2023: A rare account of the White Paper protesters and their aftermath, one year after the movement rocked China

|

This piece was originally published in December 2023 by WhyNot, a US-based online media featuring exiled Chinese journalists and founded by Radio Free Asia (RFA). It remains to date one of the few articles written in Mandarin by a Chinese journalist about the White Paper protests —— the 2022 anti-lockdown movement in China where demonstrators held up blank sheets of paper to symbolise censorship and demand political freedoms. The report revisits the events through experiences of young participants across China, reconstructing what took place and examining the personal and political aftermath one year on.

It features firsthand testimonies from individuals in Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, and other cities, many of whom were arrested or detained during the protests. Shifting from accounts of the events to their long-term effects, the article examines how participants have responded since: some have left the country, others have remained silent after their release, and a few continue to engage publicly. By following their trajectories, the report offers insight into how the protests have shaped individual lives and how expressions of dissent continue to evolve in China today.

Following publication, the article prompted public discussion about journalism ethics in politically sensitive contexts. Some readers praised it for preserving rarely heard perspectives, while others raised concerns that some individuals may have been exposed to risk. In response, the author issued a statement explaining her reporting process and encouraging further dialogue about how to document public trauma while protecting those involved. The debate has since sparked broader reflection on consent, accountability, and the challenges of reporting dissent under restrictive conditions.

About WhyNot

WhyNotis a US-based Chinese-language digital news magazine featuring exiled Chinese journalists and launched in September 2020 by Radio Free Asia (RFA). Aimed at younger Mandarin-speaking audiences, it focuses on social and political topics less frequently covered in mainstream Chinese-language media, including feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, and human rights in China. Its reporting includes coverage of the White Paper protests, the Hong Kong National Security Law, and Chinese migration experiences. The outlet received recognition from industry organisations such as SOPA (Society of Publishers in Asia). In March 2025, WhyNot suspended operations after the U.S. government froze congressional funding for RFA. With RFA entering limited operations and appealing the funding freeze, the platform’s future remains uncertain.

“Whither the flowers and poems? A year after the White Paper Protests, what has become of the young protesters who were arrested?”

By Jiang Xue

Xiaohan was headed off to study abroad in Canada in August. Before she left, she and her friends went to Bu’er Bistro one last time.Bu’er Bistro is located in Beijing’s Dongsi Subdistrict, near the historic drum tower. As she saw the warm lights shining from the small window adorned with plastic tassels, Xiaohan remarked, “After all that happened, it’s comforting to see that the place is still here.” In her mind, she thought of what happened one evening at Liangma Bridge more than half a year ago. The bistro itself was, in fact, open under a new name and new ownership. Its previous owner was Lin Yun, a 30-something music industry professional, whose girlfriend Yang Liu was formerly a reporter at The Beijing News. After they attended the protest at Liangma Bridge on 27 November 2022, they were swept up in the subsequent wave of arrests, and never appeared in the bistro again.On 24 November 2022, a fire broke out in the Jixiangyuan Community in Urumqi, Xinjiang, while the city was under lockdown during the Covid pandemic. According to official reports, 10 people were killed in the fire. The blaze ignited public discontent surrounding the government’s zero-tolerance stance on Covid containment, and on 26 November, the White Paper Protests began at Shanghai’s Urumqi Middle Road. The protest on 27 November at Liangma Bridge in Beijing likewise drew a crowd of thousands.Yang Liu and Lin Yun were among those at Liangma Bridge that night. On 18 December, some three weeks after the protest, mass arrests of the protesters began, and both were subsequently detained. Like most other protesters in Beijing, the two were placed under detention for roughly one month, before being released on bail shortly before the Lunar New Year holiday in early 2023. Lin Yun was escorted back to his old home by police officers from Guizhou Province, while Yang Liu was ordered to return to her old home in Linfen, Shanxi Province.Even as the Chinese government ended its zero-Covid policy, authorities continued to round up protesters, and many young people in cities across China became targets for official retribution. Ten protesters in Beijing, including Cao Zhixin, Zhai Dengrui, and Li Siqi, were detained by the prosecutor’s office until 19 April 2023, when they were finally released on bail, and ordered to return to their original homes in the provinces.Different fates awaited protesters in other cities. WhyNot has learned of an ethnic Uyghur man in Chengdu named Ashal, who was detained for 37 days after the first wave of arrests, released on bail, but forcibly transported back to Xinjiang. He was detained under a new charge the day after the World University Games closing ceremony in August 2023, causing much distress for his friends.The White Paper Protests showed the outside world what younger generations in China wanted, yet the increasingly oppressive political climate as a result of the crackdown on protests became the cause of despair for many. Some, including Xiaohan, chose to leave the country, either for academic study or simply to lie low for a while.Xiaohan was at Liangma Bridge protesting that night. Now, in the relaxed atmosphere and autumn sun of a North American university campus, everything seems like a blur. Although she tries not to think about it, memories of that fateful night still float into her consciousness from time to time.

