The list above was published in September 2004 by Nanfang Renwu Zhoukan (Southern Personalities Weekly), a popular magazine in Guangdong province. "This is the time when China is facing the most problems in its unprecedented transformation, and when it most needs public intellectuals to be on the scene and to speak out," exhorted an accompanying commentary. Media interest was so intense that trouble was inevitable. The Communist Party's Propaganda Department banned media from discussing the divisive concept of 'public intellectuals', and a scathing commentary appeared in the Party mouthpiece The People's Daily.

The biographical snapshots below, listed in alphabetical order, were compiled by the China Review team and incorporate comments translated from the original list in Southern Personalities Weekly.

Bei Dao
Poet, 55 years old. Pseudonym for Zhao Zhengkai
The most famous of China's "misty" poets, Bei Dao became the voice of his generation in the 1970s, notably with "The Answer" [extract below], a poem commemorating the 'Tiananmen Incident' of 1976 when the poet himself was arrested as people mourning Zhou Enlai clashed with police. Bei's central themes include the pressures of a conformist society, disillusionment, and sense of rootlessness or cry for individualism. He co-founded with Mang Ke the underground literary journal Jintian (Today), a focus for young poets and dissidents before it was banned as Democracy Wall fell. In 1989 Bei Dao signed a letter with 32 other intellectuals to China's leaders that led to a petition campaign to release political prisoners. When the democracy movement died on June 4th, Bei was in Berlin. He has stayed in exile ever since, and is now at the University of Michigan in the US.

"Let me tell you, world,
I-do-not-believe!
If a thousand challengers lie beneath your feet,
Count me as number one thousand and one.

I don't believe the sky is blue;
I don't believe in the sound of thunder;
I don't believe that dreams are false;
I don't believe that death has no revenge.

If the sea is destined to breach the dikes,
Let the brackish water pour into my heart;
If the land is destined to rise,
Let humanity choose a new peak for our existence."

Chen Danqing
Oil painter, 51 years old
Banished from Shanghai in 1970 to spend the next seven years in a Jiangxi commune, Chen Danqing made the most of the Cultural Revolution and taught himself to paint. He travelled to Tibet in 1976 to paint the first of a "Tibet Series" that would make his name and also mark the conclusion of the Cultural Revolution, through the reactions of local people to the news of Mao's death. In 1980, he graduated from Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Arts and returned to Tibet again. In 1982, Chen settled in New York City. After the events in Tiananmen Square in 1989, his paintings explored the experience of dislocation and exile, juxtaposing the square's violent scenes with iconic images from Western mass media and popular culture. He returned to China in 2000 to work as a Professor at Qinghua University, and has used his position to comment publicly on educational issues and urban planning.

Cui Jian
Rock Star, 43 years old
Only with Mao's death and the birth of the reform era could China slowly shed its cultural straitjacket and experiment with new forms. In 1979, Cui Jian joined the Beijing Song and Dance Troupe as a classical trumpet player. His father hoped learning an instrument would keep him out of political trouble. Yet by 1989, Cui was China's foremost rock star, a reluctant rebel whose songs became the anthems of Tiananmen Square. The People's Daily even called him the "John Lennon of China" in late June 1989, though official displeasure at rock pushed him back to the trumpet and a new appreciation of jazz. Today he still performs at Beijing bars, amid the lively social scene his efforts helped to inspire. For many, Cui's songs remain the score of the democracy movement:

"I once kept on asking again and again, 'When would you go with me?'
But you always laughed at me, saying I have nothing to my name...
I want to give you my pursuit; and my freedom too,
But all you ever do is laugh at me, 'cause I have nothing to my name."
[From 'Yiwusuoyou", 1988]

Dai Huang
Journalist and writer, 76 years old
Mao's invitation to let a hundred flowers bloom in 1957 encouraged intellectuals nationwide to open their hearts for the sake of a better system. As a conscientious Communist Party member, celebrated war correspondent Dai Huang opened his, and earned a one-way ticket to Beidahuang, a wasteland in northeast China. It was Dai's first step on a journey of twenty-one wasted years wearing a 'rightist' hat. From the late seventies, Dai's small Xinhua flat became open house for petitioners seeking rehabilitation and justice in Beijing. Today, he continues his self-appointed past, to help people remember China's painful history and draw lessons from it. "Under a communist system, society should be equal, free and democratic. The current government has improved compared to before, but it still falls short of the requirements of the Constitution."

Ding Dong
Historian, 53 Years old
"Salvaging the disappeared of intellectual history" has been Ding Dong's self-appointed task for the past decade. Formerly at the Shanxi Academy of Social Studies, Ding researches the fate of 20th century Chinese intellectuals and popular thought. While he has no earth-shattering theories of his own, he has nevertheless made an irreplaceable contribution to China's culture and ideology. Despite being 'a publisher without a publishing company', he has organised and made possible many books including works on Gu Zhun, Huang Wanli and Yu Luoke.

