Where is Gao Zhisheng? At 5:00 PM on August 16, 2026, a street rally themed “Where is Gao Zhisheng?” was held near the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles. Chinese people from various backgrounds participated in the event. Mr. Zhu Yufu, one of the founders of the China Democracy Party, spoke first, calling for attention to the issue of Gao Zhisheng’s nine-year disappearance, demanding the publication of his true whereabouts and physical condition, and appealing for the restoration of his freedom. Prominently displayed at the scene was a massive banner reading: “The CCP is the source of all evil!” Meanwhile, signs held by the crowd repeatedly echoed a single voice: “Immediately release Gao Zhisheng!”
WHERE IS GAO ZHISHENG？Nine years have passed, yet one question has never disappeared. Nine years, waiting for an answer.
On August 13, 2017, Gao Zhisheng disappeared once again. Since then, news about him has constantly weighed on the hearts of many. Nine years is by no means short in a person’s life. Nine years can allow a child to grow up, bring about immense changes to a family, and cause many things to gradually be forgotten by people. Yet for Gao Zhisheng’s family, these nine years have been a lingering, agonizing wait. Where is he? Is he safe? How is his health? When will he be able to return to his family? These most basic questions still have not received a convincing answer to this day.
Voices from the Scene
At the event site that day, some picked up microphones to speak, some held signs high, and others used mobile phones to record the entire process. In the photos, people of different ages and backgrounds can be seen standing together. Some were dressed in simple T-shirts, some wore hats, and others stood silently in support from the back of the crowd. They may have different experiences and hold different views, but standing here at this moment, they were all expressing the same demand:
Do not forget Gao Zhisheng
Do not let a person who has been missing for nine years disappear from public memory.
At the scene, the speeches by Ms. Shi Qingmei and Ms. Shen Meihua were also particularly eye-catching. Facing the cameras and the crowd, they picked up microphones to express their views.
Some spoke forcefully and resolutely, while others remained calm, yet they were all using their own ways to tell more people:
Even if one’s voice is quiet, choosing silence is not an option. Why still ask after nine years? Some might ask: Nine years have passed, is it still necessary to keep asking? The answer is simple: Precisely because nine years have passed, it is all the more necessary to ask. If a person’s disappearance can be forgotten over time, then today’s problem may well become tomorrow’s problem. If a family has waited for nine years and society ultimately chooses silence, then “disappearance” itself could become a normalized phenomenon. Therefore, that phrase repeated again and again at the scene—”Where is Gao Zhisheng?”—is, in fact, not merely inquiring about one person’s whereabouts. It is also a pursuit of truth, freedom, the rule of law, and basic human rights.
Freedom, at times, is simply the ability to stand up and speak out!
Standing on the streets of the United States, picking up a microphone to publicly express one’s views may seem like a very ordinary thing to many people. Yet it is precisely this kind of “ordinariness” that makes people appreciate the meaning of freedom all the more. To be able to speak out, to hold up signs, to express differing opinions, and to publicly question issues one cares about—these seemingly simple matters are, in truth, the most fundamental rights of a normal society. Those who came to the scene today may not be able to change anything, but at the very least, they chose: not to forget, not to remain silent, and not to stop asking.
Nine Years Has Already Been Too Long
Gao Zhisheng has been missing for nine years. Nine years is enough for many people to forget a name. But today, on the streets of Los Angeles, this name was called out once again.
Where is Gao Zhisheng?
This was the simplest sentence at the scene, as well as the heaviest. What we hope to see is not more speculation, but truthful information; not endless waiting, but a clear answer; and even more, we hope that one day, Gao Zhisheng can truly regain his freedom and be reunited with his family. Nine years has already been too long. Truth should not fade away with time, nor should freedom remain a distant dream. Today, standing here, we only wish to keep passing this question along:
Gao Zhisheng, where are you?
We have not forgotten.
We are still asking.
Editor: Zhao Jie Proofreader: Ge Bing Translator: Ge Bing
Infrastructure Monster Rife with Falsehoods, Blood, and Tears
By Zhou Heng
China’s engineering and infrastructure industry is world-renowned for its high architectural heights, large scales, fast construction speeds, and low costs, earning it the global moniker of “Infrastructure Monster.” Counting from the year 2000, in a short span of just over 20 years, China has constructed an astronomical volume of housing construction projects, railway engineering, highway engineering, water conservancy engineering, and airport engineering, with both the quantity and scale of these projects jumping to the forefront of the world.
However, beneath its famous reputation, reality falls short of the acclaim. Although the skyscrapers in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and new first-tier cities grow taller one after another, and the night light shows in the CBDs are dazzlingly brilliant, during the daytime, these tall buildings are empty, forming a sharp contrast with the superficial bustling at night. High-end office building vacancy rates in many cities are above 50 percent.
Across China, “railways, highways, and infrastructure” have commenced construction and been completed everywhere. Many provinces and autonomous regions have built high-speed railways to every prefecture-level city and expressways to every county town; yet, most of the time, what people see are high-speed trains running empty and expressways with no cars traveling on them. The money bags of the Chinese government—local urban construction investment companies (LGFVs), transport investment companies at all levels, railway investment companies, and water conservancy investment companies—are saddled with soaring debts, with return on investment falling far short of initial expectations. The publicized Chinese urban construction investment debts are merely the tip of the iceberg. When even the interest cannot be repaid, a debt explosion becomes inevitable. These debts will ultimately be paid for by ordinary people.
I have worked in China’s infrastructure industry for fifteen years, with experience in state-owned enterprises, central enterprises, private enterprises, as well as domestic and overseas engineering projects, and I am quite familiar with the unspoken truths of the engineering circle in mainland China. Now located in the free world, I will try to talk about those matters unknown to outsiders and foreigners.
China’s engineering and infrastructure industry is a fertile soil for interest groups to seize personal gain, and a cage where ordinary people accumulate blood, tears, and suffering. The interest groups mentioned here refer to CCP officials at all levels, relatives of officials, brokers attached to these officials, and actual controllers of companies related to large-scale engineering projects.
Why was China’s engineering and infrastructure industry able to become an “Infrastructure Monster”? I believe there are at least three reasons.
First, Chinese officials’ political evaluation indicators were primarily based on GDP. Launching engineering projects yields rapid results. Investment—mainly infrastructure investment—was one of the “three-horse carriage” driving China’s rapid economic growth after the year 2000. Engineering project construction involves large and dense capital, facilitating corruption and power-for-money rent-seeking; almost all corrupt officials are involved in helping others contract engineering projects.
Second, land finance and urbanization construction. Nationwide land is divided into urban land and rural collective land; urban land is state-owned, rural land belongs to village collectives, and individuals have no land ownership at all. Individuals only hold land lease and use rights. Land finance naturally drives local officials to inflate land use prices, keeping land transfer prices high in all prime locations, which causes housing prices to surge accordingly. Urbanization construction prompts local officials to designate rural land as urban, relocating farmers from rural areas into towns for resettlement. Some farmers received resettlement housing, while others took monetary subsidies or home-purchase vouchers with time limits to buy homes in the city.
Third, the high birth rate in the 1980s and 1990s combined with a low-human-rights and low-welfare society, forming a massive market of cheap labor. Among these people, a vast number of migrant workers buoyed the “Infrastructure Monster” with their sweat and blood. The population influx into cities caused by a huge population base and high birth rates also pushed housing prices to high levels.
Land acquisition and demolition for Chinese engineering projects are full of injustice and oppression. When officials measure land acquisition areas, they often employ double standards to reduce compensation expenditures. Identical demolished households suffer vast differences in compensation money due to varying measurements. So-called negotiations are actually deception and coercion; violent forced demolitions when negotiations fail are a widespread phenomenon. Compensation funds for major project demolitions are intercepted by at least 10% at every level from top to bottom, already slashed by half by the time they are allocated to the hands of demolished households. The demolished households have no doors to turn to for help, and petitioning leads to violent “stability maintenance” by black police. Facing high housing prices, ordinary people either cannot afford to buy or drain six wallets (parents, parents-in-law, and the couple) to gather down payments and shoulder mortgages. Housing prices dropped after the pandemic; today, housing prices in many cities are not even worth half their original value, and homes cannot be sold. Even if sold, a large debt is still owed to the bank. Once either spouse loses a job, the family plunges into the abyss.
