Operation Yellowbird

Operation Yellowbird or Operation Siskin (Chinese: 黃雀行動), was a Hong Kong-based operation to help the Chinese dissidents who participated in Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 to escape arrest by the PRC government by facilitating their departure overseas via Hong Kong. French diplomacy at the highest level as well as the Western intelligence agencies such as Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were involved in the operations.

The operation began in late June 1989, following the issuing of an order by the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau on 13 June 1989 to apprehend the leaders of the Beijing Students' Autonomous Federation who were on the run. The operation continued until 1997. Yellowbird successfully helped more than 400 dissidents, who were smuggled through Hong Kong, and then onwards to Western countries; some 15 of the top 21 "most wanted" student leaders were rescued. These included Wu'erkaixi, Chai Ling, Li Lu, Feng Congde, Chen Yizi, and Su Xiaokang. Three Hong Kong based activists were arrested by the Chinese authorities, but later released after intervention by the Hong Kong government.

The operation obtained its name from the Chinese expression "The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the yellow bird behind" (螳螂捕蟬，黃雀在後).

Days after the Chinese government quashed the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Beijing issued a wanted list of ringleaders of the protests. In response, activists in Hong Kong, including the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, set up Operation Yellowbird in mid-June 1989 to help wanted activists escape from China.

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