Jia Jia, October 15, 2025
It was a night of jubilation,
but I felt melancholic.
It was a vague hunch that
our optimism was groundless —
after all, on every issue,
our hopes had always been dashed
on a cold and unyielding wall.
2. Days that Shone Like Gold
It was a night of jubilation, but I felt a sense of melancholy. It was a vague hunch that our optimism was groundless — after all, on every issue, our hopes had always been dashed on a cold and unyielding wall.
When I graduated from university in 2002, many classmates chose to take the civil service exam and enter the state bureaucratic establishment. I wasn’t an exception, although at that time, it was likely to be looked down upon by classmates. The internet economy was just emerging, with fantastic stories of web entrepreneurship making the rounds. Myths were established: Ding Lei (丁磊), the founder of NetEase; Zhang Chaoyang (张朝阳), the founder of Sohu; and Pony Ma (马化腾), the founder of Tencent, and so on. Many people opted out of careers in the state bureaucratic system and chose to work at big enterprises instead.
I passed the civil service exam for the National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA), as my father, who was in the broadcasting system, encouraged me to join this agency. I had already determined to pursue a career in journalism, so I ultimately gave up the civil service path. On July 13, 2002, I flew from Nanjing to Beijing, staying in a small apartment in Banbuqiao in the southern part of the city. To obtain “housing registration” (hukou, i.e. official residency) for Beijing, I worked for a daily newspaper affiliated with the Communist Party.
Soon after, significant events unfolded. That summer, China’s Great Firewall (GFW) was completed and began trial operations, blocking access to many news websites from Hong Kong, Taiwan, the U.S., and Europe. Twenty years later, I believe the GFW’s effects are now abundantly evident. The generation born after 2000 never accessed websites outside of China. Compared to my generation, their channels for obtaining information are limited and pathetic. This is a major reason for the widespread phenomenon of “little pinks” (小粉红, i.e. pro-government netizens) in the Chinese online community.
Freedom is something that once you have had it, you cannot stand to lose it. From that time on, I used all sorts of software in order to access websites outside of China without obstruction, something later known as “scaling the wall.” Back then, none of us considered it a big deal. Nowadays, there are numerous reports of people being detained for using VPNs to access Twitter or YouTube.
That autumn, the CCP held its 16th National Congress in Beijing, under a veil of strict security. The transition of power from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao was a major event closely followed by both Chinese and foreign observers. This was the first peaceful transfer of power since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Deng Xiaoping had established the Politburo Standing Committee’s collective leadership rules in 1992, designating Hu Jintao as his successor and instituting a practice where each generation of leaders could only serve two terms, with a total tenure of ten years. This created an illusion of “institutionalization,” priming people to have certain psychological expectations of regularity in the system
The transition of power from Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao did much to alleviate the political anxiety surrounding China’s future. Five months later, a caretaker government would oversee the transition of governmental authority. Meanwhile, a mysterious illness was spreading in Guangzhou, but early news reports were suppressed until after the Lunar New Year, when informal accounts began to circulate widely. This illness was Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
Despite the government’s instinct to suppress the news, some media outlets broke through the restrictions and reported on SARS. A military doctor named Jiang Yanyong (蒋彦永) disclosed the true situation of SARS in China to the outside world, mainly to foreign media, in April. As a result, the newly appointed mayor of Beijing, Meng Xuenong (孟学农), was sacked along with then-health minister Zhang Wenkang (张文康). A similar situation occurred in January 2020 when Dr. Li Wenliang (李文亮) privately mentioned the spread of the novel coronavirus among his medical colleagues. He was severely reprimanded by the Wuhan municipal government. It wasn’t until later when he was hailed as a “whistleblower” and “hero.”
In late April 2003, the Chinese government was forced to disclose the true number of SARS cases and allowed experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) to investigate in Beijing. Although some of these measures had been merely taken out of necessity, this apparent openness led to the perception that the new leadership of Hu and his premier Wen Jiabao would bring significant changes to China. People had high hopes for Hu and Wen, who had just been selected as president and premier that March.
Journalists were optimistic at the time, believing that their pens could change China. In March 2003, a corporate employee named Sun Zhigang (孙志刚) died under unclear circumstances in a detention center. Three legal scholars petitioned the government to abolish the custody and repatriation system, under which Sun had been detained. On June 20, the “Law on Measures for Custody and Repatriation” (《收容遣送办法》) was abolished.
Following the March National People’s Congress, a new term began circulating in the media: the “Hu-Wen New Deal” (胡温新政). However, on the same day when Wen Jiabao was appointed Premier of the State Council on March 17, I was out of work. In early March, I had accepted a job as the Beijing correspondent of a newly emerging newspaper, 21st Century Global Report (《21世纪环球报道》), part of the Southern Media Group in Guangzhou known within the industry as a bastion of reform-minded and liberal media. On my first day of work, I was informed that the newspaper had been shut down.
