“Remembrance” is arguably the most important journal of alternative history in the history of the People's Republic. Founded in 2008, it has published more than 250 issues, all of which are held by the China Unofficial Archive. The issue we chose for the highlight issue number 112 from April 30, 2014. It deals with one of the most controversial episodes of the past decade, an effort at an apology by some of the women involved in the killing of the school teacher Bian Zhongyun. Bian's killing is one of the most famous incidents in the Cultural Revolution, commemorated by the independent film director Hu Jie in his classic film “Though I Am Gone” (also held in the archive). One of the then-school children widely seen as being responsible for Bian's killing was Song Binbin, who soon afterwards was honored by Mao on the rostrum at Tiananmen. Years later, in 2014, Song gave an apology for her role in Bian's killing. Although denying direct responsibility, she said that she and the other girls in the school didn't stop the other students from torturing Bian to death and thus bear responsibility. In this issue, Song's apology is analyzed on page 19 by one of the founders of Remembrance, who wrote the article under the pseudonym Qi Zhi. On page 3, one of Song's friends, Ye Weili, gives a long account of the day when Bian was killed. Other authors in the issue also chime in with their analyses of the events, the adequacy of Song's apology, and who ultimately bore responsibility for Bian's death–the girls who turned on their teacher, or the system that raised and encouraged such barbaric behavior?

