Jiang Pinchao (; born 1967) is a Chinese poet. He is the director of

June Fourth Heritage & Culture Association June Fourth Heritage & Culture Association is a United States-based non-governmental non-profit organization that conducts research and advocacy on the Culture of June Fourth Movement, Democracy, Political Freedom, and Human Rights in China. It ha ...

, chief editor of ''

Collection of June Fourth Poems ''Collection of June Fourth Poems: Commemorating the Tiananmen Square Protest'' is an anthology of poems commemorating the June Fourth protests in China (1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre) and published in 2007. The poems were written by ...

'' and '' Collection of Human Right Poems'', and the first Chinese author to be blocked by

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

. He was sentenced to four years imprisonment for his active participation in the

Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Activist

Sentence

Due to his participation in the student democratic movement, he was arrested and jailed for four years and deprived of political rights for two years in the First Jail of the

Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The prov ...

Province in China. In 1992, along with other political prisoners, he resisted the abuse, but was tortured and confined.

Internet block

In 2001 Jiang provoked controversy on the internet. He initiated the "re-ponder the history, be concerned about the politics, commiserate with the public" mindset and proposed the theory of "thoughts of public" and "thoughts of imagination". His topics involved the June Fourth Democratic Movement, the public view of politics in China, and other sensitive questions. He was one of the first to propose such touchy questions in China. Chinese poets took an active part in this controversy, but because of his strong and growing influence, Jiang was blocked from Internet usage by Chinese government officials in 2004.

Google block

On September 16, 2004, American Dynamic Internet issued a research report focusing on Jiang, revealing that Jiang was blocked by the Google search engine. The same day, Yisha and Shaojun Li, two authors who had argued with Jiang, were presented an annual prize in the Chinese "New Poetry" sub-culture. Because Google broke its promise of "

Don't be evil "Don't be evil" is a phrase that was used in Google's corporate code of conduct, which it also formerly preceded as a motto. Following Google's corporate restructuring under the conglomerate Alphabet Inc. in October 2015, Alphabet took "Do the r ...

", the matter attracted international attention. The

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

and Secretary of State,

Condoleezza Rice Condoleezza Rice ( ; born November 14, 1954) is an American diplomat and political scientist who is the current director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. A member of the Republican Party, she previously served as the 66th Uni ...

, held hearings on the subject. On April 14, 2005, Jiang was nominated for "The President Culture Prize" in Taiwan. Jiang testified and supported the American

Congressional hearing A United States congressional hearing is the principal formal method by which United States congressional committees collect and analyze information in the early stages of legislative policymaking. Whether confirmation hearings (a procedure unique ...

on the internet blockage behavior of Google,

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Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

on February 15, 2006. He accepted interviews with over 10 news outlets, including the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

Yomiuri Shimbun The (lit. ''Reading-selling Newspaper'' or ''Selling by Reading Newspaper'') is a Japanese newspaper published in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and other major Japanese cities. It is one of the five major newspapers in Japan; the other four are t ...

, and the Central News Agency of Taiwan. Special report by Sheng Lu, the report of Central News Agency of Taiwan in Los Angeles

International Fast

On March 5, 2006, Jiang, along with others, including Jinsheng Wei, Hongbing Yuan and Xue Sheng, launched an international fast, which included ten thousand people, to express support for individuals persecuted by the Chinese government. Jiang organized and presided over another Chinese protest in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

for similar reasons.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jiang, Pinchao 1967 births Living people 21st-century Chinese poets