Michel Cormier

Michel Cormier was the CBC and Radio-Canada correspondent in Beijing from 2006 to 2010, where he covered events such as the Sichuan earthquake and the 2008 Olympics and followed China’s meteoric rise to economic superpower. He is now executive director of News and Current Affairs at Radio-Canada in Montreal, where he continues to take an active in interest in the changing political and economic climate in China.

In The Legacy of Tiananmen Square, Cormier examines the century-long battle to bring democracy to China, beginning with a handful of brave souls led by Sun Yat-Sen at the turn of the twentieth century and peaking with the student uprising of 1989, an event now completely erased from the official histories of China. Using historical research, including transcripts from Party meetings, and candid interviews with dissidents — some living in exile, others under house arrest — Cormier gives a human face to a century of struggle and uncovers the many subtle ways that change is now being achieved, one tiny victory at a time.

Photo credit: Anne Bernier-Cormier