Wan Runnan
Wan Runnan | |
|---|---|
| 万润南 | |
| Born | 29 October 1946 |
| Died | 13 October 2025 (aged 78) Créteil, France |
| Occupation | Software engineer |
| Known for | Pro-democracy activism |
Wan Runnan (Chinese: 万润南; pinyin: Wàn Rùnnán; 29 October 1946 – 13 October 2025) was a Chinese software engineer, businessman, and human rights activist. Wan founded Stone Corporation, the first private computer company in China.[1] He was known for his support for the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, which he financed heavily.[2][3]
Life and career
Wan was born in Yixing, Jiangsu on 29 October 1946.[4] He studied construction engineering at Tsinghua University in the 1960s. There, he married his classmate Liu Tao, daughter of President Liu Shaoqi. In 1970, Wan divorced Liu and was sent to work in the countryside amidst the Cultural Revolution. There, he worked on the railroads and taught middle school. He also met his second wife, Li Yu. Li was the daughter of Li Chang, who likely helped Wan get a job in the Computer Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1976.[5]: 751
On 16 May 1984, Wan and his partners founded Stone Emerging Industries Company (四通新型产业公司; Sìtōng Xīnxíng Chǎnyè Gōngsī) in Haidian, Beijing. The company was legally registered as a collective, the only way for a private company to have more than seven employees before 1988. Wan would serve as president of the company until June 1989.[5]: 751–752
Stone's first project was a program allowing dot-matrix printers to print Chinese characters, which it sold to government ministries. Stone had completed the software in eight days; a state-run firm had failed to complete a similar project, despite beginning three months earlier, due to government bureaucracy.[5]: 753–754 The printers were made by Brother and sold by Mitsui; Stone and Mitsui would later form a "long-term alliance".[5]: 753, 755
In 1985, Stone moved from the office of an electronics parts factory, where it had been founded, to Zhongguancun, a research and technology hub in Haidian. An investigation into Stone was launched by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in an effort to shut it down, but the investigation ended in 1986 with no results.[5]: 754
From 1985, Stone moved from Chinese character printers to word processing and other office technology. It also formed several legally separate but related companies, but it was hindered by regulation preventing the separate companies from working together effectively. Changes in regulations allowed the formation of a holding company in May 1986, which united six Stone subsidiaries under a single management. Named "Beijing Haidian Stone Group Company" at first, by 1993 it was simply "Stone Group Company".[5]: 754–755
When the pro-democracy protests began in April 1989, Wan provided material support for the demonstrators in Tiananmen Square and helped organize negotiations between the students and government. When the situation deteriorated, Wan tried to convince the students to leave the square, but his warnings went unheeded. After the military crackdown on June 4, Wan was wanted by the Chinese authorities and fled to Paris.[3][1]
A month after the massacre, Wan Runnan, along with prominent exiles such as Liu Binyan, Wuer Kaixi and Yan Jiaqi, met in Paris to call for the creation of the Federation for a Democratic China (FDC).[3][6]
In 2014, Wan was interviewed by the Financial Times. The interview generated a response in the Chinese state-run Global Times, written by its editor Hu Xijin. The column was noted as a rare mention of the Tiananmen Square incident in a state-run newspaper.[7]
Wan is one of three subjects in the feature documentary The Exiles (2022) which won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival.[8]
Wan died from heart disease in Créteil, near Paris, on 13 October 2025, at the age of 78. Though he had wished to become a naturalized French citizen to "have the opportunity to vote for a leader once in his life", the process was not completed before his death.[3][9]
References
- ^ a b Butterfield, Fox (30 June 1989). "Beijing Protesters Said to Flee To a Now-Uneasy Hong Kong". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 19 April 2022. Retrieved 20 October 2025.
- ^ "万润南：六四事件后我与胡锦涛分道扬镳". 香港01 (in Chinese (Hong Kong)). 16 October 2025. Archived from the original on 2 June 2021. Retrieved 16 October 2025.
- ^ a b c d Holzman, Marie (15 October 2025). "Le dissident chinois Wan Runnan, financier du mouvement étudiant de Tiananmen exilé en France, est mort". Le Monde (in French). Retrieved 16 October 2025.
- ^ Wan, Runnan. 宜兴万氏 [Yixing Wanshi] (in Chinese).
我的生日是公元1946年丙戌十月初五日午时。
- ^ a b c d e f Kennedy, Scott (1997). "The Stone Group: State Client of Market Pathbreaker?". The China Quarterly. 152 (December 1997). Cambridge University Press: 752–756. doi:10.1017/S0305741000047548. JSTOR 655558. S2CID 154841745.
- ^ Chong, W.L. (September 1989). "The Chicago Congress: Recent Activities of "the Front for a Democratic China"". China Information. 4 (2): 1–27. doi:10.1177/0920203X8900400201. ISSN 0920-203X.
- ^ Ramzy, Austin (13 August 2014). "In State Newspaper, a Rare Discussion of Tiananmen Protests". Sinosphere. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 1 October 2025. Retrieved 20 October 2025.
- ^ DeFore, John (22 January 2022). "'The Exiles': Film Review | Sundance 2022". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 11 May 2022.
- ^ Chiu, Kuo-chiang, ed. (13 October 2025). "四通橋事件 3 週年 四通公司創辦人萬潤南同日病逝" [Wan Runnan, the founder of Sitong, died on the third anniversary of the Sitong Bridge protest]. Central News Agency (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Taipei. Archived from the original on 13 October 2025. Retrieved 13 October 2025.