Chai Ling (born 1966) was commander in chief of a 1989 student-led protest in China's Tiananmen Square, which ended with the massacre of hundreds of demonstrators by army troops and riot police.

Chai Ling was born in 1966 in the northeast Chinese province of Shandong. Both her parents were members of the Communist Party. As a young student Chai herself joined the Central Communist Youth League, which named her a "model student" during high school for her "good health, grades and moral character," reported Paula Chin of Peoplemagazine.

Chai began to question the politics she grew up with while studying child psychology as a graduate student at Beijing Normal University. She participated in demonstrations asking the government for democratic reforms in 1987, even though she realized that speaking out could have enormous implications. "I was afraid at first," she told the Los Angeles Times reporter Nikki Finke. "Because I know that...