Former journalist Zhang Boli, Tiananmen fugitive and how he escaped. He used a fake ID to travel from north to south. Fortunately, the picture of him flashed on TV did not show his face clearly. The most challenging part was getting from Guangdong to Hong Kong. It’s interesting how a crime syndicate could regard him as a hero and helped him escape. They were even willing to do it for free. The triad chief Zhang met was someone holding a masters degree in the University of HK. As Mr Zhang remarked: 香港太漂亮了，连黑社会都那么文明。
Operation Yellow Sparrow in Hong Kong was this secret organisation that raised funds to help Tiananmen fugitives escape. From what I know, one of the biggest donors to this operation was singer Anita Mui. I’m not surprised that Chow Yuen Fatt also donated, but Jackie Chan?
The drama at the US Embassy in HK on the day Zhang broke in is truly engaging. The ethnic Chinese US ambassador was moved to tears by Zhang’s heroism. Luckily, there wasn’t that much trade between the US and China back then. In more recent times, probably when Obama was president, Zhang could have been handed over to the HK police and his life would have been over. In spite of Hong Kong still being a British colony back then, Zhang was aware that there were many departments in HK’s civil service which have close contacts with the mainland.
Zhang Boli now lives in the US and works as a Christian pastor. He has written a book Escape From China detailing the harrowing and difficult two years he spent as a fugitive before arriving in the US.
The most striking observation Zhang made towards the end of the interview – something which I’m acutely aware of, is the CCP’s success in brainwashing not just the generations which never heard about the Tiananmen massacre as it occurred but also the generation that tuned in to the incident as it occurred. That’s because the CCP had waited for memories to fade and then introduced their twisted version of the narrative, blaming the West for instigating the whole unrest and all future unrest. It’s as if China will have no dissidents and political activists if the West had not interfered. Henceforth, the gullible will recognise no local or homegrown uprising. Any protest against the CCP’s government will be deemed a coloured revolution started and sponsored by hostile Western governments.