——关于徐光，以及那些始终无法真正“出狱”的人

作者：胡海宁

主编审阅：朱虞夫

人物简介

徐光，1968年生，浙江杭州人，中国民主党浙江委员会主要成员之一，1989年杭州大学学运参与者。1998年参与中国民主党组党，后多次因政治言论、纪念六四及民主活动被拘押、判刑。2022年再次被以“寻衅滋事罪”判刑四年，服刑期间长期绝食抗议，并一度被送入监狱医院。2026年5月刑满出狱。

徐光出来了。

这句话原本并没有什么特别。一个人坐完牢，刑满释放，回家去，照理说，不过是一件普通事情。可这些年，普通事情在中国越来越少了，于是“出来了”三个字，也渐渐带上了一点劫后余生的意味。

消息传出来的时候，我先想到的倒不是别的，而是他还剩多少斤。

去年有人说，徐光已经瘦到八十多斤。长期绝食，长期鼻饲，后来又被送进监狱医院。家属见不到人，送进去的衣物被退回来，外面的人只能从一些零碎消息里拼凑他的情况。中国的政治犯，常常就是这样，一旦被推进高墙里面，人就像忽然沉到水底，偶尔浮上来一点气泡，证明他还没死，仅此而已。

所以这次听说徐光出狱，很多人第一反应并不是欣慰，而是想知道：人还能不能站起来，还能不能说话，精神是不是还清楚？

这话听着未免有些凄凉。可中国的事情，往往就是这样。一个人如果只是偷盗抢劫，坐完牢，大家多半不会这样担心；偏偏那些因为“说话”进去的人，出来时总格外叫人不安。

去年《在野党》在美国复刊，我参与了杂志的排版工作。最开始接触这些稿件时，我对中国民主党这条线上的很多人和很多事情，其实并不熟悉。后来版面做得多了，这些名字才开始在一篇篇稿件里不断重复出现：有人在坐牢，有人刚出狱，有人失联，有人长期被监控。有时候前一期还在排某个人的文章，下一期又开始出现另一个人的判决书和狱中消息。时间久了，会慢慢产生一种奇怪的感觉：这些事情好像从来没有真正结束过。

徐光是老一代民主党人了。

现在二十来岁的年轻人，大概已经不大知道中国民主党。即便偶尔在网上看见这个名字，也不过一划而过。短视频、直播、每天不断刷新的热点新闻，已经足够占满大部分人的注意力。至于九十年代那场轰轰烈烈的组党运动，如今已经像一张被压在柜底的旧报纸，颜色发黄，边角卷起，没人再翻。

可当年并不是这样的。

那时还有不少人真相信，中国会一点一点变好。他们认真讨论过宪政、政党政治、新闻自由，也认真相信，一个国家不应该永远只有一种声音。现在回头看，竟像隔世。

徐光是1989年的大学生，杭州大学，学生领袖之一。后来参与中国民主党组党，再后来第一次被判“颠覆国家政权罪”。之后几十年的人生，几乎一直在坐牢、监控、传唤和长期维稳之间反复循环。

其实很多经历过八九的人，后来都沉默了。有的人出国，有的人发财，有的人进入体制，有的人干脆绝口不提。我自己也是当年的参与者之一，因为那场运动受过伤，后来家里也为那些事情付出了很沉重的代价。很多年过去以后，人会慢慢明白，中国人为什么越来越沉默。房子总要买，孩子总要养，老人总要看病，一个人总不能天天靠理想活着。于是时间久了，许多人就慢慢学会了另一套本领：少说话，多低头。

这也并不奇怪。人毕竟不是石头。

可徐光偏偏不大肯低头。

九十年代末，中国民主党组党。浙江是最活跃的地方，也是大网落得最沉重的地方。

那是一场真正为了争取结社自由、公开冲击“党禁”的抗争。从镇压的大网撒下至今，浙江的监牢里，就从来没有断过坐牢的民主党人。这群人身上，有一种如今已极少见的硬气——他们进了高墙，却绝不肯低下头来写一张“认罪服法”的悔过书，去乞怜什么减刑、假释。管监狱的换了一茬又一茬，这群人的骨头却始终是硬的，没有半点奴才气。

徐光就是这个坚强团队里的一员。他们后来发现，中国有些事情，确实不写在法律里，但他们既然选了这条路，也就没有再打算回头。

徐光出狱以后，也没有安静下来。这些年，他几乎每逢六四都绝食一天。有人觉得这没有意义。一天不吃饭，能怎么样呢？国家机器照样运转，西湖边照样游人如织，商场里照样灯火通明，手机里照样歌舞升平。一个人在家里绝食二十四小时，看起来的确像螳臂当车。

可有时候，事情恰恰坏在这里。

因为许多人连“螳臂当车”也不肯做了。

这些年我时常觉得，中国最厉害的地方，并不是把人抓进去，而是让人慢慢觉得：“算了吧，别碰了，没用的。有些话，说了又能怎么样。”时间久了，人也就真的不说了。

于是你会发现，今天的中国，人人都很聪明。大家知道什么能谈，什么不能谈；知道什么时候该沉默，什么时候该装糊涂。地铁里没人谈政治，饭桌上没人谈政治，连微信群里转发一篇文章，都得先想一想会不会出事。

这种气氛是很厉害的。它不需要天天抓人，却能让很多人自己先把嘴闭上。而对于像徐光这样的人，仅仅闭嘴还不够。

政治犯在中国，最难熬的时候，往往不是在监狱里面，而是在出狱以后。监狱里的铁门至少看得见，几年刑期也总有一个数字；可出狱后的控制，却像空气一样，无处不在，又无法言说。

敏感日子会有人上门，电话会被监听，出门会有人跟着，朋友聚会可能突然被“提醒”。房东会接到压力，单位会接到招呼，连身边朋友都会慢慢疏远。时间久了，一个人会逐渐发现，自己虽然已经离开监狱，却始终无法真正回到正常生活。

这才是最深的消耗——它并不总是激烈的。

很多时候，甚至没有拳头，没有审判，没有镣铐。可它会一点一点把人从正常社会关系里剥离出去，让你无法工作，无法安心生活，无法建立稳定关系，最后慢慢变成一个被悬置的人。

这些年的体制，对付异见者愈发精致了。它不急着摧毁你的肉体，只是长期拖着你，消耗你，让你疲惫，让你孤立，让你慢慢怀疑，坚持到底还有没有意义。

许多人最后并不是因为恐惧而沉默，而是因为太累了。这一点，其实比直接的暴力更厉害。

有时深夜调版，外面的世界还在不断刷新热点，屏幕里的文章，却仍然是抓捕、监控、绝食、坐牢。

时间像没有流动过一样。

这篇稿子还没写完，群里忽然又传来消息：七十六岁的毛庆祥，因为在朋友圈转发了与徐光有关的视频，被杭州警方带走，已经超过五十个小时。群里的人开始紧急呼吁、联络、商量周末抗议的事情。有人提醒，超过四十八小时，通常就不只是一般传唤了。

我忽然发现，自己写的根本不是什么“过去”的事情。

鲁迅以前写中国人的麻木，说看客。我小时候读，觉得那是旧时代留下来的东西。后来才发现，不过是如今的看客换了种样子罢了。现在没有人围着刑场伸脖子了，大家只是低头刷手机。昨天谁被抓了，今天谁消失了，底下偶尔飘过几句评论，很快又被新的热点盖过去。人们照样上班，照样吃饭，照样哈哈大笑，仿佛什么都没有发生。

有时候想想，这甚至比怒骂还冷。

至少怒骂还说明人在意。

最怕的是无所谓。

徐光后来又不断被拘留、传唤、抄家。2014年，他因为一句“共产党能在南湖开一大，民主党也能在西湖租船开一大”的玩笑话，被以涉嫌颠覆国家政权抓进去。如今的人看到这里，也许会觉得荒唐，甚至像个笑话。可这些年，荒唐事发生得太多，人们竟也慢慢习惯了。

后来再抓徐光，罪名变成了“寻衅滋事”。

这个词现在中国人已经很熟悉了。仿佛什么都能往里面装。你举牌，可以寻衅滋事；你发文章，可以寻衅滋事；你说话不中听，也可以寻衅滋事。到了后来，连“平反六四”几个字，都足够把一个人重新送进监狱。

徐光就是这样又一次进去的。

这一次是四年。

等他再出来，已经快六十岁了。

照片传出来的时候，我还是怔了一下。不是因为认不出来，而是因为一下很难把眼前这个满头灰白、神情枯瘦的人，和当年照片里的青年学生联系在一起。好像这些年被带走的，不只是时间。

我有时候会想，像徐光这样的人，到底靠什么撑这么多年。因为正常人是很容易疲倦的。别说坐牢，就是天天被盯着，被骚扰，被警告，被断生路，时间久了，人也会软下来。中国这些年最成功的地方，大概就在于，它并不总是一下把人打死，而是慢慢磨。

磨掉你的脾气，磨掉你的朋友，磨掉你的胆子。磨到最后，很多人自己也不相信自己年轻时说过的话了。

可总还有极少数人，怎么磨都不肯彻底弯下去。

这种人，如今已经越来越少了。

所以徐光出狱，其实并不仅仅是一个人从监狱里出来。至少对一些还记得九十年代、还记得中国民主党、还记得那些年发生过什么的人来说，这件事多少像是一点残余的火星。很弱，很小，甚至随时可能熄灭，但毕竟还在那里。

只是中国变化太快了，快到许多人已经不再关心这些事。

西湖还是那个西湖。游客拍照，孩子放风筝，网红店门口排长队。年轻人讨论演唱会、奶茶、股票和房价。夜里灯光照在湖面上，还是很好看。没有人会从那些热闹里看出来，几公里之外，曾经有人因为一句话、几篇文章、几张纸，被关了几十年。

世界照样往前走。

可西湖的游客不会知道徐光，商场里的人不会知道，那些低头刷手机的年轻人，大概也不会知道——他们不会知道，一个人真正漫长的刑期，有时候是从“出狱”才开始的。

编辑：黄吉洲  校对：毛一炜

作者简介

胡海宁，1989年学运参与者，现居美国。《在野党》杂志社美编部部长，长期从事平面设计工作，并参与独立中文刊物的编辑与排版，关注中国社会中的沉默、记忆与个体命运。

After Release

— On Xu Guang, and Those Who Never Truly Walk Free

By Haining Hu

Reviewed by Editor-in-Chief: Yufu Zhu

About Xu Guang

Xu Guang, born in 1968 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, is one of the principal members of the Zhejiang Committee of the Chinese Democracy Party and a participant in the 1989 student movement at Hangzhou University. He took part in the founding activities of the Chinese Democracy Party in 1998 and was repeatedly detained and imprisoned for political speech, commemorating June Fourth, and participating in democratic activities. In 2022, he was again sentenced to four years in prison on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” During his imprisonment, he carried out prolonged hunger strikes and was at one point transferred to a prison hospital. He was released in May 2026.

Xu Guang is out.

At first glance, there seems to be nothing remarkable about that sentence. A man finishes his prison term, walks out, and goes home. Ordinarily, that should be a completely ordinary thing. But in China, ordinary things have become increasingly rare over the years. And so the words “is out” have gradually taken on the feeling of surviving a disaster.

When the news came, the first thing I thought about was not anything political. I wondered how much he still weighed.

Last year, people said Xu Guang had dropped to barely over eighty jin. Prolonged hunger strikes. Forced feeding through nasal tubes. Later he was transferred to a prison hospital. His family could not see him. Clothes they tried to send in were returned. People outside could only piece together fragments of his condition from scattered bits of information. This is often how political prisoners disappear in China: once pushed behind those walls, a person sinks beneath the surface like something underwater, occasionally releasing a small bubble to prove he is still alive. Nothing more.

So when people heard Xu Guang had been released, their first reaction was not relief. They wanted to know: Could he still stand? Could he still speak? Was his mind still clear?

There is something deeply bleak about that question. But that is often how things are in China. If someone went to prison for theft or robbery, people would not react this way after release. But those imprisoned for “speaking” always leave others uneasy when they return.

Last year, after The Opposition Party resumed publication in the United States, I became involved in the magazine’s layout work. At first, I knew very little about the people and history connected to the China Democracy Party. But after working on more and more issues, these names began appearing again and again across different manuscripts: someone imprisoned, someone newly released, someone missing, someone under long-term surveillance. One issue might contain an article by a particular person, and the next would suddenly contain his verdict or news from prison. After a while, a strange feeling slowly emerges: none of these things ever truly end.

Xu Guang belongs to the older generation of democracy activists.

People in their twenties today probably know little about the China Democracy Party. Even if they occasionally see the name online, it passes by in an instant. Short videos, livestreams, and endlessly refreshing headlines already consume most people’s attention. The dramatic party-building movement of the 1990s now resembles an old newspaper buried at the bottom of a drawer, yellowed with age, its corners curled, unread by anyone.

But things were not always like this.

Back then, many people genuinely believed China would slowly become better. They seriously discussed constitutionalism, party politics, and freedom of the press. They genuinely believed a country should not be forced to live forever under a single voice. Looking back now, it feels like another lifetime.

Xu Guang was a university student in 1989, a student leader at Hangzhou University. Later he participated in the founding movement of the China Democracy Party, and was eventually sentenced for the first time on charges of “subverting state power.” Since then, decades of his life have cycled repeatedly through prison, surveillance, interrogations, and long-term political control.

In truth, many people who experienced 1989 eventually fell silent. Some left the country. Some made money. Some entered the system. Others simply stopped speaking about it altogether. I myself was one of those participants. I was injured because of that movement, and my family later paid a heavy price for those years as well. After enough time passes, people begin to understand why Chinese society has grown quieter and quieter. Houses must be bought. Children must be raised. Elderly parents must see doctors. No one can survive forever on ideals alone. So over time, many people gradually learned another skill: speak less, lower your head more.

There is nothing surprising about that. Human beings are not made of stone.

But Xu Guang never seemed willing to lower his head.

In the late 1990s, the China Democracy Party attempted to organize openly. Zhejiang became one of its most active regions — and one of the places where the crackdown fell hardest.

It was a real struggle for freedom of association, a direct challenge to the ban on political parties. Ever since the net of suppression descended, Zhejiang’s prisons have never been empty of democracy activists. These people possessed a kind of stubborn backbone rarely seen today. They entered prison walls but refused to bow their heads and write confessions of “admitting guilt and accepting punishment” in exchange for sentence reductions or parole. Prison officials came and went generation after generation, yet these people remained hard-boned to the end, without even a trace of servility.

Xu Guang was one of them. They eventually discovered that some things in China are simply not written into law. But once they chose this path, they never intended to turn back.

Even after his release, Xu Guang did not fall silent. In recent years, he has observed a one-day hunger strike nearly every June Fourth anniversary. Some people think this means nothing. What can one day without food possibly change? The state machine keeps running. Tourists still crowd West Lake. Shopping malls remain brightly lit. Phones continue overflowing with songs, dances, and entertainment. A man fasting alone in his home for twenty-four hours truly does look like a mantis trying to stop a chariot.

But perhaps that is precisely where the tragedy lies.

Because many people are no longer even willing to be that mantis.

Over the years, I have increasingly felt that China’s greatest strength is not locking people away. It is making people slowly conclude: “Forget it. Don’t touch it. It’s useless. What difference would speaking make anyway?”

And after enough time, people really do stop speaking.

Then you begin to notice something strange about China today: everyone is clever. People know what can be discussed and what cannot. They know when to stay silent and when to pretend not to understand. Nobody talks politics on the subway. Nobody talks politics at the dinner table. Even forwarding an article in a WeChat group requires a moment of hesitation first.

This atmosphere is powerful. It does not require mass arrests every day. People silence themselves voluntarily. And for people like Xu Guang, even silence is not enough.

For political prisoners in China, the hardest years often begin not inside prison, but after release. Prison walls are at least visible. A prison sentence at least has a number attached to it. But post-release control is like air — everywhere, invisible, impossible to describe.

During sensitive periods, someone may appear at your door. Phones are monitored. People follow you outside. Friends gathering together may suddenly receive “reminders.” Landlords come under pressure. Employers receive warnings. Even friends slowly begin distancing themselves. Over time, a person realizes that although he has technically left prison, he has never truly returned to ordinary life.

That is the deepest form of exhaustion — and it is not always dramatic.

Often there are no beatings, no trials, no shackles. Yet little by little, a person is stripped away from normal social existence. You cannot work normally. You cannot live peacefully. You cannot build stable relationships. Eventually you become someone suspended outside ordinary life altogether.

The system has become increasingly sophisticated in the way it handles dissent. It no longer rushes to destroy the body outright. Instead, it drags things out. It wears you down. It exhausts you. Isolates you. Slowly makes you question whether persistence has any meaning left at all.

In the end, many people do not fall silent because they are afraid. They fall silent because they are tired.

And perhaps that is even more powerful than direct violence.

Late at night, while adjusting layouts for publication, the outside world continues refreshing itself with new trends and new headlines. Yet on my screen, the articles remain the same: arrests, surveillance, hunger strikes, prison sentences.

Time itself seems not to have moved.

Before this article was even finished, another message suddenly appeared in the group chat: seventy-six-year-old Mao Qingxiang had been taken away by Hangzhou police after reposting a video related to Xu Guang on WeChat Moments. More than fifty hours had already passed. People in the group immediately began coordinating appeals, contacting others, discussing weekend protests. Someone warned that once forty-eight hours had passed, it was usually no longer a routine summons.

At that moment, I suddenly realized I was not writing about the past at all.

