History

posts related to modern Chinese history

The lasting legacy of the Yan’an Rectification

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Source: China Unofficial Archives (1/8/26)
The Lasting Legacy of Mao’s Yan’an Rectification: The Creation of a Culture of Control
By Hai Wen

[中国民间档案馆 China Unofficial Archives is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. .]

The covers of the English and the traditional Chinese versions of Gao Hua’s How the Red Sun Rose.

Looking back at China’s political trajectory over the past century, one fundamental fact is inescapable: a Party culture—not indigenous to China but transplanted from Soviet Russia—has profoundly shaped every facet of contemporary Chinese life.In China, Party culture is more than a technique of political control; it is a profound disciplining of the nation’s historical memory and spiritual landscape. Since 1949, this control and indoctrination have persisted for over seventy years. The decisive step in finalizing this Party culture was the Yan’an Rectification Movement of 1942. One could argue that the prototype of the party-state depicted in the famous 1948 dystopian novel 1984 was already forged in Yan’an; everything that followed has merely been an amplification of that original model.

In the world today, de-Sovietization has become a major global trend. Many former Soviet states, most notably Ukraine, have struggled to de-Sovietize. While the Chinese people may feel deep sympathy for Ukraine, to a large extent—particularly regarding political culture—China remains a Soviet-style state. The dead weight of the Soviet system, and specifically the drag of Bolshevik Party culture, remains a primary obstacle to China’s political and social transformation.

China’s Bolshevik Party culture encompasses, but is not limited to, elements such as extreme centralization, a cult of personality, intra-Party struggles, and ruthless purges. Together, these form a self-reinforcing, closed-loop system. From the Yan’an Rectification onward—whether through the total Sovietization of the early 1950s or the current era’s so-called “Sinicization of Marxism”—the essence has remained unchanged. Though ripples of liberalism or democratic socialism have occasionally emerged within the Chinese Communist Party, they have never managed to shake the Bolshevik foundations of the political culture.

Drawing primarily on two seminal works of Party history—He Fang’s Notes on the History of the Chinese Communist Party: From the Zun’yi Conference to the Yan’an Rectification Movement (hereafter Notes) and Gao Hua’s How the Red Sun Rose: The Origins and Development of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, 1930–1945,(hereafter Red Sun)—we will analyze how the Yan’an Rectification of the 1940s served as the foundry for the Bolshevik Party culture that continues to dominate China today. Continue reading The lasting legacy of the Yan’an Rectification →

Mourning Li Wenliang on the internet

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Source: Annenberg School for Communications (12/17/25)
Mourning Li Wenliang, the Whistleblower of COVID-19, on the Chinese Internet
In a new paper, Professor Guobin Yang analyzes how Chinese social media users eulogized Li Wenliang through an ancient literary form.
By Hailey Reissman

A drawing of Li Wenliang that circulated online in China after Li died from COVID-19. The caption: “An Anti-Pandemic Hero, Dr. Li Wenliang.”

After Dr. Li Wenliang, the Wuhan ophthalmologist known as the whistleblower of COVID-19, died in February 2020 from COVID-19, Chinese social media was overwhelmed with tribute posts to the late doctor. Before his death, Li had been reprimanded by Wuhan police for “making false comments” and “spreading rumors” after a message he sent about the outbreak in a WeChat group was shared publicly.

Interestingly, many Chinese social media users eulogized Li in online biographies written in the style of “arrayed biographies,” a narrative form featured in one of the most famous historical texts in China: Sima Qian’s Shiji (also known as Records of the Grand Historian). The biographies in the Shiji, written in the late second century BCE, record the life stories of important figures in Chinese history by using examples of the person’s moral character.

In a new paper published in China Information, Annenberg School for Communication Professor Guobin Yang analyzed 30 of these Shiji-style biographies of Li to explore how Chinese internet users use this narrative style to share stories online under conditions of censorship. Yang argues that the Shiji-style biographies of Li are speech acts that “gave netizens the narrative structures and affordances to express sentiments which would otherwise have been hard to convey or convey in such powerful ways.”

Borrowing the Voice of History

Like Aesop’s Fables in the West, the format of Shiji biographies is instantly recognizable to Chinese audiences, says Yang, Grace Lee Boggs Professor of Communication and Sociology.