Du Weiming
Philosopher, 64 years old
What does it mean to be Chinese within a world context? Du Weiming is a major proponent and explorer of this idea of "Cultural China". Born in Kunming, but raised in Taiwan, Du is a leading neo-Confucian philosopher. Educated at Harvard, Du taught Chinese intellectual history, philosophies of China, and Confucian studies at several universities before taking his current post as Harvard-Yenching Professor of Chinese History, Philosophy and Confucian Studies, and Director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute. Author of numerous books and articles on the modern transformation of Confucian humanism, Du is currently interpreting Confucian ethics as a spiritual resource for the emerging global community.

Fang Zhouzi
Public figure, 37 years old. Pseudonym for Fang Shimin
Fang Zhouzi responded to the Southern People's Weekly feature with an article asking to "resign" from the list. A biochemist by training, with a PhD from Michigan State University, California-based Fang runs the website "New Threads" (Xin Yusi, www.xys.org), one of the first (1994) and still among the most influential Chinese-language electronic magazines. With the stated purpose of promoting Chinese culture to the general public, its online discussions have contributed greatly to Chinese web culture. Fang uses the site to publish essays and reports exposing plagiarism and other examples of unethical practices in Chinese academia. His latest book, Ulcer: Confronting China's Academic Corruption, challenges the scientific merit of several academic publications.

Gao Yaojie
AIDS campaigner, 78 years old
"They thought they could scare me into not saying anything. But what can they do to an old woman like me?" Gao Yaojie, a retired gynaecologist from Henan Province, has waged an often lonely and dangerous battle over the past nine years to spread awareness and information about AIDS in remote areas of the country. Despite intense pressure and harassment from local and provincial level government officials, Gao publicized the AIDS epidemic in Henan villages caused by the state-sponsored buying of blood in lethally unsanitary circumstances. Gao printed up hundreds of thousands of flyers to educate rural residents about AIDS, and spent thousands of pounds from her own pension to buy medicine for the sick. Thanks to her efforts and courage, Gao played a key role in putting AIDS on the public agenda in China. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has commended her active distribution of AIDS prevention materials in China's rural areas. But those same officials who tried to silence her remain so insecure, yet administratively so strong, that they refused her permission to travel abroad to collect the humanitarian prizes she has been awarded for her work. "The government says their plan will prevent an AIDS epidemic," says Gao of belated official acknowledgement of the issue. "But even an old woman like me knows the problem has already reached epidemic proportions."

He Weifang
Legal reformer, 44 years old
Change the title of "people's courts" to just "courts", suggests He Weifang, to highlight the judiciary's professional nature. And, while you're at it, let him and his fellow reformers rewrite a pure organisation law "to embody the principle of independence so that legal bodies will not be influenced by other forces." Welcome to the latest round (December 2004) of He's crusade to advance legal reform, a vital step, he argues, towards political maturity and overall political restructuring.

Professor of Law at Beijing University, and co-editor of Res Publica, a liberal theory journal, He earned fame in 2003 for his petition to the NPC criticising the extra-judicial detention of migrant workers, following the beating to death by police of a young graphic designer in Shenzhen. Widely circulated on the Internet, a new forum for Chinese to meet and be heard, He's petition galvanized liberals and contributed to the eventual abolition of the system. The Supreme People's Court is playing down reports it will adopt all of He's recent suggestions, but changes along his lines are widely expected.

Hu Shuli
Business journalist, 51 years old
Dubbed "the most dangerous woman in China", Hu Shuli is the founder and managing editor of Caijing, China's most daring business and finance magazine, established in 1998. Hu studied journalism at People's University, in the first class after the Cultural Revolution. Combining investigative reporting with critical commentary on financial as well as wider social issues, Caijing has become a pioneer of independent, professional journalism in China, and a watchdog for the emerging market culture.

"I found that in China, reporting on business and finance is much more exciting and practical than reporting on politics. While business and finance constitute the motivating force pushing our society forward, and thus offer the most fascinating scenarios for journalists to cover, they are also less taboo than politics."

Hua Xinmin
Public figure, 50 years old
"If they don't stop demolishing, Beijing as an historical city will cease to exist," warns Hua Xinmin, a renowned French prose writer who was brought up in one of the capital's traditional hutong alleys. "Beijing has become the latest arena for the heated debate over the centuries-old question of how China can move forward and still preserve its cultural identity." Hua has thrown herself into the debate, and in front of the bulldozers, becoming a leading campaigner for the protection of these alleyways, and their way of life, in the face of the booming real estate industry. Hua says she supports all measures to protect old cities, ancient history and culture. [see also Ruan Yisan]

Hou Hsiao-Hsien (Hou Xiaoxian)
Film director, 57 years old
The Puppetmaster, Flowers of Shanghai, Dust in the Wind and City of Sadness are among the works that have made Hou Hsiao-Hsien one of Asia's foremost filmmakers. Hou belongs to a new generation of movie men that came of age after 1949, a period of remarkable growth and change in Taiwan. When the New Cinema of Taiwan began to emerge in 1982-83, Hou and others broke away from the martial arts flicks, melodramatic romances, and historical epics haunted by memories of the mainland, all of which dominated Taiwan's film industry. Hou's films deal with the changing reality of life in Taiwan, the generation gap, and the increasing divergence between rural and urban cultures. His films are strongly autobiographical, and in drawing upon his personal recollections of childhood and adolescence, his works become a metaphor for the changes in modern-day Taiwan.

In early 2004, Hou became the leader of the "Alliance for Ethnic Equality", a large group of writers, artists and intellectuals who organised against the fanning of ethnic differences by the two main political parties during Taiwan's 2004 presidential election.

Jiang Ping
Legal academic, 74 years old
Leading civil law professor and the former president of China University of Political Science and Law. Jiang Ping has been called the "father of Chinese civil law" for playing a major role in China's efforts to create a modern legal system. He has been particularly influential in the private law area, and was one of the principal drafters of important legislation such as the General Principles of the Civil Law of the PRC, the Company Law, and the Administrative Litigation Law.

Jin Yong
Media figure, 80 years old. Pen name of Cha Liangyong, also Louis Cha
The novels of Jin Yong are a byword for kungfu in Chinese communities across the globe. But he makes the top-50 list more for wielding his pen as liberal editor of Ming Bao (Hong Kong) than for writing knight errant novels.

A journalist, editor and publisher by profession, Jin founded Ming Bao in 1959 and became an influential editorialist. His martial arts works (wuxia) were all penned between 1955 and 1972. In this unique form of Chinese literature, originating in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the stories generally depict a band of heroes as the embodiment of justice. Jin Yong transformed the artistic form and content of the old type of Chinese kungfu stories into novels reflecting the modern spirit. It has been said that Jin Yong's martial arts novels are the lingua franca of the modern Chinese world. Dozens of Hong Kong films are directly based on or inspired by Jin Yong stories, with a particular craze for kungfu films in the early 1990s. "Jinology" refers to the study of his novels – Jin has enjoyed participating in academic conferences about himself, initiated by his readers.

Lang Xianping
Economist, 48 years old
Is China suffering from neo-liberalist establishment economics? Is privatisation even the right policy and, if so, how to proceed with it? These are just some of the questions publicly exercising Lang Xianping, Finance Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, and a world authority on corporate finance and administration. Lang earned his Doctorate from Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania in 1986, and taught at top business schools in both America and China. He has advised the World Bank, Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the Asian Development Bank the Hong Kong Government. Another recent debate triggered by Lang has been criticism over the eroding of state-owned assets in China's privatisation process by the managers of many listed firms through such means as management buyouts (MBOs).

Liang Congjie
Environmentalist, 72 years old
"If each Chinese family has two cars like American families," predicts Liang Congjie, "then the cars needed by China, something like 600 million vehicles, will exceed all the cars in the world combined. That would be the greatest disaster for the whole of mankind." To save us all from choking to death, Liang manoeuvres carefully within the limited space the Communist Party allows NGOs.

A former history professor at Beijing University, and grandson of Qing reformer Liang Qichao, Liang is celebrated for founding China's first non-governmental environmental organisation, Friends of Nature, in 1994. FON has grown into China's most influential environmental lobby, and Liang is the eco-conscience of the nation. Independent advocates are better placed to raise awareness than the discredited authorities who failed to stop the rot.

China and the rest of the world can only hope Liang's crusade is more successful than his father's. In the 1950s, renowned architect Liang Sicheng argued against Chairman Mao's plan to demolish much of old Peking. He and other experts hoped to preserve this imperial treasure by building New China's capital to the west, outside the magnificent city walls. Guess who won. [see also Hua Xinmin]

Li Ao
Writer, 69 years old
Novelist, social commentator, and Taiwanese pro-democracy activist, Li Ao edited Wenxing in the 1960s, promoting democracy and personal freedom in Taiwan. He was jailed for eight years by the Guomindang (KMT) for his subversive writing and activism. Throughout the 1970s, Li Ao received much international attention for his imprisonment. After his release, Li Ao continued to publish magazines and newspapers, criticizing the government.

Li participated in the Taiwanese presidential election in 2000, although his campaign was largely symbolic. A strong supporter of extending Hong Kong's "One country, two systems" principle to Taiwan, he believes that the unification of China is inevitable. This, in combination with his past as a political dissident and his humorous style, has made him a popular figure among supporters of Chinese reunification. Taiwan independence sympathisers take another view.