Lu Xun once wrote about the numbness of Chinese spectators. When I was younger, I believed he was describing another era. Only later did I realize the spectators had merely changed form. No one cranes their neck around execution grounds anymore. People simply lower their heads and scroll their phones instead. Yesterday someone was arrested. Today someone disappeared. A few comments drift past beneath the news before being buried under the next trending topic. People continue going to work, eating dinner, laughing loudly, as though nothing had happened.

Sometimes it feels even colder than open hatred.

At least hatred still suggests people care.

The truly frightening thing is indifference.

Xu Guang continued to face detentions, interrogations, and home raids after that. In 2014, he was detained again after joking that “if the Communist Party could hold its First Congress on South Lake, then the Democracy Party could also rent a boat on West Lake and hold one there.” Today, people reading this might find it absurd, even laughable. But so many absurd things have happened over the years that people have gradually become accustomed to them.

Later, Xu Guang was charged again under the crime of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”

Chinese people are already deeply familiar with that phrase. It seems capable of containing anything. Holding a sign can become “provoking trouble.” Writing an article can become “provoking trouble.” Saying the wrong thing can become “provoking trouble.” Eventually even the words “Vindicate June Fourth” became enough to send someone back to prison.

That is how Xu Guang was imprisoned again.

This time for four years.

By the time he came out again, he was nearly sixty.

When the photographs emerged, I froze for a moment. Not because I failed to recognize him, but because it was suddenly difficult to connect the gray-haired, gaunt figure in front of me with the young student from those old photographs. It felt as though what had been taken away over the years was not merely time.

Sometimes I wonder what allows people like Xu Guang to endure for so long. Ordinary people tire easily. Even without prison, constant surveillance, harassment, warnings, and social suffocation will eventually wear a person down. Perhaps the system’s greatest success lies precisely there: it does not always destroy people immediately. Instead, it grinds them down slowly.

It grinds away your temper, your friendships, your courage. Eventually many people no longer believe the things they once said in their youth.

And yet a tiny number of people still refuse to bend completely, no matter how long the grinding continues.

People like that are becoming rarer and rarer.

So Xu Guang’s release is not merely one man walking out of prison. At least for those who still remember the 1990s, still remember the China Democracy Party, still remember what happened during those years, his release resembles a remaining spark. Small. Weak. Capable of disappearing at any moment. But still there.

China changes too quickly now. So quickly that many people no longer care about these things at all.

West Lake remains the same West Lake. Tourists take photographs. Children fly kites. Influencer cafés have lines outside their doors. Young people discuss concerts, milk tea, stocks, and housing prices. At night, lights still shimmer beautifully across the water. No one looking at those scenes would realize that only a few kilometers away, people were once imprisoned for decades because of a sentence, a few articles, a handful of pages.

The world continues moving forward.

But tourists at West Lake will not know Xu Guang. People inside shopping malls will not know him. The young people lowering their heads over their phones probably will not know him either.

They will not know that for some people, the longest prison sentence only begins after release.

Author Bio

Haining Hu participated in the 1989 student movement and is currently based in the United States. He serves as Art Director of The Opposition Party magazine and has worked in graphic design for many years, while also contributing to the editing and layout of independent Chinese-language publications. His writing focuses on memory, silence, and individual fate in contemporary China.

——从卢比奥事件看中共外交的虚伪与独裁逻辑

作者：李聪玲

当美国国务卿马可·卢比奥 Marco Rubio 跟随唐纳德·特朗普 Donald Trump 的访华行程踏入北京时，一个极其荒诞的问题再次摆在世界面前：一个曾被中共高调“制裁”、公开宣布“禁止入境”的美国政治人物，为何突然又可以进入中国？

这不仅是一场外交上的尴尬，更像是一记打在中共自己脸上的耳光。因为它暴露出一个事实：中共所谓的“制裁”，从来不是基于法律，不是基于国际规则，更不是基于原则，而只是一个独裁政权情绪化、宣传化、工具化的政治动作。今天可以“永不欢迎”，明天也可以“热烈接待”；今天可以“严厉谴责”，明天也可以“合作共赢”；今天把你称为“反华分子”，明天又能与你握手寒暄。这一切的背后，恰恰体现了中共政权最深层的丑恶——它没有真正稳定的价值体系，没有法治，没有诚信，更没有现代文明社会所尊重的规则意识。它唯一相信的，只有权力，只有统治，只有政治利益。

卢比奥事件之所以具有象征意义，不只是因为一个美国高官被“解除封杀”，而是因为这个过程，把中共外交的虚伪、独裁体制的任意性，以及整个政权对国际社会的欺骗逻辑，全部赤裸裸地暴露了出来。很多人还记得，当年中共宣布制裁卢比奥时，官方媒体曾经铺天盖地进行宣传。电视新闻里充斥着“坚决反制”“绝不姑息”“干涉中国内政必将付出代价”等口号。网络上的“五毛”与民族主义账号更是群情激愤，仿佛卢比奥已经成为“中华民族公敌”。

然而几年之后，同样一个人，却能够随着美国总统的代表团进入中国，甚至与习近平直接接触。那么问题来了：到底是谁在撒谎？如果卢比奥真的是“反华急先锋”，为什么现在又能进入北京？如果中共制裁是真实有效的，那为什么又能随时撤销？如果所谓“国家尊严”如此神圣，为何又能因为外交需要而瞬间改变？

答案其实很简单。因为在中共体制里，所谓原则，从来都只是宣传机器的一部分；所谓制裁，也只是用来煽动民族主义情绪的政治表演。它不是法治行为，而是权力行为。在正常国家里，制裁通常具有明确法律依据、程序与公开标准。无论是美国、欧盟还是其他民主国家，对某些个人或组织进行制裁，往往都需要行政程序、法律授权、公开文件以及可追溯依据。即使有人反对，也必须承认它至少存在制度边界。

但中共不是。中共的所谓“制裁”，很多时候连最基本的法律文本都不存在。没有司法程序，没有独立审查，没有公开听证，也没有真正的法律约束。它今天宣布制裁谁，明天取消谁，完全取决于政治需要。这种制度本质上，就是一种“皇权式政治”。它不是现代国家，而更像古代王朝。皇帝高兴，就赐你金牌；皇帝愤怒，就把你流放；皇帝需要你，又可以重新召回。

规则并不重要，重要的是统治者的意志。而这恰恰也是中共最危险的地方。因为一个没有规则边界的政权，不仅会伤害国际社会，更会伤害自己的人民。中国普通人对此其实并不陌生。因为这种“双重标准”，早已渗透进整个社会。今天一个企业家还在电视上高谈阔论，明天就可能突然“被消失”；今天一个明星被官方力捧，明天就可能全网封杀；今天一个地方政府高喊“支持民营经济”，明天就能突击罚款、强制整顿；今天允许讨论的话题，明天就会变成“敏感内容”。

在这种环境下，没有人真正拥有安全感。因为决定一切的，从来不是法律，而是权力本身。卢比奥事件，不过是这种体制逻辑在国际舞台上的一次缩影。更讽刺的是，中共长期利用“反制裁”来制造民族主义情绪。每当国际社会批评新疆人权问题、西藏问题、香港问题，或者谴责中共打压异议人士时，北京往往会立刻祭出“反制裁”大旗，试图向国内塑造一种“强硬反击西方霸权”的形象。

然而实际上，中共真正害怕的，并不是外国政客，而是真相。它害怕外界谈论新疆集中营；它害怕世界关注香港自由的崩塌；它害怕国际社会持续记录西藏的人权压迫；它害怕越来越多中国年轻人开始意识到，所谓“民族复兴”的背后，其实是一个高度集权的监控国家。

所以，中共才会如此依赖宣传机器。因为它需要不断制造“外部敌人”，来转移内部矛盾。经济下滑时，要怪“西方打压”；失业严重时，要怪“境外势力”；外交孤立时，要怪“美国遏制”；社会不满增加时，就煽动民族主义。这种逻辑，本质上与历史上一切独裁政权都极其相似。纳粹德国曾经把犹太人塑造成国家敌人；苏联斯大林时期不断制造“境外间谍”；朝鲜长期宣扬“美帝亡我之心不死”。独裁体制最害怕的，从来不是外敌，而是人民开始独立思考。

因为一旦人民意识到：真正压迫自己的，不是外国，而是本国权力；真正限制自由的，不是外部世界，而是内部专制；真正让社会陷入恐惧的，不是民主国家，而是监控与审查制度；那么整个宣传机器就会开始崩塌。而卢比奥事件，恰恰让这种宣传陷入尴尬。因为它证明，中共口中的“原则”，其实可以随时改变；它所谓“绝不妥协”的姿态，也可以瞬间转向；它煽动出来的民族主义愤怒，本质上只是政治工具。普通民众被情绪裹挟，而真正掌握权力的人，却始终在进行现实利益计算。

这种虚伪，才是最可怕的。它不仅欺骗世界，更长期欺骗中国人民。更值得注意的是，中共外交近年来越来越呈现一种“战狼化”倾向。过去几十年，中共外交曾经长期维持“韬光养晦”策略，对外尽量避免正面冲突。但随着民族主义宣传升级，一批“战狼外交官”开始不断制造强硬姿态。他们在国际社交媒体上攻击外国记者；他们公开辱骂其他国家政客；他们用极端民族主义语言进行外交表演；他们把一切批评都定义为“辱华”。

然而问题在于：真正成熟的大国外交，从来不是靠情绪与口号。一个真正自信的国家，不需要天天喊“虽远必诛”；一个真正强大的文明，不需要动辄“玻璃心”；一个真正受到人民支持的政府，也不需要依靠封锁信息来维持稳定。中共外交之所以越来越激进，本质上是因为它缺乏安全感。它知道自己在人权问题上无法面对国际审视；它知道自己在新闻自由问题上站不住脚；它知道自己在言论审查、网络封锁、异议打压方面，与现代民主社会存在巨大差距。所以，它只能不断通过“强硬姿态”来维持内部宣传效果。

但问题是，外交不是内宣。在中国国内，官方媒体可以删帖、封号、压制讨论；但在国际社会，其他国家不会因为几句口号就改变立场。于是，我们便看到一种极其荒诞的局面：一边高喊“严厉制裁”；另一边又不得不重新接触、重新谈判、重新合作。而这种反复无常，本身就正在消耗中共的国际信誉。国际社会或许会因为利益而与北京合作，但越来越少有人真正相信中共的承诺。因为太多人已经意识到：在一个缺乏法治约束的体制里，任何承诺都可能随时改变；任何协议都可能因政治需要而被推翻；任何“原则”都可能在利益面前迅速消失。

而这一切的背后，其实都绕不开一个核心人物：习近平。今天的中共外交之所以越来越极端、越来越情绪化、越来越缺乏稳定性，本质上并不只是“制度问题”，更是习近平个人独裁不断强化后的结果。过去的中共，虽然同样专制，但在邓小平时代之后，党内至少还维持着一种脆弱的“集体领导”机制。不同派系之间存在平衡，最高权力并非完全由一人掌控。也正因为如此，中共过去几十年的外交，整体上仍然带有某种“务实主义”色彩。

但习近平上台之后，一切开始迅速改变。他不断通过“反腐”清洗异己；不断削弱国务院与传统官僚体系；不断强化个人权威；不断把所有重大决策集中到自己手中。最具象征性的，就是他直接修改宪法，取消国家主席任期限制。这一举动，彻底撕碎了中共改革开放后原本试图建立的权力交接规则，也让中国重新走回“终身领袖”的个人独裁道路。从那一刻开始，中国政治实际上已经发生根本变化。因为一个没有权力制衡的领导人，最终一定会把整个国家拖入个人意志政治。

于是，人们开始看到越来越熟悉的历史场景：个人崇拜重新出现；媒体开始反复歌颂“领袖”；学校不断强化政治忠诚教育；“定于一尊”成为公开政治语言；党内几乎再也听不到真正不同的声音。在这种环境下，外交自然也不可能正常。因为所有外交路线，最终都必须服务于习近平个人权威。为什么中共越来越强调“东升西降”？为什么不断制造民族主义情绪？为什么越来越强调所谓“大国斗争”？为什么战狼外交不断升级？

原因其实很简单。一个独裁者，需要不断制造“外部敌人”，来巩固内部统治。因为当经济增长放缓、社会压力增加、青年失业恶化、房地产危机扩大时，一个缺乏民主合法性的政权，就必须寻找新的政治支撑。而民族主义，恰恰是独裁体制最常使用的工具。于是，习近平时代的中国，开始越来越像一个高度紧张的政治机器。对内，强化监控；对外，强化敌意；对上，强化个人忠诚；对下，强化思想控制。这种模式，与真正现代国家的发展方向其实完全相反。一个真正自信的大国，应当允许批评；一个真正稳定的社会，应当容纳不同声音；一个真正成熟的政府，应当接受权力监督。但习近平所推动的，却恰恰是相反的道路。

他不断强调“党领导一切”；不断压缩民间空间；不断强化意识形态；不断把国家机器重新拉回高度集权状态。而卢比奥（鲁比奥）事件，其实正暴露出这种个人独裁下外交体系的混乱。因为在个人独裁体制里，所谓外交原则，往往只是领导人政治需要的延伸。今天可以强硬；明天也可以转弯；今天可以高调制裁；明天也可以低调接待。没有真正稳定规则，也没有真正制度边界。一切都取决于最高权力者的政治判断。而这，也正是世界越来越警惕习近平时代中国的真正原因。国际社会担忧的，并不仅仅是“中国崛起”，而是一个拥有庞大经济体量与军事力量的国家，正在重新走向高度个人独裁。

因为历史已经反复证明：当一个国家缺乏权力制衡；当一个领导人不受监督；当所有人只能歌颂、不能批评；那么最终的结果，往往不是稳定，而是危险。无论是毛泽东时代的大饥荒与文革，还是历史上其他独裁政权的灾难，都早已证明：个人崇拜最终伤害的，永远是整个国家与人民。而今天的中国，正在重新出现这种令人不安的趋势。

这也是为什么越来越多国家开始对中国供应链产生警惕；越来越多企业开始分散风险；越来越多民主国家重新审视与北京的关系。问题从来不只是经济，而是信任。而信任，恰恰是独裁体制最难建立的东西。因为一个长期依靠谎言维持稳定的政权，很难真正获得外界信赖。它可以要求人民“相信党”；可以通过宣传机器塑造“伟大光荣正确”；可以利用审查制度压制不同声音；但它无法强迫世界相信它。

卢比奥事件，其实正是一面镜子。它照出的，不只是一次外交上的尴尬，而是整个中共体制的深层问题——一个没有制度约束、没有真正法治、没有稳定原则的权力结构，最终只能不断依赖宣传、民族主义与情绪动员来维持统治。然而历史已经无数次证明：靠恐惧维持的稳定，不会长久；靠谎言建立的权威，终究脆弱；靠宣传制造的愤怒，也终有一天会反噬自身。

今天，中共可以随时宣布“制裁”；明天，也可以随时取消“制裁”；今天，它可以把某个人塑造成“敌人”；明天，又可以重新邀请对方进入北京。但真正无法被随意更改的，是人们对真相的记忆。

越来越多中国人已经开始意识到：所谓“强硬外交”，很多时候只是政治表演；所谓“民族愤怒”，往往只是宣传操控；而所谓“国家尊严”，却常常被权力集团当成工具使用。一个真正值得尊重的国家，不应建立在谎言之上；一个真正现代化的社会，也不应由少数人任意决定规则。

卢比奥能否进入北京，其实并不是最重要的问题。真正重要的是：为什么一个号称“依法治国”的政权，能够让所谓“制裁”像儿戏一样随意变化？为什么一个天天强调“国家尊严”的政府，却能在宣传与现实之间如此矛盾？为什么一个不断鼓吹“民族主义”的体制，却始终不敢给予人民真正的言论自由？这些问题，或许才是卢比奥事件背后，真正值得中国社会思考的东西。

编辑：周志刚 校对：王滨 翻译：彭小梅

Why Was “Sanctioned” Rubio Still Able to Enter Beijing?

— What the Rubio Incident Reveals About the Hypocrisy and Dictatorial Logic of CCP Diplomacy

Author: Li Congling

Summary: The Rubio incident exposes that the Chinese Communist Party’s so-called “sanctions” are not based on law, international rules, or principles, but are merely tools used by an authoritarian regime to stir nationalist emotions during economic decline. It reveals the hypocrisy of CCP diplomacy and the arbitrariness of its political system.

When U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio entered Beijing as part of Donald Trump’s visit delegation to China, an extremely absurd question once again stood before the world: how could an American politician once loudly “sanctioned” by the CCP and publicly declared “banned from entering China” suddenly be allowed to enter the country again?

This was not merely a diplomatic embarrassment; it was more like a slap in the CCP’s own face. Because it exposed one fact: the CCP’s so-called “sanctions” have never been based on law, international rules, or principles. They are simply emotional, propagandistic, and instrumental political actions by an authoritarian regime. Today someone can be “permanently unwelcome,” tomorrow they can be “warmly received.” Today the CCP can “strongly condemn” someone, tomorrow it can speak of “win-win cooperation.” Today it can label you an “anti-China figure,” and tomorrow it can shake your hand with smiles and pleasantries. Behind all of this lies the ugliest aspect of the CCP regime: it has no truly stable value system, no rule of law, no integrity, and no respect for the rules valued by modern civilized societies. The only things it truly believes in are power, control, and political interests.