Returning to the scene 

“I’m most worried about the guy who called for ‘self-determination’.”During October 2022, Xiaohan was preparing her applications for foreign universities while listening to reports of the 20th National Congress on the state-owned channel CCTV. Although she initially had doubts, since going abroad would mean leaving her cat behind, the Congress proceedings strengthened her resolve.As a reporter, Xiaohan was able to conduct a number of in-depth reports right at the tail end of China’s “golden age” for journalism, yet like others her age, this “golden age” never transformed into a “new era.” The three years of restrictive pandemic control measures beginning in 2020—and especially the zero-Covid policy that begun in 2021—made each day a torture for her; in her own words, “I felt like I was going crazy, wanting to bite someone every time I left home.”All was not well before the 20th National Congress. On 18 September, a coach transporting residents to meet strict zero-Covid demands fell off a cliff in Guizhou Province, yet this was just one of the many tragedies resulting from Covid control measures that happened nearly every day during the period. Xiaohan found herself in a state of “political disillusionment,” and began reading the rumours and conspiracies surrounding Chinese politics on Twitter. In the end, however, none of the rumoured-to-happen events materialised.On 16 October, she was stunned by internet reports of Peng Zaizhou (a.k.a. Peng Lifa) hanging protest banners on Beijing’s Sitong Bridge. “This man has no regard for his own life,” she thought.Soon afterward, website homepages and newspaper front pages became a sea of red, as the 20th National Congress convened, and Xi Jinping secured another term as the head of China. At the closing ceremony a week later, former president Hu Jintao was suddenly removed from his seat. Even though it was already common knowledge that the inner workings of Chinese politics are a big black hole, images and video of Hu’s removal stunned many after the news spread on the internet.The strict zero-Covid policy stayed in place after the 20th National Congress and the following first plenary session of the 20th Central Committee. Even after October, pandemic control measures remained just as strict in Beijing, where Xiaohan live, and in other cities across the country. Zero-Covid continued, and Peng Zaizhou had disappeared without a trace. In desperation, Xiaohan no longer felt that she had to insist on studying journalism and continue her work as an investigative reporter abroad: she rushed to fill out applications for backup schools that had nothing to do with journalism. Her only wish was to leave China as soon as possible.On the night of November 27, Xiaohan saw a crude poster in a WeChat group calling for people to commemorate the victims of the Urumqi fire at the Urumqi Representative Office in Beijing. However, this was swiftly followed by people saying that there was already a police presence at the Representative Office, which was closed that day, and the crowds had then moved to Liangma Bridge. Without much hesitation, Xiaohan called up a colleague, and went to the site.When she arrived at Liangma Bridge, the roadsides were already full of people.She heard the slogans written on the banners at Sitong Bridge sounding here and there among the crowd. “No to Covid testing, yes to regular meals!” “No to dictators, yes to elections!” She also heard calls of “journalistic freedom” several times, and she recognised that one of the voices came from a friend of hers. “I want to dine out!” “I want to go to the movies!” The crowd roared with laughter when a man yelled, “I want KFC!”Amid the sounds of Peng Zaizhou’s slogans were the pent-up demands of life under zero-Covid, and emotions that could not be expressed in daily life. As another woman at the protest put it, everyone there was well aware that they had to restrain themselves from calling for more, since the police were not far away, “but we yelled out almost everything we wanted deep down inside.” In her words, a joyful atmosphere permeated the scene, since the crowds were releasing the pressure they had felt for so long: “Only at that moment did I feel truly alive.”Xiaohan also chanted “I want journalistic freedom” several times. “I thought, if we have no freedom for journalism, then where can we go to watch movies or dine out?”But one moment that night left an indelible mark in her memory: amid all the raucous chanting, a man from Xinjiang suddenly yelled, “We want self-determination!”Xiaohan recalls that the crowd suddenly fell silent. Even though many other slogans resounded among the crowd that night, this particular one was alien to most, since the vast majority of the people there were ethnic Han Chinese. As the silence continued, the 20-something young man who shouted the slogan hung his head down and began to cry. Xiaohan felt pity for the man, and went over to hug him.“The Han-centric perspective has always been acutely dominant in China, so much so that most people don’t even understand that there is such a perspective. That lone voice that night came from the fringes of society, but it was a real voice.”As she saw the police approaching with recording equipment, she realised that the man would be in danger, and so dragged him into the shadows of the crowds.

