{{Short description|Chinese dissident (1918–2001)}} {{for|the Catholic bishop|John Wang Ruowang}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2018}} {{family name hatnote|[[Wang (surname)|Wang]]|lang=Chinese}} {{Infobox writer |name = Wang Ruowang |image = |caption = 王若望 |birth_name = Shouhua (寿华) |birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1918|02|04}} |birth_place = [[Wujin]], [[Jiangsu]], China |death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|2001|12|19|1918|02|04}} |death_place = [[Queens]], New York City, United States |occupation = Author |nationality = Chinese |genre = |movement = |spouses = Li Ming, Yang Zi |signature = }} {{Contemporary Chinese political thought|liberalism}} '''Wang Ruowang''' ({{zh|c=王若望|p=Wáng Rùowàng|w=Wang Jo-wang}}; 4 February 1918 – 19 December 2001) was a Chinese author and dissident who was imprisoned various times for political reasons by both the [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|Kuomintang]] and the [[China|Communist government of China]] for advocating reform and liberalization. His name at birth was "Shouhua" ({{zh|t=壽華|s=寿华|p=Shòuhuá|first=t}}), but he was most commonly known by his pen name, "Ruowang". He was a prolific essayist and literary critic.
Wang was a member of the [[Chinese Communist Party]] from 1937 to 1957, when he was expelled for holding "rightist views". He rejoined the party in 1979, but in 1987 he was again expelled by [[Deng Xiaoping]] for promoting "[[bourgeois liberalization]]". After his death in exile in [[New York City]], he was widely eulogized as one of the Chinese government's most significant social and political critics.
==Biography==
===Early life=== In 1932, when Wang was fifteen years old, he was expelled from school for taking part in a student demonstration. He joined the [[Communist Youth League of China|Communist Youth League]] later that year. In 1933 he moved to Shanghai, where he began work at a pharmaceutical factory while operating as a low-level Communist agent. While working at this factory he founded a publication, ''Toilet Literature'', a newspaper that was distributed by being pasted on the walls of the factory workers' bathroom area.<ref>Rubin xix</ref> After writing an article in which he mocked [[Chiang Kai-shek]] for [[Mukden Incident|allowing the Japanese to seize Manchuria]],<ref name="Woo">Woo</ref> he was arrested in May 1934, and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the outbreak of the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]] in 1937, Chiang Kai-shek declared a "[[Second United Front|united front]]" with the Communists against the Japanese, and Wang was released after serving only three and a half years of his sentence as part of a general amnesty. Some of the Communists imprisoned with Wang became successful officials after the Communist victory in 1949: one became the governor of [[Guangdong]], and another became the deputy governor of [[Anhui]].<ref>Rubin xix-xx</ref>
After Wang's release, in 1937, he joined the [[Chinese Communist Party]] (CCP)<ref name="NYT">New York Times</ref> and traveled to the CCP's [[revolutionary base area]] in [[Yan'an]].<ref name="Mirsky">Mirsky</ref> After arriving, Wang wrote one of the first biographical articles on [[Mao Zedong]], and edited cultural journals intended to be circulated among peasants.<ref name="gittings">Gittings</ref> He joined the CCP in order to "fight evil, autocracy and oppression",<ref name="Woo" /> but was persecuted during the [[Yan'an Rectification Movement]] for writing for a controversial wall newspaper, ''Light Cavalry'', which was condemned by Party leaders for discussing dark and unsavory aspects of life in Yan'an.<ref name="Rubinxx">Rubin xx</ref> One of his friends was killed during the purge.<ref name="Cheng">Cheng</ref> After the purge, Wang was forced by Mao's lieutenant, [[Kang Sheng]], to leave Yan'an and travel to Japanese-occupied [[Shandong]] as a low-level CCP agent, where he survived only "through the kindness of peasants".<ref name="Rubinxx" /> Here, despite his endorsement of [[Luo Ronghuan]], criticized the leadership of the CCP, and was labeled the "[[Wang Shiwei]] of Shandong" and a secret agent, but was saved from this label and grave consequences by Luo.<ref name="How The Red Sun Rose">{{Cite book |last=Hua |first=Gao |title=How did the Red Sun Rise?: The Origin and Development of the Yan'an Rectification Movement, 1930–1945 |date=2018-03-15 |publisher=The Chinese University Press |isbn=978-988-237-703-5 |translator-last=Mosher |translator-first=Stacy |doi=10.2307/j.ctvbtzp48 |jstor=j.ctvbtzp48 |translator-last2=Jian |translator-first2=Guo}}</ref>{{rp|622}} After entering Japanese-occupied China, Wang was briefly imprisoned by the Japanese, but was released.<ref name="gittings" />