Sixty million construction workers drift across job sites in various cities in China. The reason they are said to drift is that most of them have no social security and no stable jobs. Unstable work leads to frequently changing to new job sites. After working a few months on a project, there is no work left to do, leaving no choice but to keep searching for the next job site.
Workers on job sites endure high labor intensity, with over ten hours a day being commonplace; high danger, poor labor protection measures, and fatal or injury accidents occurring on job sites have become widespread phenomena.
A project manager once said that on average, every commercial residential building constructed costs one life. To protect the official hats of local officials, nearly every project chooses to conceal the truth to underreport death numbers, opting for private out-of-court settlements with the casualties themselves or their family members.
Low wages, no labor unions, no social security, and no medical insurance, with their hard-earned money frequently kept in arrears. Construction workers live in terrible environments; most of them are squeezed into temporary makeshift prefabricated houses on job sites, where a single 18-square-meter room houses over a dozen people. Some prefabricated rooms even lack air conditioning in the summer and hot water showers in the winter, leaving the rooms foul-smelling—they can fully be called places of enslavement. The living and residential conditions of construction workers at BYD’s Brazil factory, once exposed by the media, were viewed by Chinese labor contractors as top-tier standards in China; however, in the eyes of Brazil’s labor authority, such treatment of construction workers constituted enslavement, and they penalized BYD. According to the standards of the Brazilian government, not a single one among tens of millions of construction workers across China is not enslaved.
Formality for formality’s sake and bureaucracy run rampant in China’s engineering and infrastructure industry. When submitting large and medium-sized infrastructure projects for approval, government officials at all levels frantically push project approvals within their jurisdictions for the sake of their political achievements and subsequent corruption and wealth accumulation. Relevant procedures, workflows, and documents can all serve this purpose—whether project proposal reports, feasibility study reports, or environmental impact assessment reports. For example, hosting various sports games and conferences serves as justification for constructing large-scale engineering projects. City games, provincial games, the National Games, the Asian Games, and the Olympic Games—and in some provinces, every prefecture-level city takes turns hosting tourism development conferences, while various forums, Shanghai Cooperation Organization meetings, APEC, and other international conferences feature exceedingly lavish construction projects. As for how to address the long-term vacancies of various public buildings and venues after the sports games and conferences conclude, no one pays attention, and no one dares to question. That is how taxpayers’ money is squandered away.
During the project approval phase, brokers and white gloves attached to officials begin to intervene, grasping key information and crucial connections at the earliest moment to secure control of the project in advance. Power-for-money transactions and power-for-sex transactions, of course, are never absent.
During the engineering project bidding phase, the project owners, bidding agencies, and bid evaluation experts are all merely going through the motions. The essence of Chinese engineering project bidding is to package predetermined outcomes through the solemnity of procedures, gloss over the rationality of insider choices with procedural compliance, corroborate the fairness of quotes with fierce competition, and consolidate the stability of power through the complexity of maneuverings.
In my hometown of Hunan Province, there was once such a situation: the actual controller who operated the project early on would arrange multiple affiliated entities during bidding to collude and rig the bids. If an accident occurred and a colluded entity failed to win the bid, but another bidding entity happened to win by luck, the actual controller of the project would negotiate with this lucky winning entity. He would affiliate under the qualification of the winning entity and pay them a management fee—typically 1% to 2% of the construction contract cost. Afterward, the project would naturally be managed by the actual controller, meaning that no matter which entity won the bid, the actual controller of the project ultimately remained the broker who operated it in the early stage. When I worked on engineering projects in Guangdong, I knew a Teochew broker backed by members of a third-generation red family, who held control over a vast number of major projects. On a single sheet of paper listing projects worth hundreds of millions or even billions of RMB, he could decide which major project in which table row would be won by which central state-owned enterprise construction entity. The heads of the third-tier entities of those central construction enterprises were “emperors” within their own units, arbitrary and bossy. Yet, to obtain these major projects, these people had to be submissive and respectfully fawn before this big broker boss, merely begging the broker to grant them a project affiliation—just affiliation, not even handing over full control of the project. The most common practice was to give about 20% of the construction volume for this central enterprise to execute, while the remaining majority of the project was constructed by a project management team trusted and organized by the broker himself. Externally, the project was executed uniformly under the name of that central enterprise.
The so-called randomly selected bid evaluation experts are, of course, arranged and bribed by brokers in advance. The bid evaluation experts will give high scores on technical evaluation to the predetermined entity, and award high scores during the video interview of the designated winning unit’s project manager—even details such as what clothing the project manager wears during the video interview or what flowers and beverages are placed on his desk can serve as secret signals.
The registered constructors and chief supervision engineers who win the bids for construction units and supervision units should, in theory, be the bosses of the construction project management department and the project supervision department; however, in reality, these two individuals are most likely affiliated puppets. As mentioned earlier, because the vast majority of engineering projects are actually controlled by broker bosses who take on projects to earn enormous profits, it is impossible for professional personnel from the affiliated entities to actually manage the project. They will inevitably arrange their own people to actually manage this project. Usually, the boss among their own people is the executive manager of the construction project management department, and the chief supervisor’s representative of the supervision project department.
Subletting and illegal subcontracting by construction units and supervision units are widespread. Speaking first of supervision, the supervision entity itself is entrusted by the construction unit to supervise and manage the construction unit, yet the actual situation is that many supervision units sublet to private individuals after winning bids. Supervision units collude with construction units, and every labor team must hand over a so-called “overtime fee” to supervision personnel every month, starting from 3,000 RMB monthly. This has become an explicit rule of supervision. There are even supervision personnel whose supervision logs have to be written by the construction unit’s constructors or documenters. Small supervisors engage in petty extortion and bribery, while big supervisors share profits in major construction changes and severe cutting of corners.
Chaos is even more rampant within construction units. Most office personnel inside headquarters are nepotic connections arranged by internal leaders, or favor-based hires to accommodate relatives of external government or relevant regulatory authorities; some second-generation officials even draw salaries for ghost jobs in the company, never coming to work yet receiving paychecks as usual. Unit leaders care only about securing projects and dare to accept projects no matter how low the price is. Once the leaders complete their own operational targets, they can collect huge bonuses. Those low-bid projects are already at a projected loss of at least 10% before construction even begins, yet company leaders demand that all employees in the project management department sign responsibility pledges to turn losses into profits.
Formality for formality’s sake, bureaucracy, and the wind of falsification run rampant in central state-owned and state-owned construction enterprises. The constructor project manager specified in the notice of award has no right to determine the roster of the project management department, material, machinery, and labor subcontracts, or the use of funds in the project management department—all these key powers are exercised entirely by the leaders of the construction unit. However, a higher rank oppresses to death! The Party secretary and chairman of the board of the construction unit exercises absolute dictatorship, to the point where the deputy Party secretary and general manager, who are half a rank lower, can be bullied into kneeling before him like servants.
Factions and cliques abound within construction units, suppressing each other in internal struggles. Internal awards and commendations are determined entirely by the degree of personal intimacy, and senior professional title evaluations are conducted in basically the same manner. Those who have good relationships with senior leaders and are willing to give gifts and money can be promoted to senior engineers or professor-level senior engineers; those who do not understand technology spend money to buy papers, forge resumes, and fake project achievements. If scientific and technological achievements across the company, such as invention patents and academic papers, are to be published, the first and second authorship must be yielded to company leaders or employees favored by leaders. In this way, employees who possess true competence but do not take sides, give gifts, or offer money are squeezed out. A classic case of bad money driving out good. Project managers in the most grassroots management units must bear responsibility for site safety management, contract management, information management, quality control, schedule control, cost control, and relationship coordination; if a safety accident occurs, the project manager goes to prison, and if a quality accident occurs, the project manager bears lifelong responsibility. Yet the project manager’s salary is not high, and the project completion bonuses rumored by outsiders are by no means guaranteed. This results in a situation where professional personnel have no power, bear immense responsibility, and receive uncertain benefits, forming an inequality of responsibilities, rights, and interests.
