Editor: Zhou ZhigangExecutive Editor: Luo ZhifeiProofreader: Cheng XiaoxiaoTranslation: Lyu Feng
The thoughts you tried to lift—or could never lift again—still cling by threads unbroken,and the thousand yearsand the vast skythat once flashed in a single glanceare still trembling.
When the white steedgallops through the city,whispers flood the air—about the wind,about you,and nothing aboutthe night you drifted offshore.
Even if a celestial waterfallwere to pour down,mixing truth into clay,it would hold wateronly by turning toward betrayal,filling the deepand ancientdry well.
—“The silence of whistleblowers is the final alarm before the tower collapses.”
Author: Cao Jie Editor: Zhong Ran Executive Editor: Li Congling Proofreader: Cheng Xiaoxiao Translation: Lyu Feng
Abstract:Under an authoritarian system, truth is sealed, and whistleblowers are punished. From Li Wenliang to Fang Bin and countless ordinary people who dared to speak out, their voices revealed that the tragedy of the pandemic was not an accident of nature but a political inevitability. The piece calls for safeguarding conscience and the courage to speak truth.
A few days ago, I attended the homecoming event of the “China Virus East Coast Tour,” organized by sculptor Chen Weiming and the China Democracy Party. It brought back memories from the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak. Those experiences convinced me even more: in a dictatorship, the silence of the people is mistaken for “stability,” while the bravery of whistleblowers is treated as a “threat.”From the persecution of Li Wenliang to the muted resistance of ordinary citizens locked behind welded doors, the pandemic tragedy in China was not a natural disaster—it was a political inevitability.Today, we must remember those who still dared to shout “danger” before the tower collapsed—they were the last sentinels of conscience.
In a society where “party rule overrides everything,” truth is not used to save people, but to preserve power. When truth becomes taboo, human lives sink to the level of numbers and weeds.
Under the nationwide suppression of early warnings, it wasn’t only Li Wenliang—many ordinary people were dragged into the storm. I, Cao Jie, was one of them.During the first days of the outbreak, I analyzed the virus’s real transmissibility through overseas and civilian channels and issued warnings on social media, urging people around me to protect themselves.
But I received no gratitude.Instead, police detained and interrogated me on charges of “spreading rumors” and “disrupting public order.”My only “crime” was speaking when truth was being blocked.
At that moment, “blowing the whistle” in China became a punishable act.
Li Wenliang was reprimanded for “spreading rumors,” and I, lacking any “official identity,” was labeled as “creating panic.”Though our situations were different and our influence incomparable, the regime’s reaction sprang from the same logic:When truth is seen as a threat, those who speak it become “criminals.”
The pandemic was not an unforeseen catastrophe; it was a long-engineered institutional disaster—because under the Chinese Communist Party’s governance, politics outranks science, stability outweighs truth, and loyalty eclipses life.
That is why, during the crucial early period, doctors were silenced, experts were tamed, and the media was muzzled.The state’s instinctive response was not alertness, but cover-up; not saving people, but maintaining stability.
As a result, the virus spread through lies, cities were locked down by command, and millions of ordinary people lost the right to breathe—trapped between welded iron gates and the collapse of medical access.
The greatest evil of dictatorship is not how often it kills, but how it numbs people to death itself.From lockdowns to “zero-COVID,” every man-made calamity was packaged as a triumph of a “people’s war.”The elderly who died because they could not receive timely care, the young people who took their own lives under confinement, the mothers driven to despair in isolation—all were absorbed into the category of “controllable.”The CCP hides suffering behind statistics and crushes grief with slogans.
A regime that treats human life as expendable can never create true safety. It can only erect one collapsing tower after another.
In the film The Fool Who Lives in the Dangerous Building, an elderly man refuses to leave a dilapidated, collapsing block. He insists on defending truth and dignity, while those around him—dulled by long habits of silence—mock him for his “stubbornness.”But when the tower finally collapses, people realize he was not a fool—he was the last person who remembered what human dignity meant.
