Operation Yellowbird was a rescue operation for fleeing members of the China democracy movement. It began in June, 1989, and ended before the handover of Hong Kong sovereignty in 1997. It was started by Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China chairman Szeto Wah; reverend Chu Yiu-Ming, celebrity John Sham Kin-Fun and others were in charge of planning and support. The operation secretly rescued political dissidents who had been listed as wanted by the Chinese government, assisting them in escaping from China then going to Hong Kong or heading instead to the United Kingdom, France, the US or other western countries.

John Sham once brought up Operation Yellowbird as he was being interviewed; he mentioned the Chinese idiom "The mantis catches the cicada, forgetting the yellow bird soon behind", which describes how the operation's goal was to rescue dissidents before they were caught by the massive, intensive Chinese government search. This turn of phrase gave the main name by which the operation was known. However, years later in his autobiography "A Mighty River Flowing Eastward", Szeto Wah explained the name as recalling a poem by Cao Zhi, "Poem on the Yellow Siskin in the Wild Field", which describes how a siskin is caught in a net, but is then freed by a youth. The name is thus a metaphor for the hope that, as soon as a friend is caught up in a net, they will be released as quickly as possible. The overall operation relied on help from a wide variety of staff and assistants, including Hong Kong pro-democracy politicians, human rights advocates, businesspeople, celebrities, gang members, western countries' diplomatic corps, and more.

Within a short time after the June 4th crackdown, seven of the 21 most wanted students (Wu'er Kaixi, Chai Ling, Feng Congde, Liang Qingdun, Wang Chaohua, Zhang Boli, and Li Lu) had successfully escaped from China; and the majority of them were assisted by Operation Yellowbird. And outside that 'most wanted' list, innumerable other people escaped capture or fled to other lands with the help of Operation Yellowbird.