Ai Xiaoming （1953—）, feminist scholar, writer, and documentary filmmaker. Ai received her Ph.D. in Modern Chinese Literature from the Beijing Normal University in 1987, making her the first female doctorate in literature in the post-Cultural Revolution era. She taught at the Department of Cultural Foundations of the China Youth University of Political Studies from 1988 to 1994, and the Department of Chinese Language and Literature of Sun Yat-sen University from 1994 until retiring in 2013. As a child whose parents were one of the “Five Black Categories”, Ai witnessed and experienced the brutality of the Cultural Revolution. Ai's grandfather, Tang Shengzhi, was a KMT army general, and her father, Ai Renkuan, was labeled a Rightist during the Cultural Revolution. Then 13 years old, she was forced to denounce her parents and live apart from them. In 1984, still trying to fit into the system, she joined the Communist Party and the next year moved to Beijing to work on her PhD at Beijing Normal University. She taught at the China Youth University of Political Studies, which was under the Communist Youth League. But during this period Ai befriended outsiders, such as the novelist Wang Xiaobo, becoming a close confidant. In 1988, she spent a year in Hong Kong working on the ideas of Milan Kundera and translated his work <i>The Art of the Novel</i>. The next year, she returned to Beijing but was unsure what to make of the Tiananmen protests. From her experiences in the Cultural Revolution, she was skeptical of amorphous movements but she delivered blankets to hunger strikers and defended the students’ right to free speech. She avoided being purged from the university but in 1994 she moved to the more relaxed atmosphere of southern China, taking a position at Zhongshan University, focusing on women’s issues. A turning point came in 1999 when she spent an academic year at the University of the South in Tennessee. She put her on a self-guided study of documentary films, watching two to three films a day. She also noted the political engagement of many local academics. She took back to China a copy of the <i>Vagina Monologues</i>, which she translated into Chinese and had her students perform. In 2003, she founded the Sex/Gender Education Forum and asked her old friend, the famous documentary filmmaker Hu Jie (<a href="Ai Xiaoming （1953—）, feminist scholar, writer, and documentary filmmaker. Ai received her Ph.D. in Modern Chinese Literature from the Beijing Normal University in 1987, making her the first female doctorate in literature in the post-Cultural Revolution era. She taught at the Department of Cultural Foundations of the China Youth University of Political Studies from 1988 to 1994, and the Department of Chinese Language and Literature of Sun Yat-sen University from 1994 until retiring in 2013. As a child whose parents were one of the “Five Black Categories”, Ai witnessed and experienced the brutality of the Cultural Revolution. Ai's grandfather, Tang Shengzhi, was a KMT army general, and her father, Ai Renkuan, was labeled a Rightist during the Cultural Revolution. Then 13 years old, she was forced to denounce her parents and live apart from them. In 1984, still trying to fit into the system, she joined the Communist Party and the next year moved to Beijing to work on her PhD at Beijing Normal University. She taught at the China Youth University of Political Studies, which was under the Communist Youth League. But during this period Ai befriended outsiders, such as the novelist Wang Xiaobo, becoming a close confidant. In 1988, she spent a year in Hong Kong working on the ideas of Milan Kundera and translated his work <i>The Art of the Novel</i>. The next year, she returned to Beijing but was unsure what to make of the Tiananmen protests. From her experiences in the Cultural Revolution, she was skeptical of amorphous movements but she delivered blankets to hunger strikers and defended the students’ right to free speech. She avoided being purged from the university but in 1994 she moved to the more relaxed atmosphere of southern China, taking a position at Zhongshan University, focusing on women’s issues. A turning point came in 1999 when she spent an academic year at the University of the South in Tennessee. She put her on a self-guided study of documentary films, watching two to three films a day. She also noted the political engagement of many local academics. She took back to China a copy of the <i>Vagina Monologues</i>, which she translated into Chinese and had her students perform. In 2003, she founded the Sex/Gender Education Forum and asked her old friend, the famous documentary filmmaker Hu Jie (see separate entry), to help her document the play’s staging in China. From his work she learned how to make documentary films and the two collaborated on several films, including <i>White Ribbon, The Epic of Central Plains</i> and <i>Care and Love</i>. That same year, she was inspired by the Sun Zhigang case to push for the abolition of the Custody and Repatriation system; she later intervened in the Huang Jing case, the Taishi Village case and other public events. Her other films include <i>Taishi Village</i> (following the famous events when villagers of Taishi, in suburban Guangzhou, where the government tried to remove the local officials in 2005), <i>Our Children</i> (about the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake), <i>Three Days in Wukan</i> (about Wukan villagers protests against the government’s seizure of their farmland in 2010), and <i>Jiabiangou Elegy</i> (about the persecution of inmates at the Jiabiangou labor camp). In January 2010, Ai and women rights lawyer Guo Jianmei were awarded the Simone de Beauvoir Prize, an international human rights award honoring women rights defenders. Due to her advocacy, Ai has faced various forms of repression but continues to fight to this day to document history. For other resources, see <a href=“https://www.nybooks.com/online/2016/09/08/people-in-retreat-chinese-filmmaker-ai-xiaoming/”> an interview with her on the New York Review of Books website</a> and <a href=“https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/55711”>a video interview on the University of Michigan website</a>. ">see separate entry</a>), to help her document the play’s staging in China. From his work she learned how to make documentary films and the two collaborated on several films, including <i>White Ribbon, The Epic of Central Plains</i> and <i>Care and Love</i>. That same year, she was inspired by the Sun Zhigang case to push for the abolition of the Custody and Repatriation system; she later intervened in the Huang Jing case, the Taishi Village case and other public events. Her other films include <i>Taishi Village</i> (following the famous events when villagers of Taishi, in suburban Guangzhou, where the government tried to remove the local officials in 2005), <i>Our Children</i> (about the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake), <i>Three Days in Wukan</i> (about Wukan villagers protests against the government’s seizure of their farmland in 2010), and <i>Jiabiangou Elegy</i> (about the persecution of inmates at the Jiabiangou labor camp). In January 2010, Ai and women rights lawyer Guo Jianmei were awarded the Simone de Beauvoir Prize, an international human rights award honoring women rights defenders. Due to her advocacy, Ai has faced various forms of repression but continues to fight to this day to document history. For other resources, see <a href=“https://www.nybooks.com/online/2016/09/08/people-in-retreat-chinese-filmmaker-ai-xiaoming/”> an interview with her on the New York Review of Books website</a> and <a href=“https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/55711”>a video interview on the University of Michigan website</a>.

