On the eve of China’s grand military parade, an activist in a city with 30 million people staged a protest that doubled as performance art, proof that defiance can still surface, and survive, even in one of the world’s most surveilled states.
At 10 p.m. on Friday in Chongqing, a massive projection on a building lit up the night with slogans calling for the end of Communist Party rule. “Only without the Communist Party can there be a new China,” read one. Another declared: “No more lies, we want the truth. No more slavery, we want freedom.”
It took the police 50 minutes to locate where the projection was coming from — a hotel nearby — and shut it down. That’s usually the end of such protests in China. But not in this case. A few hours later, the activist released video footage of five police officers entering the hotel room, rushing to the window and finding the projector hidden behind a half-closed curtain. While four of them were fiddling to shut it down, another officer pointed with surprise to a surveillance camera aimed at them.
A handwritten letter addressed to the police was on the coffee table: “Even if you are a beneficiary of the system today, one day you will inevitably become a victim on this land,” said the letter, which the activist also circulated online. “So please treat the people with kindness.”
The next day, the man who staged the incident, Qi Hong, published another image from surveillance footage showing police officers questioning his frail, hunched mother in front of her village home.
The act was both a protest and a performance, documented in real time. The protest, staged through light and cameras, turned the state’s gaze back on itself. The visuals, when put together, had the look of performance art mocking the Communist Party security apparatus.
By the time the police arrived, Mr. Hong had already left China nine days earlier with his wife and daughters. He had turned on the projection and recorded the police’s response from a remote location in Britain.
Technology has strengthened the Chinese government’s ability to control its people. Mr. Qi illustrated how the same tools can enable resistance.
“Qi Hong outwitted the police, outmaneuvered the state machinery — and there was little they could do about it,” said Li Ying, who runs perhaps the most influential Chinese-language X account and often posts protest footage. “It was incredibly cool.”
Mr. Li called the act “a serious blow” to the authorities that had poured enormous resources into ensuring stability ahead of the parade on Wednesday. “His action showed that the C.C.P.’s control isn’t airtight. It’s not like we can’t do anything,” he said.
The videos, circulated through the social media accounts of Mr. Li and others, reached an unusually large audience. One post of the projected slogans drew more than 18 million views in four days.
Mr. Qi said he never thought of his act as art or even bravery.
“My only intention was to express myself,” he told me in his first media interview. “The party installs surveillance cameras to watch us. I thought I could use the same method to watch them.”
Many people online called him a hero and offered their thanks. Some commenters said that Mr. Qi’s ingenuity in using technology had inspired them.
Mr. Qi himself is a copycat. Like other protesters, he drew inspiration from Peng Lifa, the man who in October 2022 unfurled banners on a busy Beijing overpass calling for China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, to step down. Mr. Peng, soon tagged “Bridge Man” in a nod to “Tank Man” of the 1989 Tiananmen protests, was quickly seized by the police and has not been heard from.
The copycat effect may be the biggest headache for the Chinese government. The country’s economy is experiencing a yearslong slowdown, and many college graduates, migrant workers and professionals are struggling to find jobs. Mr. Li, the blogger, said many more people were sending him protest footage this year than in the prior two years.
Mr. Qi insists he is not courageous. Soft-spoken, he said he felt compelled to share what he thinks and to urge more Chinese people to see what he called the brutality and absurdity of the C.C.P.’s rule.
Born in 1982 in a mountain village near Chongqing, Mr. Qi grew up in poverty. At 16, he dropped out of school and joined the tide of migrant workers seeking work in China’s booming cities. But without the temporary residence permits required at the time, he said he was detained and beaten by police officers in Guangdong and Beijing, once for over 20 days. The experience, he said, convinced him to avoid the authorities at all costs.
He cycled through jobs working in factories, sanitation and sales. In 2006, his fortune turned when he started selling inexpensive items online on Taobao. Within a few years, he married and bought a modest apartment in Beijing.
But in 2013, restless and drawn to Buddhism, he shut down the online shop, moved his family to a village outside Beijing and ran a small package pickup station. By 2021, with their eldest daughter about to enter middle school, the family returned to Chongqing.
There, Mr. Qi worked as an electrician and grew more politically aware. He bristled at the propaganda in his daughters’ text books, the government’s stoking of nationalism and the suppression of free speech. “I was dissatisfied with the government, but I didn’t dare to speak out,” he said.
He turned to books for answers. He read “1984, Animal Farm and Brave New World.” “I was terrified that they’re still ruling us the same way,” he said.
His WeChat posts became more pointed. On the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre in 2022, he wrote: “The pursuit of light is something every thinking human should strive for. Light of wisdom, light of civilization, light of humanity, light of democracy.” His New Year wish for 2024 was simple: “May everyone have freedom from fear.”
In May, he posted what he assumed would get his WeChat account deleted, “We want democracy, not dictatorship!” Nothing happened. But for him, the words were a turning point.
By July, with news of Mr. Xi’s planned military parade, Mr. Qi decided it was time.
He surveyed locations and chose a busy section of Chongqing’s university area. On Aug. 10, he checked into a hotel, spent 10 days practicing laser projection on a nearby high-rise and prepared the slogans he would beam into the night sky. To test, he beamed harmless phrases like “be healthy” and “be happy.” Then he and his family left China.
On Aug. 29, he switched on the projector remotely. He clipped together footage of the slogans and the police raid, shared them with influential people online like Mr. Li and watched as they spread across the internet.
The state struck back. The police detained one of his brothers and a friend, and interrogated his mother outside her home. He had told no one about his plans except his wife and daughters. Chongqing police did not respond to my request for comment.
Mr. Qi says he’s stunned by the reactions online and is unsure of what lies ahead.
Li You contributed research.
Li Yuan writes The New New World column, which focuses on China’s growing influence on the world by examining its businesses, politics and society.
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