The symbolic significance of the Rubio incident lies not merely in the fact that an American official was “unsanctioned,” but in how the process completely exposed the hypocrisy of CCP diplomacy, the arbitrariness of its authoritarian system, and the regime’s broader logic of deceiving the international community. Many people still remember that when the CCP first announced sanctions against Rubio, state media launched wall-to-wall propaganda campaigns. Television news was filled with slogans such as “firm countermeasures,” “absolutely no tolerance,” and “those who interfere in China’s internal affairs will pay the price.” Online, the so-called “50-cent army” and nationalist accounts erupted in outrage, as though Rubio had become an “enemy of the Chinese nation.”

Yet several years later, the very same person was able to enter China with the U.S. presidential delegation and even come into direct contact with Xi Jinping. So the question becomes: who was lying? If Rubio truly was an “anti-China spearhead,” why is he now allowed into Beijing? If the CCP’s sanctions were real and effective, why can they be revoked at any moment? If so-called “national dignity” is sacred, why can it instantly change whenever diplomacy requires it?

The answer is actually very simple. Because within the CCP system, so-called principles have always been just another component of the propaganda machine; so-called sanctions are merely political performances designed to inflame nationalist emotions. They are not acts of rule of law, but acts of power. In normal countries, sanctions usually have clear legal foundations, procedures, and public standards. Whether in the United States, the European Union, or other democratic nations, sanctions imposed on individuals or organizations generally require administrative procedures, legal authorization, public documentation, and traceable justification. Even critics must admit that such systems at least operate within institutional boundaries.

But the CCP is different. The CCP’s so-called “sanctions” often do not even have the most basic legal texts behind them. There is no judicial procedure, no independent review, no public hearing, and no real legal restraint. It can sanction someone today and remove sanctions tomorrow entirely according to political needs. Such a system is, in essence, a form of “imperial politics.” It is not a modern state, but more like an ancient dynasty. If the emperor is pleased, he grants you honors; if he is angry, he exiles you; if he needs you again, he recalls you.

Rules are not important. What matters is the will of the ruler. And this is precisely what makes the CCP so dangerous. Because a regime without institutional boundaries harms not only the international community, but also its own people. Ordinary Chinese citizens are actually very familiar with this “double standard,” because it has long permeated society itself. Today an entrepreneur may still appear on television speaking confidently, and tomorrow he may suddenly “disappear.” Today a celebrity may be heavily promoted by the authorities, and tomorrow be erased from the entire internet. Today a local government may loudly proclaim “support for private enterprise,” and tomorrow it may suddenly impose fines and forced rectifications. Topics allowed for discussion today may become “sensitive content” tomorrow.

In such an environment, no one truly possesses a sense of security. Because what determines everything is never law, but power itself. The Rubio incident is merely a reflection of this systemic logic on the international stage.

Even more ironically, the CCP has long used “counter-sanctions” to manufacture nationalist sentiment. Whenever the international community criticizes human rights issues in Xinjiang, Tibet, or Hong Kong, or condemns the CCP’s suppression of dissidents, Beijing often immediately raises the banner of “counter-sanctions” in an attempt to portray itself domestically as “firmly striking back against Western hegemony.”

But in reality, what the CCP truly fears is not foreign politicians, but the truth itself. It fears the world discussing the Xinjiang internment camps. It fears international attention on the collapse of Hong Kong’s freedoms. It fears global scrutiny of human rights repression in Tibet. It fears that more and more young Chinese people may begin to realize that behind the slogan of “national rejuvenation” stands a highly centralized surveillance state.

That is why the CCP relies so heavily on the propaganda machine. Because it constantly needs to manufacture “external enemies” in order to divert internal contradictions. When the economy declines, blame “Western suppression.” When unemployment rises, blame “foreign hostile forces.” When China faces diplomatic isolation, blame “American containment.” When social dissatisfaction grows, inflame nationalism. This logic is fundamentally similar to that of every authoritarian regime in history. Nazi Germany portrayed Jews as enemies of the nation; Stalin’s Soviet Union constantly fabricated “foreign spies”; North Korea endlessly promotes the narrative that “American imperialism seeks our destruction.” What authoritarian systems fear most has never been foreign enemies, but rather people beginning to think independently.

Because once people realize that the true force oppressing them is not foreign countries but domestic power; that what truly restricts freedom is not the outside world but internal authoritarianism; that what truly traps society in fear is not democratic nations but surveillance and censorship systems — then the entire propaganda machine begins to collapse. And the Rubio incident has placed this propaganda in an awkward position. Because it proves that the CCP’s so-called “principles” can change at any moment; its supposedly “uncompromising” stance can reverse instantly; and the nationalist anger it stirs up is essentially just a political tool. Ordinary people are swept along emotionally, while those who truly hold power continue calculating based on practical interests.

This hypocrisy is the most frightening part. It not only deceives the world, but has long deceived the Chinese people as well.

What deserves even more attention is that in recent years CCP diplomacy has increasingly taken on a “wolf warrior” style. Over the past several decades, CCP diplomacy long adhered to Deng Xiaoping’s strategy of “hide your strength and bide your time,” avoiding direct confrontation whenever possible. But as nationalist propaganda intensified, a group of “wolf warrior diplomats” began constantly manufacturing displays of toughness. They attack foreign journalists on international social media; they publicly insult politicians from other countries; they perform diplomacy through extreme nationalist rhetoric; and they define all criticism as “insulting China.”

The problem, however, is that truly mature great-power diplomacy has never relied on emotions and slogans. A genuinely confident nation does not need to constantly shout “we will strike even at great distance.” A truly strong civilization does not become offended at every perceived slight. A government genuinely supported by its people does not need to rely on information blockades to maintain stability. The reason CCP diplomacy has become increasingly aggressive is fundamentally because it lacks confidence. It knows it cannot withstand international scrutiny over human rights issues. It knows it cannot defend itself on issues of press freedom. It knows that in censorship, internet controls, and suppression of dissent, it stands in sharp contrast to modern democratic societies. Therefore, it can only maintain domestic propaganda effects through increasingly “hardline” postures.

But diplomacy is not domestic propaganda. Inside China, state media can delete posts, ban accounts, and suppress discussion. But in the international community, other countries will not change their positions because of a few slogans. Thus we witness an extremely absurd situation: on one hand the CCP loudly proclaims “severe sanctions,” while on the other hand it must once again reengage, renegotiate, and cooperate. And this very inconsistency is steadily consuming the CCP’s international credibility. The international community may still cooperate with Beijing out of practical interests, but fewer and fewer people genuinely trust the CCP’s promises. Because more and more people have realized that within a system lacking the restraints of rule of law, any promise can change at any moment; any agreement can be overturned due to political necessity; and any “principle” can rapidly disappear in the face of interests.

Behind all of this stands one central figure: Xi Jinping. The increasingly extreme, emotional, and unstable nature of today’s CCP diplomacy is not merely a “system problem,” but also the result of Xi Jinping’s steadily intensifying personal dictatorship. The CCP of earlier decades, although still authoritarian, at least maintained a fragile mechanism of “collective leadership” after the Deng Xiaoping era. Different factions maintained a certain balance, and supreme power was not entirely monopolized by a single individual. This is also why CCP diplomacy in previous decades still retained a degree of “pragmatism.”

But after Xi Jinping came to power, everything began changing rapidly. He continuously purged rivals through “anti-corruption” campaigns; continuously weakened the State Council and the traditional bureaucratic system; continuously strengthened personal authority; and continuously concentrated all major decisions into his own hands. The most symbolic move was his direct amendment of the constitution to abolish presidential term limits. This move completely shattered the power-transition rules the CCP had attempted to establish after reform and opening up, and pushed China back toward the path of a “lifelong leader” and personal dictatorship. From that moment onward, Chinese politics underwent a fundamental transformation. Because a leader without checks and balances will inevitably drag an entire country into politics driven by personal will.

As a result, people began witnessing increasingly familiar historical scenes: the return of personality cults; media repeatedly glorifying the “leader”; schools intensifying political loyalty education; “establishing one supreme authority” becoming open political language; and virtually no genuine dissenting voices remaining within the Party. In such an environment, diplomacy naturally cannot function normally either. Because every diplomatic direction must ultimately serve Xi Jinping’s personal authority. Why does the CCP increasingly emphasize “the East rising and the West declining”? Why does it constantly manufacture nationalist emotions? Why does it increasingly emphasize so-called “great power struggle”? Why does wolf warrior diplomacy continue escalating?

The answer is actually very simple. A dictator must constantly create “external enemies” in order to consolidate internal rule. Because when economic growth slows, social pressure increases, youth unemployment worsens, and the real estate crisis deepens, a regime lacking democratic legitimacy must seek new sources of political support. Nationalism, in particular, is one of the most commonly used tools of authoritarian systems. Thus, under Xi Jinping, China has increasingly resembled a highly tense political machine. Domestically, surveillance intensifies; externally, hostility intensifies; upward, loyalty to the leader intensifies; downward, ideological control intensifies. This model runs entirely contrary to the developmental direction of a truly modern state. A genuinely confident great power should allow criticism. A truly stable society should tolerate differing voices. A genuinely mature government should accept oversight of power. Yet the path Xi Jinping promotes is exactly the opposite.

He constantly emphasizes that “the Party leads everything”; continuously compresses civil society space; continuously strengthens ideology; and continuously drags the state apparatus back toward extreme centralization. The Rubio incident in fact exposes the chaos of diplomacy under such personal dictatorship. Because in a personal dictatorship, so-called diplomatic principles are often merely extensions of the leader’s political needs. Today the regime can act tough; tomorrow it can reverse course. Today it can loudly announce sanctions; tomorrow it can quietly welcome the same person. There are no truly stable rules and no genuine institutional boundaries. Everything depends on the political judgment of the supreme ruler. And this is precisely why the world is becoming increasingly wary of Xi Jinping’s China. What concerns the international community is not simply “China’s rise,” but the fact that a country possessing enormous economic and military power is moving back toward extreme personal dictatorship.

History has repeatedly demonstrated that when a country lacks checks on power; when a leader is free from oversight; when everyone can only praise and never criticize; then the ultimate result is usually not stability, but danger. Whether it was the Great Famine and Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong, or the disasters produced by other authoritarian regimes throughout history, all have already proven that personality cults ultimately harm the entire nation and its people. And today, China is once again showing these deeply unsettling tendencies.

This is also why more and more countries are becoming wary of Chinese supply chains; why more and more companies are diversifying risks; and why more and more democratic nations are reassessing their relationships with Beijing. The issue has never been only economics, but trust. And trust is precisely the thing authoritarian systems struggle most to build. Because a regime that relies on lies to maintain stability can hardly earn genuine international confidence. It can demand that people “trust the Party”; it can use propaganda machines to manufacture an image of being “great, glorious, and correct”; it can suppress differing voices through censorship systems; but it cannot force the world to believe it.

The Rubio incident is, in fact, a mirror. What it reflects is not merely a diplomatic embarrassment, but the deeper problems of the entire CCP system — a power structure without institutional constraints, without genuine rule of law, and without stable principles. Such a structure can only continue relying on propaganda, nationalism, and emotional mobilization to sustain its rule. Yet history has already proven countless times that stability maintained through fear cannot last forever; authority built on lies is ultimately fragile; and anger manufactured through propaganda will one day inevitably turn back upon itself.

Today, the CCP can announce “sanctions” at any time; tomorrow, it can revoke them at any time. Today it can portray someone as an “enemy”; tomorrow it can invite that same person back into Beijing. But what cannot be changed so easily is people’s memory of the truth.

More and more Chinese people have already begun to realize that so-called “hardline diplomacy” is often merely political theater; that so-called “nationalist anger” is frequently the product of propaganda manipulation; and that so-called “national dignity” is often used as a tool by those in power. A country truly worthy of respect should not be built upon lies. A genuinely modern society should not allow a small group of people to arbitrarily determine the rules.

Whether Rubio can enter Beijing is actually not the most important question. The truly important questions are these: Why can a regime that constantly proclaims “governing according to law” treat sanctions like a farce that changes at will? Why can a government that endlessly emphasizes “national dignity” be so contradictory between propaganda and reality? Why does a system that constantly promotes nationalism still refuse to grant its people genuine freedom of speech?

Perhaps these are the real questions Chinese society should reflect upon behind the Rubio incident.

Editor: Zhou Zhigang Proofreader: Wang Bin Translator:Peng Xiaomei

——略论中国民营企业的制度困境

郑存柱

一、问题的提出

1819 年,美国首席大法官 John Marshall 在 McCulloch v. Maryland 一案中确立了一项至今

仍在美国宪法学说中占据核心地位的命题——”征税权涉及毁灭的权力”(the power to tax

involves the power to destroy)1。这一命题表面上服务于联邦至上原则(Supremacy

Clause)下州权力对联邦机构课税之合宪性问题的论证,但其更深远的意义在于揭示了一

个具有普遍性的宪法理论问题:征税权并非中性的财政技术工具,而是一种内含强制性、

塑造性、乃至毁灭性的国家权力。Marshall 之后两个世纪的美国宪法判例史,包括

Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. (1895) 关于直接税的争议2、Eisner v. Macomber (1920)

对”所得”概念的宪法界定3、以及 National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius

(2012) 对税收权与商业管制权之边界的重新厘清4,无一不是围绕”征税权之宪法边界”这

一核心命题展开。

本文意在以 Marshall 命题为分析起点,结合中美两套宪法与税法体系的对照,审视当代

中国的税收实践——尤其是 2024 年以来引发广泛关注的”倒查三十年”现象——并论证:

在缺乏违宪审查、缺乏稳固私有产权宪法保护、缺乏法不溯及既往原则之实质落实的制度

环境下,中国的征税权正在系统性地越过宪法与税收法定主义所设定的边界,滑向

Marshall 所警惕的”毁灭”领域。

笔者作为中国民主党联总主席,在本文中既试图作出法学层面的学理诊断,也希望表明本

党在民营经济议题上的基本宪法主张:私有产权与企业自由不是经济效率的附属品,而是

宪政秩序与公民基本权利的有机组成部分。

二、Marshall 命题的法学意涵及其现代修正

理解今日中国的税收困境,需要先回到 Marshall 命题本身的法学结构。Marshall 在

McCulloch 案中处理的是马里兰州能否对联邦合众国银行课税的具体争议,但其论证的真

正力量在于揭示了征税权的双重性格。一方面,征税是任何现代国家维持运行的财政基

础;另一方面,征税在技术上并无内在的上限——征税者一旦获得不受制约的裁量权,便

能通过税率、税基、追溯期、执行方式等手段在事实上消灭征税对象。Marshall 因此提

出,一个能够无限制征税的主体,等同于拥有了对征税对象的生杀予夺之权。

这一命题在二十世纪受到 Oliver Wendell Holmes 大法官的著名修正。Holmes 在

Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi (1928) 的反对意见中提出:”只要本院还存在,征税权就不

是毁灭权。”(The power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits.)5 Holmes

的修正并非否认 Marshall 的洞见,而恰恰是在承认其潜在危险的前提下,指出独立违宪

审查机制是约束征税权毁灭性的关键制度装置。这一命题在其后的判例中被反复印证:在

Eisner v. Macomber 中,最高法院否决了国会将股票股利视为”所得”加以课税的做法,明

确指出宪法对”所得”概念的限定不容立法权任意突破6;在 NFIB v. Sebelius 中,最高法

院虽以”税收权”为由维持了《平价医疗法案》的个人强制险条款,但同时通过 Roberts 首

席大法官的多数意见明确指出:”征税权虽广,但并非无界。”(“Even the broadest of

these powers is subject to limits.”)7

由此可以归纳出现代立宪国家处理税收权力的基本范式:征税权必须存在,但必须被一套

独立、可问责、可救济的法律机制所约束。具体而言,这一范式包含至少四项制度要素:

税收法定主义(Legality Principle, nullum tributum sine lege)、法不溯及既往原则(Non- retroactivity, lex prospicit, non respicit)、违宪审查机制(Judicial Review of Tax

