Andréa Worden, January 31, 2026
Xu Zhiyong (许志永), 美好中国 (published in Chinese by Bouden House, NY, 2025).[1] English translations of the 24 essays comprising A Beautiful China are available on the website of China Change.
Anthony J. Spires, Everyday Democracy: Civil Society, Youth, and the Struggle Against Authoritarian Culture in China (Columbia University Press, 2024).
In Yaxue Cao’s introduction to Xu Zhiyong and A Beautiful China penned in November 2024, she describes Xu as “laying out his vision for a constitutional democratic China,” documenting his two-decade journey “as a seminal figure in the Chinese people’s struggle for a free and just political system.” Indeed, Xu, a legal scholar, was a leading figure of the rights defense movement in China that emerged in the early 2000s, and later the New Citizens Movement. His integrity, clarity of vision, and fearlessness landed him in prison several times. In late 2019, while Xu was on the run from Chinese authorities following a private group gathering in Xiamen in December, he released an open letter calling on Xi Jinping to resign. Security forces finally caught up with Xu in Guangzhou, where he was detained on February 15, 2020.
December 26, 2025, marked the sixth anniversary of the crackdown on participants of the Xiamen gathering, which included Chinese human rights lawyers and defenders who had come together to discuss the state of civil society and human rights in China.
Xu Zhiyong is currently serving a 14-year prison sentence for subversion –– for exploring the question of what it means to be a citizen (gongmin) in today’s China, and for outlining a roadmap to a future “beautiful China” based on “freedom, justice, love,” and other core values. Chinese authorities also singled out Xu’s good friend, the human rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi, for particularly harsh treatment. Ding was given a 12-year prison sentence for subversion. Both Xu and Ding were earlier involved in the launch of the Citizens Movement, an effort to empower citizens to advocate for a more free, just, and equal society ––for which they were sentenced in 2014 to four years and three and a half years in prison, respectively.
During the time between Xu’s two prison terms, he worked on a collection of 24 essays, which became A Beautiful China: My Pursuit of Freedom and Democracy (《美好中国》). The release of Xu’s book coincides closely in time with a book I imagine Xu would appreciate: Everyday Democracy: Civil Society, Youth, and the Struggle Against Authoritarian Culture in China, by Professor Anthony J. Spires, an American sociologist with deep experience conducting research and living in China over many years.
Despite the grim likelihood of an increasingly authoritarian regime leading China into an even more repressive future, Xu and Spires’ books suggest that a future China based on principles of equality, respect, and dignity is possible. How might China get there? What actions can Chinese citizens take now, with minimal risk, to challenge authoritarian culture and norms? Professor Spires indirectly suggests that his fellow Americans consider a related question: what steps should we be taking to protect our democratic values and norms against the onslaught of forces seeking to undermine them from within and outside our borders?
After Xu was released from prison in 2017, and before he was arrested again in early 2020, Xu recorded a 6-minute video for China Change, which includes his thoughts on what it means to be a citizen in China, and why this concept has such “tremendous power.” Xu’s words serve as a poignant introduction to A Beautiful China, and the video itself is essential viewing to appreciate Xu’s gentle vibe; it shows the strength and determination behind the mild-mannered scholar’s charge to each of his fellow Chinese to stand up and be a dignified citizen, and to “take their identities as citizens, their rights and responsibilities seriously… and openly label themselves as citizens.” By doing so, Xu states:
“we are a team. The identity of the citizen is like an armor that is everywhere; we need only to pick it up and wear it–– it’s an invincible identity. Doing this gives us tremendous power, if we take it seriously then we can unite. It represents all our ideals; it is our identity. My identity is citizen. My ideal, the ideal of my life is to be a true citizen. When everyone of us Chinese becomes a true citizen, our country will definitely have change.”
Xu’s essays in A Beautiful China cover a range of topics, including his personal journey to becoming a leader of the Citizens Movement, but at their core, they all illuminate the changes that need to occur in China, politically and culturally, in order to realize “a beautiful China.”
In the essay titled “Our Strength–– A Message to Citizens” (No. 16), Xu sets forth the principles and loose platform of those who have stood up:
- Having faith in freedom; we pursue the universal rights of human civilization. They are written in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as in China’s current constitution.
- We believe in justice; everyone is equal.
- We believe in love; “once we understand love—the boundless energy that comes from heaven – it becomes infinite.”
- We are citizens. There is only one path to a bright future: the growth and strengthening of the civic community to lead the direction of change. War, division, turmoil, and the return of autocracy are not an option. We will surely win this battle, and our strength will grow through faith, service, responsibility, and letting go of selfishness.
- Service. Only by helping many, many people can we root ourselves in society, gain broad support, and have the strength to drive social progress.
Xu writes, “To be a citizen in the true sense is an act of resistance; the growth of independent strength erodes autocracy. While bold actions have their value, not everyone needs to be at the frontlines. More people, more often, should focus on doing small things, growing strength through action.” Xu urges Chinese citizens to “volunteer, start now.”
“Doing small things” is front and center among the civil society actors who Professor Spires interviewed and observed during his field research in China for what would become his book, Everyday Democracy: Civil Society, Youth, and the Struggle Against Authoritarian Culture in China. Spires explains that “everyday democracy” refers to the “small practices” of daily life and collaborative work, such as showing respect to others, demonstrating humility, and emphasizing equality and civic consciousness in their work. They conduct “equality training,” and all participants are treated as equals regardless of age, experience, or background. Any form of hierarchy is categorically rejected. Everyone has a right to speak, and all voices are important.
Volunteers in the two groups that Spires spent much of his time observing mentioned “active listening (lingting) as a key communication skill they had learned.” (See, e.g., Ch. 5, “Equality as Culture and Practice,” Ch. 7, “Nurturing Democratic Skills and Values.”) One long-term volunteer “connected the practice of active listening to respect for the dignity of others and a recognition of the importance of mutual respect in discussion and debate” (p. 165). It’s unclear if the notion of “citizen,” as spelled out in A Beautiful China, entered their discussions, but certainly its core principles did. Both Xu and Spires note the importance of taking Chinese official rhetoric seriously. Xu argues, for example, that autocrats cannot remove the term gongmin from the constitution––they have to pay it lip service; Spires makes a similar point about “core socialist values” such as democracy, freedom, rule of law, and equality. Those terms are not going anywhere and should be taken as true. Xu proclaimed that they (i.e., true citizens) are “China’s future,” and that they must guide the country towards a beautiful direction. Their ultimate goal is “to forge a strong political opposition.” Spires’ interviewees are (understandably) more restrained. The young people that Spires observed “are laying the foundational cornerstones of democratic culture in China.” (p. 244). Spires notes that although direct references by interviewees to “democracy” are few and far between in his book; “small “d” democracy underpins much of their idealism and motivation for participating in such groups.” (p.146)
“Citizens must strive to be good people. Starting now, become a volunteer representative in your own community and city. Join your neighborhood’s WeChat or QQ groups, pay attention to the needs and problems of your community, and use your wisdom and efforts to help others. Become a community public service star. When tens of thousands of citizens do this, democracy will have real strength.” (No. 16)
I imagine Professor Spires’ interviewees would agree.
Andréa is a lawyer, human rights advocate, and writer, focusing on China.
[1] Sinologist Geremie R. Barmé has described Bouden House as “an independent publisher specialising in non-official and emigré writing in Long Island, New York.”
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