The reason for the shutdown was simple: a journalist of the paper had interviewed Li Rui (李锐), a former secretary to Mao Zedong and the former Executive Vice Minister of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, asking him to briefly comment on the Deng Xiaoping era. Li Rui said, “Deng Xiaoping only reformed the economy, not the political system, which was wrong.” This statement was deleted by the editor-in-chief during the final review, but the printed version (whether intentionally or otherwise) used the earlier version containing Li’s statement. The issue published on March 17 was recalled, and the newspaper was not spared.
The irony of losing my job on the first day of the “Hu-Wen New Deal” planted in me some skepticism about the new administration. Shutting down a newspaper seemed like an unnecessarily petty move by the ideological control apparatus, especially since the statement was plain truth and had been made by a senior Party official. Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波) later said dryly about the ill-fated newspaper: “The paper was much too keen on domestic and international politics” to be tolerated.
Yet, that same year, media control in China seemed to begin to loosen somewhat. New media outlets were popping up. In the fall, the Southern Media Group launched The Beijing News (《新京报》) in Beijing, and Xinhua News Agency established its Oriental Outlook Weekly (《瞭望东方周刊》) in Shanghai, both of which were considered to hold liberal tendencies. The following year, People of Our Time Weekly (《时代人物周刊》) was founded in Beijing, and Southern People Weekly (《南方人物周刊》) in Guangzhou.
Reporters frequently switched between these new media outlets in search of higher pay. It seemed that a golden age of media had arrived for everyone. Chen Juhong (陈菊红), who later became the Vice President of Tencent, was the front-page editor of Southern Weekend at the time. Recalling her time at the Southern Newspaper Group, she was often quoted as saying, “Those were days that shone like gold.”
At the end of 2003, the magazine China News Weekly, under the China News Service, published a series of cover stories titled “2003, the New Civil Rights Movement” (《2003，新民权运动》), accompanied by an editorial entitled “2003, the Year of Civil Rights” (《2003年，公民权利年》). The author of this article was Wang Yi (王怡), a young teacher of law at Chengdu University. The article concluded with the following words:
“After a long 27 years, the domain between the state and society is now filled with citizens. There are optimistic prospects for this domain, as well as the domain between legislation and government, to be similarly filled with persevering individuals from the citizenry, as well as various coalitions of citizens.”
Just one short month later, on January 27, 2004, Hu Jintao delivered a speech in the National Assembly Hall of the Palace of Bourbon in Paris, France. He stated, “China is actively promoting systemic political reforms, perfecting the specific mechanism of socialist democracy, and ensuring that the people fully exercise their rights to democratic elections, decision-making, management, and supervision.”
Hu Jintao also said, “The Chinese government is actively studying major issues related to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Once conditions are ripe, a proposal to ratify the covenant will be submitted to the National People’s Congress of China.” This news sparked considerable discussion in the media. The Chinese authorities had not mentioned the phrase “systemic political reforms” for years after the events of 1989 democracy protests and massacre.
In September 2004, the newly established Southern People Weekly launched a series of reports in its 7th issue titled “50 Public Intellectuals Who Are Influencing China”; Wang Yi the columnist was selected. The list stands as a showcase of intellectuals on the liberal political spectrum of the time, including figures like Mao Yushi (茅于轼), Xu Youyu (徐友渔), and He Weifang (贺卫方). It even featured Taiwan’s Yin Haiguang (殷海光).
The optimistic sentiment was growing year after year. At that time, in that milieu, who would have imagined that the situation would worsen in the years to come? Gao Yaojie (高耀洁), one of the 50 on the list and a doctor who had exposed the scandal of HIV contamination among villagers in Henan province through donating blood, went into exile in the United States in August 2009, living alone in a small apartment in New York City for many years until he passed away in December 2023. Wang Yi, meanwhile, was sentenced to nine years in prison for “subversion of state power” in December 2019.
Under this optimistic mood, there arose an expectation for political reform. Firstly, journalists became active reporting on various rights defense events, or known as the weiquan movement. At that time, such reporting was relatively feasible in spite of censorship. Following the coverage, the relevant government departments or companies would typically take corrective action out of concern for public opinion. Consequently, journalists grew to believe the value and effectiveness of their work.
The aforementioned Sun Zhigang incident serves as a good example. After being reported in the Southern Metropolis Daily and following the petition drive by the three doctoral candidates, the “Law on Measures for Custody and Repatriation” was rapidly abolished. This came as a great morale boost for journalists at the time. However, in March of the following year, 2004, the chief editor of Southern Metropolis Daily, Cheng Yizhong (程益中), was investigated and charged on allegations of economic misconduct. The public rightfully perceived this as retaliation against the paper.