Legislation)、以及正当法律程序(Due Process of Tax Enforcement)。这四项要素,恰恰

是观察今日中国税收制度的关键参照系。

三、中国现行宪法与税法框架的形式与实质

从纸面文本看,中国现行法律体系并非没有上述四项要素的形式安排。《中华人民共和国

宪法》第五十六条规定”中华人民共和国公民有依照法律纳税的义务”,第十三条第一款规

定”公民的合法的私有财产不受侵犯”。《中华人民共和国立法法》第八条第六项明确将” 税种的设立、税率的确定和税收征收管理等税收基本制度”列为只能由全国人民代表大会

及其常委会通过法律加以规定的事项,是为中国法上的税收法定主义8。《中华人民共和

国税收征收管理法》第五十二条则就税务机关的追征期作出具体规定:因税务机关责任致

使纳税人未缴或少缴税款的,追征期为三年;因纳税人计算错误等失误致使未缴或少缴税

款的,追征期为三年、特殊情况下可延长至五年;对偷税、抗税、骗税的,追征期不受限

制9。《中华人民共和国行政诉讼法》第十二条则将”行政机关作出的征收、征用决定及

其补偿决定”明确纳入受案范围10。

仅就文本而论,上述安排似乎已构成一个相当完整的”形式法治”框架。然而问题恰恰在

于,这一框架在实质运行中存在四重系统性的缺陷,使其难以发挥真正的约束功能。

第一重缺陷在于违宪审查机制的缺位。中国宪法第六十二条第二项虽授权全国人大”监督

宪法的实施”,第六十七条授权全国人大常委会”解释宪法、监督宪法的实施”,但中国并

不存在功能意义上的违宪审查机构——既无类似美国联邦最高法院的普通法院违宪审查模

式,亦无类似德国、奥地利、台湾地区宪法法院的集中审查模式。其结果是:即便某一税

收立法或税务执法行为在实质上违反了宪法第十三条的财产权保障,公民与企业也缺乏一

个可以诉诸的司法途径以使该违宪行为得到撤销或矫正。Holmes 所谓”只要本院还存在,

征税权就不是毁灭权”的制度承诺,在中国法语境下因此处于结构性的悬置状态。

第二重缺陷在于私有产权的宪法地位不对等。《宪法》第十二条规定”社会主义的公共财

产神圣不可侵犯”,而第十三条对私有财产的措辞则为”不受侵犯”。”神圣不可侵犯”与”不

受侵犯”之间的文本差异,并非纯粹的语义问题,而是反映了一种根本性的产权宪法等

级。这种等级一旦进入具体的行政与司法实践,便会自然演化为对民营企业不利的执法倾

向——因为在公共财产与私有财产发生冲突时,宪法文本本身已经预设了倾斜的天平。

第三重缺陷在于税收法定主义的实质架空。《立法法》第八条虽将税收基本制度列为法律

保留事项,但在实际操作中,大量税收规则系通过国务院行政法规、财政部和国家税务总

局的部门规章、乃至更低层级的规范性文件加以确定。更值得关注的是,税收政策的解释

权高度集中于税务行政机关本身——同一条税法条文,在不同地方、不同时期可以有完全

不同的解释。这一现象使得”税收法定”在形式上虽得维持,在实质上却演变为”税收行政

定”。

第四重缺陷在于法不溯及既往原则之实质落空。《立法法》第九十三条原则上规定”法

律、行政法规、地方性法规、自治条例和单行条例、规章不溯及既往”11。但 2024 年以来

的”倒查三十年”现象表明,即便不存在新法对旧行为的直接溯及适用,税务机关仍可通过

“重新解释”既有税法条款的方式,对历史上的企业行为进行追溯性的不利评价。这种做法

在形式上规避了《立法法》第九十三条的禁止,在实质上却完全实现了溯及既往的法律效

果。最高人民法院在《关于人民法院充分发挥审判职能作用保护产权和企业家合法权益典

型案例(第二批)》中曾援引”严格遵循法不溯及既往、罪刑法定、在新旧法之间从旧兼

从轻等原则”12,但这一表述仅出现在指导性案例的”典型意义”说明中,并不具有规范意义

上的拘束力。

四、”倒查三十年”作为制度症候:法学分析

2024 年 6 月,上市公司维维股份发布公告,称其原控股子公司湖北枝江酒业被要求补缴

1994 年至 2009 年的消费税共计 8500 余万元,追溯期长达三十年。这一事件之所以迅速从

一个上市公司公告演变为全国性话题,是因为它并非孤立个案。同一时段内,博汇股份因

被要求补缴近 5 亿元税款而宣布停产,藏格矿业被倒查二十年并追缴税款及滞纳金 1.88

亿元,湖南岳阳某地产开发商被倒查二十五年追罚九亿余元,杭州伊裳服饰、广东泰基集

团等多家企业均被纳入跨越一二十年的追缴清单13。

从法学角度审视,这一现象至少在三个层面构成对中国现行法的实质突破。

其一,追征期问题。《税收征收管理法》第五十二条所规定的最长追征期为五年,仅在偷

税、抗税、骗税的情形下不受期限限制。然而”倒查三十年”案件中的追缴依据,往往并非

对企业偷税行为的明确指控,而是对历史税收政策的”重新解释”。例如博汇股份案中,争

议核心在于其产品应按”重芳烃衍生品”还是”重芳烃”缴纳消费税,这本质上是一个税法适

用的解释问题,而非偷税认定问题14。在此情形下,将追征期延展至二十年甚至三十

年,已显著突破《税收征收管理法》第五十二条所设定的法律框架。

其二,法不溯及既往问题。一家企业在 1994 年依据当时的税法、当时的地方政策、当时

的征管实践合规经营,三十年后却被要求按 2024 年的解释补缴税款——这从实质上构成

了对《立法法》第九十三条所确立的”不溯及既往”原则的违反。即便税务机关辩称所适用

的仍是 1994 年当时的法律,其对该法律的”新解释”本身已经构成一种实质意义上的新规

范,将这一新规范适用于该规范形成之前的行为,与溯及既往并无实质区别。

其三,正当程序问题。在多起”倒查”案件中,企业被要求在极短期限内补缴巨额税款,且

对税务机关的认定缺乏有效的事前异议途径。《行政诉讼法》第十二条虽然将税务行政行

为纳入受案范围,但《税收征收管理法》第八十八条同时规定,纳税人对税务机关的纳税

决定不服的,必须先行缴纳税款或者提供相应的担保,然后才能申请行政复议;对复议决

定不服的,方可向人民法院起诉15。这一被业内通称为”双重前置”的程序设计,对于被

追缴数亿元税款的中小企业而言,实质上构成了司法救济的难以逾越之障碍——企业必须

先承担可能致其破产的财务压力,才能换取一个救济的机会。

国家税务总局于 2024 年 6 月 18 日的回应称,否认存在”全国性、行业性、集中性”的税务

检查或”倒查二十年、三十年的安排”,但同时承认上述追缴”均属税务部门例行的依法依

规正常履职行为”16。这一表态从法学角度看颇值得细读:它在否认”统一部署”的同时,

承认了”个案合法”。然而,当数十乃至数百起类似案件在短时间内集中爆发,且受影响者

高度集中于民营企业时,”个案合法”的官方叙事本身便面临严重的法理质疑——因为正当

法律程序所保障的,不仅是单个案件中的形式合法,更是法律适用的可预期性、一致性与

平等性。

五、财政结构与法治退化的相互强化

要理解上述法律失守何以发生,必须越出纯粹的法律文本,进入财政结构的分析。根据中

华人民共和国财政部公布的数据,2024 年全国税收收入为 174,972 亿元,比上年下降

3.4%;与此同时,全国非税收入达到 44,730 亿元,同比增长 25.4%,其中罚没收入增长

14.8%17。进入 2025 年,全国一般公共预算收入下降 1.7%,但地方本级财政收入仍维持

2.4% 的增长18。这一组数据所揭示的,是一个具有结构性意义的财政转向:正常税基持

续萎缩,而以罚款、追缴、补税为代表的”非常规收入”正成为地方政府维持收入增长的关

键支柱。

这一转向有其深刻的制度根源。1994 年分税制改革将主要税源上收中央,地方财政长期

高度依赖土地出让收入。随着 2021 年以来房地产市场的深度调整,土地财政模式难以为

继,地方政府面临空前的收支缺口。在这一压力下,税务追缴、行政罚款、跨地区执法等

手段逐渐演变为一种事实上的财政补偿机制。

从法学角度看,这一财政结构压力对税收法治的腐蚀作用是双重的。一方面,它使税务执

法的内在动机从”依法征收”扭曲为”按指标征收”——这与德国公法学者 Klaus Vogel 所言” 税法之首要功能在于约束国家征税权,而非授权国家征税权”的经典命题正好相反19。另

一方面,它使地方政府对”非常规收入”的依赖具有自我强化的特征:一旦罚没与追缴成为

财政收入的稳定来源,行政机关便会发展出维持乃至扩大这一来源的内在动机,而这一动

机又会反过来侵蚀法律对其行为的约束力。

中共自身在 2025 年的预算报告中不得不写入”坚决防止和纠正乱收费、乱罚款、乱摊派等

问题”的表述20,这一表态本身即构成对乱象存在的官方默认。但仅有政策性表态而无制

度性约束,难以真正扭转上述财政—法治的负反馈循环。

六、为何受害者高度集中于民营企业:宪法层面的解释

任何严肃的分析都不能回避一个具体的问题:为什么这一轮”倒查”的受害者,几乎清一色

是民营企业?东南大学华生教授在 2024 年 6 月的一次闭门研讨会后撰文指出,与会专家

普遍认为”被查的几乎全是民营企业”21。这一现象的解释,不能完全归结为执法层面的偶

然偏向,而必须从中国宪法结构的深层逻辑中寻找。

首先,是前文已论及的宪法产权地位的不对等。第十二条”神圣不可侵犯”与第十三条”不

受侵犯”之间的文本差异,构成了一种宪法层面的产权等级。这一等级在司法与行政实践

中的具体表现,便是国有资产受到更高强度的程序保护,而民营资产则在面对税务追缴等

行政行为时缺乏相应的宪法盾牌。

其次,是平等保护原则的实质缺失。《宪法》第三十三条第二款规定”中华人民共和国公

民在法律面前一律平等”。然而这一平等保护条款的适用范围长期局限于公民个人,而未

明确延伸至作为法人主体的企业之间的平等保护——国有企业与民营企业在税务执法中是

否享有同等的法律地位,至今缺乏明确的宪法解释与司法判例支撑。这一空白与美国宪法

第十四修正案下”平等保护条款”(Equal Protection Clause)经由 Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. (1886) 等判例将企业纳入保护范围22 的演进相比,形成了显著

的制度落差。

第三,是政策导向的长期偏移。从 2018 年所谓”民营经济离场论”的争议,到 2021 年以来

对教培、互联网平台、房地产等以民营资本为主体的行业的连续强力监管,再到 2024 年

以来”倒查三十年”现象的浮现,可以观察到一条清晰的政策轨迹。这一轨迹在宪法层面的

反映是:宪法第六条所确立的”公有制为主体、多种所有制经济共同发展”的基本经济制

度,在实际运行中始终保留着”公有制为主体”对”多种所有制”的潜在优先性,使得民营经

济在制度地位上具有结构性的脆弱性。

七、历史的参照:1953 与 2024

任何对当前现象的分析,都难以回避一个历史参照——1956 年的公私合营。根据流亡海

外的上海企业家胡力任的口述史料,1956 年公私合营正式启动之前的三年,即 1953 年前

后,上海工商界已经经历了一轮大规模的”查账”行动23。三年之后,公私合营以国家几乎

不出资本的方式,将私人产业一夜之间纳入”公”的范畴。

历史不会简单重演,但制度的逻辑往往押韵。1953 年的”查账”与 2024 年的”倒查三十年” 之间,存在着某种值得严肃讨论的结构性相似——即在政治权力对私有财产缺乏宪法约

束、缺乏违宪审查制衡的前提下,行政性的财产再分配机制如何在合法性的外衣下逐步推

进。本党并不主张当下中国必将重演 1956 年的剧本,但本党认为,如果不对当前的征税

权运行模式加以根本性的宪法约束,那么这一历史押韵的风险就不能在法理上被简单排

除。

八、本党的宪法主张

基于上述分析,中国民主党在民营经济议题上的基本宪法主张可以归纳如下。

本党主张在宪法文本层面,通过修宪程序消除第十二条”神圣不可侵犯”与第十三条”不受

侵犯”之间的产权等级,使私有财产获得与公共财产完全对等的宪法保障;并明确将企业

法人纳入第三十三条平等保护条款的适用范围。

本党主张在违宪审查层面,建立功能意义上的宪法审查机构——无论采取专门的宪法法院

模式,还是赋予最高人民法院以违宪审查权,其核心在于使宪法第十三条的财产权保障与

第三十三条的平等保护具有真正的司法可执行性,从而在中国法语境下逐步实现 Holmes

大法官所言”只要本院还存在,征税权就不是毁灭权”的制度承诺。

本党主张在税收立法层面,严格执行《立法法》第八条的法律保留原则,限制行政机关通

过部门规章与规范性文件对税收基本制度作出实质性变更;同时将《税收征收管理法》第

五十二条的追征期上限——即便在偷税情形下——纳入立法明确,杜绝”追征期无限制”的

解释空间。

本党主张在正当程序层面,废除《税收征收管理法》第八十八条所设的”双重前置”障碍,

使纳税人对税务行政行为的司法救济不再以预先缴纳争议税款或提供担保为前提;并参照

《行政诉讼法》对一般行政行为的程序要求,将税务行政程序的透明度、可预期性与可救

济性提升至与其他行政领域相当的水平。

本党主张在财政分权层面,重新审视 1994 年分税制改革以来的中央地方财政关系,使地

方政府不必通过罚没与追缴维持基本运转,从而从根源上消除”远洋捕捞”式执法的制度激

励。

本党认为,上述五项主张并非孤立的政策建议,而是构成一个有机整体的宪政改革议程。

其核心理念是:民营企业的尊严与中国公民的自由不可分割。一个不能在宪法上保护私人

创造与劳动果实的国家,最终也无法在宪法上保护任何公民的基本权利。

九、结语

Marshall 在两百年前的判词中所揭示的,是任何政府都可能面临的诱惑——以税收之名行

毁灭之实;Holmes 在一个世纪之后的修正中所提供的,是约束这一诱惑的制度回应——

独立违宪审查。介于二者之间的,是现代立宪国家两个世纪以来的全部法治经验:征税权

必须存在,但必须被关进宪法的笼子里。

今日中国民营企业所面临的,并不仅仅是某几个地方税务部门的执法瑕疵,也不仅仅是某

一时段内财政压力下的临时举措,而是整个宪法与税法体系对征税权边界的系统性失守。

这一失守的代价,最终将由整个国家的经济活力、社会信任与公民自由来共同承担。中国

民主党愿意以此文作为长期论述的开端,并郑重邀请海内外法学界、经济学界与公民社

会,共同参与到这一关乎中国未来宪法形态的根本性讨论之中。

2026 年 5 月 16 日

注释

1. McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 431 (1819). 2. Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429 (1895); 158 U.S. 601 (1895). 3. Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189 (1920). 4. National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012). 5. Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi ex rel. Knox, 277 U.S. 218, 223 (1928) (Holmes, J., dissenting). 6. Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189, 207–208 (1920). 7. NFIB v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519, 561 (2012) (Roberts, C.J.). 8. 《中华人民共和国立法法》(2023 年修正)第八条第六项。

9. 《中华人民共和国税收征收管理法》(2015 年修正)第五十二条。

10. 《中华人民共和国行政诉讼法》(2017 年修正)第十二条第一款第六项。

11. 《中华人民共和国立法法》(2023 年修正)第九十三条。

12. 最高人民法院《人民法院充分发挥审判职能作用保护产权和企业家合法权益典型案

例(第二批)》,2018 年 12 月发布。

13. 维维股份补税公告、博汇股份停产公告、藏格矿业补税案例,源自 2024 年 6 月中

国大陆媒体(澎湃新闻、第一财经)公开报道及上市公司公告。

14. 国家税务总局宁波市镇海区税务局 2024 年 6 月 14 日通报。

15. 《中华人民共和国税收征收管理法》(2015 年修正)第八十八条第一款。

16. 国家税务总局对”倒查三十年”传闻的回应,2024 年 6 月 18 日,载人民日报、央广

网。

17. 中华人民共和国财政部 2025 年 1 月 24 日新闻发布。

18. 财政部 2026 年 1 月 30 日全年财政收支情况发布会。

19. Klaus Vogel, Der Finanz- und Steuerstaat, in: J. Isensee/P. Kirchhof (Hrsg.), Handbuch

des Staatsrechts der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bd. II (3. Aufl. 2004), § 30. 20. 《关于 2024 年中央和地方预算执行情况与 2025 年中央和地方预算草案的报告》,

2025 年 3 月 5 日提交十四届全国人大三次会议审查。

21. 华生教授评论,载其 2024 年 6 月 20 日个人微博。

22. Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., 118 U.S. 394 (1886).

编辑：胡丽莉 翻译：彭小梅

“The Power to Tax Is the Power to Destroy”— A Brief Discussion on the Institutional Predicament of Chinese Private Enterprises

Zheng Cunzhu

Abstract: Starting from the constitutional proposition that “the power to tax involves the power to destroy,” this article analyzes the phenomenon of “retroactive tax investigations spanning thirty years” in China, reveals the impact of uncontrolled taxing power on private property rights and the rule-of-law order, and proposes directions for constitutional reform.

I. Raising the Question

In 1819, U.S. Chief Justice John Marshall established a proposition that still occupies a central position in American constitutional doctrine in the case of McCulloch v. Maryland — “the power to tax involves the power to destroy.”¹ On the surface, this proposition served the argument concerning the constitutionality of state taxation of federal institutions under the principle of federal supremacy (Supremacy Clause), but its deeper significance lies in revealing a universal constitutional theory problem: the power to tax is not a neutral fiscal technical instrument, but a form of state power that inherently contains coercive, shaping, and even destructive characteristics. In the two centuries of American constitutional case law after Marshall, including Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. (1895) concerning disputes over direct taxes,² Eisner v. Macomber (1920) regarding the constitutional definition of the concept of “income,”³ and National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012) concerning the re-clarification of the boundary between taxing power and commerce regulatory power,⁴ all revolved around the core proposition of “the constitutional boundaries of taxing power.”

This article intends to take the Marshall proposition as the analytical starting point, combine a comparison between the Chinese and American constitutional and tax law systems, examine contemporary China’s tax practices — especially the “retroactive thirty-year investigations” phenomenon that has drawn widespread attention since 2024 — and argue that: in an institutional environment lacking constitutional review, lacking stable constitutional protection for private property rights, and lacking substantive implementation of the principle against retroactive application of law, China’s taxing power is systematically crossing the boundaries established by constitutionalism and tax legality, sliding toward the realm of “destruction” warned of by Marshall.

As Chairman of the China Democratic Party Federation, the author, in this article, not only attempts to provide a jurisprudential diagnosis at the legal theory level, but also hopes to express this party’s basic constitutional position on private economy issues: private property rights and enterprise freedom are not accessories to economic efficiency, but organic components of constitutional order and citizens’ fundamental rights.