“Shiji is a foundational text in early Chinese historical writing. These biographies of famous historical figures, such as generals, ministers, and scholars, are often excerpted in school textbooks and are well known and revered by the educated public,” says Yang, who also directs the Center on Digital Culture and Society. Continue reading Mourning Li Wenliang on the internet →

Official media rebukes Han-Centric historical narratives

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Source: Sinical China (12/20/25)
China’s Official Media Rebukes Han-Centric Historical Narratives
A viral online discouse blaming Qing Dynasty for China’s contemporary woes prompts official excoriation
By Xu Zeyu and Tian Zijun

On December 17, an article appeared on the official WeChat account of the Zhejiang Provincial Publicity Department, bearing the cautionary title “Beware of the ‘1644 Historical View’ Disrupting Our Rhythm”—a distinctively Chinese internet slang for manipulating public opinion often in biased and misleading ways. Within hours, it was republished and heavily cited across major news outlets and official accounts, indicating a coordinated push-back against a growing viral online discourse that has captivated, and increasingly alarmed, segments of China’s digital space. Here are the opening lines:

Recently, the so-called “1644 historical view” is gaining traction online. It contends that the demise of the Ming dynasty at the hands of Manchus in 1644 and the subsequent establishment of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) represented “a fatal rupture in Chinese civilization.” In this narrative, Qing is not regarded as a legitimate successor of Chinese dynasties but a “foreign colonial power,” and the entire Qing history is open to a complete rejection because Qing’s misrule led to China’s weakness and suffering during the century of humiliation.

近来，所谓的“1644史观”在网上持续引发热议。该论调的核心主张包括，将1644年明朝灭亡、清军入关视为“华夏文明的中断”，将清朝定位为“外来殖民政权”，并衍生出对清朝历史全盘否定的评价，将近代中国积贫积弱、遭受列强欺凌的根源归咎于清朝的统治。

Continue reading Official media rebukes Han-Centric historical narratives →

The secret trial of General Xu Qinxian

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Source: NYT (12/17/25)
The Secret Trial of the General Who Refused to Attack Tiananmen Square
In 1989, Gen. Xu Qinxian defied orders to crush the pro-democracy protests in Beijing. Now, leaked video from his court-martial is on YouTube.
By Chris Buckley, Reporting from Taipei, Taiwan

A six-hour video from the secret 1990 court-martial of Xu Qinxian, a Chinese general who refused to take part in what became a massacre in Beijing, has been leaked and posted online. CreditCredit…YouTube

When China’s rulers ordered tens of thousands of soldiers to crush pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing in 1989, Gen. Xu Qinxian was the commander who famously said no.

He refused to lead his troops into the capital to help clear the protesters in Tiananmen Square by armed force. For decades, the story of his defiance remained murky.

Now, a leaked video of his secret court-martial has shed a rare light on General Xu, and on the tensions inside the military as Deng Xiaoping, China’s paramount leader at the time, prepared to send the soldiers into Beijing. That deployment culminated in the killing of hundreds — by some estimates, thousands — of unarmed people on June 3 and 4 as soldiers fired on protesters and bystanders.

In the trial footage, General Xu explains that he refused the order as a matter of individual conscience and professional judgment. He tells judges that sending armed troops against civilians would lead to chaos and bloodshed, saying that a commander who carried out martial law poorly would go down as “a sinner in history.”

General Xu had risen from a family of small-time vendors to command the 38th Group Army, one of the military’s most prestigious units. But by the time of his court-martial in 1990, captured in the video, he had been stripped of his command, charged with disobeying martial law orders, and brought before the judges to defend the decision that abruptly ended his career.

The six-hour video of the trial shows General Xu, in drab civilian clothes, entering a courtroom, guarded by three soldiers. Three judges gaze down from a podium. The courtroom is devoid of spectators.

Continue reading The secret trial of General Xu Qinxian →

How to Read Chinese Poetry video series

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Launch of English Video Series | How to Read Chinese Poetry: From the Shijing to Qing Poetry

The Advanced Institute for Global Chinese Studies (AIGCS) is pleased to announce the launch of the “How to Read Chinese Poetry: From the Shijing to Qing Poetry” video series—an adaptation of the podcast series released in 2022-2023, hosted by Professor Zong-qi Cai of Lingnan University.

