Tiananmen dissident lambasts China on massacre anniversary

Wu'er Kaixi has put on weight in the last 37 years and his greying hair no longer flops over his eyes in the style he affected as a student at Beijing Normal University in 1989, but some things have not changed.

He is, for instance, still on the list of student dissidents that the Chinese government identified as the ringleaders of the Tiananmen Square protests in those heady days when democracy seemed a possibility for China.

Now, 58 and living in Taipei, Kaixi is just as outspoken about the Chinese government, which has made it plain that he will never be granted amnesty and that he can never return home.

Speaking in Tokyo on Wednesday, a day before the anniversary of the brutal suppression of the demonstrations, Kaixi said, "What I have been trying to tell the world is the simple fact that China is a threat not only to peaceful dissenters in China, but also a direct threat to the entire civilization of mankind."

For too long, countries have looked the other way when Beijing has oppressed internal dissent, including ethnic minorities such as Tibetans and Uyghurs, and hoped to encourage China to become a responsible member of global society through engagement.

Other governments put trade and economic opportunities over human rights, he said, but nations appear to have realized their mistake.

"The US has had a pro-China policy that is appeasement," he said. "The US led and the rest of the world followed."

"China was allowed to join the World Trade Organization and the global trade system because it was hoped that this would lead to a civil society that would eventually give birth to democracy," he said.