Tank Man
Encyclopedia
Tank Man, or the Unknown Rebel, is the nickname of an anonymous man who stood in front of a column of Chinese
Type 59 tanks
the morning after the Chinese military forcibly removed protestors
from in and around Beijing
's Tiananmen Square
on June 5, 1989. The man achieved widespread international recognition due to the videotape and photographs taken of the incident. Despite his anonymity, he is commonly (though not necessarily correctly) referred to in Chinese as Wang Weilin (王維林), as dubbed by a Sunday Express article.
on Chang'an Avenue
, which runs east-west along the south end of the Forbidden City
in Beijing
, on June 5, 1989, one day after the Chinese government's violent crackdown on the Tiananmen protests
. The man placed himself alone in the middle of the street as the tanks approached, directly in the path of the armored vehicles (39°54′23.5"N 116°23′59.8"E). He held two shopping bags, one in each hand. As the tanks came to a stop, the man gestured towards the tanks with his bags. In response, the lead tank attempted to drive around the man, but the man repeatedly stepped into the path of the tank in a show of nonviolent action. After repeatedly attempting to go around rather than crush the man, the lead tank stopped its engines, and the armored vehicles behind it seemed to follow suit. There was a short pause with the man and the tanks having reached a quiet, still impasse.
Having successfully brought the column to a halt, the man climbed onto the hull of the buttoned-up lead tank and, after briefly stopping at the driver's hatch, appeared in video footage of the incident to call into various ports in the tank's turret
. He then climbed atop the turret and seemed to have a short conversation with a crew member at the gunner's hatch. After ending the conversation, the man alighted from the tank. The tank commander briefly emerged from his hatch, and the tanks restarted their engines, ready to continue on. At that point, the man, who was still standing within a meter or two from the side of the lead tank, leapt in front of the vehicle once again and quickly reestablished the man–tank standoff.
Video footage shows that two figures in blue attire then pulled the man away and disappeared with him into a nearby crowd; the tanks continued on their way. Eyewitnesses disagree about the identity of the people who pulled him aside. Jan Wong
is convinced the group were concerned citizens helping him away. In April 1998, Time
included the "Unknown Rebel" in a feature titled Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century
.
." However, this claim has been rejected by internal Communist Party of China
documents, which reported that they could not find the man, according to the Hong Kong
-based Information Center for Human Rights. One party member was quoted as saying, "We can’t find him. We got his name from journalists. We have checked through computers but can’t find him among the dead or among those in prison." Numerous theories have sprung up as to the man's identity and current whereabouts.
There are several conflicting stories about what happened to him after the demonstration. In a speech to the President's Club in 1999, Bruce Herschensohn
, former deputy special assistant to President
Richard Nixon
, reported that he was executed 14 days later; other sources say he was executed by firing squad a few months after the Tiananmen Square protests. In Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now
, Jan Wong
writes that the man is still alive and is hiding in mainland China. Other commentary has also insisted that the men who pulled him out of the tanks' way were not the secret police, but rather concerned civilians.
The government of the People's Republic of China
has made few statements about the incident or the people involved. In a 1990 interview with Barbara Walters
, then-CPC General Secretary
Jiang Zemin
was asked what became of the man. Jiang first stated (through an interpreter), "I can't confirm whether this young man you mentioned was arrested or not," and then replied in English, "I think...never killed" . According to an unnamed professor from Hong Kong, reported by The Epoch Times
, the tank man is still alive. He is said to have hidden in China for 3 years and 9 months after the incident, and eventually settled in Taiwan. The professor also stated that the tank man is a specialist in Chinese archeology.
One theory as to why the "Unknown Rebel" (if still alive) has never come forward, is that he himself is unaware of his international recognition.
The most used photograph of the event was taken by Jeff Widener
of the Associated Press
, from a sixth floor balcony of the Beijing Hotel
, about half a mile (800 meters) away from the scene. Widener was injured and suffering from flu. The image was taken using a Nikon FE2
camera through a Nikkor 400mm 5.6 ED IF lens
and TC-301 teleconverter
. Low on film, a friend hastily obtained a roll of Fuji 100 ASA color negative film, allowing him to make the shot. Though he was concerned that his shots were not good, his image was syndicated to a large number of newspapers around the world, and was said to have appeared on the front page of all European papers.
Another version was taken by Stuart Franklin
of Magnum Photos
from the fifth floor of the Beijing Hotel. His has a wider field of view than Widener's, showing more tanks further away. He was on the same balcony as Charlie Cole, and his roll of film was smuggled out of the country by a French student, concealed in a box of tea.
