Whatever happened to ‘Tank Man’?

It was 25 years ago tomorrow. One guy with a briefcase stood up to a line of tanks in Beijing.

Photo: Jeff Widener/AP/Press Association

When a tank tried to go around him, he stepped into its path again. Eventually, he was taken away by two men, never to be seen again.

“I think about Tank Man from time to time and wonder what happened to him,” Jeff Widener, the man who took the picture, told AFP.

“Perhaps it is better we never know who he is,” he said.

“I believe we are all Tank Men. If we confront the system, Tank Man lives on,” Chinese dissident Hu Jia said.

Most people in China have never seen the picture.

Related: How America’s opinion of China has changed since Tiananmen (Pew Research Center).