... was born in 1956 into a family of communist cadres in Tianjin. When he, during a trip to Beijing, got his first view of the Xidan Democracy Wall, he looked for contacts and met Xu Wenli and other activists. He brought informationen and copies of various issues of the independent journals back to Tianjin. Later he also helped to produce the "April 5th Forum" in Beijing and became the journal's Tianjin correspondent.

During the same year, Liu Shixian together with others, founded "Reformer" (Gaigezhe), a "people's publication"  in Tianjin, and he became a regular author at the local Democracy Wall in this City, about 60 miles southeast of Beijing. It was also in 1979 that Liu founded, together with Lü Honglai, the journal "Bohai Shores" (Bohai zhi Bin).

In 1981 he was, like other prominent democracy activists, arrested. He was released only in 1984. In 1994 Liu Shixian left China, today he lives in the San Francisco Bay Area in the US.