Li Yinhe
Sociologist, 52 years old
"Every intimate action should be allowed except making love in public." Li Yinhe spoke out in a typically forthright manner after two students were expelled for kissing at their university in October 2003. For this is a woman on a mission: to make China less sexually repressed. Professor of the Institute of Sociology at the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Li is one of China's top "sexperts", a profession that has only recently come out, and is the author of best sellers like Sex and Love of Chinese Women, The Counterculture of Sadomasochism, and Homoerotism. When Party moralists wage war on unbridled passion, Li fights back on behalf of women and gays. Her success has necessitated a second mission: combating the pirating of her books. Her late husband Wang Xiaobo was a noted novelist.

Liao Bingxiong
Cartoonist, 89 years old
Liao Bingxiong regards cartoons as the continuation of a long tradition of popular criticism of government through pictures. In the 1930s, his anti-Japanese comic strips started appearing in newspapers and earned him his lasting reputation as one of China's greatest cartoonists. However, as his commentary on both government and society included criticism of Guomindang corruption, he was forced to flee Nationalist China. After the Communist victory, Liao returned to become vice president of the Chinese Artists Association. But he continued to criticise government wrongdoing in his cartoons and was removed from office in 1957. For 20 years he was forbidden to draw cartoons. When the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, Liao resumed cartooning. He has his own museum gallery in the new Guangzhou Museum of Art where sixty of his works are on view.

Lin Da
A writing couple
Mr Ding Lin and Mrs Li Da use "Lin Da" as their penname for accounts of life in the USA. They were teachers at Shanghai's Tongji University, but emigrated to the US in 1991 and settled in the rural south where they split their time between tending the fields and writing. From the late 1990s, they have published a number of books in China probing the roots of American history, society, culture and politics, and have become known as "US experts" in their home country.

Lin Xingzhi
Columnist, 64 years old
"The Conscience of Hong Kong", Lin Xingzhi has worked on the Hong Kong publications Mingbao ("Star") and Mingbao wanbao ("Evening Star"), but is most famous for establishing the Xinbao ("New Paper") in 1973. Lin has made it Hong Kong's most reputable financial newspaper. He continues to write his own very popular columns, and is a key figure in the popularisation of modern economic theory. He has been awarded the OBE.

Liu Junning
Political Scientist, 43 years old
"China still lacks a mechanism to make government directly accountable to the people," laments Liu Junning. "Only when their power really comes from the people will officials really be accountable to the people." Straight-talking like that cost Liu his Fellowship at the Institute of Political Science at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2000, but he has publicly maintained his beliefs that China's economic freedoms must go further and be complemented by greater political and social liberties, and the rule of law. Liu earned his Ph.D. in political science at Beijing University. The author of, among others, Republic, Democracy, Constitutionalism, and founder of the Journal Res Publica, Liu is responsible for the Chinese translation of several works on democracy and classic liberal thought. In 2002 he founded the Cathay Institute for Public Affairs, a "non-profit, independent think tank in Beijing with the purpose of establishing individual freedom, free markets, constitutional democracy, and federalism in China."

Long Yingtai
Writer, 52 years old
As the only Taiwanese writer with a column in major Chinese newspapers, Long Yingtai is considered one of the most influential writers in China. Her poignant and critical essays, focussed on literary and cultural issues, have contributed to the democratisation of Taiwan. She lived in Germany and Switzerland for many years, and her essays have also appeared in European newspapers. From 1999 to 2003, she served as the first Cultural Minister of Taipei, designing a new concept of cultural policy that had a significant impact on contemporary culture in Taiwan and greater China. From 2005, Long will be Chair Professor of arts and humanities at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan.

Lu Yuegang
Media figure, 42 years old
He just couldn't take it any more. When a senior Communist Youth League cadre tried to exert new control measures over The China Youth Daily, one of China's oldest and more progressive newspapers, its principal reporter Lu Yuegang saw red. The Maoist dictum that the party must control both "the barrel of the gun and the barrel of the pen" is hopelessly unsuited to modern China's needs, wrote Lu in an open letter published in June 2004, the most public expression in years of the anger many Chinese journalists feel at the Party's restrictions on their work. The veteran reporter, with a history of bold and independent journalism, depicted the paper's staff "holding their noses" when filling news pages with the activities of Youth League leaders and "transmitting lies when forced to do so by senior levels". But a desire to be professional and objective journalists meant such accommodation had limits. He partially blamed a harsh editorial in the party's People's Daily for the bloody end to the 1989 student protests, and said political reform was a matter of "extreme urgency, not just related to the destiny of the Party, but also to the prosperity and happiness of the Chinese people." Despite such plain talking, Lu has not been purged, at least for now.