===Early conflict with the Communist Party=== After the Japanese surrendered, in 1945, Wang was pardoned by Kang. He returned to Shanghai, where he worked at the East China Bureau Propaganda Department. He became a co-editor of a prominent local newspaper,<ref name="Rubinxx" /> and gained a reputation as an essayist and literary critic.<ref name="NYT" /> In 1956, after Mao encouraged writers to criticize the CCP in the "[[Hundred Flowers Campaign]]", Wang published ten articles critical of the Communist Party. These articles made him an early victim of the subsequent "[[Anti-Rightist Campaign]]", when those who had followed Mao's directions and spoken out were persecuted as "rightists".<ref>"Rubin xx-xxi"</ref> After being identified as a "rightist", Wang was expelled from the Party, lost his job, and was forced to work at a forced labour camp in the countryside. His wife, Li Ming, was also persecuted for her association with him. After refusing to condemn him, she also lost her job and suffered a mental breakdown.<ref name="Woo" />
The Communist Party removed Wang's "rightist" label in 1962, but soon after Wang angered the Party again by publishing a story, "History of a Cauldron", in which he satirized the policies of the [[Great Leap Forward]] as cruel, impractical, and ironic. This story led the local leader of the Communist Party, [[Ke Qingshi]], to renew the Party's attacks on Wang and his family.<ref name="Rxxi">Rubin xxi</ref> Before she died, in 1964, Wang's wife begged him to protect his family by never writing again. Wang blamed the Communist Party for her death.<ref name="Woo" />
After the [[Cultural Revolution]] began in 1966, Wang was persecuted as a "counterrevolutionary". He was imprisoned for four years in the same prison building that the Kuomintang had imprisoned him in during the 1930s,<ref name="Rxxi" /> enduring conditions that he later described as "fascist brutality".<ref name="Woo" /> Wang remained a political outcast until 1979, following [[Deng Xiaoping]]'s ascent to power, when Wang was allowed to rejoin the Communist Party as part of a national programme to rehabilitate those unjustly persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. Following his political rehabilitation, he continued to criticize the government and agitated for greater human rights and democratic reforms.<ref name="NYT" />
Following Wang's rehabilitation, he was assigned to work as the deputy director of a Shanghai literary magazine.<ref name="Cheng" /> He resumed his literary career, becoming a member of the councils of both the Shanghai Writers' Association and the [[China Writers Association]].<ref name="ICT" /> In 1980, he published an autobiographical novel, ''Hunger Trilogy'', which included a semi-fictional account of his time in both Kuomintang and Communist political prisons. In the book, Wang recalled how the Communists' political prisons had been much more cruel than Kuomintang political prisons.<ref name="Woo" /> The book angered many CCP officials by asserting that, although Chiang's and Mao's dictatorships used hunger as a weapon against their political opponents, Mao was more systematic and ruthless. ''Hunger Trilogy'' is the most well-known of Wang's books to be translated into English,<ref name="Derbyshire">Derbyshire</ref> and was well-received abroad.<ref name="Woo" /> Within China, the article of his that gained the most attention was published in 1986, titled "One-Party Dictatorship Can Only Lead to Tyranny".<ref name="Cheng" />