Co-hosted by ten leading sinologists from North America, the series brings highlights from the acclaimed book How to Read Chinese Poetry: A Guided Anthology (Columbia University Press) to a broad general audience.

Below are the highlights of our first topic. Please join us as we journey into the ancient world of The Book of Poetry (Shijing), guided by Professor William H. Nienhauser of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Episodes 1-2: The Book of Poetry – Courtship Poems

The Book of Poetry: Courtship poems, William H. NIENHAUSER (Part1)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXLb8VTp9fY

The Book of Poetry: Courtship poems, William H. NIENHAUSER (Part2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBOh9nTdmFY

In the first two installments, Professor Nienhauser examines courtship poems from The Book of Poetry, the earliest anthology of Chinese poetry. The three courtship dynamics portrayed in “I Beg of you, Zhong Zi,” “The Banks of the Ru,” and “The Retiring Girl” offer contrasting perspectives on romantic pursuits in early China.

Episode 3: The Book of Poetry – A Paean to Zhou Dynastic Building

The Book of Poetry: Zhou Dynastic Building, William H. NIENHAUSER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl7O_2ahLME

The next poem examined by Professor Nienhauser is “Mian” (Woven). Like many of the Da Ya (Greater Odes), “Woven” celebrates two heroic ancestors who laid the groundwork for their descendants to overcome the Shang dynasty and establish the Zhou. The poem’s structure lends itself to memorization and recitation, suggesting it may have been used in early Zhou court rituals, much as “The Star-Spangled Banner” commemorates a pivotal event in American history.

Have fun watching and feel free to share your thoughts!

Farewell to ‘Du Fu of Huanhua Creek’

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Source: China Digital Times (12/2/2025)
Translation: Farewell to a Deleted WeChat Account, “Du Fu of Huanhua Creek”
By Samuel Wade

Late last month, WeChat moderators’ axe fell on “Du Fu of Huanhua Creek,” apparently prompted by a post questioning online comments about Sino-Japanese tensions. On their other account, “History Rhymes,” author “Xu Peng1” lamented the loss of the account, the writing posted to it, and the connections it had made. The core of the post is a defense of what the authorities term “negative energy.” The great “poet-historian” after whom the account was named famously recorded the suffering of the common people during the An Lushan rebellion of the mid-eighth century, which “some argue was the end of China’s greatest Golden Age.” “Certain people around today would have called all of this ‘negative energy,’” Xu Peng writes. “But a thousand years on, what was ‘negative energy’ then is positive energy that today’s schoolchildren must learn by heart.”

Some serially banned members of Chinese social media’s “Resurrection Party” mock the process by numbering their new accounts or adopting increasingly absurd names like the recent “New New New Silence.” Xu Peng writes that instead, his next account will continue to follow the path through significant locations in Du Fu’s life. Many who have been censored express sarcastic penitence: “Yuzhilu,” for example, recently posed the rhetorical question-and-answer: “Q: What’s your opinion on public account posts getting shot down? A: I have no opinion, and feel nothing but gratitude toward the public account platform.” Similarly, Xu Peng borrows the Party exhortation to “not forget the original intention,” while making a somewhat contradictory promise of greater obedience in future: “I’ve certainly learned my lesson, and will correct my past mistakes.”

Today really was the darkest day. At noon, my younger cousin, who had been in the ICU for ten days or so, finally couldn’t hold on anymore. I hope I’ll have a chance to tell you about his story at some point.

My tears hadn’t yet dried when, in the afternoon, my WeChat public account Du Fu of Huanhua Creek (浣花溪杜甫, Huànhuāxī Dù Fǔ), was permanently banned. A sandcastle will always be swept away by the waves in the end.

I was in a daze from noon until evening, but I had to keep snapping myself out of it to look after my child.

During those distracted moments, I couldn’t stop thinking about the meaning of life, and the significance of speaking out.

Whenever I did speak out, I’d do it cautiously, aware that I was treading on thin ice, but I still inadvertently stepped on a mine and got blown up in the end.

I started posting from Du Fu of Huanhua Creek after [my previous WeChat account], Du Fu of Shihao Village, disappeared [amid the White Paper protests] at the end of 2022. Since then, the newer account has been temporarily suspended several times, and many of its posts have been deleted. Continue reading Farewell to ‘Du Fu of Huanhua Creek’ →

Wasteland Elegy

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Source: China Unofficial Archives (12/4/25)
Wasteland Elegy: Official Records and Private Memories of China’s Northwestern Labor Camps
By Hai Xing

An Dianxiang the author of A Bitter Journey to the End of the World in Qinghai.

