BEIJING -- For many foreigners, he is Tiananmen Square's most recognizable figure, outshining even Chairman Mao Tse-tung, whose body still lies in state at a far end of the vast public space.
Just after noon June 5, 1989, the day after Chinese troops stormed the square to brutally crush a student political uprising here, a solitary protester engaged in a modern-day David-vs.-Goliath showdown: Clutching nothing but two shopping bags, he stood his ground before a column of oncoming tanks along the adjacent Avenue of Eternal Peace.
Captured by newspaper photographs and cable news footage, the tense standoff lasted several minutes, a seeming eternity to onlookers waiting for the tanks to overrun the man, before he was hustled from the scene by onlookers.
On the 15th anniversary of the government crackdown in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed, this lone dissenter's story remains the most enduring mystery of the confrontation.
Even today, no one knows whether he's dead or alive. Chinese activists and government officials say they aren't even sure of his name. After suddenly emerging to symbolize for the world the fierce power of the individual spirit in the face of martial rule, he vanished.
"For me, he represents the unknown soldier of the Chinese democratic revolution," said John Kamm, executive director of the Dui Hua Foundation, a San Francisco-based human rights group. "What's so strange is that his act of bravery was conducted in plain view of the world. But other than seeing his act, we know so very little about him."
The British tabloid Sunday Express shortly after the incident identified the man as a 19-year-old named Wang Weilin, the son of Beijing factory workers. But activists question the accuracy of a reporter they say did not even come to China and relied on telephone calls to supposed friends of the man.
Others say the protester was a "nongmin," a peasant from the countryside newly arrived in the city. No one can say for sure. The news footage and photographs showed him from the back only. In 1999, on the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, Chinese leader Jiang Zemin was asked what had happened to the mystery man. He responded in English: "I think never killed." Jiang said government officials conducted their own search for the protester, checking morgues, prisons, and computer registers, but could not find him.
They could get no help from Chinese citizens themselves: The images have not been shown in China. In fact, ordinary Chinese beyond the protesters and soldiers involved do not know about the standoff. Even today, Chinese do not have access to the famous photograph, even on the Internet. The government blocks ways to download the picture.
For the rest of the world, the image remains an icon of freedom. In 1998, Time magazine proclaimed him one of the 20th century's top 20 revolutionaries.
As for the lone protester, activists hope for his survival, but fear the worst. "Either he's been killed already, or he's still in some black hole in a Chinese prison," said Sharon Hom, director of the US-based group Human Rights in China.