Luo Dayou
Singer-songwriter, 50 years old
"I am a small, small, small, small bird, I fly and fly, but I can't fly high." All together now - "niaaaaaaaaaaaaaao!" You remember it. Lauded as both the father of Chinese popular music and "China's Bob Dylan", Luo Dayou is a Hakka from Taiwan who began his professional life as a pharmacist. In the mid-1980s, his simple, student folk style songs and down-to-earth lyrics captivated young Chinese on the mainland, as a second wave of Chinese pop after the syrupy Teresa Teng (Deng Lijun). His works have embraced various styles: from rock-n-roll with political overtones to romantic love songs and songs expressing the history and sentiment of Greater China. Although Luo is an icon in the PRC, who inspired Cui Jian and more recently Thin Man, he has never gathered nearly as large a following in the ROC. In October 2004, the Taipei Times lambasted his "sycophantic behaviour" in telling a mainland concert audience he came from "Chinese Taipei"; an attempt, the paper editorialised, to revive his fading career in China.

"If you know, you know; if you don't, you don't.
Who said this? Confucius.
If you know, you know; if you don't, you find out.
Who said this? Mencius.
What are people saying these days?
F**k it.
Where will this get them?"
[From debut album "Zhi hu zhe ye", 1984]

Mao Yushi
Economist, 75 years old
"Deposits from all citizens, including the farmers, have been given to the cities and used to construct high-rise buildings, airports, and highways, etc. Rural areas have been deprived ... and have had no way to develop." An avid advocate of the free market, Mao Yushi is also a campaigner for rural poverty alleviation. In 2002, he set up Beijing's first housekeeper and nanny training school to provide training for young women from poor areas. As Chairman of the Unirule Institute of Economics, an independent research unit specializing in institutional economics, Mao has relative freedom to speak out on a variety of issues. He graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University as a railway engineer in 1950. In more recent times, he has been a visiting professor to Harvard and Queensland University in Australia, and held several international advisory posts. Less happily, he was a target in the anti-rightist campaign of 2000, and his 2004 essay collection, Freedom to Those you Love, has been suppressed. Can the 4th generation leadership improve the peasants' lot? "Policy making is a complicated issue," Mao cautions. "Sometimes you end up with exactly the opposite of what you intended."

Qin Hui
Historian, 51 years old
Qin Hui has become one of China's few encyclopaedic scholars, despite the Cultural Revolution severely disrupting his education, as it did for so many on this list. However, Qin himself, like Zhu Xueqin and possibly others on this list, actually credits his banishment to the countryside with expanding his reading beyond the Maoist canon. For down in Guangxi Province, he found a treasure trove of books that had been banned in the cities. As Professor of History at Qinghua University, his primary field is the study of rural life under the Ming and Qing dynasties, but his research has also embraced the comparative history of reform, revolution and modernisation in China and elsewhere, Russian, American, and South African history, and current economic reforms. His views on Chinese agrarian history and contemporary issues have won him a leading reputation inside China's intellectual circles. A keen advocate of giving rural residents more political power, Qin has said that the current experiment with grassroots democracy - which allows farmers to elect members of village administrative committees - should be expanded to allow farmers to pick leaders of counties or even higher administrative units. Currently a Visiting Scholar at Harvard.

Ruan Yisan
Public figure,70 years old
"The speed of urbanisation took everyone by surprise," admits Ruan Yisan. "We managed to save a few [historic cities], but the destruction was so fast... At the beginning, people would not accept my views, but now they are ready to follow my preservation schemes and retain the original buildings." Determined to save China's past from the wrecking ball of urban planning, Ruan has since the 1980s campaigned for the preservation of China's ancient buildings and towns. As Professor of the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai and director of its Research Centre of National Historical and Cultural Cities, he stands courageously against the current of breakneck development. Heritage sites such as Zhouzhuang, Lijiang and Pingyao have all benefited from his protective efforts. In 2003, he was awarded the UNESCO "Prize for Outstanding Work" for his efforts in planning preservation work for the cities and towns in the south lower reaches of the Yangtze River [see also Hua Xinmin & China Review 29].

Shao Yanxiang
Poet, 71 years old
A highly respected elder of the Chinese literary scene, Shao Yanxiang has devoted himself to the enhancement of Chinese society and culture. A man with genuinely intuitive cultural knowledge, he has been keen to promote a more spiritual atmosphere. A party member, he predicted the political destruction of the Communist Party if it suppressed the students in Tiananmen in 1989. He blames elite struggle within the Party for social disturbances since the Great Leap Forward era, and has championed the cause of democracy within the Party to guarantee smooth transitions of power.