Journalists, mainly those associated with the Southern Media Group in Guangzhou, considered expanding freedom of the press in China as their mission, myself included. Because without freedom of speech, there can be no true insight, and without discussing the future and destiny of China, we won’t know the ultimate answer to the question of “Where is China heading?” This was the answer I arrived at in 2008 when reflecting on the question “why do I want to be a journalist?”
Working around the risk of censorship, journalists from different provinces swapped information with one another to get colleagues elsewhere to report on something that was happening locally, and vice versa. For example, if media outlets in Guangdong province were forbidden to report on certain events, journalists from Shanghai would be invited to report. This led to a popular phenomenon in the media ecosystem during those years: “cross-region supervision,” where media in one province reported negative news occurring in a different province. In 2004, the Central Propaganda Department ordered the prohibition of cross-region supervision. After that, negative news from other regions could only be addressed through “cross-region commentary.”
Since the news magazine I worked for at the time was affiliated with the official Xinhua News Agency, I could cover news nationwide. On February 14, 2005, a mining accident occurred in Fuxin, Liaoning province, resulting in 214 deaths. The next day, I braved heavy snow to reach the scene, 600 kilometers away. During an interview, the widow of one victim asked me: “Why does someone with a household registration [in Fuxin] receive 210,000 yuan in compensation while those without it only receive 70,000 yuan? Aren’t they all human lives?”
I wrote an article exposing the “different values for equal lives” in compensation for industrial accidents, but to my surprise, the supervisory authorities killed the article. Not only me, but reporters from all over the country who rushed to Liaoning were unable to publish their reports. We were told we could only use Xinhua News Agency’s wire stories. I worked tirelessly in the freezing cold for three days, even sneaking out at midnight to view the bodies, yet I didn’t even receive my pay. That was the first time I doubted the idea that “the media will drive change.”
Encouraged columnists and commentators sang phrases like “onlookers change China,” becoming enamored of concepts like “civil society,” “positive interaction between government and the people,” “middle class,” “emerging social stratum,” etc. They saw the potential of free speech as the gateway to transforming China. Many newspapers at the time set up special commentary sections, with Southern Metropolis Daily even establishing a “Commentary Weekly.”
The consensus at the time was that there must be greater freedom and breadth of expression in the media regarding news events. There were many such cases, too numerous to detail here. As a columnist for Southern Metropolis Daily, I also began to write current affairs columns at this time.
Lawyers and legal scholars, on the other hand, were charting their own path. A leading public intellectual, Professor He Weifang (贺卫方) of Peking University’s Constitutional Law Research Center often gave media interviews or wrote articles advocating that the CCP should operate within the bounds of the constitution. He argued for the judicialization of the constitution, such as guaranteeing rights like equal access to education, freedom of speech, and the right to assemble, as specified in the constitution. The crux of his argument was to demand specific implementation of the rights constitutionally granted to Chinese citizens.
Unsurprisingly, journalists and lawyers joined force, and together they seemed to have created a powerful thrust for change. One of the leading lawyers at the time was Pu Zhiqiang (浦志强), a graduate student at China University of Political Science and Law, experienced the full course of the 1989 student democracy movement. He gained fame for representing the two authors of a seminal book “Will the Boat Sink the Water? The Life of China’s Peasants” in 2004-2005, against whom a defamation lawsuit was brought by a county CCP official in Anhui province. By 2014, he was imprisoned for taking part in a private gathering commemorating the Tiananmen massacre.
Some programmers at internet companies put stock in the idea of “technology changing China.” A well-known netizen who graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University once built an internet data model. Based on the data on internet censorship in China that he sampled and his own algorithm, he confidently stated that at some point in October 2017, the Chinese authorities would lose their ability to control online information, and freedom of speech in China would be realized. Many programmers shared the belief that the rise of the internet would greatly advance freedom of speech in China.
However, we’ve learned since then that the rise of the Chinese internet, even though it initially expanded the scope of expression and made it easier for individuals to speak out, overall greatly strengthened the propaganda power of the Communist Party and its ideological penetration. Digital traffic is controlled by the Party, so is influence. The growth of technology has only made the means of control more efficient and convenient.
Around 2005, a large number of underground house churches cropped up in Beijing and Shanghai, even conducting semi-public Bible study or prayer activities. According to investigations conducted by Hong Kong writer Chan Koon-chung (陳冠中) in Henan province, he estimated that by 2010, there were as many as 150 million Christian and Catholic worshippers in officially approved churches and house churches. Some well-known intellectuals at the time, such as Fan Yafeng (范亚锋) and Li Baiguang (李柏光), were Christians. The latter was received by U.S. President George W. Bush in 2006.
