When they amended the Constitution to allow someone to be the President for life, we put up with it. When Dr Li Wenliang was admonished and died in the COVID-19 outbreak right after, we turned a blind eye to it. When so many older people in Shanghai died of delayed medical treatment caused by the draconian lockdown, we once again endured it. And when those 27 who were forced to be transferred at midnight, died on the overturned bus, we kept our mouths shut. When a mother in Hohhot jumped off the building to end her life, when the heartbroken daughter wailed but was blocked by the welded door, we, once again, cowardly kept silent. And then the fire in Ürümqi came, and engulfed ten lives; we were about to burst but still showed restraint.
And yet they should shamelessly attribute this tragedy to ‘poor competence of self-rescue’.
They don’t allow us to publicly hold a vigil.
They even took down the street sign of Wulumuqi (‘Ürümqi’ in Hanyu Pinyin) Road in Shanghai.
How farcical it is when they should be afraid of us holding up blank papers on the street.
Have you ever seen anything more shameless than them in broad daylight?
They’ve got millions of police officers, troops and lackeys; they have tanks, planes and cannons; they have all the websites, newspapers, radio and television stations in control; they monitor everyone’s whereabouts through QR codes and CCTV, and they also claimed to have their ultimate ‘Four Matters of Confidence’ on their side. But they should be afraid of us, the people, holding up blank papers.
Well, we reckon that it is high time for us to speak out.
We deeply love our homeland, so much so that we cannot tolerate seeing it given away to be trampled on by those evil-minded that are fitted with nothing but lies. We will never accept a country that cannot even let us hold up blank sheets of paper on the streets. We are humans, not animals. The so-called ‘Rise of the Great Power’ is not what we want; what we do care about is that everyone in this country, no matter how insignificant and humble they are, can live with dignity.
Three years have passed, and yet they’re still chanting the nonsense of zero-COVID policies. But no-one can deny the fact that the vast majority of infected people do not have any symptoms, and the rates of mortality and acute patients are now lower than that of the flu. Seeing that all the other countries around the world have opened up, and the people elsewhere are enjoying the World Cup, yet we are still stranded here, vowing to eliminate a virus with the will and power of the state. Do you know the reason behind it? Because the so-called ‘epidemic prevention’ is the best excuse they could find to strengthen the rule of those in power and to weaken our society. When a QR code can easily keep everyone’s free movement under control, who will be willing to give up such a good tool to reign over us? Do not listen to their bullshit that claims these methods were implemented for the safety and well-being of the people. No. If we concede freedom for security, the only thing we’ll get is a giant prison that incarcerates us all.
Some still had illusions not long before, claiming that these absurd policies would eventually end after someone was ‘re-elected’. Apparently, they have no idea of how the Cultural Revolution ended. The Cultural Revolution ended with the death of Mao Tse-tung.
Is the regime established by Mao bearing any substantial difference from those ancient dynasties in our history? No! They were built by force, violence and slaughter, and they relied on these to keep them in power. This sort of regime does not have any legitimacy or authority; therefore, those in power are in constant fear of being violently overthrown. And for that reason, we are forever trapped in an endless and vicious circle of new autocracies replacing the former, leaving innocent people to suffer. And that is why in this great civilisation that stretched out uninterruptedly for over the past 3,500 years, we the people are not even entitled to property rights, let alone freedom of speech.
Three and a half millennia, it’s time that we say no to this endless wait.
In October 2022, a brave man named Peng Zaizhou hung a banner over the Sitong Bridge in Beijing. The slogans he wrote were exactly what we dared not to and yet have long wanted to say. No matter how hard the regime tries to erase them, the messages from Peng have already been inscribed in our hearts:
- Say no to PCR tests because we all want to eat. No more lockdowns since freedom is what we need.
- Do not lie to us; we want dignity. Be vigilant to the revival of the Cultural Revolution, and keep the reforms going.
- What we want is not a tyrant but ballots. We’ll never become slaves since we were born to be citizens.
Some people said at the time that what he did made no sense and would change nothing. They were wrong. Countless people have seen it, and the slogans Peng wrote on his banners are resounding among the crowds in the recent protests in Shanghai and Beijing. With courage and by virtue of our desire for freedom, once the first cry is out, thousands will follow. And no virus, not even COVID, can spread faster.
And we do not need to be as brave as Peng. Didn’t the officials in Ürümqi say that those who were tragically burned to death showed ‘poor competence of self-rescue’? Well, let’s rescue ourselves, then.
The ‘Blank Sheet Movement’ is a civic movement of spontaneity—we are not a political party, nor are we strictly organised, we do not have a hierarchical governing body. It is purely a self-rescue movement for us all. We can all participate, and every single one of us is leading this momentum.
In the past few days, valiant people in Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, and throughout the whole country, have taken to the streets and held up their blank sheets. We now call on everyone to take every possible opportunity to follow them. There’s no need to shout any slogans, and any aggressive behaviour is discouraged.
We do not endorse any violence, and we do not call for a bloody revolution. No, we will express our anger in a peaceful manner. We choose to deplete this evil machine of tyranny with a non-cooperative approach. And through non-violent means, we want to establish a government that is in tune with the civilised world. We believe that everyone is blessed with freedom from fear, no matter if you are a farmer or an entrepreneur, a migrant worker or a government official.
