Born May 20, 1950
Beijing, China

Chinese prodemocracy and human-rights activist

Wei Jingsheng was raised to believe in the communist system and to support China’s Communist Party leaders. (Communism is a theory of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, overseen by a centralized government.) He studied the teachings of communist thinkers during his youth. As a teenager he joined the Red Guard—the youth wing of the national forces charged with ensuring allegiance to communist principles and to party chairman Mao Tse-tung (1893–1976).

After witnessing poverty in the countryside, however, Wei became disillusioned with government policies. He became an outspoken critic of China’s leaders and a forceful advocate for democracy, for which he spent a total of seventeen years in prison. In 1997 Wei was set free and left the country on a plane bound for the United States...