Charlie Cole, working for Newsweek
and on the same balcony as Stuart Franklin, hid his roll of film containing Tank Man in a Beijing Hotel toilet, sacrificing an unused roll of film and undeveloped images of wounded protesters after the PSB
raided his room, destroyed the two rolls of film just mentioned and forced him to sign a confession. Cole was able to retrieve the roll and have it sent to Newsweek. He won a World Press Award
for a similar photo. It was featured in Life
"100 Photographs That Changed the World" in 2003.
Arthur Tsang Hin Wah of Reuters
took several shots, but the one shot of Tank Man climbing the tank was chosen from his batch of photos.
On June 4, 2009, in connection with the 20th anniversary of the protests, Associated Press
reporter Terril Jones revealed a photo he took showing the Tank Man from ground level, a different angle than all of the other known photos of the Tank Man. Jones has written that he was not aware of what he had captured until a month later when printing his photos.
Variations of the scene were also recorded by BBC
film crews and transmitted across the world. One witness recounts seeing Chinese tanks early on June 4 crushing vehicles and people, just one day before this man took his stand in front of this tank column.
Willie Phua, a Singaporean cameraman for Australia's ABC, also captured footage of the moment from a hotel balcony.
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
Type 59 tanks
Type 59
The Type 59 main battle tank is a Chinese produced version of the Soviet T-54A tank, an improvement over the ubiquitous T-54/55. The first vehicles were produced in 1958 and it was accepted into service in 1959, with serial production beginning in 1963...
the morning after the Chinese military forcibly removed protestors
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese , were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China beginning on 15 April 1989...
from in and around Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
's Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square is a large city square in the center of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen Gate located to its North, separating it from the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is the third largest city square in the world...
on June 5, 1989. The man achieved widespread international recognition due to the videotape and photographs taken of the incident. Despite his anonymity, he is commonly (though not necessarily correctly) referred to in Chinese as Wang Weilin (王維林), as dubbed by a Sunday Express article.
The incident
The incident took place near TiananmenTiananmen
The Tiananmen, Tian'anmen or Gate of Heavenly Peace is a famous monument in Beijing, the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is widely used as a national symbol. First built during the Ming Dynasty in 1420, Tian'anmen is often referred to as the front entrance to the Forbidden City...
on Chang'an Avenue
Chang'an Avenue
Chang'an Avenue , literally "Eternal Peace Street", is a major thoroughfare in Beijing, China.Chang'an is the old name for Xi'an which was the capital of China during the Tang Dynasty and other periods....
, which runs east-west along the south end of the Forbidden City
Forbidden City
The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum...
in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
, on June 5, 1989, one day after the Chinese government's violent crackdown on the Tiananmen protests
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese , were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China beginning on 15 April 1989...
. The man placed himself alone in the middle of the street as the tanks approached, directly in the path of the armored vehicles (39°54′23.5"N 116°23′59.8"E). He held two shopping bags, one in each hand. As the tanks came to a stop, the man gestured towards the tanks with his bags. In response, the lead tank attempted to drive around the man, but the man repeatedly stepped into the path of the tank in a show of nonviolent action. After repeatedly attempting to go around rather than crush the man, the lead tank stopped its engines, and the armored vehicles behind it seemed to follow suit. There was a short pause with the man and the tanks having reached a quiet, still impasse.
Having successfully brought the column to a halt, the man climbed onto the hull of the buttoned-up lead tank and, after briefly stopping at the driver's hatch, appeared in video footage of the incident to call into various ports in the tank's turret
Gun turret
A gun turret is a weapon mount that protects the crew or mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon and at the same time lets the weapon be aimed and fired in many directions.The turret is also a rotating weapon platform...
. He then climbed atop the turret and seemed to have a short conversation with a crew member at the gunner's hatch. After ending the conversation, the man alighted from the tank. The tank commander briefly emerged from his hatch, and the tanks restarted their engines, ready to continue on. At that point, the man, who was still standing within a meter or two from the side of the lead tank, leapt in front of the vehicle once again and quickly reestablished the man–tank standoff.
Video footage shows that two figures in blue attire then pulled the man away and disappeared with him into a nearby crowd; the tanks continued on their way. Eyewitnesses disagree about the identity of the people who pulled him aside. Jan Wong
Jan Wong
Jan Wong is a Canadian journalist of Chinese ancestry. Wong worked for The Globe and Mail, serving as Beijing correspondent from 1988 to 1994, when she returned to write from Canada....
is convinced the group were concerned citizens helping him away. In April 1998, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
included the "Unknown Rebel" in a feature titled Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century
Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century
Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century is a compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people, published in Time magazine in 1999....
.
