Zhang Xianling

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Zhang Xianling (Chinese: 张先玲) was born in 1938. She got married to Wang Fandi, and in 1970, they had a son named Wang Nan. Professionally, she trained and worked as an aerospace engineer until her retirement. Zhang Xianling co-founded and became the spokesperson for the group Tiananmen Mothers following the death of her son on June 4, 1989.

Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 - Death of Zhang Xianling’s Son, Wang Nan

After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, an at the end of China’s Cultural Revolution that runs from 1966 up to 1976, Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader, assumed political leadership and instituted major economic and political reforms in line with the desires of Chinese citizens. However, inequalities and corruption persisted, precipitating calls for further economic and political reforms to create more opportunities and eradicate corruption. Further, this escalated into a full-blown protest in April 1989. This happened when hundreds of thousands of students commemorating the late Communist Party’s secretary Hu Yaobang at Tiananmen Square in Beijing erupted into protests. Further, other citizens in Beijing joined the students and embarked on a prolonged hunger strike to press for political reforms and democracy. However, the protests ended on June 4, 1989, when the People’s Liberation Army, using tanks, artillery, and other powerful weapons cracked down on the protests resulting in hundreds to thousands of deaths – The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Zhang Xianling’s Son, Wang Nan is one the many people killed by the troops during the Tiananmen crackdown. However, for a long time, the Chinese government considered the victims of Tiananmen crackdown unpatriotic and rebellious counterrevolutionaries, who deserved no respect or recognition. Hence relatives did not receive support, empathy, or accountability from the Chinese government. Further, the Chinese government prohibited commemoration of Tiananmen massacre, barricaded off the Tiananmen Square during and on the anniversary days, arrested people advocating or trying to commemorate it, including the parents and relatives of the victims, and prevented media coverage on the event. In addition, in an effort to censor and erase memories of the Tiananmen massacre from the public sphere, the government erased all references to the massacre from public records, including the government-controlled internet.

Zhang Xianling gave birth to Wang Nan in 1970, Wang Nan died at the age of 19, marking the start of Zhang’s activism and push for justice for families of the victims of the Tiananmen massacre. On the early hours of June 4, 1989, a high school student and barely at the age of 19, Wang Nan was shot in the head - by a bullet fired by the People’s Liberation Army, while at the junction of Chang’an Boulevard and Nancheng Street, near Tiananmen Square. At the time of his shooting, Wang Nan was taking photographs, recording the violent confrontations between protesters and the People’s Liberation Army. Doctors found him lying unconscious on the roadside in a pool of blood and administered first aid. Wang Nan died despite the doctors’ efforts to save his life since the army officers could not allow them to take him, or any other injured person, to the hospital. The officers, in an effort to conceal what happened, buried him and other victims in a shallow grave neighboring a school compound. Authorities never informed Wang’s family of the death and undercover burial, and Zhang only came to learn of his fate when the public health officials discovered the shallow graves due to the smell. After the burial, mothers who lost their children, under the leadership of Zhang and Ding Zilin, later on, formed Tiananmen Mothers as a vehicle to push the Chinese government to account for the deaths of their children, make reappraisals and recognition of their anniversaries.

Zhang’s Involvement with Tiananmen Mothers

Together with other of Tiananmen victims’ mothers like Ding Zilin, Zhang Xianling founded the Tiananmen Mothers, a support groups aimed at helping victims’ mothers stand in solidarity with each other and seek government’s redress for the death of their children at the hands of the Peoples Liberation Army while protesting for political reforms. In particular, Zhang and Ding worked hard to mobilize more families and relatives of the victims of Tiananmen massacre to join Tiananmen Mothers in solidarity, and for moral support. Following Zhang’s and Ding’s persuasion and efforts, many mothers, families, and relatives of the victims joined the Tiananmen Mothers group. Thereafter, members of Tiananmen mothers combined efforts and pushed for government’s accountability and compensation of the victims' families as well as independent and transparent investigations of the Tiananmen massacre to ensure appropriate punishment of the culprits bearing the highest responsibility. However, instead of meeting their demand, the government responded by subjecting them to further repression, detentions, arrests, harassments, surveillance and around-the-clock watch by police. For example, during the anniversary of her son's death, Zhang Xianling was put under house arrest to prevent her from joining other mothers in public commemoration of their children killed during the protest. However, she has marked his anniversary and reminded the public of his fate by waving a picture of her son out of her home’s window. Due to her participation in the Tiananmen Mothers’ activism and protests, like other Tiananmen victims’ mothers, Zhang Xianling faced a lot of harassment and surveillance from the government, including restricted movements, house arrests, bagging of her telephone, and close monitoring of her movements by the police. In fact, in 2004, the police arrested and detained her and two other members of Tiananmen for four days, only releasing them due to sustained international pressures and media outcry. Further, sometime in 2005, police arrested her for receiving pro-Tiananmen T-shirts sent by supporters of Tiananmen based in Hong Kong. In 2013, Chinese government authorities restricted Zhang and her husband’s travel, to prevent her from travelling to Hong Kong to commemorate the Tiananmen anniversary. Further, together with other members of the Tiananmen mother, Zhang Xianling wrote numerous letters appealing to the president and the prime minister to review the government’s stand on Tiananmen, encouraging them to recognize and allow victims’ families in particular and Chinese in general, to commemorate Tiananmen and their children’s anniversaries publicly in dignity and respect. However, all these appeals mostly went unheeded and only resulted in more repression, surveillance, harassment, and arrests.

Despite the numerous challenges and her old age, Zhang continue to push for truth, justice, and recognition for the victims, families and relatives of the Tiananmen massacre, and remains hopeful that her work will bear fruit: Government will take reappraisal, compensate the victims’ families, and hold those responsible to account.

Zhang Xianling

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