Hong Kong legislator Lau Chin-shek welcomes veteran dissident Wang Ruowang at Kai Tak airport. Known as the “grandfather of dissent”, the 75-year-old writer believes overseas activists can form a powerful political force.

South China Morning Post, December 2, 1992.

Dissident vows to topple Beijing

By DANIEL KWAN

VETERAN democracy activist Wang Ruowang has vowed to unite all dissident forces overseas to topple the communist administration on the mainland.

The famed writer, who was allowed to leave for the United States in August, arrived in Hong Kong yesterday for a visit.

He said he had no immediate plans to return to China because he had decided to run for the chairmanship of a powerful overseas dissident body next January.

The new body is a merger of the Paris-based Federation for Democracy in China and the US-based Alliance for Democracy in China.

Wang and his wife, Yang Zi, who flew in from London, were met at the airport by their host, the Hong Kong Federation of Writers and Artists, and legislator Mr. Lau Chin-shek.

Their five-day visit to the territory is part of a world tour, which also includes Canada, Australia and Taiwan.

At a brief press conference, Wang claimed that by uniting all overseas pro-democracy forces, Chinese activists could form a united front to topple the communist government in Belling.

“We should not underestimate the strength of political forces outside China, which are made up of dissidents-in-exile, students, scholars and overseas Chinese,” he said.

"If [we] unite all these people, they can become a new political force that can do battle with and replace the Beijing authorities."

Asked whether he 'considered his actions “counter-revolutionary”, Wang answered: "The fact that I am a counter-revolutionary does not date from 1992. It started when I began to negate Mao Zedong on an ideological level.

"And I am the godfather of bourgeois liberalization. This is the verdict given me by Deng Xiaoping. I am not afraid [of such labels]," he added.

The 75-year-old writer said Sun Yat-sen, the national hero who led overseas revolutionary forces to overthrow the Qing dynasty government in 1911, was an example for him to follow~

"But I don't have the ambition of Sun Yat-sen ...first of all, I am an old man, but the spirit of Sun Yat-sen… is always an example for me," he said.

Wang said he would travel to Taiwan to "study the democratic experience there".

"Taiwan is a politically democratic experiment. It is an experiment with a lot of Western input and it is step ahead of Beijing. A visit to Taiwan is important, especially when we are going to build a new political system in China," he said.

The white-haired author who is known as the "grandfather of dissent", yesterday also defended US-based dissident Mr. Shen Tong's trip to China in August.

While many underground leaders Mr. Shen met were reportedly arrested, Wang said the 24-year-old student leader had made "solid contributions" to the pro-democracy movement.

"We should not criticize him too much ... we must learn from his foolishness so that we won't repeat such mistakes."

Wang is due to give public lecture today at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.