a black list to prohibit political dissidents from entering mainland China. The black list consists of 49 dissidents in total; Wu Renhua was on the list. In March 1990, Wu swam 4 hours from Zhuhai to Macau, then arrived Hong Kong via the Operation Yellowbird. After Wu arrived in Hong Kong in 1990, he received support from two journalists, Ching Cheong and Liu Ruishao, in Hong Kong, and started to collect documents for his research on June Fourth. In the same year of July, Wu escaped to the United States through the Operation Yellowbird again.
Life after Tiananmen
Wu Renhua participates in democratic movements outside of China. He was a committee member of the Chinese Alliance for Democracy, and he used to work for the Federation for a Democratic China, and the journal China Spring. Wu was also the chief editor of the Press Freedom Herald () for 15 years, from 1990 to 2005.
The Bloody Clearing of Tiananmen Square
After Wu's exile to the United States, he started his June Fourth research. Based on his personal experience and witness, Wu published his first book The Bloody Clearing of Tiananmen Square in 2007. In the chronological book, Wu recorded the entire cleanup procedure of the Tiananmen Square from noon on June 3, 1989, to 10 a.m. on June 4. To make the book more exhaustive, Wu included detailed descriptions of major events and leaders of the protests by citing other litigants’ memories and other related documents. Wu also demonstrated his thoughts on some controversial questions of the protests from his point of view. Wu was facing difficulties in publishing his book at first because the publishers he contacted denied his request. In order to publish the first book, Wu set up his own company called “Truth Publishing” and published the book by himself. He said that the book was the first book that includes a complete account of the clearing of Tiananmen Square.