Wang Dingding
Economist, 51 years old
Intellectuals must retain their independence and freedom of thinking in order to be creative, argues Wang Dingding, a liberal philosopher from Beijing University's China Centre for Economic Research. He maintains that intellectuals need to occupy a peripheral position from which to criticise the mainstream. Wang earned his PhD in Economics from the University of Hawaii in 1990. He has posted his interdisciplinary, humanistic essays to his own weblog since 2000, making him one of the first representatives of the broadband blogging movement. His weblog was nominated for the Deutsche Welle International Weblog (Chinese) in 2004 (see www.blogchina.com).

Wang Shuo
Writer, 47 Years old
Wang Shuo is the original bad boy of contemporary Chinese fiction. In the reform era, his novels were the first to confront social taboos and cultural stereotypes. He began writing in the mid-1980s and from the beginning caused a stir with his avant-garde blend of biting social satire and vernacular dialogue (i.e. lots of swearing). His novels are peopled with the detritus of China's capital: grifters, drifters, vagrants, and thieves. This type of writing has become known as "pizi" or "aristocratic hooligan" writing, more akin to hardboiled American pulp fiction of the mid-twentieth century than to any previous style of Chinese writing. However, his works, while socially and culturally confrontational, are not overtly political; he has therefore avoided prison and had most of his works published in China sooner or later. He received mainstream public approbation for his collected works (Wang Shuo Wen Ji) in 1995. A critical and financial success, Wang is also the object of many rumours, including a report in 2000 that he had renounced his fortune to retire as a monk. After living in the USA for some years, Wang is currently back in Beijing, working on screenplays. Last summer (2004), he advised on the Zhang Yuan-directed film "It Looks Beautiful", based on Wang's autobiographic novel of the same name. Several other novels, including Please Don't Call Me Human and Playing for Thrills, have been translated into English.

Wang Xuan
Public figure, 52 years old
Vowing to "shake Japan, China and the United States out of the great Pacific amnesia about biological warfare," Wang Xuan has dedicated her life to seeking justice and compensation for Chinese victims of Japanese germ warfare during the Second World War. Wang went to Japan as a foreign student in 1980, and gained a Phd degree, as well as fluency in English, Japanese and Japanese law. She has since played a crucial role in getting the witnesses to trial, and collecting detailed evidence. She has held political rallies, organised conferences and symposiums, lobbied and harried government officials on both sides of the China Sea, and forged international links between academics in Asia and the USA. In 2002, a Tokyo court ruled that under international law foreign citizens cannot seek compensation directly from the Japanese government. However, the court did acknowledge that Japan used biological weapons against Chinese before and during World War II - the first time a Japanese court had done so.

Wang Yi
Commentator, 31 years old
"To know and say nothing is a crime." Website organiser, liberal intellectual and constitutional theorist, the Chengdu-based scholar Wang Yi is recognised as a new type of intellectual – an online personality, one of the first Chinese scholars to seize the power of the Internet to spread his ideas and commentaries. His website, Xianfa Lunheng, attracted many young followers – until it was shut down in October 2004. Wang responded to the September 2004 list with his own alternative list of more daring voices, including Ding Zilin, Jiang Yanyong, Liao Yiwu, Wang Lixiong, Xiao Xuehui, Du Daobin, Zheng Yi, Wang Dan, Wei Yi, Liu Xiaobo and Yu Jie. The latter two were briefly detained in December 2004.

Wen Tiejun
Economist, 53 years old
The "spokesman for China's peasants", Wen Tiejun believes China's farmers can only survive if they organise into large, self-organised cooperatives, underpinned by rural development centres, farmers' insurance and credit schemes, and medical reform in China's countryside. Principal of the School of Agricultural Economics & Rural Development at People's University, and chief editor of the journal China Reform, Wen is a prolific researcher of rural economies and rural affairs. He warns against the effects of rural privatisation and Western-style modernisation on farmers' income as well as the environment. In 2003, Wen received wide coverage for setting up China's first free farmer's training centre - the Yanyangchu Countryside Construction Institute in Hebei Province. Calling for a realistic approach to rural sustainability, and questioning China's new ideology of globalisation, he said: "If you stay detached from ordinary folks at the grass-roots level, environmental protection and sustainability of resources will remain but a pipe dream."

Wu Jinglian
Economist, 74 years old
Known as "Market Wu" for his role in promoting the market economy, Wu Jinglian is also celebrated as the first Chinese economist to reject the pseudo-economics claiming to "serve proletarian politics". A senior researcher with the Development Research Center under the State Council, Wu has long been engaged in the study of comparative economic systems, theories of policies on China's current economic restructuring, and analysis of the policy assessment of China's economy. Educated at Fudan University, he has been a visiting professor at Yale University, MIT, Stanford University and Oxford University. After 1997, he realised a market economy was not sufficient in China, and turned increasingly to the rule of law and the Constitution to create a "good market economy". In 2001, Wu released his "casino theory" based on the excessive insider trading and market manipulation in China's stock market, where too many investors were trapped and price to earnings ratios inflated. Wu's outspoken viewpoint that the share markets were more ruthless than casinos created a big stir, but it also earned him widespread respect.