II. The Jurisprudential Meaning of the Marshall Proposition and Its Modern Revision

To understand today’s tax predicament in China, it is necessary first to return to the jurisprudential structure of the Marshall proposition itself. In the McCulloch case, Marshall dealt with the specific dispute of whether the State of Maryland could tax the federal Bank of the United States, but the true strength of his reasoning lay in revealing the dual character of taxing power. On the one hand, taxation is the fiscal foundation for the operation of any modern state; on the other hand, taxation technically has no inherent upper limit — once the tax collector acquires unconstrained discretionary power, it can effectively eliminate the taxed subject through tax rates, tax bases, retroactive periods, enforcement methods, and other means. Marshall therefore proposed that a subject capable of unlimited taxation is equivalent to possessing the power of life and death over the taxed subject.

This proposition received a famous revision in the twentieth century from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. In his dissenting opinion in Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi (1928), Holmes stated: “The power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits.”⁵ Holmes’ revision did not deny Marshall’s insight, but rather, while acknowledging its potential danger, pointed out that an independent constitutional review mechanism is the key institutional device restraining the destructive nature of taxing power. This proposition was repeatedly confirmed in subsequent cases: in Eisner v. Macomber, the Supreme Court rejected Congress’s practice of treating stock dividends as “income” for taxation, explicitly stating that the Constitution’s limitation on the concept of “income” could not be arbitrarily broken by legislative power;⁶ in NFIB v. Sebelius, although the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act on the grounds of “taxing power,” the majority opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts simultaneously clearly stated: “Even the broadest of these powers is subject to limits.”⁷

From this, one may summarize the basic paradigm by which modern constitutional states handle taxing power: taxing power must exist, but it must be constrained by a set of independent, accountable, and remediable legal mechanisms. Specifically, this paradigm contains at least four institutional elements: the principle of tax legality (Legality Principle, nullum tributum sine lege), the principle against retroactive application of law (Non-retroactivity, lex prospicit, non respicit), judicial review of tax legislation (Judicial Review of Tax Legislation), and due process of tax enforcement (Due Process of Tax Enforcement). These four elements are precisely the key reference system for observing today’s Chinese tax system.

III. The Form and Substance of China’s Current Constitutional and Tax Law Framework

From the perspective of written text, China’s current legal system is not entirely without formal arrangements corresponding to the four elements mentioned above. Article 56 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China stipulates that “citizens of the People’s Republic of China have the duty to pay taxes in accordance with the law,” while Article 13, Paragraph 1 stipulates that “citizens’ lawful private property is inviolable.” Article 8, Item 6 of the Legislation Law of the People’s Republic of China explicitly lists “the establishment of tax categories, the determination of tax rates, and other basic tax collection and administration systems” as matters that may only be prescribed by laws passed by the National People’s Congress and its Standing Committee, constituting the Chinese-law version of tax legality.⁸ Article 52 of the Tax Collection and Administration Law of the People’s Republic of China specifically provides for the tax recovery period: where taxes are unpaid or underpaid due to the responsibility of the tax authority, the recovery period is three years; where taxes are unpaid or underpaid due to taxpayer calculation errors or other mistakes, the recovery period is three years and may under special circumstances be extended to five years; for tax evasion, tax resistance, and tax fraud, there is no limitation period for recovery.⁹ Article 12 of the Administrative Litigation Law of the People’s Republic of China explicitly includes “decisions made by administrative organs regarding collection, requisition, and compensation” within the scope of accepted cases.¹⁰

Judging solely from the text, the above arrangements appear to constitute a relatively complete framework of “formal rule of law.” However, the problem lies precisely in the fact that this framework suffers from four systematic defects in substantive operation, making it difficult to perform a genuine restraining function.

The first defect lies in the absence of a constitutional review mechanism. Although Article 62, Item 2 of the Chinese Constitution authorizes the National People’s Congress to “supervise the implementation of the Constitution,” and Article 67 authorizes the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress to “interpret the Constitution and supervise its implementation,” China does not possess a constitutional review institution in the functional sense — there is neither a judicial review model like that of the U.S. federal Supreme Court, nor a centralized review model like constitutional courts in Germany, Austria, or Taiwan. The result is that even if a certain tax legislation or tax enforcement act substantively violates the property-rights protection of Article 13 of the Constitution, citizens and enterprises lack a judicial channel through which to seek annulment or correction of the unconstitutional act. Holmes’s institutional promise that “while this Court sits, the power to tax is not the power to destroy” is therefore structurally suspended in the Chinese legal context.

The second defect lies in the unequal constitutional status of private property rights. Article 12 of the Constitution states that “socialist public property is sacred and inviolable,” while Article 13’s wording concerning private property is merely “inviolable.” The textual difference between “sacred and inviolable” and “inviolable” is not purely semantic, but reflects a fundamental constitutional hierarchy of property rights. Once this hierarchy enters concrete administrative and judicial practice, it naturally evolves into an enforcement tendency unfavorable to private enterprises — because when public property and private property conflict, the constitutional text itself has already preset a tilted balance.

The third defect lies in the substantive hollowing out of tax legality. Although Article 8 of the Legislation Law lists the basic tax system as a matter reserved for legislation, in actual practice a large number of tax rules are determined through administrative regulations of the State Council, departmental rules of the Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration, and even lower-level normative documents. More importantly, interpretive power over tax policy is highly concentrated within the tax administration authorities themselves — the same tax provision may receive completely different interpretations in different localities and periods. This phenomenon means that although “tax legality” is formally maintained, substantively it has evolved into “tax administration legality.”

The fourth defect lies in the substantive collapse of the principle against retroactive application of law. Article 93 of the Legislation Law in principle stipulates that “laws, administrative regulations, local regulations, autonomous regulations, separate regulations, and rules shall not have retroactive effect.”¹¹ Yet the “retroactive thirty-year investigations” phenomenon since 2024 demonstrates that even without direct retroactive application of new laws to old conduct, tax authorities can still retrospectively issue unfavorable evaluations of historical enterprise conduct by “reinterpreting” existing tax provisions. Formally, this practice avoids the prohibition in Article 93 of the Legislation Law; substantively, however, it fully achieves the legal effect of retroactivity. In its Typical Cases of the People’s Courts Fully Performing Judicial Functions to Protect Property Rights and Entrepreneurs’ Lawful Rights and Interests (Second Batch), the Supreme People’s Court once invoked “strictly following principles such as non-retroactivity, legality of crimes and punishments, and applying the old law or the lighter law between old and new laws,”¹² but this statement appeared only in the “typical significance” explanation of guiding cases and lacks normative binding force.

IV. “Retroactive Thirty-Year Investigations” as an Institutional Symptom: A Jurisprudential Analysis

In June 2024, listed company V V Food & Beverage Co., Ltd. announced that its former controlling subsidiary Hubei Zhijiang Liquor Industry had been required to repay more than 85 million yuan in consumption tax covering the years 1994 to 2009, with a retroactive period spanning thirty years. The reason this incident quickly evolved from a listed-company announcement into a nationwide topic was that it was not an isolated case. During the same period, Bohui Group announced a production shutdown after being ordered to repay nearly 500 million yuan in taxes; Zangge Mining was retroactively investigated for twenty years and required to repay 188 million yuan in taxes and late fees; a real estate developer in Yueyang, Hunan was retroactively investigated for twenty-five years and fined more than 900 million yuan; Hangzhou Yishang Apparel, Guangdong Taiji Group, and many other enterprises were also included in repayment lists spanning one or two decades.¹³

From a jurisprudential perspective, this phenomenon constitutes substantive breakthroughs against current Chinese law on at least three levels.

First, the issue of the recovery period. Article 52 of the Tax Collection and Administration Law stipulates a maximum recovery period of five years, with only tax evasion, tax resistance, and tax fraud exempt from limitation periods. However, the basis for repayment in “retroactive thirty-year investigation” cases is often not a clear accusation of tax evasion, but rather a “reinterpretation” of historical tax policies. For example, in the Bohui case, the core dispute concerned whether its products should be taxed as “heavy aromatic derivatives” or “heavy aromatics,” which is essentially a matter of tax-law interpretation rather than tax-evasion determination.¹⁴ Under such circumstances, extending the recovery period to twenty or even thirty years has clearly exceeded the legal framework established by Article 52 of the Tax Collection and Administration Law.

Second, the issue of non-retroactivity. An enterprise that operated compliantly in 1994 according to the tax laws, local policies, and collection practices of the time is thirty years later required to repay taxes according to a 2024 interpretation — this substantively constitutes a violation of the principle of “non-retroactivity” established by Article 93 of the Legislation Law. Even if tax authorities argue that they are still applying the law that existed in 1994, their “new interpretation” of that law itself already constitutes a substantively new norm, and applying this new norm to conduct predating the norm is substantively no different from retroactive application.

Third, the issue of due process. In many “retroactive investigation” cases, enterprises were required to repay enormous sums within extremely short periods, while lacking effective prior channels to challenge tax authority determinations. Although Article 12 of the Administrative Litigation Law includes tax administrative acts within accepted cases, Article 88 of the Tax Collection and Administration Law simultaneously stipulates that taxpayers dissatisfied with tax authority tax decisions must first pay the taxes or provide corresponding guarantees before applying for administrative reconsideration; only after dissatisfaction with the reconsideration decision may they file suit in the People’s Court.¹⁵ This procedural design, commonly called “double preconditions” within the industry, substantively constitutes an insurmountable obstacle to judicial relief for small and medium-sized enterprises facing tax claims of hundreds of millions of yuan — enterprises must first bear financial pressure that may bankrupt them before earning an opportunity for relief.

In its June 18, 2024 response, the State Taxation Administration denied the existence of “nationwide, industry-wide, or concentrated” tax inspections or arrangements for “retroactive investigations spanning twenty or thirty years,” while simultaneously acknowledging that the above repayments were “normal performance of duties by tax departments according to law and regulations.”¹⁶ From a jurisprudential perspective, this statement deserves careful reading: while denying “unified deployment,” it admitted “individual legality.” However, when dozens or even hundreds of similar cases erupt in a short period, and the affected parties are highly concentrated among private enterprises, the official narrative of “individual legality” itself faces serious legal-theoretical questioning — because due process guarantees not only formal legality in individual cases, but also the predictability, consistency, and equality of legal application.

V. The Mutual Reinforcement of Fiscal Structure and Rule-of-Law Regression

To understand why the above legal breakdown occurred, one must go beyond purely legal texts and enter analysis of fiscal structure. According to data published by the Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China, national tax revenue in 2024 was 17.4972 trillion yuan, down 3.4% from the previous year; meanwhile, national non-tax revenue reached 4.473 trillion yuan, an increase of 25.4%, among which revenue from fines and confiscations rose 14.8%.¹⁷ Entering 2025, national general public budget revenue declined by 1.7%, but local-level fiscal revenue still maintained 2.4% growth.¹⁸ This set of data reveals a structurally significant fiscal shift: normal tax bases continue shrinking, while “extraordinary income” represented by fines, repayments, and supplementary taxation is becoming a key pillar for local governments to maintain revenue growth.

This shift has profound institutional roots. The 1994 tax-sharing reform centralized major tax sources under the central government, causing local finances to rely heavily for long periods on land-transfer revenue. With the deep adjustment of the real estate market since 2021, the land-finance model became unsustainable, and local governments faced unprecedented fiscal deficits. Under this pressure, tax recoveries, administrative fines, and cross-regional enforcement gradually evolved into de facto fiscal compensation mechanisms.

From a jurisprudential perspective, the corrosive effect of this fiscal structural pressure on tax rule-of-law is dual. On the one hand, it distorts the internal motivation of tax enforcement from “collection according to law” into “collection according to quotas” — exactly the opposite of German public-law scholar Klaus Vogel’s classic proposition that “the primary function of tax law lies in restraining state taxing power, not authorizing state taxing power.”¹⁹ On the other hand, it gives local governments’ dependence on “extraordinary income” a self-reinforcing character: once fines and recoveries become stable fiscal revenue sources, administrative organs develop internal motivations to maintain or even expand these sources, and such motivations in turn erode the restraining force of law upon their conduct.

The Chinese Communist Party itself had to include in its 2025 budget report language calling for “resolutely preventing and correcting arbitrary charges, arbitrary fines, and arbitrary apportionments.”²⁰ This statement itself constitutes official acknowledgment of existing disorder. Yet policy-level declarations without institutional constraints are insufficient to truly reverse the negative feedback cycle between fiscal pressure and rule-of-law degradation described above.

VI. Why Victims Are Highly Concentrated Among Private Enterprises: A Constitutional Explanation

Any serious analysis cannot avoid a concrete question: why are the victims of this round of “retroactive investigations” almost exclusively private enterprises? Professor Hua Sheng of Southeast University wrote after a closed-door seminar in June 2024 that participating experts generally believed “almost all those investigated were private enterprises.”²¹ The explanation for this phenomenon cannot be entirely attributed to accidental bias at the enforcement level, but must instead be sought within the deep logic of China’s constitutional structure.

First is the unequal constitutional status of property rights already discussed above. The textual distinction between Article 12’s “sacred and inviolable” and Article 13’s “inviolable” constitutes a constitutional hierarchy of property rights. The concrete manifestation of this hierarchy in judicial and administrative practice is that state-owned assets receive stronger procedural protection, while private assets lack equivalent constitutional shields when facing administrative actions such as tax recoveries.

Second is the substantive absence of the principle of equal protection. Article 33, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution stipulates that “all citizens of the People’s Republic of China are equal before the law.” However, the scope of this equal-protection clause has long been limited to individual citizens and has not clearly extended to equal protection between corporate entities — whether state-owned enterprises and private enterprises enjoy equal legal status in tax enforcement still lacks clear constitutional interpretation and judicial precedent support. This gap forms a notable institutional disparity compared with the evolution of the Equal Protection Clause under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, where enterprises were included within the scope of protection through precedents such as Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. (1886).²²

Third is the long-term shift in policy orientation. From the controversy surrounding the so-called “withdrawal of the private economy” theory in 2018, to the successive strong regulation since 2021 targeting industries dominated by private capital such as private tutoring, internet platforms, and real estate, and then to the emergence of the “retroactive thirty-year investigation” phenomenon since 2024, one may observe a clear policy trajectory. The constitutional reflection of this trajectory is that the basic economic system established by Article 6 of the Constitution — “public ownership as the mainstay, with the common development of multiple forms of ownership” — in actual operation always preserves the potential priority of “public ownership as the mainstay” over “multiple forms of ownership,” rendering the private economy structurally vulnerable in institutional status.

VII. Historical Reference: 1953 and 2024

Any analysis of current phenomena can hardly avoid one historical reference point — the public-private partnership movement of 1956. According to oral historical materials from exiled Shanghai entrepreneur Hu Liren, before the formal launch of public-private partnership in 1956, Shanghai business circles had already experienced a large-scale “account inspection” campaign around 1953.²³ Three years later, public-private partnership incorporated private industries overnight into the category of “public” with almost no capital contribution from the state.

History does not simply repeat itself, but institutional logic often rhymes. Between the “account inspections” of 1953 and the “retroactive thirty-year investigations” of 2024, there exists a structural similarity worthy of serious discussion — namely, how administrative mechanisms of property redistribution gradually advance under the cloak of legality when political power lacks constitutional restraints and constitutional review balances regarding private property. This party does not claim that China today will necessarily reenact the script of 1956, but this party believes that unless the current operating model of taxing power is fundamentally constrained constitutionally, the risk of this historical rhyme cannot simply be excluded in jurisprudential terms.

VIII. This Party’s Constitutional Position

Based on the above analysis, the China Democratic Party’s basic constitutional positions on private economy issues may be summarized as follows.

This party advocates, at the constitutional text level, eliminating through constitutional amendment procedures the property-rights hierarchy between Article 12’s “sacred and inviolable” and Article 13’s “inviolable,” so that private property may obtain constitutional protection fully equal to public property; and explicitly including corporate entities within the scope of application of Article 33’s equal-protection clause.

This party advocates, at the level of constitutional review, establishing a constitution-review institution in the functional sense — whether adopting a specialized constitutional court model or granting constitutional review power to the Supreme People’s Court, the core lies in making the property-rights protection of Article 13 and the equal protection of Article 33 genuinely judicially enforceable, thereby gradually realizing within the Chinese legal context the institutional promise described by Justice Holmes: “while this Court sits, the power to tax is not the power to destroy.”

This party advocates, at the level of tax legislation, strictly implementing the legislative-reservation principle in Article 8 of the Legislation Law, restricting administrative organs from substantively altering the basic tax system through departmental rules and normative documents; simultaneously incorporating into legislation explicit limits on the recovery period under Article 52 of the Tax Collection and Administration Law — even in cases of tax evasion — in order to eliminate interpretive space for “unlimited recovery periods.”

This party advocates, at the due-process level, abolishing the “double precondition” obstacle established by Article 88 of the Tax Collection and Administration Law, so that judicial remedies for taxpayers against tax administrative acts no longer depend on prior payment of disputed taxes or provision of guarantees; and, by reference to the procedural requirements for ordinary administrative acts under the Administrative Litigation Law, elevating the transparency, predictability, and remediability of tax administrative procedures to levels comparable with other administrative fields.

This party advocates, at the level of fiscal decentralization, reexamining the central-local fiscal relationship established since the 1994 tax-sharing reform, so that local governments need not maintain basic operations through fines and recoveries, thereby fundamentally eliminating the institutional incentives behind “deep-sea fishing”-style enforcement.

