Liu Binyan

Liu Binyan is a Chinese author and journalist, as well as a political dissident. He is currently banned from returning to China and lives in the United States.

Liu was born in Changchun in 1925. He became a Marxist as a young man and joined the communist party in the 1940s. In 1956, after the Communists took power in China, Liu published two novels which were critical of the corruption and censorship in the new regime. For this he was sent into exile. After being rehabilitated in the 1960s, he again fell out of favor in 1969 and was condemned to a laogai concentration camp, where he spent eight years. After being rehabilitated again, he built up a sound reputation as a reformer and a corruption watchdog. After the Tiananmen Square massacre, Liu was forced to live abroad, being banned from returning to China.

He currently publishes articles critical of Chinese corruption for the Hong Kong media, and offers commentary for the U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia.