Top Chinese Dissident to Speak at University of Richmond

January 7, 2002

Wei Jingsheng, China's foremost political dissident and one of the world's most important democracy activists, will speak on "Pitfalls of U.S. Foreign Relations: A Dissident's View" on Jan. 9 at the University of Richmond. The event, free and open to the public, will be held in Jepson Hall 120 from 7:30-9 p.m.

Wei is considered the father of the contemporary democracy movement in the People's Republic of China. He published his famous treatise, "The Fifth Modernization," during the "Beijing Spring" of 1978. The treatise expressed the view that without democracy, China could never truly modernize.

Jailed for more than 18 years as a prisoner of conscience, he was finally exiled to the U.S. in 1997. After a stint as a visiting scholar at Columbia University, he now devotes full time to promoting democracy and is chairman of the Overseas Chinese Democracy Movement Coalition.

An electrician by training and a former Red Guard, Wei is known for his undaunted courage and candid words. In 1997, his prison letters were published as "The Courage to Stand Alone," which expressed his unyielding criticism of China's one-party dictatorship.

Nominated multiple times for the Nobel Peace Prize, Wei has won many awards, including the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Human Rights Award and the National Endowment for Democracy Award.