From Li Wenliang to Fang Bin, and to countless ordinary individuals like myself who instinctively tried to warn others—we may not share the same level of influence, but we all attempted to send out a faint alarm when the building began to shake.They knew it was dangerous but still spoke; they knew speech was forbidden but insisted on speaking the truth.This was the final whistle of rational society.
Yet the authoritarian regime fears not the virus, but the uncontrolled spread of truth.To such a system, people do not need to know—only to obey.Society does not need alarms—only propaganda.
Today’s China remains a “crumbling tower”—glossy on the surface, rotten in its foundations.The CCP can seal every mouth, but it cannot seal the memory of history.Every citizen forced into silence is a potential whistleblower; every suppressed cry will eventually echo again.
As an ordinary person, my experience is not unique. It is a mirror of an entire generation—anyone may pay a price simply for offering a well-intentioned warning.This trial belongs not to one individual, but to an entire people.
The true danger to a nation is not a pandemic, nor the economy, but when truth-tellers grow fewer—and more fearful.When whistleblowers are seen as enemies, the people become blindfolded prisoners.And when a regime reduces human life to numbers and builds walls of lies around itself, it will ultimately meet its end beneath the ruins of its own deception.
We remember whistleblowers and the repression they faced not to revisit tragedy, but to protect the clarity of the future.True commemoration is not silent flowers—it is the courage to continue speaking out.
When power erects towers from lies, truth becomes the only salvation.And when the people all become “fools,” the nation will finally awaken.
Abstract:It took the British more than a century to transform Hong Kong from a remote fishing village into a modern city respected across Asia and the world. Yet the Chinese Communist Party destroyed it all within just a few years.
The shell remains, but the soul is gone.Looking at that red taxi, I suddenly realized that a city can truly become like the walking dead—its body still standing, yet its soul extinguished.
The British spent over a century turning Hong Kong from a small, remote fishing village into a modern metropolis admired throughout Asia and even the world.Rule of law, freedom, integrity, efficiency—these were never empty slogans, but the fruits of civilization accumulated through generations of Hong Kong people under British governance.They formed the foundation that allowed Hong Kong to stand shoulder to shoulder with the international community.
And yet the Chinese Communist Party destroyed all of this in just a few short years.
Walking through the streets of Hong Kong today, even the neon lights have dimmed. The bustling, vibrant energy of the past has vanished completely. The entire city feels as if its blood has been drained, leaving behind a pool of stagnant water.
The cohort of professionals nurtured during the Hong Kong–Britain era—lawyers, doctors, journalists, financial leaders… the backbone that the British invested heavily in and spent decades cultivating—has either been imprisoned or has left with their families. Their vacated positions were swiftly filled by “loyalists” from mainland China, whose mission is not to build a city but to maintain stability, obey orders, and execute political tasks.
Even the soundscape of the streets has changed. In the past, walking through Hong Kong meant hearing Cantonese interwoven with English—a rhythm uniquely its own. Now it is drowned out by loudspeakers blaring Mandarin, as if the entire city is being reformatted. Even the air carries a strange, unfamiliar scent.
Civilization never fears time; it fears deliberate destruction.History has shown again and again that once a society falls under the shadow of communism, civilization almost inevitably regresses. Like a corrosive agent, it eats away at the most precious institutions, values, and spirit of a place—turning openness back into closedness, the rule of law back into rule by men, hope back into oppression and fear.
Today’s Hong Kong stands as the clearest—and saddest—testimony to this pattern.The streets are still there, the skyscrapers still stand, the red taxis still drive by. The exterior appears intact, yet the soul that once allowed Hong Kong to stand tall in the world has been hollowed out.
Civilization is not made of buildings, nor of GDP figures.It is made of human dignity, freedom, moral boundaries, and courage—of a society’s willingness to let every individual live in their own way.
The Hong Kong of the past possessed all of this. Today, only its fading echo remains.But a soul never truly dies.It lives scattered within every Hongkonger who still remembers, refuses to forget, and insists on living as a free person.