Internal bidding within construction units is in total chaos. To what extent is it chaotic? To prove the legitimacy and legality of internal subcontracting, the engineering department, technology department, and contracts department of the construction project management team jointly forge bidding materials for the predetermined subcontractor. They even locate two other accompanying bidders for it and prepare their bid dossiers as well.
Another issue that front-line management personnel harbor deep hatred for is the mountain of paperwork and sea of meetings. Front-line employees are already too busy with their primary duties, yet their main energy is spent coping with various reporting forms from superior headquarters of the construction unit, paperless office systems, fine-grained management systems, studying the spirit of Xi Jinping’s speeches, and using “Xuexi Qiangguo” (Study the Powerful Nation). During the three years of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, they also had to report epidemic prevention and control status daily and deal with all kinds of inspections—a minor inspection every two days and a major inspection every three days. Inspections require halting work, performing cleanups, sprucing up the site image, and making PPT presentation materials. At the most insane moment, the job site I was at held seven meetings in a single day and received seven batches of inspection teams. When superior leaders inspect projects, they claim on the surface to practice “Four Nots and Two Directs”—that is, no advance notice, no briefing listening, no reception, no accompaniment, going directly to the scene, and going directly to the front line—yet in reality, advance notice must be given, briefings must be heard, hospitality must be provided, and accompaniment is mandatory! Because subcontractors are designated by construction unit leaders, they are highly likely to ignore instructions from grassroots project managers. Regarding disobedient subcontractors, project managers and project management staff are helpless and can only issue superficial fines; however, these fines will ultimately be canceled over a few private drinks between company leaders and subcontractor bosses. Subcontractors getting construction progress payments also depends on the closeness of their relationships, and every payment request requires dining, wining, and gift-giving across all departments of the construction unit to complete the signature procedures. Even after completing all procedures, they may not necessarily receive the full amount payable. Difficulty in collecting payment has become a widespread phenomenon.
Whenever a milestone construction deadline approaches, the flags and banners of the “Youth Commando Team” and “Party Member Vanguard Team” are pulled out for a quick photo opportunity, only to be packed away as soon as the photos are taken. Yet everyone knows that those actually doing the work are the subcontracted crews. This is a performance, but everyone has to act, and no one can let the cover slip.
Why does everyone feel exhausted yet remain unable to stop? Because many performances are not for the sake of meaning, but for the security of one’s own rice bowl. This is the key to understanding formality for formality’s sake. The reason trace-leaving is repeatedly demanded is not because it can truly improve efficiency, but because once a problem arises, it can prove that I am not at fault. Holding a meeting proves that deployment was done; issuing a document proves that requirements were communicated; signing in proves that the person was present; taking a photo proves that the event was conducted… root-level logic of all the above is self-preservation in a low-trust environment.
When the cost of authentic expression in a system is too high, safe expressions will increase. As safe expressions multiply, real problems are noticed later and later. As real problems are noticed later and later, people can only use more forms to make up for the emptiness of reality. Everyone is consumed by it, and everyone is to a certain extent maintaining it—this is the loop of formality for formality’s sake. It does not require a single person to genuinely believe in it; it only needs to ensure that no one dares to be the first to expose it.
On construction sites, management slogans ring out deafeningly and banners fly everywhere. In reality, attention is paid only to external appearances, floating on the surface of forms. On-site safety education, safety technical disclosures, and the “one meeting and three cards” system are all falsified on paper. Expert reviews of special safety plans involving major risks are mostly conducted by experts bribed with money in advance, who raise only superficial, harmless issues. No one truly settles down to discover safety hazards and eliminate them, so quality management is naturally full of holes. Internal “three-inspection” construction procedures remain merely verbal, while supervision site-stationing, inspections, and parallel testing all degenerate into empty formalities, mostly consisting of forged materials. Almost all concrete structure engineering construction works are completed within 3 to 7 days; not a single project waits for the 28-day standard curing process to finish before proceeding to the next step. Doing so violates the objective laws of concrete strength development, causing concrete cracks that should only occur in the future to emerge prematurely, greatly compromising quality and drastically shortening the service life of structures.
The quality supervision stations that represent the government in exercising supervisory duties need only to be paid money by construction units every time they inspect. Fully aware that projects are operating under affiliated qualifications, they pretend not to know, going through the motions, inspecting the surface, reviewing those forged documents, and considering their mission accomplished. Often, they do not even visit the site, changing the process to sample submissions instead; as for whether the submitted samples come from actual site construction or are specially fabricated solely for submission, nobody cares.
The third-party testing institutions crucial to quality control are mostly bribed and bought off by construction units, conspiring with them to fabricate false test results. In a project I personally experienced, a large number of Class II bridge pile foundations and a portion of Class III pile foundations were directly falsified into Class I piles by testing agencies without any remediation… The falsification scandal reported on the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge shocked the world; if they dare to commit fraud on a project of such caliber, one can see how unbearable domestic quality management truly is!
All the aforementioned circumstances demonstrate that the so-called “Infrastructure Monster” has, from beginning to end, been saturated with bureaucracy, the falsehoods of formality for formality’s sake, and the blood and tears of the vast masses of ordinary people. What is even more terrifying is the inevitable, greater avalanche of debt and engineering quality crisis that lies ahead in the future.
To borrow a sentence from the Chinese Communist Party for irony: The good days are yet to come!
Editor: Hu Jing Proofreader: Feng Reng Translator: Ge Bing
Glimmer in the Desert: Series Report II on the Ninth Anniversary of Gao Zhisheng’s Enforced Disappearance
120-Degree Sweltering Heat and Midnight Headlights: The Melody of Watchman in the Abyss Echoes Across the Great Desert
Photojournalist: Guan Yongjie Abstract: Amid 107-degree Fahrenheit sweltering heat at Liberty Sculpture Park in California, tens of people stood steadfast for hours. As night fell, they illuminated the stage with automobile headlights and sang Watchman in the Abyss in unison, voicing support for Gao Zhisheng, who has been forcibly disappeared for nine years.
[Lead] This series of photographs records the most touching scenes under the scorching sun at Liberty Sculpture Park. On Saturday, August 8, a rally titled “Defending Faith for the Sake of Truth” protesting the ninth anniversary of Gao Zhisheng’s enforced disappearance was held in front of the statue “Looking Up at the Starry Sky: Gao Zhisheng.” Dozens of participants endured the agonizing wait under the blazing sun for four hours until the event concluded.
[The Story Behind the Pictures] The scorching sun in the photos could almost melt everything. That day, the desert temperature skyrocketed to 107 degrees Fahrenheit, while the dashboards of vehicles exposed to the sun displayed temperatures as high as 120 degrees Fahrenheit. The event, originally scheduled to begin at 3:30 PM, was delayed as the extreme heat rendered all cameras, mobile phones, and electronic devices on-site unable to function properly. Yet, the camera also captured this scene: during the hottest time around noon, volunteers of Liberty Sculpture Park silently laid cables and set up the stage under the relentless sun, everyone’s skin burnt red.
Even more moving were the dozens of participants who drove hours from the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. Despite repeatedly receiving notices that the start time was postponed, they persistently waited until the event ended. When the rally finally commenced after 7:00 PM in the evening, the people captured in the lens were still full of spirit and unflagging enthusiasm. After the sun set, the lighting at the site was dim, so everyone spontaneously aligned their cars toward the stage and turned on their high beams. This series of photos showing “headlights illuminating the stage” recorded the powerful moment when everyone sang Watchman in the Abyss in unison amid the glimmering light.
In the crowd, the image of Hu Jing, a former volunteer of Liberty Sculpture Park, walking forward on crutches was particularly striking. He had just suffered a workplace injury, yet he still insisted on coming all the way from Los Angeles to participate in the event.
