Yang Lian was invited to visit Australia by the Australian Arts Council at Aug. 1988, and invited to become a visiting scholar by University of Auckland at Feb, 1989. Yang Lian was in Auckland, New Zealand at the time of the Tiananmen incident, and was involved with protests against the actions of the Chinese government. His work was blacklisted in China shortly after June 4, 1989, and two books of his poetry awaiting publication there were pulped. since then, he became a Chinese poet in exile in New Zealand.