The domestically-released version of "Petition" consists of three parts: “The Masses,” “Mother and Daughter” and “Beijing South Railway Station.” Part one, “The Masses,” brings together the stories of petitioners of various backgrounds, who all for different reasons, ended up walking the same path. “The Masses” gives a comprehensive account of what is petitioning and and follows the process. Part two, "Mother and Daughter," follows the story of Huaying, who brought her daughter Xiaojuan alongside her from the countryside of Jiangsu to Beijing to petition when Xiaojuan was only four years old. Over the next twelve years, they lived a wandering life. "Mother and Daughter" spans the longest period among all the parts of Petition, from 1996 to 2008. It witnesses the growth of Xiaojuan over ten years of petitioning, not only describing the sorrow of Chinese petitioners, but also revealing how long-lasting petitions cases affect the fate of the next generation. In official reports, petitioners lack a voice and appear to be even more marginalized under the media’s tactics. It also raises the issue of forced psychiatric confinement of individuals the Chinese government deems difficult. “Beijing South Railway Station" surveys the "petitioner village," a residential area near the station that was once home to tens of thousands of people from all over the country. It was eventually demolished by authorities in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. The film captures bungalows being knocked down, shacks being flattened, and security police chasing after residents, the latter not given the time to grab any necessities. Zhao Liang recalls dressing like the interceptors when filming interceptors, and dressing like a petitioner while filming petitioners. “I had several outfits, and tried to stay low key, using the smallest cameras possible.” The film went on to win the Halekulani Golden Orchid Award for Best Documentary Film at the 29th Hawaii International Film Festival, and a Humanitarian Award for Documentaries at the 34th Hong Kong Film Awards.

This document, declassified in January 2015, contains a 1989 diplomatic memorandum from the Canadian Embassy in Beijing. It describes the circumstances surrounding the June 4 massacre as they were known to officials at the Canadian embassy. The documents, declassified by the National Library and Archives of Canada, show the Canadian government's concern about the invasion of the embassy by Chinese troops. The documents also describe the crackdown in Beijing and how the troops killed citizens.

Few books on recent Chinese history have caused such controversy as "The Tiananmen Papers". The book is ostensibly a collection of original documents compiled by Zhang Liang, a pseudonym for someone claiming to be a high-ranking CCP official who leaked the papers. The book’s credibility was aided by it being edited by two well-known western scholars of China, Perry Link, then of Princeton University and now of the University of California, Riverside, as well as Columbia University professor Andrew J. Nathan. An introduction was written by Orville Schell, a well-known writer on China who was then a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.  Almost immediately upon publication, the book was criticized for its unclear provenance, a point aided by Zhang Liang’s anonymity. Most scholars agreed that the papers were a mixture of previously released documents from government offices, which were uncontroversial, and accounts of meetings between senior leaders. The latter came under scrutiny, with some saying that the language appeared stilted or seemed to mix in language used in leaders’ public speeches.  This essay by the well-known Hong Kong publisher Bao Pu points out that since 2004, most people seem to feel that the issue of provenance will never be settled but that the documents are still important historically. Bao critiques this, using books published over the past two decades to update the question of authenticity. In careful language, he further questions key points of the documents, showing that they do not match new material, such as memoirs. Bao's conclusion: the Tiananmen Papers are not documents from the CCP’s archive, which is their claim, but rather works of dubious origin that cannot be used to better understand the events leading up to the massacre of civilians on the night of June 3-4, 1989. The top-secret documents, Bao writes, are a “phantom” that must not be used as building blocks for history.

When the Cultural Revolution broke out, Yang Xiaokai was a senior high school student at No. 1 Middle School in Changsha. On January 12, 1968, he published an article entitled "Where is China Going?" which systematically put forward the ideas of the "ultra-leftist" Red Guards, criticized the privileged bureaucratic class in China, and advocated for the establishment of a Chinese People's Commune based on the principles of the Paris Commune. Yang Xiaokai recalled that his parents were beaten because they sympathized with Liu Shaoqi's and Peng Dehuai's views, and that he was discriminated against at school and could not join the Red Guards. As a result, he joined the rebel faction to oppose the theory of descent. Yang Xiaokai was later sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment for this article. Yang Xiaokai died in 2004. This article is a retrospective of his life.