“Attorney Gao Zhisheng is the conscience of China. Those of us who can speak out must come to support this meaningful event,” his answer sounded understated, but the conviction expressed was resolute and forceful.
On August 8, mobile phones displayed a temperature of 107 degrees Fahrenheit in the Liberty Sculpture Park area, while vehicles exposed to the scorching sun showed temperatures as high as 120 degrees Fahrenheit on their dashboards.
Mr. Chen Weiming, artist and founder of Liberty Sculpture Park, with his new work in progress in the background
Volunteers inspecting and repairing electrical lines under the scorching sun
Volunteer Zhang Jishun debugging the large screen
Volunteer Zhu Rongyue and volunteer team leader He Ruizhong (right) setting up the venue under the scorching sun
Volunteer Cai Dan guarding the equipment
Volunteer Joseph Wang
The park’s volunteer chef, Zhao Yongkui, is an unsung hero behind the scenes, who began preparing the day’s meals as early as five o’clock in the morning.
Former volunteer Hu Jing, who came to attend the event despite his injury
Due to the high-temperature weather, the start of the event was repeatedly delayed.
When the event officially commenced at 7:15 PM, Geng He, the wife of Attorney Gao Zhisheng, expressed her gratitude to all participants for their steadfast endurance and said: “In promoting the song Watchman in the Abyss, we have done our part. I have always felt that being able to participate in the dissemination of a work that carries Gao Zhisheng’s conviction and conscience is deeply meaningful. For the songwriters and composers, the greatest reward for a creation is not merely completing it, but having it understood, sung, heard by more people, and evoking resonance. When more and more people sing this song, and when more people pay attention to the story behind it because of this song, that is the best affirmation for the creators, as well as the most precious reward for the original intent of this creation. I believe that works with true vitality can withstand the test of time. Perhaps when looking back at today in the future, what people remember will not only be a song, but also the conviction, courage, and watching over that it carries—and this is precisely the significance of our persistence in promoting it.”
The first segment was a performance by the choir.
Night fell rapidly in the desert. After the sun set, the site immediately turned pitch-dark, whereupon someone suggested using automobile headlights. Multiple participants drove their cars to the front of the stage and turned on their high beams, a scene that produced unexpectedly powerful effects. All the seats in the audience area were removed, and nearly everyone stepped onto the stage, joining in a grand chorus of dozens of people. (This photo was provided by Zhang Jishun)
Geng He, the wife of Attorney Gao Zhisheng, leading the chorus
The high beams of the automobiles converged into a glimmering light piercing through the darkness, shining onto the stage. In the frozen group photograph, everyone raised their clenched fists and waved their hands, while the passionate, uplifting singing of Watchman in the Abyss echoed for a long time over the silent, desolate desert. This singing is a affectionate call for the disappeared prisoners of conscience; may this united enthusiasm gather into an unquenchable torch, just like this glimmer of light in the desert—which, though limited, illuminates the backbone of those who stand fast, allowing those souls who spoke out for freedom and were deprived of liberty by high walls to see light and hope in the darkness.
Editor: Zhong Ran Proofreader: Xiong Bian Translator: Ge Bing
Los Angeles “Global Awakening” Episode 84 in Solidarity with Qin Yongmin
Author: Feng Reng
Abstract: Pro-democracy activists in Los Angeles voiced support for Qin Yongmin, who has been imprisoned for a cumulative total of more than thirty-three years, demanding that the Chinese government release him immediately and unconditionally. Drawing from personal experiences, the author calls on society to pay attention to freedom of speech and not to forget those who have dedicated themselves to the cause of Chinese democracy.
At 3:30 p.m. on August 16, 2026, protest voices resounded once again in front of the Consulate-General of the People’s Republic of China in Los Angeles. The Western US Party Headquarters and Southern US Party Headquarters of the Joint Headquarters of the China Democracy Party, together with the Freedom Bell Democracy Foundation, jointly held the 84th episode of “Global Awakening.” The theme of this episode was “Half a Century of Perseverance and Thirty-Three Years Behind Iron Bars: Condemning the CCP’s Persecution of Qin Yongmin”. Dozens of participants arrived at the scene, holding up photographs of Mr. Qin Yongmin and placards bearing protest slogans, demanding that the Chinese government release Qin Yongmin immediately and unconditionally and cease its suppression of political dissidents and human rights defenders.
I was also standing in the crowd that day. Behind the iron fence behind us stood the Consulate-General of the People’s Republic of China in Los Angeles; outside the iron fence, photographs of Qin Yongmin were held up high one after another. The old man in the photos was already seventy-three years old, yet he spent his seventy-third birthday inside Guanghua Prison in Qianjiang, Hubei. As everyone shouted “Release Qin Yongmin” over and over again, I realized that this was no longer merely an overseas protest, but a questioning of a realistic and heavy question: Just how many years of freedom must a person lose for holding fast to their political principles?
Qin Yongmin is one of the representative figures long engaged in democracy and human rights activities in China. Data from Human Rights Watch shows that he began participating in democratic activities as early as 1980. In 1993, he participated in drafting and launching the “Peace Charter,” advocating for the promotion of democracy and political reform through peaceful means; in 1998, he further participated in establishing the local organization of the China Democracy Party in Hubei. Subsequently, he was detained and sentenced on multiple occasions. On July 11, 2018, the Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Qin Yongmin to 13 years’ imprisonment and 3 years’ deprivation of political rights on the charge of “subversion of state power.”
The cumulative length of time Qin Yongmin has been imprisoned is especially staggering. In 2021, UN human rights experts pointed out when speaking of several Chinese human rights defenders that Qin Yongmin had been sentenced to a cumulative total of 35 years’ imprisonment in relevant cases throughout his life for engaging in human rights work. According to an August 2026 report by Rights Defense Network, the actual time he has been detained has reached a cumulative total of 33 years and 7 months, and he is currently still serving his sentence at Guanghua Prison in Qianjiang City, Hubei Province. The latest records from PEN America similarly list Qin Yongmin as a writer and human rights activist who remains in prison.
What does more than thirty-three years mean? For many people, that is nearly the most crucial period of a lifetime. From youth to old age, the time when a person has the most energy, is best able to accompany their parents, wife, and children, and is most capable of achieving their life ideals, is largely consumed inside prison. Yet what Qin Yongmin has held fast to is mainly publicly expressing political opinions, organizing civil society groups, promoting human rights, and advocating for a peaceful democratic transition in China. Human Rights Watch explicitly pointed out in his case that he has long been engaged in peaceful democratic activities and had once called on the Chinese government to initiate political reform.
Standing in front of the consulate, I was also reminded of my own experiences in China. I was once taken away and detained by police for publicly expressing my opinions. Compared with Mr. Qin Yongmin’s more than thirty years of prison experience, the duration of my detention was naturally extremely short; yet even a brief loss of freedom is enough to make a person truly realize that when expressing an opinion can bring about police arrest, interrogation, or even prison time, “freedom of speech” is no longer just a few words in a book. It is precisely because of this that today, when I can stand on the streets of the United States, publicly hold up a protest placard, and speak out for those who remain behind bars, I understand all the more that this kind of freedom is by no means something to be taken for granted.
The Chinese government, however, has consistently maintained a different position regarding Qin Yongmin’s case. In a 2025 document responding to UN Special Procedures, the Chinese government stated that Qin Yongmin’s case was tried in accordance with the law and that his litigation rights were protected; the Chinese side also indicated that he is currently serving his sentence at Guanghua Prison, where he has been visited by family members and lawyers since serving his sentence, and has received antihypertensive medication as well as regular physical examinations. On the other hand, UN Special Procedures have previously continuously raised concerns with the Chinese government regarding the health condition, visitation restrictions, and detention conditions of Qin Yongmin and other long-imprisoned human rights defenders. This glaringly divergent evaluation between the Chinese side and international human rights mechanisms precisely demonstrates that Qin Yongmin’s case continues to draw international attention to this day.