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In the historical landscape of mid-20th century China, the Northwest represented more than just a geographic concept; it was a metaphor for destiny. This seemingly desolate expanse, marked by wind, sand, salt flats, and extreme cold, was also a unique testing ground where the state exercised its will through large-scale, enclosed social experiments.

Reflecting on that sealed history today often results in a fractured perspective: one is the macroscopic, official narrative constructed from data and documents; the other is the microscopic narrative crystallized from blood, tears, and personal memory. The Qinghai Province Laogai Gazetteer (hereinafter, the Gazetteer), compiled by the Laogai (Reform Through Labor) Work Administration of the Qinghai Provincial Department of Justice, provides the rigid framework of the former, while An Dianxiang’s A Bitter Journey to the End of the World in Qinghai (hereinafter, Bitter Journey) and Yang Xianhui’s Chronicles of Jiabiangou provide the latter’s most searing, human detail.

By juxtaposing the private memories captured by An Dianxiang and Yang Xianhui with the vast historical backdrop established by the Gazetteer, we can observe not only the individual’s struggle under the state machine’s relentless pressure, but also, through the mutual corroboration of official and civilian accounts, gain insight into the institutional roots of the era’s absurdity and tragedy. This is a confrontation between the merciless logic of violence and the enduring dignity of the human spirit. Continue reading Wasteland Elegy →

The Road to Miaoxi

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Source: NY Review of Books (11/22/25)
The Road to Miaoxi
By Ai Xiaoming, translated and with an introduction by Ian Johnson
Ruins of Mao-era “reform-through-labor” camps remain scattered throughout the mountains of Sichuan. Five years ago I decided to retrace one former prisoner’s path.

Ai Xiaoming. Farmland once worked by the “women’s brigade” at Miaoxi, a reform-through-labor camp in the Mao era, Lushan, Sichuan, 2020

During the Cold War, educated people in free societies were so familiar with figures on the other side of the Iron Curtain that they were referred to just by their last names: Solzhenitsyn, Kundera, Havel, Forman. They knew the name, too, of the Soviet system’s most notorious instrument of control, the Gulag network of forced labor camps.

Chinese people have experienced seventy-six years of a similar kind of autocracy, longer than the entire existence of the Soviet Union. But outsiders still know little about independent thinkers in China—or even that they exist. That neglect extends to Ai Xiaoming, the author of the essay that follows, who is one of the most important public intellectuals in China today. A seventy-two-year-old native of Wuhan, she began as a scholar of Eastern European literature, translating Kundera into Chinese, before slowly migrating to feminist studies.

In the early 2000s, having become a tenured professor in literature at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, she adopted the new technology of digital cameras to make films about social issues in China. A dozen documentaries followed, on issues such as violence against women, rural resistance to Communist Party control, rigged local elections, and the lack of an independent judicial system. Her most important film is Jiabiangou Elegy, a six-and-a half-hour epic on the country’s most notorious labor camp.

Since that film was released in 2017, life for Ai has become increasingly difficult. She is banned from leaving the country and has had trouble with the government when she tries to make new films. Instead she has taken on the role of oral historian for elderly victims of the Mao era. She takes what are sometimes sprawling and disorganized manuscripts, reinterviews the authors, and edits the works into publishable texts. The stories often describe the early years of the People’s Republic, foreshadowing issues that remain important today. Continue reading The Road to Miaoxi →

Oldest complete copy of Book of Songs found

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Source: China Daily (11/10/25)
‘Book of Songs’ from Chinese imperial tomb proves oldest complete copy ever found
By Xinhua

NANCHANG — Archaeologists have confirmed the discovery of China’s first ever-known complete version of the “Book of Songs” on bamboo slips from the Qin (221-207 BC) and Han (202 BC-220 AD) period, dating back some 2,000 years.

The manuscript written on bamboo slips was unearthed from the famed tomb of the Marquis of Haihun in Nanchang, capital of east China’s Jiangxi Province.

Infrared scans clearly identified key information such as a total of “305 poems” and “7,274 lines,” proving it was a full copy when the classic work was buried in the tomb, Yang Jun, the tomb excavation team leader from the Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said at a recent seminar.