Now, nearly a year later, Xiaohan often thinks of the man. Although many others were at the scene that night, she worries the most about him: “I just hope that he’s okay.”

A father says to his daughter, “The people here don’t want to do Covid testing”

It is summer 2023, and Tara is sitting in a park in New York. She has just left China in a hurry to begin studying in the US.Tara was also at the Liangma Bridge protest. Just as she went out to exercise with her friends that evening, she heard that people were heading there for a memorial for the victims.Her friends all immediately said they would be going, but Tara herself was hesitant. Her main concern was that she had long been involved in civil society-related work, and she knew she would be at higher risk if she ran into any trouble with the police: “I’d have even less room for my work.” Since she had already been regularly targeted by the authorities citing the need to “maintain stability,” a friend told her that her presence at protest sites would only lead to more trouble than other “commoners.”“So, should I go or not?”In the end, Tara decided to go. She arrived at the scene some time after 10 p.m. that night, “with my face and whole body covered” to prevent others from taking photos of her.Even though she “was normally not someone who’d have the zeal to chant slogans”, she joined in the calls demanding journalistic freedom, since she was a writer herself.She saw throngs of young people gathering beneath the bridge. Drivers passing by the site were honking their horns to show their support. Some were yelling, “Let the people of Shanghai go!” Amid the ebb and flow of chants and slogans, she heard someone nearby say, “I can find a million-yuan-per-annum job any other day, but I simply have to be right here tonight.” She couldn’t resist a chuckle.In her recollection, the atmosphere that night was joyful. Although police presence was heavy and everywhere among the crowds, the people there were not afraid. Police officers stood along the road every dozen steps or so, but they were only looking on.She saw a middle-aged man with a stack of white paper, handing out blank sheets to everyone around him. In one of her WeChat groups, she saw someone upload many photos from the scene.Although the majority of the crowd skewed young, people of all ages were present. A few food deliverymen stood nearby, their motorbikes and e-scooters parked in a row beside her. One of the deliverymen suddenly asked her, “What do you think about tonight?” Before she could reply, he answered, “I think today has been a success.” Then he added, “The simple fact that so many people are gathered here today is a success.” To this day, Tara still vividly remembers the pensive look on his face.That same night, Xiaohan overheard a father talking to his daughter among the crowds. The daughter, only three or four years old, asked, “Dad, why are there so many people here, are they waiting for Covid testing?”“No. The people here don’t want to do Covid testing.”

