Dec 1, 2022

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

“Stop dictator Jinping Xi”. Zhang stuck the words 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 Zhang, 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, Zhang 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,” Zhang said.

Rena Tu, 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 Tu, “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.” 

Zhang said she would continue to speak out to let more Chinese students have access to the truth, though facing some criticism calling their movement useless.

Zhang 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 Tu, “but since hearing the voice other than praise and worship, I want to rethink everything.”

Tu 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.”

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.”

*To protect the interviewees, they use fake names in this article.

*The follow-up story was broadcasted on Illinois Public Media, Nov. 30, 2022