黄雀行动 (Operation Yellowbird / huángquè xíngdòng) was a Hong Kong-based effort initiated after the June 4 crackdown to assist Chinese political dissidents in leaving the mainland. From 1989 to 1997, a group of activists, diplomats, businessmen, and celebrities worked with crime bosses and smugglers to guide over 400 dissidents out of China. The program has been called a Chinese “underground railroad.”
Why it is blocked: Not only does the operation deal with politically sensitive people—Wu’er Kaixi, Chai Ling, and other June 4 student leaders left the country with Yellowbird’s assistance—but it also touches on sovereignty issues as well as the obvious rifts in the Hong Kong-China relationship. Foreign nations and diplomats actively bent laws to allow dissidents to sneak into Hong Kong and then find safe passage out to countries like the U.S. or France. Though China fiercely objected to such interference, The Standard also conjectured that China might have had cause for letting dissidents slip through its fingers: “Apart from the connivance of sympathetic Chinese officials, Yellow Bird’s high rate of success appears to owe something to inertia in the government, which can find it more convenient to let dissidents leave the country than have them remain to cause trouble.” Whether it was a convenient solution or not, Operation Yellowbird highlighted just how differently Hong Kong and China viewed 6-4 and democracy, issues China will have to contend with in the coming years as it continues to try and integrate HK.
