With a mask on, Fan Yang waited by the printer and took the papers coming out, each with only one Chinese character on it.

The words on the papers combined as a banner, “Stop dictator Jinping Xi”. Yang stuck them on the poster stand in front of Illini Union at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to protest Chinese top leader.

The context of the banner was cited from a protestor Zaizhou Peng, and Chinese censorship system deleted related images and information after Peng’s arrestment. Days after, many college students outside China’s mainland took the baton of the protest.

“It will never go away,” said Fan Yang, a freshman in psychology at U of I, “even though the state doesn’t allow our people to see the truth.”

Chinese students from over 200 universities all over the world expressed their support for Peng and denounced the party and leader continuously, despite all the actions can only be communicated outside China’s mainland.

“Peng is a martyr because he used the sharpest word to reveal the black side of Chinese society, and it is astonishing for people who live in the long-term control of speech and liberty,” said Huiren Li, a democracy activist from China.

On Oct. 13, Peng hung a banner on a highway in central Beijing with a speaker, criticizing the economic stagnation and the harsh control of citizens’ liberty caused by the zero-covid policy, and calling Jinping Xi a “sinner of China”.

Li thought that China’s long-going censorship history has made people live on pins and needles every day because the punishment from the censorship system is random and unpredictable, but always severe.

“It is like an animal instinct, every Chinese people are afraid of talking politics and being reported by their compatriots, even though they moved to a safe environment without the control of the state,” Li said.

During the process of spreading posters, Yang said she was surrounded by fear at every step. She chose to stick the posters at night and hid her identity with a mask and sunglasses.

“Many friends said I was brave and they were proud of me, but my parents in China went mad after knowing what I’d done,” Yang said.

Rena Rao, a freshman in psychology, said she was not brave enough to join the protest.

“My parents are both civil servants, and if my action is known by the system, I cannot take the price of the threaten my parents will meet,” said Rao, “sometimes I feel like my families are hostage.”

An Instagram account named Northern Square has collected thousands of images from Chinese students recording their protests, and the series of protests is on an unprecedented scale since the failure of the democratic student movement in 1989.

Li said the reaction of overseas Chinese students broke her stereotype of them, and it is the start of enlightenment.

“Chinese students studying abroad are labeled with ‘spoiled generation’, and they are all coming from the upper-class group, sometimes notorious for the lack of empathy,” Li said, “but now they are telling the whole world the truth with their power.” 

Before Yang’s action, she said only five friends of hers know what happened on the highway, but now the number is increasing to over 100.

“There are many complains saying that our action is useless, but you can’t deny that we let more people have access to the truth,” said Yang.

Yang also believed that once people have awareness of what happening to society, they can realize there is something abnormal.

“I was brainwashed by our education system for 18 years,” said Rao, “but since hearing the voice other than praise and worship, I want to rethink everything.”

Rao said now she had a more complete understanding of her country, “Now I know loving our country doesn’t mean that you must love your government and leader.”

On Nov. 24, 40 days after Peng’s protest, a fire accident in Urumqi, China, has sparked the protest about the covid-19 restriction nationwide.

10 people died in the fire. The fire trucks were blocked by the wire entanglement set for the requirement of zero-covid policy for three hours. People across the country walked out of their homes to protest.

Up to Nov. 26, students in China from over 51 universities have raised protests asking for the cancellation of the policy, and people in Beijing concentrated under the highway where Peng held the protest again, screaming “liberty or death”.

“They are facing much worse results than us who live abroad,” Li said, “but we are eventually united together, and this is the sign of hope.”