In April 2005, Lien Chan (連戰), chairman of the Kuomintang, visited mainland China, initiating a honeymoon period between mainland China and Taiwan that would last for several years. This was the first meeting between leaders of the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party since 1945. Lien Chan received a spontaneous welcome from 300,000 people in Nanjing. His speech at Peking University was allowed to be broadcast live, a rare occurrence in China.
Subsequently, the CCP also partially opened discussions on the Taiwan issue and the study of the Republic of China’s history. Hu Jintao specifically acknowledged the contributions of the Nationalist government during the Sino-Japanese War at some occasions. This also became one of the reasons why some reformists held out hope for the Hu-Wen administration. Starting in 2005, I began to contribute commentaries on the Taiwan issue to Southern Metropolis Daily and Southern Weekend. In the following years, my personal interest primarily focused on researching Hong Kong and Taiwan issues.
On March 16, 2008, I traveled from Beijing to Taipei, via Hong Kong, to cover that year’s presidential election in Taiwan. However, I was frustrated because shortly after my departure from Beijing, protests erupted in Lhasa, Tibet, on March 14th. I was struck by regret: why did I decide to go to Taiwan? Soon after, the Wenchuan earthquake struck, and many reporters broke through the news blockade and rushed to Sichuan.
At that time, netizens around the country frequently held offline gatherings, called “fanzui” — literally “eat and get drunk” — a pun on the Chinese word for “commit crime.” Many such phrases and slang words were invented and became code words for expressions of political opposition. One such phrase was “cao-ni-ma,” or grass-mud horse, a pun on the words for “f*** your mother. Another was “he xie,” or river crab, pronounced similarly to “harmony” in Mandarin, the catch phrase of the Hu-Wen administration. On January 13, 2010, unable to tolerate China’s stifling content censorship, Google withdrew its search engine from China. A group of netizens from Beijing gathered to lay flowers outside Google China’s headquarters. I was also present that evening, witnessing the birth of the term “illegal flower offering.”
In August 2008, as I watched the fireworks during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games dancing in the sky from the balcony of my home in Beijing, I pondered what possibilities lay in China’s future. I was skeptical that the optimism at the time could last long. It was a night of jubilation, but I felt a sense of melancholy. It was a vague hunch that our optimism was groundless — after all, on every issue, our hopes had always been dashed on a cold and unyielding wall.
After the Olympics, rumors about Wen Jiabao’s impending political reforms were rampant, but at the same time, the term “universal values”(普世价值) was suppressed and rooted out throughout the media. The “Civil Society Review” published in 2008, which took inspiration from the Hungarian “Civil Review” magazine during that country’s political transition, was banned after just one issue. Three years later, the words “civil society” themselves were prohibited.
The Sanlu milk powder scandal that followed the Olympics shattered the glory brought by the Games within the space of just a few days. But what truly disillusioned me was the Charter 08 incident that occurred at the end of 2008. The details require no reintroduction here, as it was a globally known event. At the time, I thought the demands in that document were moderate enough, yet even that was intolerable in the eyes of the authorities — a strong indication that political reform was decidedly not on the horizon.
Of course, the logic guiding the thinking and actions of Chinese civil society is fundamentally different from that of the regime. The efforts of public intellectuals aiming for gradualist reforms may seem effective on the surface, but have not received the desired response from the authorities, nor have they made any progress in the legislative field. On the contrary, the authorities have continuously deployed legislative power to suppress the activities of lawyers, journalists, and religious believers. In light of this, the reformist position comes across as a form of unrequited love, self-inflicted and self-pitying.
A convincing example is in July 2010 when Adam Michnik, the editor-in-chief of Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza, gave a public lecture in a bookstore in Beijing at the invitation of Chinese scholar Cui Weiping, discussing issues in the political transformations of Poland and China. Michnik said, “China has achieved great economic success, which will naturally result in moving toward democracy. So, any actions that reverse or violate this process are a violation of the natural trend.”
Michnik’s statement validated the Chinese liberal intellectuals’ long-standing expectations of China’s path to the future. There is an ancient Chinese saying, “When the granary is full, the rites will be followed,” meaning that when people are free of material want, they would naturally seek to improve their mannerisms and character. After the economic boom brought about by reform and opening up, many people believed that China would achieve a peaceful democratic transition as a matter of course. That evening at the banquet, I told Michnik of my concerns, but I have forgotten how he responded.
Continued:
The Collapse of Yesterday’s World – A Chinese Millennial Journalist’s Chronicle of the ‘Reform and Opening Up’ That Never Was, Part Three, Jia Jia, October 15, 2025
[…] Continued from Part One, and Part Two […]
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