This party believes that the above five propositions are not isolated policy recommendations, but constitute an organic constitutional reform agenda. Its core idea is: the dignity of private enterprises is inseparable from the freedom of Chinese citizens. A state unable constitutionally to protect private creation and the fruits of labor will ultimately also be unable constitutionally to protect the fundamental rights of any citizen.

IX. Conclusion

What Marshall revealed in his judgment two hundred years ago was a temptation that any government may face — carrying out destruction in the name of taxation; what Holmes provided in his revision a century later was the institutional response restraining this temptation — independent constitutional review. Between the two lies the entirety of the rule-of-law experience accumulated by modern constitutional states over two centuries: taxing power must exist, but it must be locked within the cage of the Constitution.

What Chinese private enterprises face today is not merely enforcement defects by several local tax departments, nor merely temporary measures taken under fiscal pressure during a particular period, but rather a systemic collapse of the constitutional and tax-law system regarding the boundaries of taxing power. The cost of this collapse will ultimately be borne collectively by the economic vitality, social trust, and civic freedom of the entire nation. The China Democratic Party is willing to take this article as the beginning of a long-term discussion, and solemnly invites legal academia, economics circles, and civil society both inside and outside China to jointly participate in this fundamental discussion concerning the future constitutional form of China.

May 16, 2026

Editor: Hu Lili Translator: Peng Xiaomei

中国民主党浙江委员会

徐光，1968年9月11日出生，户籍地杭州市富阳区富春街道邮舍弄2幢407室，现住杭州市西湖区外东山弄42号3单元601室，是中国民主党浙江委员会的创始人之一，也是浙江民主党最重要的负责人之一，以下是他的简介： 

1986年至1990年，徐光就读于杭州大学生物系，毕业后直至1999年6月因中国民主党组党案第一次被捕坐牢前，是家乡富阳市环保局环境监测站工作人员。 徐光是一九八九年春夏之交杭州大学的学运领袖之一，并由杭州大学团结学生会主席叶坚定派往浙江省高（校）自（治）联（合会）的代表，是浙江高校尤其是在杭高校武林广场学生绝食团成员，抗议中共“四·二六社论《必须旗帜鲜明地反对动乱》”对爱国学生运动的污蔑，反对北京戒严和派军队镇压，声援在北京天安门集会的同学。 1995年11月27日，徐光参与了王东海先生牵头，由傅国涌、王有才、陈龙德、吴高兴、毛国良、陈树庆、胡贤焕等人签名联署的致全国人大常委会《无条件释放魏京生——推进民主和法制建设》声明。

1996年“六四”7周年期间，徐光又和前述众人参与了由王东海先生起草的《呼吁立即释放魏京生、王丹、刘念春、张林、胡石根、徐永海等一切在押的政治犯和宗教犯》的联名呼吁，要求重新评价六四和八九民运、广泛开展与社会各界的对话、有秩序有步骤地进行渐进式政治体制改革等五项建议，并在浙江民运同仁的聚会中多次提出要组织独立自主的在野党，以实现对执政党中共的有效监督与制衡。 1998年6月徐光和王有才、王东海、林辉、吴义龙、祝正明、朱虞夫、王荣清、毛庆祥、戚惠民、王培剑、单称峰等人筹组了中国民主党浙江委员会（筹），是其核心成员。

1999年春，徐光在家乡富阳与楼裕根、王有华、蒋雪标、王杭立等人组建了“中国民主党浙江省富阳市筹委会”，并起草《中国民主党富阳市筹备委员会成立公开宣言》，是中国民主党第一个县级组织。徐光还撰写了《抓不完的中国民主党》等文章在浙江民主党刊物《在野党》上发表，公开倡导民主、宪政与人权。同年6月23日，徐光被杭州市公安局羁押，9月15被杭州市检察院批准逮捕，11月9日徐光被浙江省杭州市中级人民法院以“颠覆国家政权罪”判处有期徒刑5年，剥夺政治权利2年。徐光不服提出上诉，12月10日浙江省高级人民法院二审做出裁定维持原判。判决生效后徐光被关押在浙江省乔司监狱，在监狱服刑期间，徐光拒不接受所谓的管教和改造，继续反对中共的专制独裁，传播民主思想，并且每逢“六四”他都要在狱中绝食24小时，令监狱当局头痛不已，因此他每年都要被严管，还屢遭獄警嚴酷毒打，被囚鐵籠，遭牢头狱霸（通常有狱警暗中指使或怂恿）淋屎尿等虐待。

 2004年9月14日，徐光刑满出狱出。每逢“六四”，除继续保持多年来绝食一天的周年纪念习惯外，徐光还常发表文章或以其他方式敦促当局平反六四，并积极参与各项推动民主、捍卫人权的活动_。由于受共产党专制暴政的迫害，浙江很多民主党人的生活和就业都遭遇到不少困难，常年来徐光总是力所能及地帮助这些同仁和家属，每年中国民主党浙江委员会春节募款，徐光也是捐得最多的人之一。 

2004年11月由王荣清先生主持起草并提交全国人大常委会《中国政党法草案》，徐光是中国民主党浙江筹委会对该草案的11位审议人 （吴远明、王东海、王富华、陈树庆、徐光、楼裕根、单称峰、萧利彬、王荣耀、杨建民、尉国平 ） 之一，他在审议书上说“出台《政党法》是民主政治的一个重要里程碑，民主与法治，是“六四”大学生与中国民主党人的共同理想”。以《中国政党法草案》事件为契机，使得中国民主党的组党活动冲出1999年中共当局对中国民主党组党活动第二波大镇压后的数年低谷。    

2005年4月16日上午10时许，徐光在杭州黄龙体育中心参加反日游行队伍，提倡“反日，不仅要反对历史上日本军国主义的侵略，更应当反省我们自己为什么落后、为什么挨打”，因高喊“打倒汉奸！”、“打倒出卖国土的卖国贼！”，被警察一拥而上强行拖进警车带走，以“在被剥夺政治权利期问未经批准擅自离开所在县市参加游行集会”为由，对其行政拘留十五日。 

2006年2月，徐光参与北京由高智晟、赵昕、胡佳发起，浙江由陈树庆组织协调的维权抗暴接力绝食活动。陈树庆和王东海、王荣清和徐光、单称峰和吕耿松两人一组绝食二十四小时，接过第七、八、九棒，加上后来参与的许多中国民主党在浙成员，无论持续时间和参与人数，浙江民主党人在该项活动的关键时刻，起到了承前启后的加速作用。 

2006年5月得知中国民主党浙江委员会的祝正明先生获释，徐光与王荣清、楼裕根、陈树庆等人来回驱车千里从杭州专程赶往江山祝正明的老家看望，介绍近几年浙江民主党人的活动，还为祝先生回杭从新融入当时的浙江民主党活动与百姓维权活动做了一定的铺垫。 

2013年9月21日，10时30分左右，在杭州西湖断桥边的亭子处，徐光与楼黎明、钱小玲等其他经济适用房维权人员一起，徐光采用往身上贴“同房同政，法不溯往”的标语、喊“打倒法西斯”口号等方式进行维权，引起群众围观。警方认为他们的行为影响了西湖的游览秩序，根据《中华人民共和国治安管理处罚法》第二十三条第一款第（二）项之规定，决定给予徐光行政拘留十日的处罚。徐光认为，他的的中国民主党身份，不仅处罚最重，而在拘留所受到严管和虐待，徐光为此绝食一周。10月1日释放的那天，杭州市公安局国保支队正副支队长亲自率队到拘留所阻拦民主党人迎接徐光，并对预知的民主党迎接人员提前采取措施：早上六时多一点，陈树庆就被三个便衣阻挡在住所的单元门外，吕耿松在去接徐光的半路上被俩协警追上硬拉了回去，警方还将民主党人谭凯、楼保生、王富华等带到派出羁押八九个小时……。 徐光不服该行政拘留，先向杭州市公安局提出了行政复议，2013年12月20日，徐光向杭州市西湖区法院提起行政诉讼。徐光的代理人在法庭上严正指出，徐光当时在现场喊“打倒法西斯”，是因为有不明身份的便衣人员对断桥景点休闲游玩的公民肆无忌惮地使用了暴力，而被告对这些便衣不予追究，却将见义勇为制止暴力行为的原告实行处罚，这实在是混淆是非，颠倒黑白，是对原告的构害，原告和代理人希望西湖区法院撤销被告的处罚决定，维护法律，维护法治正义。   

2014年2月底，陈开频先生到台湾代表中国民主党浙江委员会与当时国民党执政的中华民国总统马英九约谈，与民进党领导人苏贞昌、蔡英文等人的见面，商讨如何通过两岸间的政党交流“支持大陆民主，捍卫台湾自由”、“保和平，促（民主）统一”的议题。因陈开频收到萧山公安“回来要判重刑”的威胁，从3月6日下午2时10分陈开频飞抵萧山国际机场起，徐光、陈子亮、谭凯、吴远明（任伟仁）、来金彪、陈兆容、邹巍和姜在鸿等人数度往返机场等候及到陈开频家中探望安慰年迈的陈开频父母（当时都已80多岁），并将据推测被当局“秘密失踪（软禁和观望）”的情况及时通报外界，尤其是陈立群、盛雪两位大姐参与营救和呼吁，得到海内外广泛关注，为陈开频先生3月17安全回家中、避免遭受政治迫害起到了不可或缺的作用。   

2014年4月2日，徐光因在QQ及微信群上发帖与聊天，开玩笑说“共产党可以在嘉兴南湖租一条船召开一大，民主党也可以在杭州西湖租一条船召开一大”，便以此为“证据”4月3日浙江省杭州市公安局拘留了徐光，5月9日逮捕，涉嫌颠覆国家政权关押于杭州市西湖区看守所，关押期间徐光长期坚持绝食抗议。当时，江西明理律师事务所创始人，著名的维权大律师郭莲辉先生受徐光姐姐的委托，担任了他的代理律师，律师数次要求会见当事人都未获公安准许，但接收了律师的法律意见书，该意见书明确指出徐光的言论与颠覆国家政权不具备必然的法律关系，请求公安机关撤销该案。据维权网2014年5月10日报道，一千两百余名各界人士联署，认为，当局以莫须有的罪名逮捕徐光，不仅严重侵犯了徐光的人身自由，也严重破坏了中国的法制和法治，强烈要求杭州市检察院释放徐光，2014年7月31日徐光被取保获释。  

自2014年中国民主党浙江委员会主要负责人王荣清先生的去世，吕耿松、陈树庆的相继被捕与判刑，中国民主党迎来了公开组党以来最为持续漫长的又一轮政治迫害。徐光与邹巍、陈子亮、戚惠民、毛庆祥、严忠良等人及多次遭迫害刚出狱的朱虞夫一起，在及其险恶的环境中长期顶住压力，使得中国民主党浙江委员会的组织不散、大旗不倒、活动不止，做出了艰苦卓越的工作与贡献。 2018年4月25日，因组织和参与海内外民运人士共同发起的国际劳工节“全民共振”行动，呼吁中国各地民众5月1日聚集本地城市的广场，行使宪法所确认的公民权利，表达自己的诉求，推动中国的民主进步，徐光被行政拘留七日，直到5月2日过了该活动日期才得以获释。

2019年8月5日公安机关对被告人徐光的三星手机进行检查，发现视频19部及图片、音频等当局敏感的内容，以“寻衅滋事”的名义对徐光再次做出了拘留六天的决定。  2022年5月24日，因“六四”将近，徐光收到居住区西湖区公安局分局玉泉派出所的传唤单，徐光未予理睬。5月25日上午，徐光在所居东山弄小区采购，途经辖区的玉泉派出所附近，正遇上该所民警，被带进派出所，告诫徐光“六四”将近，不要有什么涉“六四”的敏感言行，并强行收走了他的两个手机。徐光5月26日去玉泉派出所，一路举着写着“平反六四”的纸张，抗议公安对自己迫害，被西湖区警方刑事拘留并被抄家，国保警察威胁徐光称”要新旧账一起算，这次要重判他”，6月24日下午5时西湖区国保警察第二次对徐光家搜查。

2022年7月2日杭州市西湖区检察院以涉嫌寻衅滋事罪正式批捕徐光。徐光从被刑拘之日起即在杭州西湖区看守所内开始绝食抗议，每天仅靠鼻饲灌注维持生命。徐光家属委托了浙江当地最有名望的浙江左契律师事务所纪中久大律师、浙江碧剑律师事务所吴有水律师辩护人担任辩护人，但在案件移送审查起诉前的侦查阶段，当局拒绝律师会见被羁押的当事人。 

2022年11月7日，杭州市西湖区人民检察院以西检刑诉(2022)560号《起诉书》指控被告人徐光犯寻衅滋事罪，提起公诉。指控徐光2018年至2022年期间，在微信、脸书、电报、油管上发布视频、文章，散布损害国家形象，危害国家利益的虚假信息，在网络上寻衅滋事”。徐光认为系当局构陷，徐光称自己作为当年杭州六四学运的参与者，每年都公开纪念“八九六四”和举牌“勿忘六四”。自己热爱祖国，坚信实现民主法治捍卫人权能更好地维护国家形象和国家利益，自己在不同场合所说的事，不能因为当局不敢公开澄清就被指控成虚假信息。中共当局为六四维稳需要，打压中国民主党人，所以在六四前抓捕自己，在见到委托律师后徐光坚决要求律师替自己做无罪辩护。 

2024年4月3日杭州西湖区法院开庭宣判，《杭州市西湖区人民法院刑事判决书》(2022)浙0106刑初561号以寻衅滋事罪对徐光判刑4年，刑期至2026年5月19日。 判决生效后，被关押在杭州北郊监狱（杭州市钱塘区下沙街道北创路9号），2024年8月起，徐光被转押于杭州市北郊监狱医院，据《维权网》信息中心2024年11月29日报道：获刑4年的浙江杭州民主党人、八九学生领袖徐光自被捕至今不准家属探望，此前徐光长期绝食抗争，监狱采取鼻饲方式，徐光也经常拔掉鼻饲管，体重仅八十多斤。而绝食抗议行为在监狱被视作服刑人员抗拒管教的严重违规，会受到许多惩罚，包括“高度戒备（关禁闭或蹲铁笼）”、取消与家属通讯和会见等等。徐光曾托人要求家人带内衣裤和日常用品，但是家人送去仍旧遭到狱方拒绝，家人担忧徐光恐遭不测，希望海内外呼吁、关注。 徐光多次入狱累计刑期已超9年，是中国长期坚持民主理念的政治犯之一。其案例常被国际人权组织和海外媒体关注。

2026年5月19日，是徐光刑满出狱的日子，他的安危与健康状态，由于中共当局尤其是监狱当局的封锁消息，至今仍是一个迷，届时海内外徐光的中国民主党同仁及其他所有的众多热爱自由民主的朋友，一定会继续予以必要守望。                  

中国民主党浙江委员会                     

2026年5月12日

Xu Guang of the China Democracy Party Zhejiang Committee is About to Be Released from Prison

China Democracy Party Zhejiang Committee

Xu Guang, born on September 11, 1968, whose registered permanent residence is Room 407, Building 2, Youshe Lane, Fuchun Sub-district, Fuyang District, Hangzhou City, and who currently resides at Room 601, Unit 3, No. 42 Waichongshan Lane, Xihu District, Hangzhou City, is one of the founders of the China Democracy Party Zhejiang Committee and one of the most important leaders of the Zhejiang Democracy Party. The following is his biography:

From 1986 to 1990, Xu Guang studied in the Department of Biology at Hangzhou University. After graduation and until June 1999, when he was arrested and imprisoned for the first time due to the China Democracy Party organization case, he was a staff member at the Environmental Monitoring Station of the Environmental Protection Bureau of his hometown, Fuyang City.