Identity and fate
Little is publicly known of the man's identity or that of the commander of the lead tank. Shortly after the incident, the British tabloid the Sunday Express named him as Wang Weilin (王维林), a 19-year-old student who was later charged with "political hooliganism" and "attempting to subvert members of the People's Liberation ArmyPeople's Liberation Army
The People's Liberation Army is the unified military organization of all land, sea, strategic missile and air forces of the People's Republic of China. The PLA was established on August 1, 1927 — celebrated annually as "PLA Day" — as the military arm of the Communist Party of China...
." However, this claim has been rejected by internal Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
documents, which reported that they could not find the man, according to the Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
-based Information Center for Human Rights. One party member was quoted as saying, "We can’t find him. We got his name from journalists. We have checked through computers but can’t find him among the dead or among those in prison." Numerous theories have sprung up as to the man's identity and current whereabouts.
There are several conflicting stories about what happened to him after the demonstration. In a speech to the President's Club in 1999, Bruce Herschensohn
Bruce Herschensohn
Stanley Bruce Herschensohn is an American political commentator and senior fellow at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy in Malibu, California....
, former deputy special assistant to President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
, reported that he was executed 14 days later; other sources say he was executed by firing squad a few months after the Tiananmen Square protests. In Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now
Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now
Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now is a 1996 book by Chinese-Canadian journalist Jan Wong. Wong describes how the youthful passion for left-wing and socialist politics drew her to participate in the Chinese Cultural Revolution...
, Jan Wong
Jan Wong
Jan Wong is a Canadian journalist of Chinese ancestry. Wong worked for The Globe and Mail, serving as Beijing correspondent from 1988 to 1994, when she returned to write from Canada....
writes that the man is still alive and is hiding in mainland China. Other commentary has also insisted that the men who pulled him out of the tanks' way were not the secret police, but rather concerned civilians.
The government of the People's Republic of China
Government of the People's Republic of China
All power within the government of the People's Republic of China is divided among three bodies: the People's Republic of China, State Council, and the People's Liberation Army . This article is concerned with the formal structure of the state, its departments and their responsibilities...
has made few statements about the incident or the people involved. In a 1990 interview with Barbara Walters
Barbara Walters
Barbara Jill Walters is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. She has hosted morning television shows , the television newsmagazine , former co-anchor of the ABC Evening News, and current contributor to ABC News.Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news...
, then-CPC General Secretary
General Secretary of the Communist Party of China
The General Secretary of the Communist Party of China , officially General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is the highest ranking official within the Communist Party of China, a standing member of the Politburo and head of the Secretariat...
Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin is a former Chinese politician, who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1989 to 2002, as President of the People's Republic of China from 1993 to 2003, and as Chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2005...
was asked what became of the man. Jiang first stated (through an interpreter), "I can't confirm whether this young man you mentioned was arrested or not," and then replied in English, "I think...never killed" . According to an unnamed professor from Hong Kong, reported by The Epoch Times
The Epoch Times
The Epoch Times is a multi-language, international media organisation. As a newspaper, the Times has been publishing in Chinese since May 2000. It was founded in 1999 by supporters of the Falun Gong spiritual discipline....
, the tank man is still alive. He is said to have hidden in China for 3 years and 9 months after the incident, and eventually settled in Taiwan. The professor also stated that the tank man is a specialist in Chinese archeology.
International notability and censorship
While the image of the lone man in front of the tank has come to symbolize the events at Tiananmen Square in 1989 internationally, it is virtually unknown within China itself, especially among younger Chinese people. Images of the protest on the internet have been blocked by the "Great Firewall of China." When undergraduate students at Beijing University, which was at the center of the incident, were shown copies of the iconic photograph some years afterwards, they "were genuinely mystified." One of the students thought that the image was "artwork." However, it is also noted in the documentary Frontline: The Tank Man, that he whispered to the student next to him "89", and hence may have concealed his knowledge of the event.One theory as to why the "Unknown Rebel" (if still alive) has never come forward, is that he himself is unaware of his international recognition.
Photographic versions
Four photographers managed to capture the event on film and get their pictures published in its aftermath. On June 4, 2009, another photographer released an image of the scene taken from ground level.The most used photograph of the event was taken by Jeff Widener
Jeff Widener
Jeff Widener is an American photographer, best known for his image of the Tank Man confronting a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square during the 1989 Beijing riots which made him a nominated finalist for the 1990 Pulitzer...
of the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, from a sixth floor balcony of the Beijing Hotel
Beijing Hotel
The Beijing Hotel is a five-star state-owned hotel in the Dongcheng District of Beijing, China.-Overview:It is located at the southern end of Wangfujing Street, at the corner with East Chang'an Avenue, 1.5km from Beijing Railway Station with views of the Forbidden City and part of Tiananmen Square...
