Shen Tong was a student leader of the 1989 protest movement who left to study in the U.S. shortly after the June 4, 1989 military crackdown in Beijing. He now lives in New York where he runs a software firm. As the Occupy Wall Street protests began in Manhattan, he has found himself offering advise to protesters from his own experience more than 20 years ago in China. From the Wall Street Journal:
“I was curious about the movement,” he said. “Pretty soon, I realized it was not going away. But no good deed goes unpunished.”
Mr. Shen soon found himself working a full day for Occupy Wall Street, seven days a week.
[…] But his business background makes him an unlikely leader for an anticorporate movement. And Occupy Wall Street is a far cry from Mr. Shen’s work in China, where the government sought to suppress the student movement, sometimes with violence. New York’s protesters camp in the open air and march freely through Manhattan.
“Last time we wanted a different China, we got shot at,” said Mr. Shen. “America can still afford to do this nicely.”