Author: Huang Juan Editor: Li Kun ExecutiveEditor: Zhong Ran Proofreader: Xiong Bian Translator: Liu Fang
Abstract:
The White Paper Movement documented the pain and courage of China’s three years under extreme lockdowns. From Wuhan’s Fangcang shelters and the Shanghai lockdown, to the Guizhou quarantine-bus crash and the Urumqi fire, it exposes systemic dysfunction and information suppression, calling for historical memory, accountability, and societal transparency.
The white paper cannot be burned, and truth cannot be erased.
Three years have passed. China’s streets are noisy again, the internet has returned to a mixture of entertainment and censorship, and the machinery of power continues to operate as massive and impersonal as ever. Yet the blank sheets held up in countless hands during the winter three years ago have not been wiped away by time.
A sheet of white paper contains no words, yet records everything: the cries under lockdown, the indifference behind deaths, the expansion of power in the dark, and the courage that erupted when people broke through fear for the first time. The White Paper Movement was not an ending — it was a beginning.
A beginning that forces silenced history to be written, and forces those responsible to understand: the people remember.
I. Extreme Lockdowns: A System Designed for Control, Not Protection
From the outbreak in early 2020 to the nationwide reopening at the end of 2022, China implemented the world’s strictest and longest lockdown regime. The absurdity and suffering of these years were not natural disasters, but the result of a political system deliberately designed to sacrifice individual rights for total control. Below are the events that must not be forgotten.
Timeline of Major Events (2020–2022): Evidence That Must Be Preserved:
2020 — The First Year of Lockdowns and Disorder
Nationwide lockdowns and violent “one-size-fits-all” enforcement (Jan–Jun 2020)Communities were welded shut; residents ran out of food and medicine; critically ill patients and pregnant women died because they could not access care — hundreds of documented cases circulated online before being deleted. From the beginning, the authorities treated citizens not as people to be protected, but as potential threats to be contained.
Inhumane conditions in Wuhan’s Fangcang sheltersPatients were denied treatment, medication, privacy, and dignity. Footage showed chaos, overflowing waste, and unattended elderly people. Any criticism was dismissed as “rumors”.
2021 — Institutional Stagnation Deepens; Lives Continue to Be Sacrificed
Xi’an pregnant woman denied treatment and miscarrying (Dec 30, 2021)A woman was refused entry to a hospital because her PCR test had expired by four hours. She bled heavily and miscarried outside the building. Public anger surged briefly, but nothing changed. Officials rotated; the system remained.
2022 — The Year That Broke China’s Patience
Shanghai’s catastrophic lockdown (Mar–Jun 2022)Tens of millions were sealed in for over 70 days. Elderly people died after being denied medical care; infants were separated from parents; residents begged for food; people were taken away at night for forced quarantine regardless of age or health status; communities were barricaded with metal sheets; every movement was monitored. Shanghai was once called “China’s most modern city.” Under lockdown, modernity vanished — only obedience remained.
Henan rural-bank depositors’ health codes turned “red” (Jun 2022)This became the clearest case of power abuse: citizens trying to withdraw legitimate deposits were assigned red health codes, making travel impossible. The health-code system was fully weaponized into a tool of political control — a digital shackle.
Guizhou quarantine-transfer bus crash (Sep 18, 2022)To meet “zero-COVID targets”, officials forced residents into buses at dawn for long-distance transfers. One bus overturned, killing 27 and injuring 20. Many victims did not even know why they had been taken. The official response: “Being on the road is also part of epidemic control.” A single sentence revealed the truth: they were not controlling the virus — they were controlling people.
Urumqi apartment fire (Nov 24, 2022) — the spark that ignited the movementLockdown barriers obstructed escape; rescue was delayed; multiple people died. Officials blamed residents: “People lacked self-rescue ability”. This shattered public tolerance. When lockdowns could kill more effectively than the virus itself, everyone realized the true danger came from the system, not the disease.
