Leader of the Chinese

JIAN-LI YANG is a face of the new China – or rather, what many hope will be the new China: free, democratic, and respectful of human rights. He is one of the leading democracy activists of the Chinese people, and one of the leading democracy activists in the world. From April 2002 to April 2007, he was confined to Chinese prisons. There was once a book about the American Civil War: Across Five Aprils. Yang had six Aprils. He recently returned to the United States, where he has been living since the 1980s (when not in Chinese prisons). His story is well worth knowing. I will provide a kind of synopsis.

He was born in 1963, in the province of Shandong, northeastern China. His father was a Communist-party official; his mother was a homemaker. There were nine children in the Yang family, one of whom died at age two or three. Yang doesn’t know for sure. This child, a girl, died in a famine, and his parents were always reluctant to talk about it.

About the Author

Jay Nordlinger

Jay Nordlinger was a senior editor of National Review and a book fellow at National Review Institute.

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JIAN-LI YANG is a face of the new China – or rather, what many hope will be the new China: free, democratic, and respectful of human rights. He is one of the leading democracy activists of the Chinese people, and one of the leading democracy activists in the world. From April 2002 to April 2007, he was confined to Chinese prisons. There was once a book about the American Civil War: Across Five Aprils. Yang had six Aprils. He recently returned to the United States, where he has been living since the 1980s (when not in Chinese prisons). His story is well worth knowing. I will provide a kind of synopsis.

He was born in 1963, in the province of Shandong, northeastern China. His father was a Communist-party official; his mother was a homemaker. There were nine children in the Yang family, one of whom died at age two or three. Yang doesn’t know for sure. This child, a girl, died in a famine, and his parents were always reluctant to talk about it.