The 2011 TIME 100

As the leader of Burma's democracy movement and winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, Aung San Suu Kyi, 65, is an Asian hero and global inspiration. When I was pushing for democratic reforms in China during the 1989 Tiananmen movement, Suu Kyi's commitment to nonviolent resistance, exemplified just a year before during Burma's democracy protests, was fresh in my memory. Last November she was released from her latest stint of more than seven years under house arrest.

In March her banned party, the National League for Democracy, called again for talks with Burma's rulers. Even after spending most of the past two decades in detention, Suu Kyi is determined to return to the front lines of the battle for democracy.

Wang is a Chinese democracy activist

See pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi.