Yuan Hongbing

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Yuan Hongbing (simplified Chinese: 袁红冰; traditional Chinese: 袁紅冰; pinyin: Yuán Hóngbīng; 1953- ) is an ethnic Mongolian jurist, novelist, and dissident from China.

Yuan was born in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. He graduated from Beijing University with a masters degree in criminal procedure in 1986 and went on to head the School of Criminal Procedural law at Beijing University.

Following the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, he came under notice of government authorities for his outspoken views. In 1990 Yuan published Winds on the Plain (simplified Chinese: 荒原风; traditional Chinese: 荒原風; pinyin: huāngyuán fēng), a book which gained a considerable following among university students. In it Yuan propounds what he calls "new heroicism" (Chinese: 新英雄主义; pinyin: xīn yīngxióngzhǔyì) with a cause that is primarily concerned with the "fate of the Chinese race". Yuan condemned all individual attempts to achieve freedom as a betrayal of the race, whether it be to engage in politics or to flee China in search of a new life. He advocated totalitarianism to "fuse the weak, ignorant and selfish individuals of the race into a powerful whole." Sinologist Geremie R. Barmé has called Yuan's views "Sino-fascist" and compared them with the philosophy of Nietzsche and the New Age movement.^[1] The other four books Yuan Hongbing has published since 1990 have been more moderate.

Yuan Hongbing has also been active as a labour organiser. His was involved with a "Peace Charter" reportedly modelled on the Czechoslovak Charter 77. In 1994 he was detained by government authorities and forced to leave Beijing, becoming one of China's most prominent public dissidents. Yuan went into exile in the remote province of Guizhou, and became the Dean of the law school at Guizhou Normal University.

In 2004 he and his assistant Zhao Jing travelled to Australia, and on 28 July they sought political asylum. In June 2005 he spoke in support of defector Chen Yonglin, accusing the Chinese government of attempting to turn Australia into a "political colony".

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