, about half a mile (800 meters) away from the scene. Widener was injured and suffering from flu. The image was taken using a Nikon FE2
Nikon FE2
The Nikon FE2 is an advanced semi-professional level, interchangeable lens, 35 mm film, single lens reflex camera. It was manufactured by Nippon Kogaku K. K. in Japan from 1983 to 1987...
camera through a Nikkor 400mm 5.6 ED IF lens
Telephoto lens
In photography and cinematography, a telephoto lens is a specific type of a long-focus lens in which the physical length of the lens is shorter than the focal length. This is achieved by incorporating a special lens group known as a telephoto group that extends the light path to create a long-focus...
and TC-301 teleconverter
Nikon F-Mount Teleconverter
The Nikon F-Mount Teleconverter are a group of magnifying lenses mounted between the lens and the camera body. Currently there are 1.4x, 1.7x and 2x converters available.-Models:-Technical information:...
. Low on film, a friend hastily obtained a roll of Fuji 100 ASA color negative film, allowing him to make the shot. Though he was concerned that his shots were not good, his image was syndicated to a large number of newspapers around the world, and was said to have appeared on the front page of all European papers.
Another version was taken by Stuart Franklin
Stuart Franklin
Stuart Franklin is a photographer, a member of Magnum Photos, and a former President of Magnum Photos . He was born at Guys Hospital, London.-Education:...
of Magnum Photos
Magnum Photos
Magnum Photos is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, with offices located in New York, Paris, London and Tokyo...
from the fifth floor of the Beijing Hotel. His has a wider field of view than Widener's, showing more tanks further away. He was on the same balcony as Charlie Cole, and his roll of film was smuggled out of the country by a French student, concealed in a box of tea.
Charlie Cole, working for Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
and on the same balcony as Stuart Franklin, hid his roll of film containing Tank Man in a Beijing Hotel toilet, sacrificing an unused roll of film and undeveloped images of wounded protesters after the PSB
Public Security Bureau
In the People's Republic of China, a public security bureau refers to the government offices while the smaller offices are called Police posts which are similar in concept to the Japanese Kōban system) present in each province and municipality that handles policing , public security, and...
raided his room, destroyed the two rolls of film just mentioned and forced him to sign a confession. Cole was able to retrieve the roll and have it sent to Newsweek. He won a World Press Award
World Press Photo
World Press Photo is an independent, non-profit organization based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Founded in 1955 the organization is known for holding the world's largest and most prestigious annual press photography contest....
for a similar photo. It was featured in Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
"100 Photographs That Changed the World" in 2003.
Arthur Tsang Hin Wah of Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
took several shots, but the one shot of Tank Man climbing the tank was chosen from his batch of photos.
On June 4, 2009, in connection with the 20th anniversary of the protests, Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
reporter Terril Jones revealed a photo he took showing the Tank Man from ground level, a different angle than all of the other known photos of the Tank Man. Jones has written that he was not aware of what he had captured until a month later when printing his photos.
Variations of the scene were also recorded by BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
film crews and transmitted across the world. One witness recounts seeing Chinese tanks early on June 4 crushing vehicles and people, just one day before this man took his stand in front of this tank column.
Willie Phua, a Singaporean cameraman for Australia's ABC, also captured footage of the moment from a hotel balcony.
See also
- Chinese democracy movementChinese democracy movementThe Chinese democracy movement refers to a series of loosely organized political movements in the People's Republic of China against the continued one-party rule by the Communist Party. One such movement began during the Beijing Spring in 1978 and was taken up again in the Tiananmen Square...
- History of the People's Republic of ChinaHistory of the People's Republic of ChinaThe history of the People's Republic of China details the history of mainland China since October 1, 1949, when, after a near complete victory by the Communist Party of China in the Chinese Civil War, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China from atop Tiananmen...
- Human rights in the People's Republic of ChinaHuman rights in the People's Republic of ChinaHuman rights in the People's Republic of China are a matter of dispute between the Chinese government, other countries, international NGOs, and dissidents inside the country. Organizations such as the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have accused the Chinese...
- Tiananmen Square protests of 1989Tiananmen Square protests of 1989The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese , were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China beginning on 15 April 1989...
- Egyptian Tank Man
External links
- "Behind the scenes: Tank Man of Tiananmen" (New York Times), with link to video of the incident.
- The Stuart Franklin photo at Life magazine 100 photos that changed the world. Professor disclosed heroic Wang Weilin still in world, dajiyuan.com. Retrieved June 1, 2006.
- PBS Frontline documentary "The Tank Man", 2006, Program viewable online. Last accessed July 29, 2008.
- The Tank Man documentary, viewable online.
- Time 100: The Unknown Rebel, Time, 1999