===Involvement with student protests=== In December 1986, college students demonstrated in over a dozen Chinese cities in order to agitate for greater economic and political freedoms. Deng Xiaoping, after two straight weeks of student demonstrations, came to the conclusion that the student movement was a result of "bourgeois liberalization", and named three Communist Party members to be expelled: [[Fang Lizhi]], [[Liu Binyan]], and Wang Ruowang.<ref name="Lee">Lee 313-314</ref> Deng personally attacked Wang for being "wildly presumptuous", and accused him of five "major mistakes", including a belief that Chinese socialism was "feudal or semi-feudal in essence". Because he was the oldest of the three protest leaders, Wang later gained a reputation as "the grandfather of Chinese dissidents". Of the three, he remained in China the longest.<ref name="Woo" />
Deng directed then-[[General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party|CCP General Secretary]] [[Hu Yaobang]] to expel them from the Party, but Hu refused. Because of his refusal and a variety of other factors, Hu was dismissed from his position as General Secretary in January 1987, effectively ending his period of influence within the Chinese government.<ref name="Lee" />
Following Wang's second expulsion from the Communist Party, Party officials attempted to mediate with Wang to change Wang's critical opinion of them, but were unsuccessful.<ref name="NYT" /> In an interview with a reporter from Hong Kong in 1988, Wang came close to advocating the abolition of the Chinese Communist Party.<ref name="Woo" /> When the [[1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre|Tiananmen Square protests]] began in 1989, Wang wrote a letter to Deng in support of the protesters, and organized a student march on Shanghai's city hall.<ref name="NYT" /> The Tiananmen protests were suppressed in the 4 June "Tiananmen Massacre", and Wang went into hiding in the countryside on 14 June. His friends influenced him to return to Shanghai on 19 June by convincing him that he would not be arrested.<ref>Rubin xxxii</ref>
Wang was one of the few senior leaders of the Tiananmen protests who did not escape China. Following his return to Shanghai, Wang was put under house arrest until he was formally charged for his involvement in the demonstrations on 8 September 1989. He was accused in the Chinese media of "listening to the [[Voice of America]] and spreading rumors based on its broadcasts, writing articles in support of the student hunger strike, giving counterrevolutionary speeches on [[People's Square (Shanghai)|Shanghai's People's Square]]... publishing articles in the Hong Kong press", and trying to "overthrow the Party's leadership" with his writing.<ref>Rubin xxxiii</ref> Wang was sentenced to fourteen months in prison.<ref name="NYT" /> After his release from prison, his activities were closely watched by the government.<ref name="Woo" />
===Life in exile=== In 1992, following pressure from the American government,<ref name="Woo" /> Wang was allowed to leave his home in [[Shanghai]], in order to accept a temporary position as a visiting scholar at [[Columbia University]], in [[New York City]]. He lived as an exile in the United States from then until his death, but always dreamed of returning to China.<ref name="NYT" /> He traveled widely through North America, attempting to unite other exiled Chinese dissidents in a common cause, but was unsuccessful.<ref name="Cheng" />
He died on 19 December 2001, two weeks after his doctors discovered that he had terminal lung cancer. One week before Wang's death the Chinese government offered to allow Wang to return to China on the condition that he not publish articles critical of the Chinese government or meet with local dissidents, but he refused. He was sent to [[Elmhurst Hospital Center|Elmhurst Hospital]] in New York City, where he died. He was survived by his second wife, Yang Zi, and seven children. Two of his children flew from Shanghai to be with him before he died.<ref name="NYT" />