The author Wang Ming was an early member of the Communist Party of China (CCP) and the first of the "28 and a half Bolsheviks," who lost power after the Yan'an Rectification and were gradually marginalized by Mao. After the Yan'an Rectification, the Internationalists, led by him, lost power in the party. He was gradually ostracized by Mao Zedong, who expatriated him to the Soviet Union in 1956. In his book, Wang Ming recounts his decades-long feud with Mao. It provides a fascinating insight into the early history of the CCP.

During the three years of the "zero-COVID" policy enforced by Xi Jinping's government, the daily life and freedoms of the people were severely limited. A fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang, finally ignited public dissatisfaction with the measures. On November 26, 2022, when the people of Shanghai spontaneously gathered in the streets to mourn the victims of the fire, no one expected that this memorial activity would lead to nationwide protests against the pandemic policies. At the scene, Chen Pinlin and his girlfriend, Wang, filmed many protest videos at the protest site on Urumqi Middle Road in Shanghai. In November 2023, on the anniversary of the White Paper Movement, Chen Pinlin uploaded the documentary to YouTube and other social media platforms, garnering hundreds of thousands of views. Less than a week later, he and his girlfriend were arrested. His girlfriend was released on bail, while Chen Pinlin remained in custody. <a href=“https://tenchu.org/pocd/public/pocs/3551”>Chen Pinlin introduced the documentary as follows</a>: "I am the director Plato. In November 2022, I personally participated in the protest on the night of November 26 in Shanghai. This was my first involvement in a political event in China, and it was also the first time I expressed my political demands in China. Besides the footage I personally filmed on that day, the film also includes iconic video materials from before and after the protest. I tried to present a complete picture of how the dynamic zero-COVID policy pushed China to the boiling point and prompted people to take to the streets to protest. After the event, the Chinese government distorted the facts and maliciously smeared the protests in Shanghai and the White Paper movement, misleading many people into thinking that the protests were the work of foreign forces. But is this really the case? On the first anniversary of the Shanghai Urumqi Road protest, I created this documentary, “Urumqi Middle Road”, to record my personal experience and feelings of participating in the protest. I want to explore why, when internal contradictions appear in China, foreign forces are always blamed? Everyone knows the answer. The more the government misleads, forgets, and shields the truth, the more we must speak out, remind people, and remember. Remember the White Paper, remember November 26, remember Urumqi Middle Road, remember the Xinjiang fire, remember the Guizhou bus, remember dynamic zero-COVID, remember the 'big white' (the white-suited workers), remember Tiananmen, remember the Cultural Revolution, remember the Three Years of Great Famine. "By remembering the ugliness, we can turn our hearts toward the light. I also hope that China can soon embrace its own brighter future." At the end of this movie, Chen left this narration: Some people say, what is the point of protesting on the streets? In the end, it's still the same, suppressed, shielded and misinterpreted. But as Churchill said, ‘Courage is the most important human trait, with courage, other human traits can naturally be possessed' We lacked experience and have been cowardly and wavering, but today we have the courage to stand up and to speak out. What we lacked this time, we can do better next time. If I were to do it again, I would still choose to be there. Because a government that is afraid of even a white paper can't defeat the justice in the hearts of the people. On January 5, 2024, Chen Pinlin was formally arrested on suspicion of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" and detained at Baoshan District Detention Center in Shanghai. On January 6, 2025, Chen Pinlin’s first trial was held in the Third Court of Baoshan District Court, where he was sentenced to 3 years and 6 months in prison. His sentence will end on May 27, 2027.

How can China build a true civil society? Since 2010, independent director Tiger Temple has conducted a series of interviews with scholars and civil society participants.

