Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) was one of the “four gentlemen” (廣場四君子) of Tiananmen Square, the group that staged a hunger strike in the final days of the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Beijing, and tried to hold off tanks and troops moving in to crush the student-led movement.
Liu, who died in state custody last week, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 and was regarded as China’s best-known dissident.
However, the other three have largely faded from the public eye and none have publicly commented on Liu or his death.
The best-known of the four in 1989 was Hou Dejian (侯德健), a Taiwanese singer who defected to China before the Tiananmen protests and was later exiled for almost two decades.
Zhou Duo (周舵), the oldest of the group, remains under police surveillance. The fourth, Gao Xin (高新), lives in the US.
“I am sorry, I’ve decided not to talk,” Hou told reporters after learning of Liu’s death.
After the protests, Hou was sent back to Taiwan, his songs banned on Chinese state radio and TV, and his assets seized.
He was quietly allowed back in 2006 and now lives in Beijing, working as a music adviser to a Chinese cable TV network.
Hou, who turns 61 on Oct. 1, is unwell, said Australian author Linda Jaivin, who has written a book on him.
“He basically retired from public life,” she said in an interview.
Zhou, who also lives in Beijing, has been forced by police to go out of town on an all-expenses-paid “holiday” since June 29, ostensibly to prevent him from speaking to foreign media as Liu’s condition deteriorated, fellow dissidents said.
Forced “holidays” and house arrest have become the norm for Zhou in the run-up to politically sensitive events, they said.
Reached via WeChat, Zhou, 70, declined an interview request.
Gao, then Liu’s fellow lecturer at Beijing Normal University and a Chinese Communist Party member, has been out of touch with the dissident community.
Gao left China in 1991 and was once a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. He writes a column for US-based Radio Free Asia.
A prolific writer, Gao has published about 10 Chinese-language books on elite Chinese politics.
He could not be reached for comment. An Internet search showed he has not written anything about Liu’s death.
In June 1989, the four men were among the last to leave Tiananmen Square.
Zhou has said he and Hou walked up to troops the evening before the crackdown on June 3, 1989, and negotiated with the soldiers to allow protesters to leave the square before they swept in.
It was a “miracle” the four men pulled it off, Zhou wrote in 2009, referring to negotiations with the troops.
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