The protesters, one year later 

The Liangma Bridge protest lasted until after 2 a.m. after midnight. Xiaohan went home around 11 p.m., but the next day received news that police in Shanghai were checking people’s phones on the subway. Alarmed, she hurriedly began deleting messages on her phone at around 8 p.m., when four or five police officers and a community official broke into her home.She was taken to the police station for round after round of questioning, and she had to hand in her phone for inspection. However, she kept her cool, and her “know nothing” responses gave the police no handle to grasp onto. Moreover, since she had set her phone’s language to English, the police finally had enough of her and let her go. She finally returned home around midnight. Thankfully, her roommate was alert enough to notify all of her friends to delete their messages.In the following days, Xiaohan roamed the internet every day for news of friends who had disappeared. Some of these she knew quite well, such as Yang Liu, who she knew was an exceptional journalist. She saw Cao Zhixin’s video calling for help just before she was arrested: “I only saw the video once, I couldn’t bear watching it again.”In her view, the police chose their targets somewhat by random, as the protest arose spontaneously without any organisation. Among all those at the protest, Cao Zhixin, Zhai Dengrui, and their group were all apprehended because they were in the same chat group.“This demonstrates how ridiculous China’s legal system is. In cases such as this, so-called ‘evidence’ is gathered only after an ‘official stance’ is determined, and any ‘evidence’ thus collected serves only to support this stance. The chat group basically became the source for their so-called ‘evidence’,” said an attorney involved in the rescue process to WhyNot.Xiaohan believes that the people who were arrested mostly had little experience in dealing with the police, and some of them might not have deleted messages from their phones in time: “The police have always chosen the weakest links as their targets.”Nearly a year later, some of Xiaohan’s guesses have proven to be correct. Sources told WhyNot of a woman who was not at the protest site, but just happened to be in a chat group with other protesters, and just happened to be at home when the police came to arrest one of the protesters. Just because of these associations, she was also detained for 37 days.“They are all suffering alongside us.” Xiaohan now has a clearer picture of how haphazardly the police conduct their work.Xiaohan has been outraged by one thing in particular. After Yang Liu was arrested, she was dropped by her employer. The same has been the case for others as well: not one employer was willing to come out in support of employees who were arrested. When someone in a journalists’ chat group shared news about Yang Liu, another person responded: “Maybe we should not mention her over here to better protect her?”As a fellow journalist, Xiaohan was dismayed by how her colleagues chose not to lend their support, but instead tried to evade and hide. Shortly afterwards, she heard that Wang Xue, another female journalist, had lost her job as well.