II. The White Paper Movement: A Spontaneous Awakening Across Fear and Censorship
The movement was not organized by any party, group, or foreign force. It erupted naturally from ordinary people — especially the young — after three years of suffocation. From Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, Changsha… to New York, London, Melbourne, Tokyo… At that moment, the world saw that Chinese people were never lacking courage — only opportunities to show it. People chanted publicly, for the first time in three years: “We want freedom, not lockdowns”, “We want dignity, not lies”, “We want a normal life, not a new Cultural Revolution”, “We want ballots, not dictatorship”. (heard in some cities) It was the most open and genuine expression of public will in decades.
III. The Costs the CCP Must Face: History Does Not Forgive or Forget
The cost is not revenge, but accountability — a historical ledger that must be answered.
Accountability for the dead.Victims of fires, vehicle crashes, denied medical care, Fangcang neglect — all deserve truth, investigation, and responsibility.
Accountability for abuse of public power.Health codes politicized, lockdowns militarized, transfers mechanized, “one-size-fits-all” enforcement normalized — this was not “overzealous implementation,” but systemic failure.
Accountability for information suppression.Help-seeking posts were deleted, death counts hidden, citizen videos censored, state media repeating “overall under control.” Censorship saved no lives — it only erased knowledge.
Accountability for violating basic human rights.Freedom of movement, medical access, privacy, oversight — all were driven to historic lows.A government that strips rights “for public health” will continue stripping them after the emergency ends.
Accountability for systemic dysfunction.Decision-making was opaque; no independent press existed; law was subordinate to political orders; science subordinated to ideology. Without reform, deeper crises await.
IV. To Remember the Movement Is Not to Create Enemies, but to Prevent Repetition
A society that cannot discuss mistakes will repeat them.A government that never accepts responsibility will grow increasingly indifferent to human life.
The white paper symbolizes not provocation, but transparency, accountability, rule of law, and human dignity — the true foundations of a civilized state.
V. The White Paper Endures, and History Remembers
Authorities can censor social media, delete posts, block videos, arrest protesters —but they cannot delete history itself. Welded doors, blocked fire exits, residents dragged away at night, pregnant women denied care, families unable to escape fires, bank depositors assigned red codes, children taken into isolation, erased help-seeking posts — all these happened, and none will disappear. Three years later, we still say:
The white paper remains. The truth persists. The people remember. History will demand answers. Responsibility will be pursued.
Under the CCP’s high-pressure rule, Chinese people cannot freely speak from the heart, yet many still firmly support Taiwan’s freedom and democracy. Despite tight information control and enormous risks, people continue to express resistance and solidarity in various ways, placing their hopes in Taiwan—the beacon of liberty in the Chinese-speaking world.
Author: Lu Huiwen Editor: Li Congling Executive Editor: Hu Lili Proofreading: Cheng Xiaoxiao Translator: Liu Fang
In 2017, I was chatting with a Taiwanese friend on WeChat. Knowing that WeChat is controlled by the CCP and that using sensitive words could get my account blocked, the conversation became one-sided: he kept talking, while I didn’t dare to reply. He constantly said “Taiwan this, China that,” but I was afraid of these two opposing terms. I resisted using the words “Taiwan” and “Mainland”—expressions the CCP likes—which made both me and my Taiwanese friend uncomfortable. So I spent a long time thinking about how to refer to places and finally told him: just say “Taiwan,” “Beijing,” or “Shanghai.” He got angry and said, “What kind of place do you live in? You can’t even talk? If you can’t say it, then forget it.”
He probably believed that everyone living under CCP rule hated Taiwan or insisted on the CCP’s “One China” principle. So sometimes he spoke to me harshly, as if confronting an enemy—so agitated that he forgot we were friends. In fact, Brother Yeh, I’ve always wanted to tell you: Although I was born on land ruled by the CCP, although my mouth is covered and I cannot openly express myself in China, I have always wanted to say—I firmly believe Taiwan is an independent country!