Wu Si
Historian, 47 years old
Chinese society is historically conditioned by fear of reprisals, particularly by officialdom. So declares historian, editor and journalist Wu Si in his book The Tacit Rules. Executive editor of history magazine 'Yanhuang Chunqiu', Wu worked for many years at Peasant's Daily, and has written extensively on the issues of the peasantry and countryside. He also helps to formulate regulations against corrupt or objectionable practices and is highly effective in his analysis and explanation of official language.

Xie Yong
Historian, 43 years old
China's intellectuals are becoming increasingly powerful, argues Xie Yong, a historian and Associate Editor in Chief of the journal Yellow River. He is not an academic but is valued for intelligent, well-argued opinions on a wide range of topics from historical to rural issues. Xie has two primary interests: firstly, the Civil War era, prominent liberal editor Chu Anping, purged during the Anti-Rightist campaign, and also the Southwest Associated University, China's main university at the time of the anti-Japanese war combining Qinghua, Beida and Nankai. It is from these foundations that he analyses the doctrine and policies of contemporary China.

Xu Jilin
Historian, 47 years old
If Shanghai continues on its present path, it may become another Singapore. And that's not all good, according to Xu Jilin. "Locals can lead a rich life, but the cultural backdrop is thin and pale," he predicted in a March 2004 article on cultural retrogression in the metropolis. Contemporary Chinese society and ideology form Xu's main field of research. Professor of History at East China Normal University, Shanghai, and a member of the Research Institute for Modern Chinese Thought and Culture, he has published a number of books on modernisation, cultural criticism, Chinese intellectuals, the Enlightenment in the Chinese context, nationalism, and liberalism. He is noted for his analysis of the SARS crisis in 2003 and the Taiwanese election in 2004.

Xu Youyu
Philosopher, 57 years old
The decision to join the WTO marked "the first time in a long time that there seems to be a real direction" in China's government, said Xu Youyu in 1999. "People always say China can never go back, but over the last 20 years, and even during the last year, we've taken a lot of detours... Now we have a clear direction." A researcher at the Philosophy department of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Xu feels that greater opening to the West is a basic condition for political reform. This liberal political theorist, an expert on Chinese liberalism and Western theories such as Marxism, is greatly concerned about social justice and equality issues in the market economy. He has been vocal, for example, in his defence of the individual rights of beggars in the face of increasing begging bans across urban China. Another topic on which he has written is factionalism during the Cultural Revolution. He has expressed concerns over modern youth's ignorance of those traumatic events. He fears this miscomprehension could even lead to a repetition.

Xue Yong
Commentator , 43 years old
'Treasure nightsoil as if it were God'. Agrarian history research has nurtured the fertile mind of Xue Yong, and offered a platform for active participation in public debate on contemporary issues. Assistant Professor of History at Suffolk University (Boston, USA), Xue has worked as a journalist and scholar in China and is currently a columnist and regular contributor for several major Chinese newspapers and magazines. His book, Politics as a Straight Talk, has been published by Guangxi Normal University Press. He teaches Chinese/Japanese History, and Cultural Contact in World History, and is completing his dissertation, Agrarian Urbanization: Social and Economy Changes in Later Imperial Jiangnan from the Eleventh Century to the Twentieth Century.

Yang Dongping
Sociologist, 55 years old
China's school education system is sorely in need of modernisation, argues Yang Dongping. A researcher at the Higher Education Centre of the Beijing Institute of Technology, Yang is a vigorous proponent of non-state monopolised education, claiming that schools currently impart knowledge that often has little to do with the outside world, and that Chinese universities focus on the sciences to the detriment of the humanities: ethics, environmentalism, good governance and basic norms of behaviour. Yang also campaigns for better and more useful education for peasants and migrant workers, and is Vice President of the Friends of Nature environmental NGO [see Liang Congjie].

Yang Jinlin
Commentator, 51 years old
One of countless 'educated youth' sent down to toil in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution, Yang returned to the city to become a university professor. He has found his most public role, however, as a columnist for several Hong Kong publications and most notably as a commentator on public affairs for the satellite television channel Phoenix, much watched in southern China. His programmes enjoy a strong following for their sensitivity to hot political and social stories, combining both sympathy and criticism.

