About this episode
Yaqiu Wang discusses her journey from China to America and her work in human rights.
Yaqiu Wang has devoted her life to the cause of human rights in China. It is a great and important cause. She has worked for Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, and the Committee to Protect Journalists. Currently, she is a fellow at the University of Chicago’s Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression. Her website is www.wangyaqiu.com . She was born in a village in southeast China. Her family was a peasant family. That’s what it said right on the registration card: “peasant.” Yaqiu grew up in a relatively liberal, relatively lenient period. The word “relatively” is very important. The atmosphere seemed stifling at the time. But under Xi Jinping, Communist rule would become much worse. Yaqiu’s education was doctrinaire—ideological—and she always saw through it. She knew that Communist China was a kingdom of lies. One day, she found a book— The Private Life of Chairman Mao . This is the memoir of Mao’s personal physician, Li Zhisui. It is an eye-popping book. Yaqiu Wang read it in amazement, as many of us did. It contradicts the mythology surrounding the “Great Helmsman.” (I relied on this memoir in the Mao chapter of my book on the sons and daughters of dictators: Children of Monsters…
People in this episode
Host: Jay Nordlinger
Guest: Yaqiu Wang
Topics covered
- human rights
- China
- freedom
- education
- political ideology
- immigration
Keywords
- human rights
- China
- freedom
- Yaqiu Wang
- political ideology
- immigration
- education
- Xi Jinping
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, Committee to Protect Journalists, University of Chicago
Books & works: The Private Life of Chairman Mao, Children of Monsters
Places: China, America, southeast China, University of South Carolina
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