Following Wang's death, the Chinese government arrested ten men in Shanghai for discussing the possibility of a memorial service for Wang. Hundreds of people visited his memorial service in New York, including the most significant Chinese exiles then living in the United States.<ref name="Mirsky" /> Some of those present included [[Liu Binyan]], [[Fang Lizhi]], [[Yan Jiaqi]], [[Harry Wu]], [[Wei Jingsheng]], [[Xiao Qiang]], [[Wang Dan (dissident)|Wang Dan]], [[Tang Baiqiao]], Cao Changqing, [[Chen Pokong]] and [[Gao Zhan (alleged spy)|Gao Zhan]]. A representative of [[14th Dalai Lama|The Dalai Lama]], who Wang had met several times following his exile, eulogized him at the memorial as a "freedom fighter".<ref name="ICT">International Campaign for Tibet</ref>
==Footnotes== {{Reflist|30em}}
==References== * Cheng, Eddie. [http://www.standoffattiananmen.com/2010/12/people-of-1989-wang-ruowang.html "People of 1989: Wang Ruowang"]. ''Standoff At Tiananmen''. 19 December 2010. Retrieved 28 April 2013. * Derbyshire, John. [http://old.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire010302.shtml "The Single Talent Well Employ'd: Wang Ruowang 1918-2001"]. ''National Review Online''. 3 January 2002. Retrieved 28 April 2013. * Gittings, John. [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/jan/09/guardianobituaries.johngittings "Wang Ruowang: Dissident Chinese Intellectual Devoted to Exposing 'False Marxists'"]. ''The Guardian''. 9 January 2002. Retrieved 28 April 2013. * [http://www.savetibet.org/media-center/ict-news-reports/dalai-lama-calls-wang-ruowang-a-freedom-fighter-a-liberal-and-democrat "Dalai Lama Calls Wang Ruowang a Freedom Fighter for a Liberal and Democratic China"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130412072808/http://www.savetibet.org/media-center/ict-news-reports/dalai-lama-calls-wang-ruowang-a-freedom-fighter-a-liberal-and-democrat |date=12 April 2013 }}. ''International Campaign for Tibet''. 30 December 2001. Retrieved 27 April 2013. * Lee, Khoon Choy. [https://books.google.com/books?id=1jlOQc8BumIC&dq=hu+yaobang+cremated+and+buried&pg=PA315 ''Pioneers of Modern China: Understanding the Inscrutable Chinese'']. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing. 2005. {{ISBN|981-256-464-0}}. * Mirsky, Jonathan. [http://www.jamestown.org/programs/chinabrief/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=3781&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=192&no_cache=1 "The Life and Death of Wang Ruowang"]. ''China Brief''. Volume 2, Issue 2. Washington, DC: The Jamestown Foundation. 2002. Retrieved 27 April 2013. * [https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/23/world/wang-ruowang-83-writer-and-dissident-exiled-by-china.html "Wang Ruowang, 83, Writer And Dissident Exiled by China"]. ''[[New York Times]]''. 23 December 2001. Retrieved 27 April 2013. * Rubin, Kyna. [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/jan/09/guardianobituaries.johngittings "Introduction: The Growth of a Nation and an Intellectual"]. In Wang Ruowang. ''The Hunger Trilogy''. Trans. Kyna Rubin and Ira Kasoff. United States: East Gate. 1991. {{ISBN|0-87332-739-X}}. Retrieved 28 April 2013. * Woo, Elaine. [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-dec-22-me-17251-story.html "Wang Ruowang, 83; Social Critic Spurned by 2 Chinese Regimes"]. ''Los Angeles Times''. 22 December 2001. Retrieved 27 April 2013/
==External links== * [http://www.wangruowang.org/eng.htm Wangruowang.org] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061206005817/http://www.wangruowang.org/eng.htm |date=6 December 2006 }}, a biography of Wang Ruowang. * [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE2DD1F31F93AA35751C0A964958260 A review] of Wang's book, ''Hunger Trilogy''.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wang, Ruowang}} [[Category:1918 births]] [[Category:2001 deaths]] [[Category:Chinese dissidents]] [[Category:Victims of the Cultural Revolution]] [[Category:Writers from Changzhou]] [[Category:20th-century Chinese novelists]] [[Category:Expelled members of the Chinese Communist Party in 1957]] [[Category:Chinese male novelists]] [[Category:20th-century Chinese essayists]] [[Category:Victims of the Anti-Rightist Campaign]] [[Category:Chinese emigrants to the United States]] [[Category:Expelled members of the Chinese Communist Party in 1987]]