The event that day was convened by Liao Jun and Liu Guangxian, planned by Sun Ye and Yu Hailong, and hosted by Yi Yong; Hu Yueming, Liang Zhicheng, Luo Xu, Xia Tishan, Su Yi, Cheng Yiliang, and others participated in the organization, with additional assistance provided by multiple volunteers and photographers. Participants at the scene repeatedly shouted slogans such as “Immediately and unconditionally release Qin Yongmin” and “Stop persecuting human rights defenders.” Ultimately, everyone unfurled a large banner bearing the words “China Democracy Party Joint Headquarters Western US Party Headquarters” in front of the consulate and took a group photo together, leaving a documented record for Episode 84 of “Global Awakening.”
For me, the most important significance of such an activity lies not in how many slogans we shouted in Los Angeles, but in preventing those who are still inside Chinese prisons from being forgotten by the outside world. Perhaps the most lonely moment for a political prisoner is not the moment when the iron door shuts, but years later, when the world outside gradually ceases to mention his name.
Qin Yongmin is already seventy-three years old. There are not many thirty-three years in a person’s life.
When we stood in front of the consulate today and shouted his name once again, it was in the hope that Qin Yongmin inside the iron bars would know that people on the outside still remember him; it was also in the hope that more people would know that in China, there are still many who have paid a price unimaginable to ordinary people simply for expressing their thoughts, writing down words, and holding fast to their political principles.
Iron bars can restrict a person’s body, but they should not bury his thoughts and dignity. Faced with someone like Qin Yongmin who has already lost the greater part of his life’s freedom, the world at the very least should not choose silence.
Editor: Zhou Zhigang Proofreader: Xiong Bian Translator: Ge Bing
San Francisco Rally Commemorates 28th Anniversary of Zhou Huailin’s Passing
—“Merit Must Not Be Erased, Tyranny Must Be Ended”
On August 16, 2026, pro-democracy activists held a rally in front of the Chinese Consulate-General in San Francisco to commemorate the 28th anniversary of Zhou Huailin’s passing.
Author: Lv Xiaojing
[San Francisco News] On the afternoon of August 16, 2026, the San Francisco Chapter of the Democracy Party of China and the Chinese Democracy Education Foundation held a rally titled “Commemorating the 28th Anniversary of Mr. Zhou Huailin’s Passing and Denouncing CCP Tyranny” in front of the Consulate-General of the People’s Republic of China in San Francisco. The event carried the theme: “Merit Must Not Be Erased, Tyranny Must Be Ended — Remember History, Safeguard Justice.”
Through speeches, personal accounts, and slogans, participants at the scene revisited the Zhou Huailin Incident and the plight of ordinary farmers living under the heavy burden of rural taxes and arbitrary levies in China. Drawing from the Zhou Huailin Incident, attendees further discussed critical issues including grassroots administrative power, the urban-rural divide, social security, the rule of law, and fundamental citizens’ rights.
Event host Zhou Xiaojun stated that the Zhou Huailin Incident was not a distant piece of history to him. When the incident occurred, he was still a teenager living about 100 kilometers away from the location, giving him a firsthand sense of the poverty and injustice present in rural Jiangxi during that era.
He expressed that Zhou Huailin’s tragedy should not be viewed merely as the fate of a single individual; behind it lay the heavy agricultural taxes, local fees, and various arbitrary levies imposed on the countryside in those years, as well as the reality of ordinary farmers struggling to defend their rights against grassroots administrative power. Zhou Huailin had gathered central government policies regarding the reduction of farmers’ financial burdens, hoping to safeguard farmers’ rights and interests in accordance with those policies and laws. Yet, he ultimately died while under the control of local authorities, which triggered severe peasant resistance.
From this, Zhou Xiaojun raised a central question: Why did an ordinary farmer, who originally sought to reason according to official policy, end up meeting such a tragedy?
He emphasized that he does not advocate violence, nor does he believe that violence can represent justice. However, society cannot focus solely on the violence that emerges after conflicts escalate, without questioning what ordinary farmers endured prior to that point, and what caused social contradictions to spiral out of control step by step.
When land rights and interests are infringed upon, when grassroots power lacks effective oversight, when appeals, petitioning, and litigation fail to give ordinary people a sense of fairness, and when the law cannot truly restrain power, society’s trust in the legal system risks gradual collapse.
“What can truly end violence is not greater violence, but justice; what can truly bring stability is not suppression, but enabling the people to believe in the law,” Zhou Xiaojun said.
At the same time, he addressed the long-standing gaps in political rights and old-age social security between urban and rural areas, pointing out that farmers not only produce grain, but generations of migrant workers have also participated in building cities, highways, railways, and factories, dedicating immense labor to China’s decades of economic development.
He stated that commemorating Zhou Huailin is not intended to encourage hatred or violence, but rather to hope that China will never see “another Zhou Huailin,” so that when an ordinary person encounters injustice, they can have “courts to go to, reason to stand on, power that can be supervised, and dignity that can be maintained.”
Event organizer Kang Jiaming spoke from his perspective of being born and raised in Shanghai. He noted that in many people’s impressions, Shanghai signifies skyscrapers, economic development, and internationalization, yet the prosperity of big cities can easily cause people to overlook the heavy social costs once borne by China’s vast countryside.
He pointed out that in the 1990s, while some cities were developing rapidly, large numbers of farmers in Fengcheng, Jiangxi, and across China’s broad rural regions were still enduring the pressure brought on by agricultural taxes, local fees, and various arbitrary levies.
Kang Jiaming argued that the Fengcheng Incident and the subsequent abolition of the agricultural tax were not the result of imperial benevolence bestowed by official authorities, but rather a price forced by tens of thousands of ordinary people like Mr. Zhou Huailin, who fought back with their blood and risked their lives.
In his speech, Kang Jiaming criticized the CCP regime. He argued that while the authorities emphasize a “people-first” approach on one hand, they have long forced marginalized grassroots groups to bear heavy systemic costs on the other; when ordinary people attempt to safeguard their rights according to official policies and laws, what they face is often not equal communication, but suppression.
“The cruelty of tyranny makes no distinction between domains,” Kang Jiaming stated. He expressed that Zhou Huailin’s ordeal serves as a reminder that the rights of rural farmers and the freedoms of urban residents are not two isolated issues: “Today it can trample upon the rights of a rights-defending farmer in the countryside, and tomorrow it can deprive an ordinary person of their dignity, human rights, and freedom in the city.”
He maintained that a society cannot ignore the costs borne by its most marginalized groups simply because it possesses prosperous metropolises and striking economic figures. Farmers have long participated in China’s industrialization and urbanization through grain, land, taxes, and low-cost labor; their pensions, healthcare, and basic social security deserve to be treated with equal fairness.
Kang Jiaming said that measuring a society’s true degree of civilization is not merely about how many skyscrapers it erects, but about how it treats its most ordinary and vulnerable people. “Chinese farmers who have dedicated a lifetime of sweat deserve to possess a dignified and decent old age.”
Memories of Two Families Reconstruct the Living Conditions of a Generation of Farmers
If Zhou Xiaojun and Kang Jiaming were focusing more on questioning the system, the speeches by Zhao Ming and Xiong Chaofeng brought the scene back to the concrete and subtle living memories of ordinary rural families.
Zhao Ming recalled that during an era without farm vehicles and with muddy roads, handing over the public grain quota each year was one of the heaviest burdens of his maternal grandfather’s year. Before daybreak, the old man had to pull a wooden cart loaded with hundreds of catties of grain, walking over ten kilometers to the grain station, sometimes waiting in long lines for inspection and acceptance.
After handing over a large portion of the high-quality grain grown through a year of hard work, the rations left for the family were extremely limited. Coupled with fees and levies such as the “three local withholdings and five unified levies,” life remained impoverished despite working diligently all year round. Zhao Ming recalled that at the time, his family often relied on sweet potatoes, cornmeal, sorghum flour, and pickled vegetables to satisfy their hunger, while meat was a luxury enjoyed only a few times a year.