Please, Brother Yeh, and all Taiwanese people who love Taiwan, do not lose heart: it is not only me. There are people around me with conscience, independent thinking, and their own views. Even under CCP high-pressure rule, even when supporting Taiwan’s status as an independent country is treated as one of the most severe political crimes (with a maximum penalty of death), we have always opposed the CCP’s so-called “One China” claim. We will always support Taiwan as an independent country, feel proud of your path of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law, and stand with all people around the world who support Taiwan.
To better support and stand with Taiwan—an independent country—and to support Taiwan’s freedom and democracy, the China Democracy Party has established the “Department of Support for Taiwan Affairs.” We will hold events regularly to support Taiwan and take concrete action to stand side by side with all who cherish freedom and democracy, guarding Taiwan—the shining light of liberty.
The peoples of Taiwan and China once shared the same cultural roots. After the CCP seized power, the land of China entered unprecedented misery. Fortunately, the people of Taiwan preserved the light of civilization on their own soil, safeguarding the future of the Chinese nation through freedom, democracy, and the rule of law.
The CCP has erased the Nationalists’ contributions during the Anti-Japanese War from history books and from collective memory, maligning the Kuomintang, Chiang Kai-shek, and Taiwan. Through films, songs, and propaganda, it has distorted history and reversed right and wrong. As the CCP controls all major media—turning them into loudspeakers—it becomes difficult for people to access the truth. This prison-like information control has delayed China’s approach to civilization. But I still believe many Chinese people are kind, can distinguish good from evil, and yearn for freedom and democracy. They are deceived, intimidated, and forced to uphold the “One China” principle. Under a political environment where “Taiwan independence” can be punished by death, ordinary people cannot make free choices.
Fortunately, I have seen more and more Chinese mainlanders supporting Taiwan in the comment sections of videos or articles related to Taiwan. Even under videos insisting that “Taiwan belongs to China,” someone will comment “Why?”—and that single word is resistance. Even comments such as “Why come back? Come back to wait for organ harvesting? Come back to eat gutter oil?” beneath videos smearing Taiwan express deep opposition to the CCP and support for Taiwan. There are many such examples: under a video showing a child raising the PRC flag on a mountain in Taiwan, someone commented, “Idiot,” and many others who didn’t dare to speak still quietly clicked “like.” Under the CCP’s oppressive rule, China is entering an online environment similar to a new Cultural Revolution, where people’s every word and action is tightly monitored. Yet more and more signs show that although people do not dare to speak, their hearts are not aligned with the CCP.
This difference is hope. Although China may not be able to achieve democracy and freedom immediately, more and more suffering Chinese people are sending their blessings to Taiwan: You are the light of freedom and democracy; you are the hope of Chinese civilization; you prove that Chinese people can also have freedom and democracy. Please cherish this hard-won light—and please live on for those across the sea who lost their lives in the search for that same light of freedom and democracy.
The China Democracy Party Advocates: Peace, Democracy, and Unification
Peace:Chinese people should not fight Chinese people — whether they are citizens of the People’s Republic of China on the mainland or of the Republic of China in Taiwan.
Democracy:Democracy is the essential political precondition for unification. Only a democratic unification represents the genuine will of people on both sides of the Strait and reflects the ideals of a civilized union. A unification achieved through authoritarian means would demand bloodshed and sacrifice from people on both sides — it would be a barbaric unification imposed by rulers, not a union chosen by the people.
Unification:Unification is our long-term goal. A peaceful and democratic unification would expand freedom, security, and opportunities for development for people across the Taiwan Strait.
However, before the conditions for peaceful and democratic unification fully mature, maintaining the status quo best serves the interests of people on both sides. We must oppose both the abolition of the Republic of China in the name of “Taiwan independence,” and the military elimination of the Republic of China through “forceful unification.” The most critical element of maintaining the status quo is that the governments and peoples on both sides of the Strait acknowledge the political reality of each other’s state structures and governing systems. Mutual suppression must end; understanding and trust must be strengthened. In this regard, the more powerful side — mainland China — must especially take the lead in demonstrating sincerity and goodwill.
The China Democracy Party has made multiple statements on Peace, Democracy, and Unification throughout history. What I offer here is a reaffirmation of that long-standing position.
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