This web page is the sole responsibility of the Long Bow Group, and is in no way affiliated with or sponsored by Jenzabar, Inc.
"In countless ways, the Internet is radically enhancing our access to information and empowering us to share ideas with the entire world. Speech thrives online, freed of limitations inherent in other media and created by traditional gatekeepers."
NPQ: ... Ten years on, do you have any regrets over your tactics in Tiananmen Square?
Chai Ling: ... Regarding the tactics in Tiananmen, I regret that the e-mail system was not available back then. Otherwise we would have had a better way of communicating with the aging leaders to start the dialogue and to reform the country. That is why I am working so hard to set up the Jenzabar network, to provide a new media to enhance day-to-day communication among young people around the world.
... The students in China need to be informed about what's really going on around the world. So, the BBC, Voice of America, Hong Kong TV, new media or the Internet media can help communicate the truth. And the truth will lead to peace!
... [China needs to] stop blocking free access of information through the World Wide Web. If China does not want to be considered a threat and be accepted by the free world, it must stop jailing people for using e-mail to communciate with the rest of the world. Can you imagine being jailed for that?
"The Internet itself is democracy," said Chai Ling, a former student leader in 1989 and now a Web entrepreneur who has started her own Web company, called Jenzabar. "That's why people like us who fought for freedom and democracy in China ten years ago naturally embraced the Internet."
... While Chai wishes to separate her business from her 1989 activism, she says the Internet will become the main democratizing force in China. Businesses in China will need more information to operate.
"The Internet would eventually function to break down control of free information flow, and break down the monopoly on free speech," said Chai.
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Chinese military crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Today in Hong Kong, pro-democracy demonstrators took to the streets in memory of the uprising. Some of the students at the center of the protests a decade ago have very different lives today. Here's ABC's Bill Redeker.
BILL REDEKER, ABC News: (voice-over) She was one of the most visible, most charismatic leaders of the pro-democracy movement. Ten years later, Chai Ling is a capitalist with a capital "C," a CEO, in fact, of an Internet company financed in part by Microsoft executives. Maybe not so surprising, considering economic reform was one of the main demands of the protesters in Tiananmen Square.
CHAI LING, CEO, Jenzabar.com: I refuse to simply be an icon of history and stay in the past, because I don't believe that's the only way to help China.
BILL REDEKER: (voice-over) By fleeing to the United States, Chai Ling was able to further her education at Harvard and Princeton. Her company, Jenzabar.com, links students and professors worldwide.
CHAI LING: This kind of new media will absolutely transform a totalitarian regime into a Democratic society.
Chai Ling: After the massacre, everything, our dreams, crashed. In the last ten years we've been trying to recreate those wonderful moments, and now I think I've found that with the Internet. I love this American dream, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to start a great enterprise.
...As we found in China, even the most determined authority can't put technology back in the bottle. Which makes its dispersion the greatest revolution any student, faculty member or administrator who cares about freedom of thought can be involved in.
DATELINE: CAMBRIDGE, Mass. ..."Tear down this firewall that blocks the Chinese people from freely communicating on the Internet," said Chai Ling, challenging Premier Zhu to follow through on his promise to allow U.S. Internet companies to register in China. "In China people are arrested for using the Internet for free speech. The Internet is a new and powerful means of communication that if stifled not only hurts free speech, but China's ability to do business in the new Internet economy."
"The Internet is a powerful tool for communication and free speech, a technology that knows no country boundaries and empowers people to change," said Chai Ling, who founded Jenzabar.com after realizing the power of the Internet as a communications tool. "The Internet and technology business can bridge the gap between U.S. and China relations, bringing more freedom to the people of China."
...Q: But the Chinese government controls students' access to the Internet?
A: Oh yes. Right now, they are monitoring all the access to the World Wide Web and who's using it to do what. But the Internet is much more powerful, and they should give up and let the information flow.
This web page is the sole responsibility of the Long Bow Group, and is in no way affiliated with or sponsored by Jenzabar, Inc.