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Wuer Kaixi: Tiananmen Square protest leader's 25-year exile

Wuer Kaixi, who was one of two of the top student leaders of the Tiananmen Square protest movement, reflects on the events in Beijing 25 years ago and his decades spent in exile.

'It was like war, it was like hell,' student leader says about night of military crackdown

Tiananmen leader's 25-year exile

10 years ago
Duration 3:04
Wuer Kaixi, one of two of the top student leaders of the Tianamen student movement, reflects on the events in Beijing 25 years ago and his decades in exile

Wuer Kaixi, who was one of two of the top student leaders of the Tiananmen Square protest movement, reflects on the events in Beijing 25 years ago and his decades spent in exile. 

Kaixi said "it was like war, it was like hell" when the Chinese military moved in to disperse the protesters on June 4, 1989.

Kaixi said that since other students were killed, he feels that he, as student leader, should have been "shot by the first bullet."

"That kind of guilt has been with me since then and I think it will be with me for the rest of my life," he said.