Xu Guang was one of the student movement leaders at Hangzhou University during the turn of spring and summer in 1989. He was sent as a representative to the Zhejiang Provincial Higher Education Self-Autonomy United Association by Ye Jianding, the president of the Solidarity Student Union of Hangzhou University. He was a member of the student hunger strike group at Wulin Square of higher education institutions in Zhejiang, particularly those in Hangzhou, protesting against the slander of the patriotic student movement by the Chinese Communist Party’s April 26 editorial titled “We Must Take a Clear-Cut Stand Against Turmoil”, opposing the Beijing martial law and the deployment of troops for suppression, and supporting classmates gathering at Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

On November 27, 1995, Xu Guang participated in the joint statement to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress titled “Unconditional Release of Wei Jingsheng—Advancing the Construction of Democracy and the Legal System”, which was spearheaded by Mr. Wang Donghai and co-signed by Fu Guoyong, Wang Youcai, Chen Longde, Wu Gaoxing, Mao Guoliang, Chen Shuqing, Hu Xianhuan, and others. During the 7th anniversary of “June Fourth” in 1996, Xu Guang and the aforementioned individuals again participated in the joint appeal drafted by Mr. Wang Donghai titled “An Appeal for the Immediate Release of All Detained Political and Religious Prisoners Including Wei Jingsheng, Wang Dan, Liu Nianchun, Zhang Lin, Hu Shigen, Xu Yonghai”. The appeal put forward five recommendations, including re-evaluating the June Fourth and 1989 democracy movements, extensively conducting dialogues with all walks of life, and carrying out progressive political structural reform in an orderly and step-by-step manner. In gatherings of Zhejiang democracy movement colleagues, he repeatedly proposed organizing an independent opposition party to achieve effective supervision, checks, and balances against the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

In June 1998, Xu Guang, along with Wang Youcai, Wang Donghai, Lin Hui, Wu Yilong, Zhu Zhengming, Zhu Yufu, Wang Rongqing, Mao Qingxiang, Qi Huimin, Wang Peijian, Shan Chengfeng, and others, prepared for the establishment of the China Democracy Party Zhejiang Committee (Preparatory) and served as its core member. In the spring of 1999, Xu Guang, together with Lou Yugen, Wang Youhua, Jiang Xuebiao, Wang Hangli, and others, established the “Fuyang City Preparatory Committee of the China Democracy Party, Zhejiang Province” in his hometown of Fuyang, and drafted the “Public Declaration on the Establishment of the Fuyang City Preparatory Committee of the China Democracy Party”, which was the first county-level organization of the China Democracy Party. Xu Guang also wrote articles such as “The Endless Arrests of the China Democracy Party”, which were published in “The Opposition Party”, a publication of the Zhejiang Democracy Party, publicly advocating for democracy, constitutionalism, and human rights. On June 23 of the same year, Xu Guang was detained by the Hangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau; on September 15, his arrest was approved by the Hangzhou Municipal People’s Procuratorate; on November 9, Xu Guang was sentenced to 5 years of fixed-term imprisonment and 2 years of deprivation of political rights by the Hangzhou Municipal Intermediate People’s Court of Zhejiang Province for the crime of “subverting state power.” Dissatisfied, Xu Guang filed an appeal. On December 10, the Higher People’s Court of Zhejiang Province made a second-instance ruling to sustain the original judgment. After the verdict took effect, Xu Guang was imprisoned in Qiaosi Prison in Zhejiang Province. While serving his sentence in prison, Xu Guang refused to accept the so-called discipline and reform, continued to oppose the autocratic dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party, and spread democratic ideas. Furthermore, on every anniversary of “June Fourth,” he would go on a 24-hour hunger strike in prison, causing great headaches for the prison authorities. Consequently, he was placed under strict management every year and was repeatedly subjected to severe and cruel beatings by prison guards, confined in iron cages, and abused by prison bosses and cell bullies (usually instigated or encouraged secretly by prison guards) who poured feces and urine over him.

On September 14, 2004, Xu Guang completed his sentence and was released from prison. On every anniversary of “June Fourth,” besides continuing his long-standing habit of a one-day anniversary hunger strike, Xu Guang frequently published articles or used other means to urge the authorities to vindicate June Fourth, and actively participated in various activities to promote democracy and defend human rights. Due to the persecution by the Communist autocratic tyranny, many members of the Democracy Party in Zhejiang encountered considerable difficulties in their lives and employment. Over the years, Xu Guang always did his utmost to help these colleagues and their families. In the annual Chinese New Year fundraising by the China Democracy Party Zhejiang Committee, Xu Guang was also one of the people who donated the most.

In November 2004, the “Draft Political Party Law of the People’s Republic of China”, drafted and submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress under the presidency of Mr. Wang Rongqing, included Xu Guang as one of the 11 reviewers (Wu Yuanming, Wang Donghai, Wang Fuhua, Chen Shuqing, Xu Guang, Lou Yugen, Shan Chengfeng, Xiao Libin, Wang Rongyao, Yang Jianmin, Wei Guoping) from the Zhejiang Preparatory Committee of the China Democracy Party. In his review comments, he stated: “The introduction of the Political Party Law is an important milestone in democratic politics. Democracy and the rule of law are the common ideals of the ‘June Fourth’ college students and the members of the China Democracy Party.” Taking the “Draft Political Party Law” event as an opportunity, the party-building activities of the China Democracy Party broke through several years of low trough following the second wave of massive crackdowns by the CCP authorities on the China Democracy Party’s organizing activities in 1999.

At around 10:00 AM on April 16, 2005, Xu Guang participated in an anti-Japanese protest march at the Hangzhou Huanglong Sports Center, advocating that “being anti-Japanese should not only mean opposing the aggression of Japanese militarism in history, but we should even more reflect on why we ourselves were backward and why we were beaten.” Because he shouted slogans like “Down with traitors!” and “Down with the sellouts who betray our national territory!”, police swarmed forward, forcibly dragged him into a police car, and took him away. On the grounds of “leaving his residing county or city to participate in marches and assemblies without approval during the period of deprivation of political rights,” they placed him under administrative detention for fifteen days.

In February 2006, Xu Guang participated in the relay hunger strike against tyranny and for rights protection initiated in Beijing by Gao Zhisheng, Zhao Xin, and Hu Jia, and organized and coordinated in Zhejiang by Chen Shuqing. Chen Shuqing and Wang Donghai, Wang Rongqing and Xu Guang, Shan Chengfeng and Lyu Gengsong went on 24-hour hunger strikes in pairs, taking over the seventh, eighth, and ninth legs of the relay. Together with many members of the China Democracy Party in Zhejiang who joined later, Zhejiang Democracy Party members played an accelerating role that carried forward the cause at the crucial moment of the event, regardless of the duration and the number of participants.

In May 2006, upon learning that Mr. Zhu Zhengming of the China Democracy Party Zhejiang Committee was released, Xu Guang, along with Wang Rongqing, Lou Yugen, Chen Shuqing, and others, drove a round trip of thousands of miles specifically from Hangzhou to Mr. Zhu Zhengming’s hometown in Jiangshan to visit him, introducing the activities of the Zhejiang Democracy Party members over the past few years, and paving the way for Mr. Zhu’s return to Hangzhou to reintegrate into the activities of the Zhejiang Democracy Party and the citizens’ rights defense movements at that time.

On September 21, 2013, at around 10:30 AM, at a pavilion near the Broken Bridge of the West Lake in Hangzhou, Xu Guang, along with Lou Liming, Qian Xiaoling, and other rights-defense personnel for affordable housing, engaged in rights-defense actions. Xu Guang pasted slogans on his body reading “Same housing, same policy; laws do not apply retroactively” and shouted slogans such as “Down with fascists,” drawing a crowd of onlookers. The police deemed that their behavior affected the order of sightseeing at West Lake and, according to the provisions of Item (2), Paragraph 1, Article 23 of the “Law of the People’s Republic of China on Penalties for Administration of Public Security”, decided to penalize Xu Guang with ten days of administrative detention. Xu Guang believed that due to his identity with the China Democracy Party, not only was his punishment the heaviest, but he was also subjected to strict management and abuse in the detention center; consequently, Xu Guang went on a hunger strike for a week. On the day of his release on October 1, the chief and deputy chief of the Domestic Security Squad of the Hangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau personally led a team to the detention center to block Democracy Party members from welcoming Xu Guang, and took advance measures against the anticipated welcoming personnel: slightly after 6:00 AM, Chen Shuqing was blocked outside his residential unit door by three plainclothes officers; Lyu Gengsong was caught up by two auxiliary police officers halfway to pick up Xu Guang and was forcibly pulled back; the police also brought Democracy Party members Tan Kai, Lou Baosheng, Wang Fuhua, and others to local police stations and detained them for eight to nine hours…

Xu Guang did not accept the administrative detention. He first filed an administrative reconsideration with the Hangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau, and on December 20, 2013, Xu Guang filed an administrative lawsuit with the Xihu District People’s Court of Hangzhou. Xu Guang’s agent solemnly pointed out in court that Xu Guang shouted “Down with fascists” at the scene at that time because unidentified plainclothes personnel had used violence unscrupulously against citizens leisurely enjoying themselves at the Broken Bridge scenic spot, whereas the defendant did not hold those plainclothes officers accountable, but instead penalized the plaintiff who had acted courageously for a just cause to stop the violence. This truly confused right and wrong, turned black into white, and was a frame-up against the plaintiff. The plaintiff and the agent hoped that the Xihu District Court would revoke the defendant’s penalty decision to uphold the law and maintain the justice of the rule of law.

At the end of February 2014, Mr. Chen Kaipin went to Taiwan on behalf of the China Democracy Party Zhejiang Committee to hold talks with Ma Ying-jeou, the President of the Republic of China when the Kuomintang was in power, and met with Democratic Progressive Party leaders Su Tseng-chang, Tsai Ing-wen, and others, discussing how to “support mainland democracy and defend Taiwan’s freedom” and “maintain peace and promote (democratic) unification” through cross-strait inter-party exchanges. Because Chen Kaipin received threats from the Xiaoshan Public Security stating that “you will be severely sentenced upon your return,” from the moment Chen Kaipin flew into Xiaoshan International Airport at 2:10 PM on March 6, Xu Guang, Chen Ziliang, Tan Kai, Wu Yuanming (Ren Weiren), Lai Jinbiao, Chen Zhaorong, Zou Wei, Jiang Zaihong, and others traveled back and forth to the airport several times to wait for him, and visited Chen Kaipin’s home to comfort his elderly parents (who were both over 80 years old at the time). They also timely informed the outside world of the situation, which was presumed to be a “secret disappearance (house arrest and observation)” by the authorities. In particular, the participation of Elder Sisters Chen Liqun and Sheng Xue in the rescue and appeals garnered widespread domestic and international attention, playing an indispensable role in ensuring Mr. Chen Kaipin’s safe return home on March 17 and preventing him from suffering political persecution.

On April 2, 2014, because Xu Guang posted and chatted in QQ and WeChat groups, jokingly saying, “The Communist Party could rent a boat on the South Lake of Jiaxing to hold its First National Congress, and the Democracy Party can also rent a boat on the West Lake of Hangzhou to hold its First National Congress,” the Hangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau of Zhejiang Province used this as “evidence” to detain Xu Guang on April 3, and arrested him on May 9. Suspected of subverting state power, he was detained in the Xihu District Detention Center of Hangzhou City. During his detention, Xu Guang persisted in a long-term hunger strike protest. At that time, Mr. Guo Lianhui, the founder of Jiangxi Mingli Law Firm and a famous human rights defense lawyer, was entrusted by Xu Guang’s sister to serve as his defense attorney. The lawyer requested to meet with the client several times but was not permitted by the public security; however, they received the lawyer’s legal opinion letter. The opinion letter explicitly pointed out that Xu Guang’s speech did not bear an inevitable legal relationship to the subversion of state power, and requested the public security organ to dismiss the case. According to a report by Rights Defense Network on May 10, 2014, more than 1,200 people from all walks of life co-signed a petition, believing that the authorities’ arrest of Xu Guang on unwarranted charges not only severely violated Xu Guang’s personal freedom but also severely damaged China’s legal system and the rule of law, strongly demanding that the Hangzhou Municipal People’s Procuratorate release Xu Guang. On July 31, 2014, Xu Guang was released on bail pending trial.

Since the passing of Mr. Wang Rongqing, the main person in charge of the China Democracy Party Zhejiang Committee, in 2014, and the successive arrests and sentencing of Lyu Gengsong and Chen Shuqing, the China Democracy Party has entered another most prolonged and enduring round of political persecution since its public party-building. Xu Guang, together with Zou Wei, Chen Ziliang, Qi Huimin, Mao Qingxiang, Yan Zhongliang, and others, as well as Zhu Yufu, who had just been released from prison after multiple persecutions, withstood the pressure for a long time in an extremely perilous environment, ensuring that the organization of the China Democracy Party Zhejiang Committee did not scatter, its banner did not fall, and its activities did not cease, making arduous and outstanding efforts and contributions.

On April 25, 2018, for organizing and participating in the International Labor Day “All-People Resonance” action jointly initiated by domestic and overseas pro-democracy activists—which called on people across China to gather in local city squares on May 1 to exercise their citizen rights recognized by the Constitution, express their demands, and promote democratic progress in China—Xu Guang was placed under administrative detention for seven days and was not released until May 2, after the date of the event had passed. On August 5, 2019, public security organs inspected defendant Xu Guang’s Samsung mobile phone and discovered 19 videos as well as pictures and audio containing sensitive content targeted by the authorities. Under the name of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” they once again made a decision to detain Xu Guang for six days.

On May 24, 2022, as “June Fourth” was approaching, Xu Guang received a summons from the Yuquan Police Station of the Xihu District Public Security Bureau of his residential area, which Xu Guang ignored. On the morning of May 25, while purchasing supplies in his residential Dongshannong Community, Xu Guang passed near the Yuquan Police Station within his jurisdiction and encountered police officers from the station. He was brought into the police station and cautioned that since “June Fourth” was approaching, he should not have any sensitive speech or behavior related to “June Fourth,” and his two mobile phones were forcibly confiscated. On May 26, Xu Guang went to the Yuquan Police Station, holding up papers written with “Vindicate June Fourth” along the way to protest the public security’s persecution against him. He was criminally detained by the Xihu District police, and his home was raided. Domestic security police threatened Xu Guang, claiming they “will settle both old and new accounts together, and will sentence him heavily this time.” At 5:00 PM on June 24, domestic security police of Xihu District searched Xu Guang’s home for the second time.

On July 2, 2022, the Xihu District People’s Procuratorate of Hangzhou City formally approved the arrest of Xu Guang on suspicion of the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble. From the very day of his criminal detention, Xu Guang began a hunger strike protest inside the Hangzhou Xihu District Detention Center, relying solely on nasal feeding to sustain his life every day. Xu Guang’s family entrusted Attorney Ji Zhongjiu, a highly reputable lawyer from Zhejiang Zuoche Law Firm, and Attorney Wu Youshui from Zhejiang Bijian Law Firm to serve as his defense counsel. However, during the investigation phase before the case was transferred for review and prosecution, the authorities refused to allow the lawyers to meet with the detained client.

On November 7, 2022, the Xihu District People’s Procuratorate of Hangzhou City issued the Indictment No. Xijiang Xingsu (2022) 560, accusing the defendant Xu Guang of committing the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble and initiating a public prosecution. It accused Xu Guang of “publishing videos and articles on WeChat, Facebook, Telegram, and YouTube between 2018 and 2022, disseminating false information that damages the national image and endangers national interests, and picking quarrels and provoking trouble on the internet.” Xu Guang maintained that it was a fabrication by the authorities. Xu Guang stated that as a participant in the Hangzhou June Fourth student movement back then, he publicly commemorates “Eight-Nine June Fourth” and holds signs reading “Do Not Forget June Fourth” every year. He loves his motherland and firmly believes that realizing democracy, the rule of law, and defending human rights can better maintain the national image and national interests. What he said on different occasions cannot be accused of being false information simply because the authorities dare not publicly clarify it. The CCP authorities arrested him before June Fourth out of the need for June Fourth stability maintenance to crack down on members of the China Democracy Party. After meeting his retained lawyers, Xu Guang firmly requested them to mount a plea of not guilty on his behalf.

On April 3, 2024, the Xihu District People’s Court of Hangzhou opened court to pronounce judgment. The Criminal Judgment of the Xihu District People’s Court of Hangzhou City (2022) Zhe 0106 Xingchu No. 561 sentenced Xu Guang to 4 years in prison for the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble, with the prison term running until May 19, 2026.

After the judgment took effect, he was detained in the Hangzhou Beijiao Prison (No. 9 Beichuang Road, Xiasha Sub-district, Qiantang District, Hangzhou City). Since August 2024, Xu Guang has been transferred to and detained in the Hangzhou Beijiao Prison Hospital. According to a report by the Information Center of Rights Defense Network on November 29, 2024: the Zhejiang Hangzhou Democracy Party member and 1989 student leader Xu Guang, who was sentenced to 4 years, has been barred from family visits since his arrest. Previously, Xu Guang engaged in a long-term hunger strike resistance, and the prison adopted nasal feeding methods; Xu Guang also frequently pulled out the nasal feeding tubes, and his weight dropped to only a little over eighty catties. Furthermore, hunger strike protests are regarded in prison as a serious violation of regulations by inmates resisting discipline, leading to many punishments, including “high-alert security (confinement in solitary or iron cages),” cancellation of communication and visits with family members, and so forth. Xu Guang once requested through someone that his family bring him underwear and daily necessities, but when his family delivered them, they were still rejected by the prison side. His family worries that Xu Guang might suffer an untoward accident and hopes for appeals and attention from both domestic and overseas circles.

Xu Guang has been imprisoned multiple times with an accumulated sentence exceeding 9 years, making him one of the political prisoners in China who have long persisted in democratic ideals. His case frequently draws the attention of international human rights organizations and overseas media. May 19, 2026, is the day Xu Guang completes his sentence and is released from prison. Due to the news blockade by the CCP authorities, especially the prison authorities, his safety and health status remain a mystery to this day. When the time comes, Xu Guang’s colleagues from the China Democracy Party at home and abroad, as well as all other numerous friends who love freedom and democracy, will certainly continue to maintain the necessary vigil.