He expressed that his grandfather’s family experience was not an isolated household story, but a microcosm of the shared living conditions of many Chinese farmers during that era.
Xiong Chaofeng, coming from Hunan, spoke about her childhood in her capacity as a “farmer’s daughter.” She recalled that her parents relied on farming to raise three children; after paying taxes and fees and selling part of the harvest to cover school tuition, little grain remained from what they had worked hard all year to harvest. When grain was insufficient, they could only eat sweet potatoes and vegetables, and sometimes had to borrow grain from neighbors and relatives.
To this day, she remembers a specific detail: Once, when her younger brother returned from their grandmother’s house, her mother wanted to fry an egg for him, but scraped around inside the oil crock for a long time without finding even a bit of lard.
An egg, which seems utterly ordinary today, became the most profound footnote in her memory of that impoverished era.
Xiong Chaofeng stated that precisely because she is a farmer’s daughter, standing up today to commemorate Zhou Huailin is also her way of speaking out for ordinary people who once lived—and still live—at the bottom of society.
She believes that a nation’s true strength should not consist merely of skyscrapers and economic statistics, but should be reflected even more in whether ordinary people can live with dignity, whether they possess the right to expression, and whether they have the freedom to choose their own lives.
The day’s discussion subsequently extended further from rural history into the supervision of power, civil rights, and political systems.
In his speech, Yao Rongtao emphasized that opposing one-party dictatorship does not mean opposing China. Precisely because one cares about the future of China and the Chinese people, one should all the more demand that state power be constrained by system and law.
“China belongs to the Chinese people, not to any single political party,” Yao Rongtao stated, adding that a truly strong country should not fear the people speaking the truth, and a confident government should not fear freedom of the press, freedom of speech, or differing voices.
He expressed that what they pursue is not chaos or hatred, but freedom, democracy, the rule of law, dignity, and a government that genuinely accepts supervision by the people.
Li Shuqing expressed that the deeper significance of the Zhou Huailin Incident lies in reminding people to reexamine just how much space ordinary individuals possess to express, question, and appeal when facing public power.
He maintained that when power lacks checks, and when ordinary people’s appeals fail to receive a normal response or are even suppressed, what ultimately suffers injury is not merely a single rights defender, but the entire society’s trust in fairness, law, and institutions.
Li Shuqing stated that commemorating Zhou Huailin is also a way of expressing to all those who have faced repression for standing up for their own rights: “We will not forget, and we will not remain silent.” At the same time, he called for safeguarding truth, freedom, human rights, and the rule of law, as well as supporting the Chinese people in striving for their fundamental rights through peaceful means.
Guo Jianxin stated that Zhou Huailin has been passed away for 28 years, and people still publicly commemorate him today because while an individual’s life may pass, the courage demonstrated by ordinary people in defending their own rights should not disappear with time.
He maintained that the significance of “merit must not be erased” lies precisely in preserving those historical memories that are easily forgotten, letting future generations know that behind every piece of social progress, there may lie a price once paid by ordinary individuals.
From Zhou Xiaojun’s teenage memories of rural Jiangxi, to Kang Jiaming observing the urban-rural gap behind the prosperity of metropolitan Shanghai; from Zhao Ming’s maternal grandfather pulling hundreds of catties of public grain along muddy village roads, to Xiong Chaofeng’s mother scraping every corner of the oil crock yet unable to fry an egg for her child—the speeches of the day ultimately pointed together toward a single question:
Twenty-eight years later, why do people still commemorate Zhou Huailin?
The answer perhaps does not lie merely within Zhou Huailin’s personal fate. When an ordinary person holds official policy documents attempting to defend their rights, can they receive protection from the system? When farmers face unreasonable burdens, can they publicly raise questions? When an individual’s rights are infringed upon, can they obtain redress through courts, media, and normal appeal channels? What these questions decide is not just the fate of one person, but whether a society ultimately chooses to operate by power or by rules.
Therefore, what truly needs to be preserved in commemorating Zhou Huailin is not merely a name, but a piece of social memory that cannot be easily erased.
History cannot record only what policies were eventually introduced; it should also record what kind of lives ordinary people endured before policies changed, and what price they paid to bring about change.
At the conclusion of the day’s event, participants shouted slogans in front of the Chinese Consulate-General in San Francisco, including “Merit must not be erased, tyranny must be ended,” “Reject dictatorship and autocracy, restore my free China,” “End one-party dictatorship, long live democracy,” “Stop persecuting dissidents, safeguard fundamental human rights and freedom,” “Support rights defense, oppose tyranny,” and “Restore my human rights, restore my freedom.”
“Time may pass, but history cannot be forgotten,” Zhou Xiaojun stated.
What this commemoration twenty-eight years later ultimately questions is perhaps an issue transcending Zhou Huailin as an individual: How can an ordinary person, when encountering injustice, still believe that reasoning works, that the law works, and that peaceful rights assertion works?
Only when a society enables its most vulnerable people to possess channels for appeal, subjects power to supervision, and allows the law to truly serve as a shield protecting ordinary people—rather than making people lose hope in the system—can similar tragedies be genuinely prevented.
This was also the shared demand expressed by participants at the scene: to let history be remembered, let rights be safeguarded, and enable China’s future to move toward a society that truly respects the rule of law, democracy, freedom, equality, and human dignity.
List of Pro-Democracy Activists Participating in This Event:
Kang Jiaming, Li Shuqing, Zhou Xiaojun, Gao Zhibin, Zhao Ming, Guo Jianxin, Zheng Yun, Liu Jingtao, Yao Rongtao, Guo Jinsheng, etc. (Listed in no particular order)
Melody in the Garage — Series Report 1 on the Ninth Anniversary of Gao Zhisheng’s Forced Disappearance
16 Days from Garage to Recording Studio: The Recording and Filming of the Music Video Glimmer of Light in the Abyss
Photojournalist: Guan Yongjie
Abstract: The music video Glimmer of Light in the Abyss was completed on the occasion of the ninth anniversary of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng’s disappearance. Pro-democracy activists from the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles overcame obstacles such as venue and equipment constraints, using their voices to express respect for Gao Zhisheng and an unyielding commitment to freedom and democracy.
【Lead Paragraph】
The recording project for the music video Glimmer of Light in the Abyss was quietly launched in July. The lyrics and music were composed by two creators whose names cannot be publicly disclosed at this time; the copyright has been granted free of charge to the “Gao Zhisheng Lawyer Concern Group.” The song premiered on April 4, 2026, at the unveiling ceremony of the “Looking Up at the Starry Sky — Gao Zhisheng” sculpture at Liberty Sculpture Park in California. On the ninth anniversary of Lawyer Gao Zhisheng’s forced disappearance, Ms. Geng He (Gao Zhisheng’s wife) and Fang Zheng (Chairman of the San Francisco Headquarters of the China Democracy Party) jointly initiated the project to adapt the song into a music video, led by Geng Lutao, a music enthusiast with formal professional training.
Ms. Geng He told reporters: Out of respect for the safety and wishes of the creators, I am currently keeping their identities confidential. They support Gao Zhisheng and China’s democracy movement in their own way. To us, this is not just a song, but a heavy responsibility and trust. I believe that one day, when the time is right and if the creators wish to meet everyone, we will express our complete gratitude and respect to them. The lyrics and composition came from within China, bearing a heavy trust dedicated to Lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has been missing for nine years.
In mid-to-late July, as soon as the announcement was made regarding the secondary production of this song, pro-democracy activists in the San Francisco Bay Area mobilized rapidly. The participants had no professional musical backgrounds and no formal venues; everyone gathered in a simple garage, spending half a month completing the rehearsals and recording.
Participants stated: Compared to the brutal persecution suffered by our compatriots in China, the time and effort we have put in is not worth mentioning. We are racing against time simply because we refuse to let the hero’s name be forgotten and refuse to allow the suffering of prisoners of conscience to be covered up. Every single note carries our hopes; we want to ignite a light so that China can become a democratic, free, equal, and rule-of-law nation at an early date.