In Chengdu, a Uyghur boy loses his freedom twice

On the same day as the protest at Liangma Bridge in Beijing, another White Paper Protest erupted at Chengdu’s Wangping Street, a popular location for internet influencers.Cheryl, a lawyer, was not at the protest that night due to other engagements. Two days after, at around 10 p.m., a group of friends who had been at the Wangping Street protest gathered at a grill bar, and she rushed to join them.The group was chatting about the protest they had just been to. Among them were a married couple, Panghu and Huang Hao.Panghu, the wife, was a tattooist with a head of cropped hair and a plucky demeanour, while her husband Huang Hao, who was interning at a law firm, had shoulder-length hair, and enjoyed cosplaying as a woman. Both husband and wife self-identified as feminists.In the trendy city of Chengdu, the couple were at the forefront of fashion. “They’d give us a new impression each time we met with how they dressed,” Cheryl says of the two.The group that night consisted of four or five different sets of friends, and the gathering lasted late into the night. The very next day, Cheryl heard that Panghu and Huang Hao had been arrested by the police. They had called for help and asked a friend to take care of their dog.After 37 days, the couple were granted bail and released pending trial. During this time, their friends asked all around and helped find a lawyer. The day Panghu was released, Cheryl and her friends went to pick her up, and even bought a bouquet for her. Little did they expect that Panghu looked quite spirited and “was joking around.”Panghu’s mother had come from far away as well, but as her mother prepared to give her an earful, Panghu only wanted to spend time with her friends. The group went to have some dumplings and relax at a public bath. Cheryl realised that Panghu seemed spirited and chatty, but “she was definitely hurt.”“Deep inside her heart, something had been shattered.”Among those arrested in Chengdu was a 24-year-old man from Xinjiang named Ashal. Of all those who have met misfortune, his friends worry about him the most.Compared to most of the protesters gathered at Wangping Street, Ashal was relatively mild-mannered. “When some people yelled out more aggressive slogans, he stood up and told everyone that they should bring their focus back on the victims of the Urumqi fire,” a friend recalls.Tall and curly-haired, Ashal had “a sunny and striking personality,” according to his friends. After graduating from university with a degree in design, he worked for a while in Beijing, before taking up a job at a cultural firm in Chengdu when the pandemic made staying in Beijing impossible.Ashal’s hometown was in Bole County, in the far west of Xinjiang. His father, a retired teacher, suffered from ill health, while his sister was just about to begin studying at university. After losing contact with Ashal, his family later learned that he had been arrested, but they could not find out where he was being detained. His father had to wait for his wages to come in before he had the money to afford a plane ticket to Chengdu. In the end, some kind-hearted people helped him buy a ticket, and he came to Chengdu to try to find Ashal, along with 20 pieces of naan flatbread made by Ashal’s mother as rations for the journey.Just before the Lunar New Year holiday in 2023, Ashal was released on bail pending trial, but he disappeared again in August 2023. According to sources who obtained information after the fact, the day after the Chengdu World University Games ended, some dozen or so officers from Xinjiang rearrested Ashal, took him to the detention centre in Chengdu, and that very night put him on a plane to Bole County in Xinjiang for further detention.Ashal thus lost contact with his friends in Chengdu. No one has heard from him ever since August. His friends only know that he is now facing an additional charge of “promoting extremism”. WhyNot has learned that Ashal has legal representation, and his lawyer has submitted a request to meet Ashal, but has as yet received no response. According to another source, Ashal’s second arrest might have been the authorities exacting retribution for a media interview he gave after being released on bail.Sources say that after being released, Ashal was the target of constant warnings and harassment from the authorities. Prior to the World University Games, he was even constantly monitored for roughly a month, “which nearly drove him crazy”. Everyone thought that these troubles would end after the Games; little did they expect that he would be taken away so suddenly.According to one of his friends, after being released on bail, Ashal received much care and concern from those around him, and he would often attend public events as well. As these young people understood among themselves, this meant that he was no longer alone. Among others and in public life, Ashal looked much happier than before. “Now that he is all alone in a jail cell in Xinjiang, we can’t imagine what he’s going through.”“He’s been aiming to work hard to support both himself and his family. He has a cute girlfriend as well,” says the friend. “He’s been trying very hard to stay out of trouble and out of the sights of the authorities. He’s no revolutionary or resistance fighter, he’s just a young man hoping to lead a steady life, but somehow this has become impossible in real life.”

Who were they? Were the White Paper Protests a political statement?

Chen Dong met Yang Liu one day in September. Slender and tall, Yang Liu wore a blue t-shirt and jeans, and “she looked quite well,” as Chen Dong recalls.Chen, a legal professional, was also at Liangma Bridge that night.Having just returned from a business trip, he hailed a taxi. The driver heard he wanted to go to Liangma Bridge, and said, “It’s chaos over there right now, why are you going?” The driver made him get off far away from the protest site, and he had to walk the distance there.The scene was packed, with youthful faces all around him. After the protest, he reflected on what type of people were there; in his words, they were those “young people who were keen, pure, and full of pride.”“They were pure, but they were keen and astute as well. They were well aware of what was happening in real life. Many had an artistic vibe, the type that likes poetry and movies.”Chen was most impressed by the sense of pride these young people had, possibly because they were utterly convinced of their individual value, a feeling of self-confidence in their lives as a modern human being. Chen had seen this aura in many other young people as well, “which I really like.”Standing among the crowds, Chen Dong felt his heart stirring. “I felt as if I was in a black box, but now I suddenly had a sense of encouragement, seeing that there were so many others that shared my thoughts.”A few months later at an event in Chengdu, he met a young couple who were “very cool and talkative,” as the group chatted over drinks. Later he learned that the couple he met was Panghu and Huang Hao. He saw the same aura in these two.Just before the Lunar New Year holiday in 2023, Chen Dong received calls for help from the relatives of a number of people who had been arrested, including Yang Liu. After much effort from their lawyers, a group of people were released the day before the Lunar New Year holiday, Yang Liu among them.Yang Liu was ordered to return to her old home in Shanxi Province, while her boyfriend Lin Yun was returned to Guizhou. According to another source, for several months after her release, Yang Liu was barred from Beijing, and was forbidden to leave her hometown. These restrictions were gradually relaxed after a period of time.After meeting Lin Yun, Chen Dong remembers that he had the depressive demeanour of an artist. Lin said that he wished to return to Beijing, but this was not allowed.