China Democracy Party Zhejiang Committee

May 12, 2026

作者：郭泉   

编辑：冯仍 校对：冯仍 翻译：周敏

  川普总统表示：“对于左媒内外的人，他们以为会在中期选举前夕引入新冠2.0（汉坦病毒）局面，大概是为了重燃邮寄投票骗局，这次不会得逞。放弃吧！”

川普总统还下令恢复8000名“良知战士”的军籍，旨在纠正拜登政府时期疫苗强制令造成的不公待遇，为拒绝接种疫苗而被强制逐出军队的“良知军人”平反。

哈德逊研究所：

“郭教授，早上好！汉坦病毒来了！一些特定国家又要封控封城了，但川普总统会让美国社会‘带疫运行’。您在攻读博士、博士后之前，曾是南京大学社会学系应用社会学（法学）硕士，导师张彦、宋林飞、周晓虹、童星都是社会公共政策专家。我想听听您对川普总统‘带疫运行’公共政策的社会学分析。”

兰德研究院：

“太好了，一个是哈佛大学公共政策学博士，一个是南京大学社会学与哲学博士。‘带疫运行’是否与‘带癌生存’类似呢？很期待你们的对话！”

我说：

封城防控，其实源于14世纪威尼斯共和国首创的隔离制度。虽然在当时发挥过重大积极作用，但七个世纪后的今天，社会高度全球化，经济衰退与失业饥饿造成的社会危害，有时甚至比疫情本身更大，也更容易快速引发社会崩溃。

有关特定国家的疫情封控，我们今天“莫谈国事”，只讨论美国社会的“带疫运行”。

所谓“带疫运行”，可以被定义为一种适应性危机管理政策，其核心在于平衡疫情防控与经济社会的持续运转。

这一政策通过分阶段调控、资源动态配置和精准干预，在保障公共卫生安全的同时，最大程度维持社会基本功能。

一、政策特点与积极意义

1. 弹性防控框架

美国采取“三级重启模式”（监测期、恢复期、稳定期），允许各州依据本地疫情数据灵活调整管控强度。

例如疫情较轻州份优先复工，重灾区则强化医疗资源配置，体现了分层响应机制的科学性。

2. 技术创新应用

美国推广“免下车检测站”（Drive-through Testing），大幅提升筛查效率，单日检测量达到百万级，同时降低交叉感染风险。

此外，还依托私营医疗体系快速扩容ICU病床，并调用国民警卫队建设方舱医院，以增强医疗系统韧性。

3. 经济托底保障

美国通过《CARES法案》注入2.2万亿美元，包括：

向居民直接发放现金补助（成人1200美元、儿童500美元）

为中小企业提供3770亿美元薪资保护贷款

扩大失业保险至零工经济从业者

这些措施有效缓冲了失业潮冲击。2020年第二季度，美国居民可支配收入甚至逆势增长6.2%。

二、政策理论基础

这一模式被政治学界归纳为“适应性治理”（Adaptive Governance）的实践：

1. 制度弹性

联邦与州政府分权协作，例如联邦储备物资与州级应急行动中心联动。

2. 动态学习

依据实时疫情数据不断调整防控策略。在早期检测失误后，美国迅速放开商业机构检测权限。

3. 社会参与

通过公私合作机制，如药企加速疫苗研发、零售企业提供检测场地，以激活市场力量。

三、成效与挑战

“带疫运行”在短期内避免了医疗系统全面崩溃。2020年第三季度，美国GDP环比反弹33.1%。

但这一政策也受制于联邦制固有矛盾。各州资源调配效率差异较大，导致“带疫运行”效果并不均衡。

此次汉坦病毒尚处于大规模流行前夜，美国政府仍需未雨绸缪，持续优化检测追踪技术与跨州协调机制，以提升“带疫运行”的长期适应能力。

约翰斯·霍普金斯大学评估指出，此类政策的关键，在于如何在不确定性中建立动态响应能力。其经验，为全球公共卫生事件治理提供了重要参考。

兰德说：

“你们南京大学与约翰斯·霍普金斯大学共建的中美研究中心，我去过。今年还会再去，到时一定拜访郭教授。”

我说：

“好的。‘金陵闲客自逍遥，笑看秦淮水月迢；身外浮名何足系，春风醉卧百花桥。’南京话里，我这种人叫‘无事佬’。你随时来，我随时陪你逛秦淮。”

哈德逊说：

“太好了。我最后还想请郭教授从政治、经济、文化等多维度，客观分析川普总统‘带疫运行’政策的背景与影响。”

我说：

先从政治角度看，川普政府强调经济稳定与个人自由，认为严格封控会削弱政府权威与民众信心。

其政策逻辑建立在“小政府”理念之上，主张减少行政干预，维护市场自主运行。这反映出美国保守派政治哲学对政府权力的警惕，以及对个人选择权的重视。

从经济角度看，“带疫运行”旨在避免大规模失业与企业倒闭，防止经济陷入深度衰退。美国经济高度依赖消费与服务业，长期停摆可能引发连锁反应。

政府通过财政刺激与货币政策维持流动性，试图在公共卫生危机中维持经济韧性。

从哲学角度看，该政策体现了实用主义与自由意志主义的结合。一方面强调现实效果，认为适度管控比全面封锁更符合实际需求；另一方面强调个体责任与自由，反对强制隔离等过度限制人身自由的措施。

从医学与公共卫生角度看，科学界对病毒传播规律长期存在不同判断。特朗普政府依据部分医学观点，认为自然免疫与群体免疫具有可行性，因此主张通过分级防控保护高风险人群，而非全面封锁。

当然，这一策略也面临医疗资源挤兑与长期健康风险的争议。

最后，从社会学角度看，美国社会高度多元，不同群体对风险的认知与应对方式差异显著。政策需要兼顾不同阶层利益，避免社会进一步撕裂。

部分民众担忧长期封控会导致心理健康恶化、教育中断以及社会孤立，因此支持有限度开放。

我的结论是：

川普政府的“带疫运行”政策，是基于特定政治理念、经济现实与科学认知的综合决策。

其本质，是美国在极端危机下进行的一场特殊治理实验。其核心逻辑在于：通过分权决策、科技赋能与经济干预，在死亡风险可控的前提下，最大程度保障公民的生存权与发展权。

尽管这一政策存在争议，但相关数据表明，它在一定程度上守住了民众生计底线，也为全球公共卫生治理提供了不同于封控模式的另一种参考路径。

泉史公作《水城旧事鉴》

昔欧罗巴有巨邑曰威尼斯，舟楫如云，商贾辐辏。

元末之时，黑死病横行欧陆，十室九空。

水城执政者夙夜忧叹，遂于港口设木栅，勒令远来舟船停泊外岛，凡四十日无恙者，方准入城。

此“四十日之限”（Quarantino），实为后世封城隔离制度之滥觞。

此法一行，疫气稍遏，商旅渐安，列邦争相效仿，诚为护佑生民之良策。

然时移世易，今非昔比。

观今世诸邦，产业全球化、供应链交错，万民依赖百工协作与商路流通而存续。若遇大疫仍拘泥古法，严锁城垣、断绝往来，其弊有三：

一曰：百业凋敝，民失所依

今之世界，产业链横跨万里。封锁一久，则工厂停摆、商贸断裂、百姓失业。

当是时也，疫病未必先杀人，饥饿与贫困却可能更快摧毁社会。

二曰：财用枯竭，邦本动摇

现代国家财政高度依赖经济循环。长期封禁，必致税收锐减、债务高筑。

财力一旦枯竭，则赈济无以为继，民怨沸腾，社会动荡之速，或甚于疫病蔓延。

三曰：人心溃散，道义难继

现代社会信息流通迅疾，人们长期困守，亲友隔绝，前途无望，则焦虑与绝望蔓延。

此种精神创伤，非药石可医，实乃国家长远之隐忧。

泉史公曰：

威尼斯之制，诚为应急之智；然若不察时代变迁，机械套用于今日，恐成抱薪救火之举。

医者医病，圣手医国。

防疫之道，在于权衡：既要防疫气流毒，更须保民生、护元气。

若因噎废食，使百业倾颓、万家冻馁，则纵暂避疫锋，终陷社会崩坏之渊。

后世执政者，当审时度势，兼顾民生与秩序，方为经国之大道。

Operating Amidst an Epidemic

Author: Guo Quan

Editor: Feng Reng Proofreader: Feng Reng Translator: Shen Meihua

President Trump stated: “For the people inside and outside the left-wing media, they thought they would introduce a COVID 2.0 (Hantavirus) situation on the eve of the midterm elections, probably to reignite the mail-in voting scam. This time it won’t succeed. Give it up!”

President Trump also ordered the reinstatement of 8,000 “warriors of conscience” to military status, aiming to correct the unjust treatment caused by the vaccine mandates during the Biden administration, and to rehabilitate the “soldiers of conscience” who were forced out of the military for refusing to be vaccinated.

Hudson Institute:

“Good morning, Professor Guo! Hantavirus has arrived! Some specific countries are going to impose lockdowns and close cities again, but President Trump will let American society ‘operate amidst the epidemic.’ Before pursuing your PhD and post-doctoral studies, you were a Master of Applied Sociology (Law) in the Department of Sociology at Nanjing University. Your advisors Zhang Yan, Song Linfei, Zhou Xiaohong, and Tong Xing are all experts in social public policy. I would like to hear your sociological analysis of President Trump’s public policy of ‘operating amidst the epidemic.'”

RAND Corporation:

“Wonderful, one is a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University, and the other is a PhD in Sociology and Philosophy from Nanjing University. Is ‘operating amidst an epidemic’ similar to ‘living with cancer’? Looking forward to your dialogue!”

I said:

Lockdown and epidemic control actually originated from the quarantine system first created by the Republic of Venice in the 14th century. Although it played a major positive role at that time, today, seven centuries later, society is highly globalized. The social harm caused by economic recession, unemployment, and hunger is sometimes even greater than the epidemic itself, and it is also easier to quickly trigger a social collapse.

Regarding the epidemic lockdowns in specific countries, today we shall “not discuss state affairs” and only discuss the American society’s “operating amidst the epidemic.”

The so-called “operating amidst the epidemic” can be defined as an adaptive crisis management policy. Its core lies in balancing epidemic prevention and control with the continuous functioning of the economy and society.

Through phased regulation, dynamic resource allocation, and precise intervention, this policy maximizes the maintenance of basic social functions while ensuring public health and safety.

I. Policy Characteristics and Positive Significance

1. Flexible Control Framework

The United States adopted a “three-stage reopening model” (monitoring phase, recovery phase, stabilization phase), allowing each state to flexibly adjust control intensity based on local epidemic data.

For example, states with milder epidemics were given priority to resume work, while hard-hit areas strengthened the allocation of medical resources, reflecting the scientific nature of the layered response mechanism.

2. Application of Technological Innovation

The United States promoted “drive-through testing stations,” greatly improving screening efficiency, reaching a daily testing volume of millions, while reducing the risk of cross-infection.

In addition, it relied on the private medical system to quickly expand ICU beds, and called upon the National Guard to build mobile cabin hospitals to enhance the resilience of the medical system.

3. Economic Bottom-Line Protection

The United States injected $2.2 trillion through the CARES Act, including:

Direct cash subsidies to residents ($1,200 per adult, $500 per child)

$377 billion in Paycheck Protection Program loans for small and medium-sized enterprises

Expanding unemployment insurance to gig economy workers

These measures effectively cushioned the impact of the unemployment wave. In the second quarter of 2020, the disposable income of U.S. residents even grew counter-trend by 6.2%.

II. Theoretical Basis of the Policy

This model is summarized by the political science community as the practice of “Adaptive Governance”:

1. Institutional Flexibility

The federal and state governments decentralized and collaborated; for example, federal reserve supplies were linked with state-level emergency operation centers.

2. Dynamic Learning

Prevention and control strategies were continuously adjusted based on real-time epidemic data. After early testing errors, the United States quickly opened up testing authority to commercial institutions.

3. Social Participation

Through public-private partnership mechanisms, such as pharmaceutical companies accelerating vaccine research and development, and retail enterprises providing testing venues, market forces were activated.

III. Achievements and Challenges

“Operating amidst the epidemic” prevented a total collapse of the medical system in the short term. In the third quarter of 2020, U.S. GDP rebounded by 33.1% quarter-on-quarter.

However, this policy was also constrained by the inherent contradictions of the federal system. The efficiency of resource allocation varied greatly among states, leading to an uneven effect of “operating amidst the epidemic.”

The current Hantavirus is still on the eve of a large-scale epidemic. The U.S. government still needs to take precautions, continuously optimize testing and tracking technologies, and cross-state coordination mechanisms to improve the long-term adaptation capability of “operating amidst the epidemic.”

An assessment by Johns Hopkins University pointed out that the key to such policies lies in how to establish a dynamic response capability amidst uncertainty. Its experience provides an important reference for global public health event governance.

RAND said:

“I have been to the Center for Chinese and American Studies jointly established by your Nanjing University and Johns Hopkins University. I will go there again this year, and I will definitely visit Professor Guo then.”

I said:

“Great. ‘The idle guest of Jinling enjoys freedom and leisure, watching the Huai River water and the moon from afar with a smile; why should one be bound by worldly fame, drunk in the spring breeze, lying on the Hundred Flowers Bridge.’ In the Nanjing dialect, a person like me is called a ‘Wushi-lao’ (a person with nothing to do). Come anytime, and I will accompany you to stroll along the Qinhuai River anytime.”

Hudson said:

“Wonderful. Lastly, I would also like to ask Professor Guo to objectively analyze the background and impact of President Trump’s ‘operating amidst the epidemic’ policy from multiple dimensions such as politics, economy, and culture.”

I said:

First, looking from a political perspective, the Trump administration emphasized economic stability and individual freedom, believing that strict lockdowns would weaken government authority and public confidence.

Its policy logic was built upon the philosophy of “small government,” advocating for the reduction of administrative intervention and maintaining the independent operation of the market. This reflects the vigilance of American conservative political philosophy toward government power, as well as the emphasis on individual right to choose.

From an economic perspective, “operating amidst the epidemic” aimed to avoid mass unemployment and business closures, preventing the economy from falling into a deep recession. The U.S. economy is highly dependent on consumption and the service industry; long-term shutdowns could trigger a chain reaction.

The government attempted to maintain liquidity through fiscal stimulus and monetary policy, trying to sustain economic resilience during a public health crisis.

From a philosophical perspective, this policy embodied a combination of pragmatism and libertarianism. On one hand, it emphasized realistic effects, believing that moderate control was more in line with practical needs than a total lockdown; on the other hand, it emphasized individual responsibility and freedom, opposing excessive restrictions on personal freedom such as mandatory isolation.

From a medical and public health perspective, the scientific community has long held different judgments on the patterns of virus transmission. The Trump administration, based on certain medical viewpoints, believed that natural immunity and herd immunity were feasible, and therefore advocated protecting high-risk populations through tiered prevention and control, rather than a comprehensive lockdown.

Of course, this strategy also faced controversies regarding the strain on medical resources and long-term health risks.

Finally, from a sociological perspective, American society is highly diverse, and different groups have significantly different perceptions of and responses to risks. Policies need to balance the interests of different social strata to avoid further tearing the society apart.

Some citizens worried that long-term lockdowns would lead to worsening mental health, educational disruption, and social isolation, and therefore supported limited reopening.

My conclusion is:

The Trump administration’s policy of “operating amidst the epidemic” was a comprehensive decision based on specific political concepts, economic realities, and scientific cognitions.

Its essence was a special governance experiment conducted by the United States under an extreme crisis. Its core logic lay in: maximizing the protection of citizens’ rights to survival and development under the premise of controllable death risks, through decentralized decision-making, technological empowerment, and economic intervention.

Although this policy remains controversial, relevant data indicate that it guarded the baseline of public livelihood to a certain extent, and also provided another reference path for global public health governance that is different from the lockdown model.

Quan Shicong’s Composition: The Mirror of Past Events in the Water City

In ancient times, there was a great city in Europe called Venice, where boats gathered like clouds and merchants converged.

During the late Yuan Dynasty, the Black Death raged across the European continent, leaving ten houses out of ten empty.

The rulers of the Water City sighed and worried night and day. Consequently, they set up wooden barricades at the port and ordered ships arriving from afar to anchor at outer islands; only those who remained without illness for forty days were permitted to enter the city.

This “forty-day limit” (Quarantino) was truly the origin of the lockdown and isolation systems of later generations.

Once this law was implemented, the pestilence was slightly contained, merchants and travelers gradually found peace, and various nations rushed to emulate it. It was truly an excellent strategy to protect and nurture the people.

However, times have changed, and the present is nothing like the past.

Observing the nations of the world today, industries are globalized and supply chains are intertwined. Millions of people rely on the cooperation of various trades and the circulation of trade routes to survive. If one encounters a great epidemic yet still rigidly adheres to ancient methods, strictly locking city walls and severing interactions, there are three harms:

First: All industries wither, and the people have nothing to rely on

In today’s world, supply chains span tens of thousands of miles. Once a lockdown is prolonged, factories halt, commerce fractures, and ordinary people lose their jobs.

At such a time, the epidemic may not kill people first, but hunger and poverty may destroy society faster.

Second: Financial resources drain dry, and the foundation of the state shakes

Modern state finances are highly dependent on the economic cycle. Long-term blockades will inevitably lead to sharp decreases in tax revenues and high accumulation of debts.

Once financial capacity is exhausted, relief efforts cannot be sustained, public grievances will boil over, and the speed of social turmoil may be faster than the spread of the disease.

Third: People’s hearts scatter, and moral resolve is hard to maintain

In modern society, information flows rapidly. When people are trapped and confined for a long time, separated from relatives and friends, and hopeless about the future, anxiety and despair will spread.

This kind of spiritual trauma cannot be cured by medicine, and it constitutes a long-term hidden worry for the nation.

Quan Shicong says:

The system of Venice was truly the wisdom of emergency response; however, if one does not examine the changes of the era and mechanically applies it to today, it is feared it will become an act of carrying firewood to put out a fire.

Physicians treat illnesses, but master hands heal the state.

The way of epidemic prevention lies in balance: one must both prevent the spread and poisoning of the epidemic air, and even more so, protect public livelihood and safeguard the vital energy.

If one gives up eating for fear of choking, causing all industries to collapse and tens of thousands of households to freeze and starve, then even if the edge of the epidemic is temporarily avoided, the nation will ultimately sink into the abyss of social collapse.

Rulers of future generations should judge the hour and size up the situation, balancing both livelihood and order, for that is the great way of governing a country.