A government can only be legitimate and win its authority with a mandate from the people. And only in this way can the freedom of the people be guaranteed. The mandate of the government shall come from the ballots. Elections shall be held regularly, our new government will have to win a majority to govern, and we, the people, shall have a sound mechanism to change it if needed. Only then can the power, not us, be put in a cage.
Of course, we will feel scared when holding up blank sheets on the streets, but we firmly believe that countless people will choose to stand with us. And those who are in power are the ones who are more afraid. They have nothing but the police and the army. If someone is genuinely beloved and supported by the people as portrayed in the News Simulcast, would he dare to go to the streets and talk to the people? He dares not. He only dares to hide in his Palace in Zhongnanhai, performing his ‘self-commanding, self-deploying’ zero-COVID farce. And sadly, this rarely-seen absurd drama has turned itself from eliminating a virus to eradicating humanity from our society.
Every fellow citizen who does not want to be enslaved by this regime anymore, we call on you to join our ‘Blank Sheet Movement’. And here are some methods and tips for how everyone can participate:
- Launch your own ‘blank sheet holding’ campaign in your local community, workplaces, or schools. Be assured that once one takes to the streets, more will follow.
- If you see someone holding up a blank sheet in a public place, please join them and show your support by recording videos and spreading it by all means.
- If a lockdown is implemented in the housing estate you live in, please pay a closer look at the applicable laws and regulations, and ask them to show related documents. If officials are turning up, check their documents to verify their identities and positions. We shall negotiate with them calmly. Even if we cannot make them concede, we can drain their energy and resources.
- Please stop praising the current system. Instead, with our family and friends, online and offline, we shall publicly denounce the evils and absurdities of this system. Let rational and independent thinking prevail.
- Refuse to pay taxes. ‘No taxation without representation.’ Why pay taxes to them if we do not have the ballots? We shall use our resourcefulness to the fullest, to proudly evade taxes. By cutting off the blood transfusion for this evil organisation, we can therefore hasten its demise.
And now to our friends who are currently in the system—if there are any remnants of conscience left in you, if you still want our future generations can grow and thrive freely on this very land—please consider doing the following to assist us:
- No matter what position you are in, from now on, please keep idle on your job and spend your time and energy on the most useless, meaningless and harmless things. Please help us by taking those bureaucratic formalities to the fullest, and try anything you can to make these formalities as time-consuming and resource-intensive as possible. By doing this, you’re helping this evil machine to do fewer misdeeds, and you’re helping us to deplete its energy faster.
- If you were ordered to crack down on our ‘Blank Sheet Movement’, please cite the organisational procedures and request more specific instructions from your superiors, and hold as many meetings as possible to discuss this matter so that more time and resources can be consumed.
- Find excuses to avoid direct involvement in the suppression, like your children are falling ill or your ‘health code’ has turned red. We believe you can find a way to get yourself out of this.
- If you work in the public security organs, the procuratorates, or the judiciary, please do your best to follow the legal procedures stipulated in the Criminal Procedure Law and its Interpretation to ensure the rights of the arrestees and defendants were fulfilled, make sure they’ll have the right to appoint defenders. Please try to make the court hearings public, so that we people can witness and record these absurd accusations and remember those who enable the farcical conviction of the ‘crime’ of carrying blank sheets.
- If you work for the censorship and removal of online content, please do it as slowly as you can, apply the most lenient criteria in your work and defer it if possible. Your negligence in this case can be easily explained—your daily workload is way too much, and with so many remarks to remove and accounts to block, negligence is unavoidable. You can also defer your tasks by requesting instructions from your superior more frequently. By doing so, more content could survive the submergence.
- Finally, and most importantly, do not fire at the people. With a salary of a few thousand yuan a month, killing people is certainly not part of your duty. Even if someone is evil enough and deserves the death penalty, the legal procedure must be followed, and only the court has the right to sentence them to death. The people have nothing but blank sheets in their hands, peacefully expressing their demands. You’ll turn yourself into a murderer if you fire at the innocent. If you were ordered to do so, raise the muzzle to avoid aiming at the people. If your superior is right behind you to give you the order, hand over the guns to them and let them do the shoot.
At long last, we would like to have a few words with those hiding in Zhongnanhai. Communism has long gone bankrupt both as a belief and as a theory. Experiments were carried out in the 20th century, and yet they all failed so tragically, including Mao’s regime, during which tens of millions of people were starved and persecuted to death. With no exception, all of the communist regimes turned into dictatorial tyrannies. Communism may seem to be a noble idea, but in reality, it’s just a lie. If you really want China to be great, please let the people live with dignity first. If you still deluded yourself with your personal glory and achievements, then what happened to Ceauşescu in 1989 is what your fate awaits.
Because truth and justice are on the side of the people. We Chinese deserve democracy and freedom like any other people around the world. This is what the people want, it speaks our heart, and no-one can stand in the way of our pursuit. It is also the wave of the world, and you can either choose to surf on it or be shattered by it. China will definitely integrate into the civilised world, and inevitably, freedom and democracy shall prevail on this land!
China Watch
30 November 2022