Independent director Tiger Temple began shooting this film in 2010 and completed it in 2012, with subsequent revisions. The film features interviews with Lin Zhao's former lover Gan Cui as well as interviews with several independent scholars such as Qian Liqun and Cui Weiping. It is a powerful addition to Lin Zhao's memory. This film was selected as one of the top 20 finalists in the 2012 Sunshine Chinese Documentary Awards.

In 1960, a group of faculty and students from Lanzhou University, who had been labeled Rightists and sent down to rural areas in Tianshui, Gansu, personally experienced the Great Famine. They self-published <i>Spark</i> magazine to expose and criticize the totalitarian rule that led to this catastrophe.<i>Spark</i> only published one issue before its participants were arrested and labeled as a counterrevolutionary group. Many were sentenced to long prison terms, and some were even executed. <a href=“http://108.160.154.72/s/china-unofficial/item/1759#lg=1&slide=0”>The first issue of <i>Spark</i> and more information about the "Spark Case" can be read here</a>. <i>Return from Purgatory: A Survivor’s Memoir of the ‘Spark Case’ in the Great Famine Years (1957–1981)</i> is the autobiography of Xiang Chengjian, a key participant in <i>Spark</i> magazine. At the time, he and another student were responsible for printing the first issue, and he contributed six articles to <i>Spark</i>. Due to his involvement, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison for his role in the Spark case and was not rehabilitated until the early 1980s. This memoir is divided into three sections, with a total of thirteen chapters spanning over 350,000 characters. It documents Xiang’s journey from being labeled a Rightist and sent to perform forced labor, to his arrest and 19-year imprisonment for his involvement in <i>Spark</i>, and finally to his struggle for rehabilitation and efforts to rebuild his life after release. In the book’s preface, scholar Ai Xiaoming offers the following assessment: "Xiang Chengjian’s memoir holds significant value for the study of the intellectual history of contemporary China. First, it serves as another important testimony of the “Spark Case”, following Tan Chanxue’s memoir <i><a href=“”>Sparks: A Chronicle of the Rightist Counter-Revolutionary Group at Lanzhou University</a></i>, making it a crucial historical document on this act of resistance. The author reconstructs the social context before and after the case and describes how the young intellectuals behind <i>Spark</i> bravely challenged totalitarian rule. Second, the book provides a detailed account of labor camps in western China, with the author documenting his 18 years of forced labor in Gansu and Qinghai, unveiling a western chapter of China’s Gulag system. Third, it is a deeply personal intellectual history of a resister, showing the immense suffering, trials of life and death, and personal resilience under the crushing force of state violence." The book’s appendix includes Xiang Chengjian’s six articles for <i>Spark</i>, an in-depth investigative report on him by journalist Jiang Xue, and a chronological record of the Spark Case compiled by Ai Xiaoming. <i>Return from Purgatory</i> is published by Borden Press in New York and is the first book in the “People’s Archives Series”, published by the China Unofficial Archives. The author, Xiang Chengjian, has generously authorized the archive to share the book’s digital edition. Readers are encouraged to purchase the book to support the author and publisher.

How can China build a real civil society? Since 2010, independent director Tiger Temple sat for a series of interviews with scholars and civil society actors.

Chinese human rights activist Dr. Xu Zhiyong, twice imprisoned for his longstanding advocacy of civil society in China, was sentenced to 14 years in prison by the Chinese government in April 2023. The documentary by independent director Lao Hu Miao was filmed over a four-year period, beginning with the seizure of the Public League Legal Research Center, which Xu Zhiyong helped found in 2009, and ending with Xu's first prison sentence in 2014.

This film is a five-part documentary by the filmmaker and feminist scholar Ai Xiaoming on the persecution of inmates at the Jiabiangou labor camp in Jiuquan, Gansu province, where more than 2,000 people died. The documentary includes interviews with the few remaining survivors and documents efforts to commemorate the dead. The director interviewed survivors of Jiabiangou and the children of the victims and listened to their stories about the past; she also found former correctional officers and their descendants to understand the causes of labor camps and the Great Famine from different angles. Shot by Ai and a team of volunteers, the film presents the conflict between the preservation and destruction of memory.