【Stories Behind the Frames】
Here are photos of ordinary moments: the modest garage in the photos belongs to Yao Rongtao, a member of the China Democracy Party in the San Francisco Bay Area; the recording studio packed with miscellaneous items was converted from a home garage by Liu Sifang in Los Angeles. In the sweltering summer heat of late July, more than a dozen ordinary people with no professional vocal backgrounds gathered together. Under the patient guidance of music director Geng Lutao, everyone repeatedly adjusted their breathing and calibrated their pitch.
Liu Sifang, a music producer from Los Angeles who founded his own stage audio brand, proactively provided professional equipment and technical support free of charge upon learning about the initiative. After more than ten days of rigorous rehearsal, the choir traveled to Los Angeles on August 7. During a marathon 6-hour recording session, solo and choral performances alternated continuously. It was not until midnight that the audio portion of the Glimmer of Light in the Abyss music video was finally completed in Liu Sifang’s garage recording studio. This is not only a sublime tribute to Lawyer Gao Zhisheng, but also a bugle call for freedom sounded by righteous individuals at home and abroad through song. The photos document the transformation of this non-professional choir from raw to deeply moving, capturing the steadfastness and watchfulness shining in their eyes.
旧金山湾区，姚荣涛家的车库
The garage at Yao Rongtao’s home in the San Francisco Bay Area.
音乐指导耿陆弢
Geng Lutao, Musical Director
合唱团成员：张继顺、耿和、张婷
Choir members: Zhang Jishun, Geng He, Zhang Ting
合唱团成员：郑云、卢占强、姚荣涛、方政
Choir members: Zheng Yun, Lu Zhanqiang, Yao Rongtao, Fang Zheng
合唱团成员：李树清、卢占强、张继顺、方政、张婷、耿和
Choir members: Li Shuqing, Lu Zhanqiang, Zhang Jishun, Fang Zheng, Zhang Ting, Geng He
合唱团成员：耿陆弢、卢占强、方政、张婷、周云龙、姚荣涛、郑云、刘静涛、张继顺
Choir members: Geng Lutao, Lu Zhanqiang, Fang Zheng, Zhang Ting, Zhou Yunlong, Yao Rongtao, Zheng Yun, Liu Jingtao, Zhang Jishun
洛杉矶，刘四仿家的车库
The garage at Liu Sifang’s home in Los Angeles
音乐制作人刘四仿（右1）为合唱团提供指导意见
Music producer Liu Sifang (first from right) providing guidance to the choir
高智晟律师的夫人耿和深情演唱
Geng He, wife of lawyer Gao Zhisheng, singing with deep emotion
演唱者方政
Vocalist Fang Zheng
演唱者刘静涛
Vocalist Liu Jingtao
演唱者张婷
Vocalist Zhang Ting
演唱者张继顺
Vocalist Zhang Jishun
演唱者郑云
Vocalist Zheng Yun
演唱者卢占强与音乐指导耿陆弢
Vocalist Lu Zhanqiang and Musical Director Geng Lutao
Choir members listening to guidance from Liu Sifang (from left to right: Zhang Jishun, Luo Yanli, Zhang Ting, Li Shuqing, Fang Zheng, Geng He, Yao Rongtao, Zheng Yun, Geng Lutao, Liu Jingtao)
《深渊中的守望者》合唱团及MV制作团队部分成员
从左到右，后排：李树清、耿和、周云龙、刘静涛、姚荣涛、张婷、张继顺、郑云、卢占强
前排：方政、耿陆弢、关永杰
Members of the choir and MV production team for Glimmer of Light in the Abyss
From left to right, back row: Li Shuqing, Geng He, Zhou Yunlong, Liu Jingtao, Yao Rongtao, Zhang Ting, Zhang Jishun, Zheng Yun, Lu Zhanqiang
Front row: Fang Zheng, Geng Lutao, Guan Yongjie
《深淵中的守望者》简体歌词
Glimmer of Light in the Abyss
—— 致高智晟及所有堅守良知的人
— To Gao Zhisheng and all those with conscience
一盏微光，穿透黑暗
We see a glimmer of light in the darkness
冷墻后的呼喊，在回荡
As he calls out behind the cold walls
绝望中，他信念如钢
When in despair his faith is unwavering
守护正义，是心中辉煌
And for justice his glorious heart is forever calling
铁窗锁不住灵魂的飞翔
Tempered soul can’t be chained
烈火淬炼初心的刚强
And fire tempers an iron heart
沉默中，他的呐喊滚烫
Being silenced his candle of justice burns fiercely
穿越岁月，写下正义篇章
Transcending time his thoughts are written in history
深渊无尽，他站成山岗
In the endless abyss he stands like a rock
孤寂中燃烧的希望
And his torch of hope burns in solitude
信念如火，驱散寒霜
Like fire that burns away the frost is his faith
为真理他捍卫信仰
And he fearlessly defends his faith for the truth
一盏微光，穿透黑暗
We see a glimmer of light in the darkness
冷墻后的呼喊，在回荡
As he calls out behind the cold walls
绝望中，他信念如钢
When in despair his faith is unwavering
守护正义，是心中辉煌
And for justice his glorious heart is forever calling
即使孤身，亦如明灯
Even being alone he is like a beacon
点燃黑夜，点燃黎明晨光
Igniting the night and igniting the dawn
深渊无尽，他站成山岗
In the endless abyss he stands like a rock
孤寂中燃烧的希望
And his torch of hope burns in solitude
信念如火，驱散寒霜
Like fire that burns away the frost is his faith
为真理他捍卫信仰
And he fearlessly defends his faith for the truth
深渊无尽，他站成山岗
In the endless abyss he stands like a rock
孤寂中燃烧的希望
And his torch of hope burns in solitude
信念如火，驱散寒霜
Like fire that burns away the frost is his faith
为真理他捍卫信仰
He fearlessly defends his faith for the truth
为真理用生命回响
And with his life pursues the truth
编辑：钟然 校对：王滨 翻译：沈美花
Editor: Zhong Ran Proofreader: Wang Bin Translator: Shen Meihua
July 7, 2014: At 8:00 AM, while bringing meals to my wife, Xue’e, who was on duty at the east gate guardhouse of Jiulian Xincun Community, I was stopped outside the Xiao Cai Barbershop by several Domestic Security (Guobao) officers, including Zheng Guoliang and Yu Huiyong. They told me to go to the police station with them. I said I would go after delivering the meal, so they had a heavy-set security guard—who “escorts” me every day—deliver the food to Xue’e, and kidnapped me to the Cuiyuan Police Station. Later, they transferred me to the Laodongyue Case Handling Center. Sensing that I might be sent to the detention center today, I completely refused to answer any questions during the interrogation by the Domestic Security officers (Cai Yuedan, Cao Junjie, Deng Jiming, and one other person whose name I couldn’t recall). My method of refusal was to make them write the four characters “Refused to answer” (jujue huida) for every question on the interrogation transcript—these four characters were effectively my answer; otherwise, I would not sign it. When the interrogation ended, Cai Yuedan pulled out a summons warrant. While filling in the “Start Time,” Cai Yuedan said, “We should put 8:00 AM so Lu Gengsong doesn’t lose out.” This misled me into believing it was just a standard summons as in the past (summons time is strictly counted and cannot exceed 24 hours). Therefore, I signed both the summons warrant and the detention warrant (at the time, I didn’t look carefully and assumed it was a property seizure receipt). Only after signing did I realize I had fallen for Cai Yuedan’s trick.
Around 4:00 PM, Cai, Cao, and Deng escorted me to Cell 104 in Section 1 of the Hangzhou Detention Center. At that time, Cell 104 contained Gao Zhiguo, Dai Jiliang, He Wei, Jiang Jiankun, Huo Yinghao, Wu Meicheng, He Yinqiang, Tang Yuannan, Shen Yingxi, Bao Jun, Xiong Guozhong, He Dong, Chen Wenhai, An Chao, and another person whose name I couldn’t recall. I was the 16th person. The prison guard in charge of us was named Zhang Tao, badge number 012341. According to the detention center rules, the inmates all called him “Manager Zhang” (Zhang Guanli).
