The “White Paper” Movement in the PRC: The Legacy It Left Behind

A solidarity protest on the Columbia University campus in November 2022, organized by White Paper Society, Columbia’s pro-democracy Chinese student union. Photo by Tenzin Dorjee.

Ever since Beijing’s bloody crackdown on the Tiananmen Square Protests in June 1989, the most prominent pro-democracy movement after the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Chinese mainland has been spared demonstrations of comparable scale and reputation—that is, until the eruption of the “White Paper” movement in November 2022. Before the mass protests broke out in multiple provincial capital cities, public fury mounted in response to President Xi Jinping’s draconian “Zero-Covid” policy of mandatory quarantines, lockdowns, and mass testing. Although they were in the name of public health, these measures stripped Chinese citizens’ rights to a normal life. When a deadly fire in a residential compound in Xinjiang, the PRC-occupied East Turkestan—took the lives of ten residents because the barricades installed to enforce the Covid lockdown blocked firefighters’ timely rescue attempts—this was the last straw to trigger large-scale protests. This ephemeral “White Paper” movement will likely have a long-lasting impact on Chinese society, both in thwarting Beijing’s three-decade-long effort for a “harmonious” and “stable” society that disciplines the post-Tiananmen generations and in uniting individuals for more civil disobedience movements to come. 

At candlelight vigils for Xinjiang’s fire victims in Shanghai, one of the PRC’s most populous metropolitans, on the last weekend of November, people’s chanting slogans quickly evolved from ending national Covid mandates to removing Xi and the Communist Party. In the meantime, protesters in Beijing and other major cities gathered at different local sites, holding up blank sheets of paper to express grievances that could not be explicitly voiced because of the stringent censorship. A historic moment was created over a weekend. Thousands of people armed with blank sheets of paper took to the streets and, for the first time since 1989, made brave calls for regime change. A “humble piece of blank paper” symbolized this movement.

Seeing white paper protesters on the streets and university campuses across the country risking freedom to demand a future without Xi and the Communist Party led to a retrospection of Ukraine’s “February Revolution” years ago, which led to pro-Kremlin President Victor Yanukovych’s flight to Russia, and, moreover, the success of Ukrainians who wanted a life free from Russia’s rule. The “White Paper” movement should be compared with the “February Revolution” given how passionately people in these two countries demanded their long-awaited freedom and democracy. Indeed, the protests in the PRC ignited hopes for a Chinese “February Revolution” and a transforming nation that the Tiananmen Protests had not achieved, or at least, for a revolutionary wave surviving long enough to frighten Beijing, such as Hong Kong’s demonstrations in 2019. However, the protests lasted considerably shorter than most people expected. They vanished after Beijing abruptly lifted its Covid restrictions, bringing the year-long Zero-Covid policy to an end in early December. It is disappointing to concede that the “White Paper” movement did not become the Chinese “February Revolution,” albeit not surprising, considering the end of the Zero-Covid policy was its initial and primary demand—not a regime change. 

This short-lived movement, however, can still inspire and encourage many. It shocked Beijing, which has taken pride that its social harmony and stability have been well-maintained since the massacre on Tiananmen Square through a series of domestic and international repressions. For example, some tactics include the indoctrination of younger generations, persecution of rights activists, massive state surveillance on citizens’ everyday lives, and spying on Chinese students in foreign universities. Xi’s ascension to and consolidation of power in the past decade have turned the PRC into an even more repressive state than it was under his predecessors, leaving almost no room for public discontent. Yet the “White Paper” protesters, many of whom were young and in the first protest of their lives, clearly conveyed that people like them would not take Beijing’s unjust orders lying down. Moreover, Beijing’s relentless hunt for and detention of young protesters months after the “White Paper” movement also unveiled its deeply rooted fear for people, particularly the youth. These young people, after their upbringings under the party-state’s political indoctrination and acknowledging the consequences of uniting against the authority, still desire the truth hidden from their school textbooks and dare to unite for a free and just society they envision. As explained by German American political philosopher Hannah Arendt in her renowned work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, the unity of people is always despised by tyrannical governments. Arendt expressed that all such governments rely on individuals who are “isolated against each other,” dispossessed of political contacts and capacities for social actions, and are hence, “powerless.” When these “White Paper” protesters took to the streets and found that they were not alone, they were no longer powerless because their solidarity defeated the isolation and loneliness instituted among them by the authorities, taking back their never-been-exercised right to assembly. It was a moment Beijing feared to see. 

After people had been oppressed by Beijing’s tyranny and deprived of the right to express their opinions on social and political issues without fear of retaliation for too long, the “White Paper” movement assured them that they could say “no” to Beijing when united, and Beijing would have to listen to their demands. The movement was the direct cause that drove Beijing to halt its anti-Covid strategy. People know it now—in the face of public unity, even an ostensibly powerful, authoritarian government would have to concede. The awakening of citizens to their collective strength is another legacy, on top of rebuilding solidarity among civilians, that this movement left behind. Xi’s acknowledgment of people’s frustration regarding Beijing’s Zero-Covid policy when meeting with the European Council President was a rare occasion for him. An absolute authoritarian leader and now president-for-life with zero tolerance toward dissenting opinions to confess “any imperfection” named by people in his policy is quite extraordinary. 

Lastly, protesters’ spirits and courage are normally contagious. A large-scale political protest, no matter what the result, has the potential to penetrate people’s consciousness, enlighten them to seek post-protest moves, or at the very least, make them think about the protest itself. When reflecting on the impact of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004 on neighboring Russia in A Russian Diary, Russian American journalist Anna Politkovskaya indicated that the most beneficial aspect of the Orange Revolution was giving Russians a “boost to the spirit of protest” and “[getting] them off the sofas to at least think of demonstrating.” As Politkovskaya reported, since the Ukrainians’ victory in 2004, millions of Russians have marched against the Kremlin’s unjust orders and laws. Almost two decades after the success of the Orange Revolution and the realization of its chain effects in Russia, the “White Paper” movement has opened a “Pandora’s box of protests” in the PRC. All it is yet to achieve will become the goals of future Chinese protesters and all other oppressed peoples under the PRC’s occupation. 

Sveta Lee (GS’23) studies political science. Before settling in the U.S., they lived in China and Eastern Europe and had the luck of witnessing Ukraine’s February Revolution. Beyond Columbia, Sveta works for NGOs promoting democratization and human rights in Tibet and China.

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