Tank Man

The Tank Man, or the Unknown Protester, is the nickname of an anonymous male dissident who engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience by standing in front of a column of tanks on June 5, 1989, the morning after the Communist Chinese military had suppressed the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests by force. The man achieved widespread international recognition due to the videotape and photographs taken of the incident despite censorship of the event by the Chinese government. Although some have identified the man as Wang Weilin (王維林),, the real name has not been confirmed and little is known about him or of his fate after the confrontation that day. It is not even known whether this brave individual is alive. In April 1998, Time included the "Unknown Rebel" in a feature titled Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century.

Misattributed

 * Why are you here? My city is in chaos because of you!
 * The Unknown Rebel Time profile. Retrieved January 10, 2006.


 * Go back! Turn around!  Stop killing my people!
 * These two statements are frequently attributed to Tank Man on the Internet. While it seems clear from the footage that some communication occurred between Tank Man and the soldiers in the front tank, no confirmation has ever been made as to what was actually spoken.

Quotes about Tank Man

 * I don't think this man was killed by the tank. I can't confirm whether this young man you mentioned was arrested or not. I think that he was never killed.
 * Jiang Zemin, when asked about Tank Man of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests during an interview with Barbara Walters, as quoted in "The Tank Man" (1990), PBS.


 * He was never arrested. I don't know where he is now.
 * Jiang Zemin, when asked about Tank Man of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests during an interview with Mike Wallace, as quoted in "China's Leader Talks To 60 Minutes" (31 August 2000), CBS.


 * By putting his life on the line in front of his government's tanks, he provided not only one of the most memorable images of the last 35 years but one of the most inspiring too. The free China of the future owes him a statue or two.
 * "35 Heroes of Freedom: Celebrating the people who have made the world groovier and groovier since 1968," in Reason magazine (December 2003)


 * Twenty years ago, on June 5, 1989, following weeks of huge protests in Beijing and a crackdown that resulted in the deaths of hundreds, a lone man stepped in front of a column of tanks rumbling past Tiananmen Square. The moment instantly became a symbol of the protests as well as a symbol against oppression worldwide — an anonymous act of defiance seared into our collective consciousnesses.
 * Patrick Witty, "Behind the Scenes: Tank Man of Tiananmen," in The New York Times LENS Blog (2009)


 * On June 5th, 1989 one individual had enough of the oppression he and others had long-endured from one of the biggest and most ruthless gangs ever to exist. Left with few other options after decades of rights-usurpations, the man stood up to the aggressors and very literally put his life on the line by standing in front of a column of tanks.  Though never identified with absolute certainty, he became known as The Tank Man.
 * Pete Eyre, "The Tank Man," PeteEyre.com (10 November 2010)


 * He risked a good and honorable death to stand up nonviolently for what is right.
 * George Donnelly, "You are Tank Man," in the Arm Your Mind for Liberty blog (20 June 2012)


 * The Tank Man represents the independence and the liberties. Now I call him a hero, but today who are our "heroes"?  I mean, from the media?  They're always people in our military who have killed a lot of other people: the people who are great sharpshooters, the people who drop bombs, the people who run drone missiles.  And they never get criticised in the major media for killing innocents.  But they become "hero."  Everybody that has a uniform now is a "hero."  But what about somebody who wants to tell the truth?  What if you have an Edward Snowden who finally speaks out and talks about the truth?  He becomes a "traitor" in their eyes.  I call Edward Snowden a true hero like the Tank Man.
 * Ron Paul, "Do We Live in a Police State?" a speech from the Ludwig von Mises Institute seminar The Police State: Know It When You See It (Mises Circle Seminar, 18 January 2014)