Shen Tong

Infobox President
name = Shen Tong
沈彤


imagesize =
title = President of VFinity
birth_date = birth date and age|1968|07|30|df=y
birth_place = China, PRC
alma_mater = Beijing University
Brandeis University
Harvard University
Boston University

Shen Tong (Simplified Chinese: 沈彤; Hanyu Pinyin: Shěn Tóng) is a Chinese dissident who was one of the student leaders in the democracy movement at Tiananmen Square in 1989. One of the People of the Year by Newsweek 1989, Shen Tong became a media and software entrepreneur in late 1990s.

Personal Background

Shen Tong was born in 1968, in Beijing. He studied at Peking University from 1986 to 1989, and became one of the student leaders during the 1989 protest in Tiananmen Square.

Political Activism

He co-chaired the committee on dialog with the government. He was on Changan Avenue when Chinese troops opened fire on the students. He had earlier obtained a Chinese passport to study biology at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts in the United States, so even though he was wanted by the Chinese government he was able to board a plane six days after the massacre on June 4, 1989. He was able to walk undisguised through police and security officials in the Beijing airport, possibly indicating broader support for the student democracy movement than the Chinese government contended at the time.

Shortly after his arrival in the United States, Shen Tong held a press conference at the Walker Center for Ecumenical Exchange in Newton, Massachusetts, giving the first detailed eye-witness account by a student leader of the Tiananmen Square massacre and of the events that led up to it.

During his studies in Massachusetts he founded the Democracy for China Fund to support democratic movements in China and to promote ideas of political freedom and human rights. American NGO activist Marshall Strauss helped Shen Tong in founding and operation the Fund. Coretta Scott King, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Kerry Kennedy, among other Western political and NGO figures and sinologists were associated with Shen Tong's organization in 1990s. The Congressional Human Rights Delegation to China in 1991 headed by Nancy Pelosi was organized by the Democracy for China Fund with the help and funding from Hong Kong Democrats. His 1992 trip back to China led to the arrest of him and his associates. He was released and immediately exiled after only two months of imprisonment under mounting international pressure especially from the US Congress, the Presidential Campaign of Bill Clinton, the Vatican, and European governments. He is known to be also associated with Chinese dissident activists and writers Wu'er Kaixi, Hu Ping, Ma Jian, Shi Tao, Tibetan exile leader Dalai Lama, Taiwan politician Ma Yingjiu.

Cultural Activities

Shen Tong studied biology at Brandeis University on a Wien Scholarship and later in doctorate programs in political philosophy at Harvard University and sociology at Boston University with Harvey Mansfield, Peter Berger, Daniel Bell, Samuel P. Huntington. He co-authored the book "Almost a Revolution", published in 1990, a memoir of his life growing up in China and his experiences at the Tiananmen Square democracy movement. He carried on a diverse writing career with political commentary, semi-scholarly essays, film critics, literary prose, and movie scripts in English and in Chinese, including publications in China under a different pen name.

Shen Tong also founded higher education and culture focused NGO in the mid-1990s, his media businesses in TV production B&B Media Production, investing in bookstore and publishing in Beijing, a center in Budapest for liberal scholars, journalists, writers, and educators studying transitional society with funding from Open Society Institute and Central European University of George Soros, a literature review magazine with Chinese dissident poets and writers with support from Allen Ginsberg, Susan Sontag, and Elie Wiesel.

Media Ventures

Shen Tong moved from Massachusetts to New York in year 2000 focusing more exclusively on his media ventures and writing. He is currently the founder and president of the company VFinity, which makes software tools and web applications for multimedia and multilingual search, media production, archiving, and media distribution. He lives in New York City, and has a daughter and a son. He is credited with the phrase "Context Is King" partially due to his keynote speech at a super session of National Association of Broadcasters in Las Vegas, 2007. He was elected to the digital committee of the board of Poets & Writers in 2008.

External links

* [http://www.pqhp.com/nab/nab07/ NAB Super Session Keynote Speech: Social Media in the 21st Century by Shen Tong (CEO, VFinity)]

* [http://thestory.org/archive/the_story_264_After_Tiananmen.mp3/view NPR's The Story: After Tiananmen]
* [http://my.brandeis.edu/profiles/one-profile?profile_id=75 Brandeis University Alumni Achievement Award 2001]
* [http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?ATH=Christopher+H%2E+Smith U. S./China Relations and Human Rights: Is Constructive Engagement Working? : Hearing before the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fift /by Christopher H. Smith]
* [http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Tibet-through-Dissent-Chinese-Eyes/Cao-Changching/e/9781563249228/?itm=2 Tibet through Dissent Chinese Eyes: Essays on Self-Determination]
* [http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/webdev/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197000853/ Information Week: High Five: Meet Shen Tong, President Of VFinity]
* [http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2007/04/01/8403869/index.htm?postversion=2007041705 Fortune Small Business (FSB) A Tiananmen Rebel turns Capitalist]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEED71731F93BA25752C1A966958260/ New York Times: China Arrests a Student Leader Back From Exile in the U.S.]
* [http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=LmsfJLDwtsWZ16TQfvsxHQKC7CJgF1qJJBWhNkzCzhHQCMYhVvKk!-975853519?docId=96247120/ World Affairs: Will China Be Democratic]
* [http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=8303 University of Michigan Press: Almost a Revolution]