Tiananmen Memory Haunts Demonstrators Still in China

Police detained him twice, holding him for several weeks each time and beating him once, he said. The authorities also ruined his wedding, warning all his friends not to attend. Then in 1995, after police pressured a trusted colleague into denouncing him in public, Zheng decided to abandon politics. "I didn't have a source of income," he said, "and I needed to make money."

Zheng said he is in debt now but no longer as worried about his finances because his stocks have done well. The volumes on political philosophy on his bookshelves were replaced by the translated works of Warren Buffett. But he wrestles with his conscience about whether he should be doing more on behalf of those who died at Tiananmen. His wife said he still has nightmares.

"I do feel guilty," he said. "If a student doesn't appeal on behalf of the students who died, how can you not feel guilty?"

Ma Shaofang, who was No. 10 on the most-wanted list, said he also struggles with pangs of guilt, about what happened 15 years ago and about not doing enough since. Reached by telephone in the southern city of Shenzhen, he said the government bore ultimate responsibility for the bloodshed in 1989, but he and the other students might have saved lives had they been more willing to compromise with the authorities.

Ma, 39, said he was haunted by the memory of a small child he saw who had been shot several times. "I feel responsible for that child's death," he said. "I could have done better in 1989, and I could have done more afterward."

After he was released from prison, Ma said he refrained from politics, only occasionally signing a petition or writing an essay. But the police have made it difficult for him to make a living. He said he started his own brand marketing firm in 2001, but the authorities frightened off all his customers last month.

"I used to think I should stay out of politics, because if I couldn't solve my own problems, how could I solve society's problems?" he said. "Now I realize I can't solve my own problems because the police are always harassing me. I realize that I just want to be an ordinary citizen, and to be a citizen, I have to assert my rights and speak out."

Wang Zhengyun, No. 8 on the most-wanted list, said he also has struggled to make a living. A member of China's ethnic Lahu minority, he grew up in an impoverished mountain village in Yunnan province and was among the first from his village to go to college. But after Tiananmen and a prison term, the authorities forced him to go back to the village.

A year later, Wang returned to Beijing. He said he lived in basement apartments and survived by selling stones for use in construction. Then he saved enough to open a store to sell home audio equipment. Eventually, he opened a chain of stores and last year started a firm that wires buildings with audio, video and computer cables. But Wang, 35, said he still feels "a dull pain, spiritually."

"I wish I was able to do something for China's democratization," Wang, a wiry man with a buzz cut and an angular face, said over lunch this week. "Who wants to accept a government that gives you no hope and no freedom? . . . But what can we do? What's the next step? I don't know."

Until recently, the most successful of the student leaders who stayed in China was Zhang Ming, No. 19 on the list. After his release, Zhang avoided his fellow students and stayed away from politics. He even changed his name.

"He had already suffered tremendously, and he wanted to concentrate on economic development," said John Zhang, his younger brother, a software engineer. "He decided that would be how he would contribute to the country."

John Zhang said his brother found a partner, and over the past decade they built a huge real estate conglomerate in Shanghai with subsidiaries in the software, mobile telephone and auto industries and nearly $250 million in assets. But in late 2002, state security agents arrested him and accused him of planning to blow up a building. The charge was later changed to embezzlement, and he was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Zhang said a business rival used his brother's Tiananmen background to persuade local party authorities in Shanghai to crush him. Zhang Ming, 39, is now on a hunger strike in prison.

Zhai Weimin, No. 6 on the list, also complained of official harassment and said he would leave China if he could. "I feel like I'm living in a big net. It's very stifling," said Zhai, 36, by telephone from his home in Henan province, where his small publishing business is struggling.

But Zhai said he never feels lonely. Local residents remember what he did 15 years ago, he said, and they often seek him out for help in addressing grievances with the government and local businesses. "People haven't forgotten June 4," he said. "Their feelings may be less intense and they may be scared, but they haven't forgotten."