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 on 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 versus Goliath showdown: Clutching nothing but two shopping bags, he stood his ground before a column of oncoming tanks on 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 violent confrontation.
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 visit 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. But no one can say for sure. News footage and photographs showed him only from the back.
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.