August 6: Officials from the Approval Section of the Hangzhou Municipal People’s Procuratorate arrived.
August 13: Three officers, including Zheng Bo from the Hangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau’s Domestic Security unit, came to announce my formal arrest, and they filmed and photographed the process.
August 15: The cell held a “life review session” (a self-criticism meeting). I took advantage of this opportunity to introduce the China Democracy Party to everyone and spoke for 15 minutes before being stopped by the “cell head” (longtou), Gao Zhiguo.
August 23: I was transferred to Cell 107. Before this, Zhang Tao had told me that I would not be moved to another cell and would remain in Cell 104 for the remainder of my stay at the detention center. I do not know the reason why I was transferred after only a little over a month. Jiang Jiankun was also moved today alongside me; he was transferred to Cell 103.
August 27: Cai Yuedan and Cao Junjie came to interrogate me and showed me the “Huangshan Meeting Summary Announcement” written by Lou Baosheng and others.
September 7: During a daytime nap, I dreamed of searching for Xue’e; at night, I dreamed of seeing Chen Shuqing and Zou Wei.
September 8: Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival, but the television is broken. In the afternoon, on the outer cage area next to the cell, I saw Wang Kai (the cell head of Cell 107) recording my daily words and actions every half hour in a standard issue cell logbook.
September 9: I received the items sent by Xue’e, which felt especially comforting.
September 10: On night duty (actually the early morning of September 11, from 4:00 AM to 6:30 AM), I recorded log entries covering August 6 through today.
September 11: Retroactively wrote the log entries for the period from July 7 to August 6.
September 25: At noon, Cai Yuedan and Cao Junjie came to interrogate me. They said that following the “Huangshan Meeting Summary Announcement,” the Zhejiang Committee of the China Democracy Party had issued another announcement declaring the election of an acting chairman. They intended to sow discord. I said that for an organization, this is completely normal. During today’s interrogation, ten detainees were waiting in the hallway. Wang Xuchen, the commander of Section 1, allowed me to remain standing while everyone else was ordered to squat down. I took this as a mark of special treatment and respect toward me.
Editor: Zhao Jie Proofreader: Cheng Xiaoxiao Translator: Shen Meihua
The United Nations Determines Niu Tengyu Suffer Arbitrary Detention
— A Mother’s Accusation and Appeal
Author: Mother of Niu Tengyu
Abstract: The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined that Niu Tengyu was subjected to arbitrary detention, demanding that the Chinese government immediately release him and provide remedies. His mother recounts her experience appealing the case and her years of ordeal, stating that she will continue to speak out and defend her son’s rights.
Editor’s Note: At its 105th session, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted Opinion No. 10/2026 concerning Niu Tengyu, determining that the detention he suffered constitutes arbitrary detention and requesting the Chinese government to immediately release Niu Tengyu, accord him compensation, and grant other appropriate remedies. This article is a personal statement made by Niu Tengyu’s mother regarding her son’s case and her own experiences. Part of the specific individuals and related allegations mentioned in the text are documented in publicly available materials, as hereby noted.
Recently, the United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted Opinion No. 10/2026 concerning my son Niu Tengyu at its 105th session, determining that the detention he suffered constitutes arbitrary detention, involving issues such as lack of legal basis, punishment for exercising freedom of expression, and severe violations of the right to a fair trial. The Working Group requested the Chinese government to immediately release Niu Tengyu, accord him compensation and other appropriate remedies, and initiate an independent investigation into the relevant violations.
Official website of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: Opinions adopted by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention at its 105th session | OHCHR
Previously, according to my understanding, relevant authorities in countries such as the United States and Germany had also raised this case with the Chinese side, calling for the release of Niu Tengyu.
In order to quell public outrage, certain personnel on the Guangdong side had considered releasing Niu Tengyu, but according to the information I possess, this matter was subsequently thwarted by powerful and influential interests. The Guangdong Higher People’s Court had also passed word to us, stating that after pleading guilty, Niu Tengyu could be released from prison through parole. However, judges from the Guangdong Higher People’s Court also revealed to us that for a long time, parole has rarely been granted to inmates serving sentences of over 10 years. Niu Tengyu was sentenced to 14 years; if he were to plead guilty for the sake of parole, I worry that the authorities would later refuse parole on the grounds that “there is no precedent,” while simultaneously causing Niu Tengyu to lose the room to continue insisting on his appeal of innocence. We cannot accept such an arrangement of exchanging a guilty plea for an uncertain release.
This case originated from the “Special Case 1902136.” According to the materials in my possession, relevant departments in Guangdong arrested a batch of young people during the handling of the case, and ultimately 24 individuals were sentenced. I have consistently maintained that these young people were treated unfairly, and Niu Tengyu was specifically designated to take the blame for Gu Yangyang as the so-called “prime culprit,” thereby becoming the primary target of torture. Based on the information I have grasped through years of rights defense, I believe that Gu Yangyang’s mother, Yang Ye, and the powerful network behind her exerted a significant influence on the case.
Between 2019 and 2020, Niu Tengyu was successively detained in various detention facilities across Guangdong, including a designated residential surveillance facility in Foshan City. According to accounts later learned by Niu Tengyu himself and his family members, during this period he was subjected to prolonged suspension in handcuffs, deprivation of sleep and normal diet, the “tiger bench,” pouring of scalding hot wax, continuous beatings, and other forms of torture, and was even injected with saline, after which he developed severe skin ulceration.
Niu Tengyu also accused Chen Quanhui, a Foshan public security officer, of subjecting him to sexual humiliation, using a lighter to burn his private parts, and taking nude photographs. Long-term suspension in handcuffs and abuse caused severe nerve damage to two of his fingers, restricting their movement. He was sent to the hospital for emergency treatment twice due to the severe deterioration of his physical condition, but he never confessed.
According to the information I possess, Yang Ye once demanded that Niu Tengyu continue to be dealt with severely. I also learned that Chen Quanhui threatened doctors not to administer treatment while Niu Tengyu was sent to the hospital for emergency treatment on two occasions. Regarding the subsequent suppression and even transfer of the relevant doctors from their posts, I have consistently demanded that the relevant authorities conduct an independent investigation. Ultimately, the Maoming court sentenced Niu Tengyu to 14 years of imprisonment, after which he was sent to Guangdong Sihui Prison to serve his sentence.
Following my son’s sentencing, suppression directed at me followed suit.
Over the years, I have continuously experienced being followed, 24-hour surveillance, wiretapping, harassment via phone calls and text messages, and intimidation of friends and relatives, and I was once even attacked with a nail-studded wooden club. Relevant personnel also attempted to frame me using so-called charges such as supporting the Hong Kong demonstrations, Xinjiang separatism, Falun Gong, and being an “American spy.”
During the pandemic, I also encountered a situation where individuals attempted to trick me into opening my apartment door through property management in an effort to forcibly take me away. I also suspected that someone had placed harmful substances in pumpkin seeds I purchased online; after consuming them, my health suffered severe issues, my liver and kidneys were damaged, and I was left with multiple sequelae. In addition, I have experienced the cutting off of water, electricity, gas, and internet services, the destruction of express packages, and the freezing of my accounts.
These years of continuous suppression have severely impacted my health, finances, and daily life, causing many friends and relatives to gradually distance themselves from me out of fear.
That an ordinary family must pay such a price simply for insisting on appealing for a young man sentenced to a heavy 14-year prison term is something I cannot accept. Today, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has officially determined that Niu Tengyu was subjected to arbitrary detention and has demanded that the Chinese government immediately release him. This shows at the very least that our appeals and calls over these years have not been without foundation.
I am just a mother.
Facing everything my son has suffered, I have no way back. As long as Niu Tengyu does not regain his freedom for even a single day, I will continue to appeal and continue to speak out until he returns home safely.