“Was that night a political statement?” “Of course it was!”

Born in the 1980s, Chen Dong had previously worked in the media, and was witness to a period of lively civic activity in China, with a feeling of hope that was ultimately dashed. Later on, he turned to the legal profession.At Liangma Bridge that night, he felt most keenly “a sense of encouragement.” “I thought that everyone had become tame and docile after all these years, but that night I saw an expression of courage and pride.”Although many outsiders believe that “the young people at the White Paper Protests only demanded an end to lockdowns, and the protests were not a political statement,” Chen Dong disagrees with this prevalent view.“That night at Liangma Bridge was very precious. I suddenly realised that this was the first political statement on the streets of Beijing in more than two decades. Simply heading onto the streets is itself a political statement in China,” says Chen.“No to lockdowns, yes to freedom. No to dictators, yes to elections. These were slogans that Peng Zaizhou wrote at his protest on Sitong Bridge a month prior to the Liangma Bridge protest. At the time, mandatory nucleic acid Covid testing dominated politics in China. If protesting Covid testing was not a political statement, then what can it be called?” wrote a writer called Little Wilson.“Politics is not merely power manoeuvring in a black box, but rather part of public life. In my eyes, this was China’s largest resistance movement, and the most courageous cry of all its individuals,” says Chen.Chen noticed that most of the protesters had a background in the culture, media, and arts fields. He recalls hearing chatter from a number of bands that were there: “This guy is our guitar player, this is our drummer.”Not far away from Chen Dong, a young man named Xin Shang read Shakespeare’s sonnets to a human chain of police officers. Soon afterward, Xin Shang was apprehended, detained for a few days and released, and then he seemingly vanished. As a movie industry professional, Xin Shang made a documentary video that can still be found on the internet. Comprised of a series of jump cuts, the documentary features Li Xiaoyun, the runner-up in the 2004 edition of the Super Voice Girls competition.

What is left of the protests a year later?