Yan Lieshan
Commentator, 51 years old
Lack of transparency and extremism are "twin evils that feed on each other" according to Yan Lieshan, one of China's most acclaimed commentators. Based in Guangdong, he forcefully expresses his views in each edition of Southern Weekend. Since graduating from Beijing Normal University in 1982 he has authored many articles on history and culture, and shown himself a virulent opponent of corruption. According to Sohu.com, his frail appearance hides intense and unchanging convictions burning inside. They spill onto the page too, in columns that are punchy, humorous, and often very daring.

Yuan Weishi
Historian, 73 years old
"If we are unwilling to be another condemned generation, we must face the harsh reality and learn lessons from the century of humiliation and setbacks." Professor of Philosophy at Sun Yat-sen (Zhongshan) University in Guangzhou, Yuan Weishi is an expert on modern Chinese history, especially late Qing dynasty. He uses this expertise to comment on current Chinese development, and contemporary cultural and social issues.

Yuan Yue (Victor Yuan)
Market researcher, 39 years old
"Opinion polling, along with the news media and other government channels, enables ordinary Chinese to express their views and address their grievances," says Victor Yuan. "People freely expressing their opinion will not bring unrest. Unrest occurs when they can't do that." Acclaimed for founding the market research industry in China, Dr Victor Yuan has been taking the pulse of the Chinese public since the mid-1990s as founder of Horizon Research Group, China's largest private market research firm. He holds an MPA from the Kennedy Government Institute of Harvard University, a PhD in Sociology from Peking University, and has published more than 300 reports in sociology, law, economics, political and social survey fields, including popular awareness of AIDS.

In 2003, Horizon conducted a public opinion survey on the performance of mainland politicians, asking 5,613 urban and rural residents what they thought of their local mayor or county leader. Although the official Chinese media declined to comment on the results, Yuan believes that taking such a survey was made possible by the greater openness and flexibility of the current regime.

Zhang Sizhi
Lawyer, 77 years old
"As the core of legal safeguards is human rights and the focal point of the legal profession is to protect human rights, one can say that lawyers are the natural protectors of human rights." Known as the "conscience of the Chinese legal community", Zhang Sizhi is a veteran defence lawyer who has witnessed and contributed to the development of the PRC's legal system. Zhang has acted as defence lawyer in several of China's highest-possible-profile cases, from the "Gang of Four" in 1980 to political dissident Wei Jingsheng in 1995. "There was no doubt that Wei was found guilty before the beginning of the trial," Zhang has said. "The verdict was set beforehand."

Zhang Wuchang (Steven Ng Sheong Cheung)
Economist, 69 years old
An "economics missionary", Stephen Cheung is well-known for punchy, fluid commentaries on a range of economic issues. Although he is a professor at Hong Kong University, with several books to his name, he is far from an ivory tower academic. Since returning in 1983 to his native Hong Kong from the USA, where he became an American citizen, he started the columns that made his name by writing in an accessible style, and thus helping to establish the position of economics in the wider world of Chinese writing. He has been the travelling companion of Nobel laureate Milton Friedman on his trips to China, and a candidate for the Nobel in economics himself.

Zheng Yefu
Sociologist, 54 years old
Consciously keeping his distance from officials, lest they compromise his viewpoint, Zheng was one the first sociologists to look into the role of intellectuals in China in the reform period. Taking a critical but level-headed view of social development, the Beijing University academic utilises his sociology background to write about phenomena as diverse as car culture and morality, with a particular focus on the poor and socially disadvantaged.

Zhu Xueqin
Historian, 52 years old
"Scholars who seek only answers for the past are, well, just scholars; only scholars who insist on seeking answers for the here and now are truly scholars with a sense of humanity." Leading liberal thinker Zhu Xueqin, a Professor of history at Shanghai University, has engaged passionately in intellectual and ideological debates in China since the 1980s. Zhu attempts to bridge the perceived divide between China's two intellectual camps: the 'liberals' and the 'neo-left' (or 'critical intellectuals'), though both terms oversimplify the complexities of their debates. Zhu suggest that liberals, while advocating empiricism and endorsing the market system, should also pay close attention to the 'increasingly pronounced social divisions and conflicts of interests around us'. He attributes the recent rise in conservatism to 'an exercise in survival skills' on the part of intellectuals, and believes that only by developing further the weak Chinese market can income disparity and endemic corruption be reduced. Zhu's major publications include The Collapse of Moral Utopia, A History of Cultural Exchange Between China and Europe, Missing Thinkers in the History of Thought, and Revolution in the Study Room.

Zou Chenglu
Scientist, 81 years old
Academic discussion should be more open, including on controversial research, argues Zou Chenglu, an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and pioneer of biochemical research in China. His research on breath chain enzymes laid the foundation of enzyme research in China and his work on the fixed quantity relationship formula and drawing method for chemical decoration was called the "Zou Formula". He has recently spoken out against fraud and unethical practices in academia.