On 30 October 2023, Halloween-themed photos from Shanghai caused a stir on the internet.Young people in Shanghai used the occasion to dress up and critique their situation. One person wore ghostly white makeup and a sash with the words, “Gloriously retired in 2027,” in a rebuke of the policy to delay retirement age. Another dressed up as the early 20th century author Lu Xun and offered this call to young people: “Don’t grow cold, be radiant and warm!” Another dressed up as a “Big White”—Covid testing personnel in full protective gear—with a giant cotton swab in hand, aiming to drag people back into the previous three years of lockdown.Speaking to a podcast, a “Ms. F” who had been at the White Paper Protest in Shanghai a year ago said that she was also at the Halloween event this year. In her words, she sensed that people were venting out their anger but in subtle and creative ways.On her way home, Ms. F recorded her feelings: “I clearly sensed that no-one in costume on the street was a Halloween ‘ghost,’ but rather very real people who had endured three years of lockdown together. We had all been through isolation, forced silence, lockdown, forced treatment in mobile hospitals, ‘dynamic zero-Covid’ policies, and the White Paper Protests. We all bore on us the deep, collective trauma of the pandemic and zero-Covid policies.”In addition, “Beneath the jubilant and joking atmosphere, there was a sense of pent-up anger and sarcasm, as well as the deep longing that young people today have for freedom of expression.”“I believe, everyone there knew that this was one of the very few occasions where one could head out and freely express themselves in public.”Ms. F was not the only one to have this feeling. Another Shanghai resident told WhyNot that many of the young people at the Halloween event were holding up sheets of white paper to commemorate the victims of the Urumqi fire one year ago.“I was not surprised at all at how the young people of Shanghai expressed themselves. The people on the streets in Shanghai are exactly the type of people I’ve been seeing this past year,” says Cheryl. Throughout this past year, Cheryl has been hosting a public forum, where she has been in contact with young people like this every day.“If you asked what type of young people they are, I would say that they are the type that is willing to think for themselves,” says Cheryl. In the past year, she has seen bookstores large and small spring up everywhere. After three years of lockdown, and the prolonged suppression of a desire for public expression, she now sees many in the younger generation thinking about society and their own futures.Cheryl says that she has been hosting discussions on a wide range of topics recently, covering everything from egg freezing to the Gaza Strip conflict. Each session attracts dozens of participants, with lively discussions sometimes lasting deep into the night. She finds that these young people all have very rational mindsets: “When they discuss issues, they are able to listen to different perspectives.”“Life itself is power.” Cheryl believes that these young people are waiting for an opportunity to use their power. Even though they have been born into their current circumstance, they feel neither pessimism nor self-pity, nor do they put themselves upon a pedestal and believe they are destined for something great.”“They don’t have a defining paradigm, but why do they have to have one?” “In daily life, they might simply seem gentle and well-behaved, not the kind that wants to be macho, or the type that sees beauty in violence. They simply want to be themselves. They are pure and individualistic, but this is precisely what sets them apart from any other generation,” says Cheryl.“They don’t know each other, and most likely have nothing in common in their daily lives. Ours is a free community.” Cheryl believes they were the young people who went onto the streets on the night of the White Paper Protest.A year on, the young people who had been suppressed for protesting have gradually recovered their paces in life. The young man who once stood—flowers in hand—on the streets of Shanghai to speak out is now reportedly living abroad.Lin Xuxu, once a protester in Beijing, is now enjoying a leisurely life in Southeast Asia. With the exuberant, fiery atmosphere that night now a distant memory, she is trying to write down her recollections of the day. In her own words, she is afraid of forgetting.Hoping to learn more about his country, Bai Yuan hopped on a Tokyo subway train in October this year to attend a talk on contemporary Chinese history given by a Chinese academic. Previously, Bai Yuan held up a piece of white paper in a subway station in a city in central China and thus attracted unwanted attention from the police.Yang Zijing (online handle Dimsum) attended a protest at Zhuhai in Guangzhou Province, and they were later ordered to return and stay at home after being released from detention, much like other protesters who were later apprehended.Cheryl has been busy doing this and that, saying that she now feels a bit happier than before. She often thinks about a taxi driver she once met, roughly half a year after the protest. Somehow the conversation led to that eventful night, and she was surprised by how candid the driver was: without any hesitation, he suddenly said, “I was there that night.”Originally a small-time construction site contractor, he lost everything during the pandemic and resorted to taxi driving to make ends meet. As soon as he heard about the protest that night, he went there immediately and did everything he could to make it to the very front.Cheryl was struck by how determined the driver sounded. In clear-cut words, he told Cheryl that the system could not go on like this. Even with the suffocating pressures of life right now, if the time calls for him to stand up, he knows which side he will be on.Ever since that chance meeting, Cheryl would often look about in the audience whenever she hosts a discussion. “I want to see him there. I want to tell him that he is not alone.”(Editor’s note: At the request of the interviewees, Xiaohan, Tara, Chen Dong, Bai Yuan, and Cheryl are all pseudonyms. In addition, the identity of sources cited in this report has been concealed. This report was updated on 24 November 2023 to further ensure privacy and safety for those involved.)