The bamboo slips each measure 23 cm in length and 0.8 cm in width, and there are 20 to 25 characters per slip and three binding cords, said Yang Bo, a researcher at the Institute of Ancient History, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Experts hold that the copy was the official textbook for Confucian studies during the Western Han Dynasty (202 BC-25 AD). The tomb’s owner, Marquis Liu He, was a documented student of the book, making the find a direct link to historical records.

Liu was the grandson of Emperor Wu, whose reign ushered in one of the most prosperous periods in China’s history. Liu was given the title “Haihunhou,” or “the Marquis of Haihun,” after he was deposed as emperor, following only 27 days in power. He was dethroned by his royal clan due to what they considered a lack of talent and morals. Haihun is the ancient name of a very small kingdom in northern Jiangxi.

Red tourism in Dazhai

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Source: NYT (11/18/25)
Where Mao’s Peasants Tilled the Soil, Tourists Now Pay for the View
Decades ago, a Chinese village became an official symbol of revolutionary “self-reliance.” The slogan hasn’t changed, but nearly everything else has.
By Andrew Higgins; Photographs by Gilles Sabrié, Reporting from Dazhai, China

A man with a gray cap tends to plants on a slope. Below him are tiled-roof houses and a long, light-colored building.

Jia Tianlian tending his tiny plot of land in Dazhai, a village in northern China that Mao Zedong once hailed as a model for the nation. In the background are residential buildings from the “people’s commune” of that era. Credit.

Promising a socialist utopia built with the toil of ordinary farmers, Mao Zedong singled out the remote mountain village of Dazhai as proof that faith in the Communist Party and hard work could conquer the harshest terrain.

The villagers, wielding pick axes, hoes and their bare hands more than half a century ago, were said to have carved terraces out of stony hillsides, hauling soil to turn barren slopes into miraculously bountiful fields of corn.

More than 10 million Chinese visited the tiny village in Shanxi Province in northern China, obeying Mao’s order to “learn from Dazhai” and soak up its history of hardship and anticapitalist fervor. Most came during China’s disastrous 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, during which Dazhai’s semiliterate party boss, Chen Yonggui, was elevated to the Politburo in Beijing.

Today, the farmers of Dazhai have mostly vanished. Many of their terraces have crumbled, while machines and corporate farming have replaced their labor on those that remain. Continue reading Red tourism in Dazhai →

Gao Ertai, a spiritual recluse

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Gao Ertai 高尔泰.

Source: China Unofficial Archives (11/4/25)
Gao Ertai: A Spiritual Recluse Who Once Defended His Dignity with His Fists—Notes on Reading In Search of My Homeland
By Ma Qinuo

[中国民间档案馆 China Unofficial Archives is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. ]

After the June Fourth crackdown in 1989, the political study sessions in many institutions became noticeably more frequent. The northern Chinese city where I lived was no exception.

At least two days a week were dedicated to intensive study sessions. People were required to sit in a circle in a conference room while a few young people took turns reading the lengthy mass criticism articles in the Party newspaper that exposed the “rioting elites.”

One day, during a discussion, a short, plump, middle-aged man in my unit eagerly spoke up in a high-pitched voice: “Let me first share some news with everyone: Gao Ertai has been arrested!” His words were laced with schadenfreude.

That was the first time I had heard any news of Gao Ertai after June Fourth.

At the time, Gao Ertai had not yet written In Search of My Homeland and was not known to readers at home and abroad. However, his 1986 publication, Beauty is the Symbol of Freedom, raised the banner of freedom during China’s 1980s “Aesthetics Craze” by arguing that aesthetics was subjective and not objective—in other words, people and not cultural bureaucrats could decide for themselves what was good or bad. His message was a wake-up call and remains unforgettable for the generation of young people in the 1980s who sought ideological liberation.

As an ordinary reader who had always followed Gao Ertai, it wasn’t until I read In Search of My Homeland more than twenty years later that I learned the details: on September 9, 1989, Gao Ertai and his wife, Xiaoyu, were arrested by a group of police using methods bordering on kidnapping right on the Nanjing University campus and taken to prison. Continue reading Gao Ertai, a spiritual recluse →

Xi parades firepower

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Source: NYT (9/2/25)
Xi Parades Firepower to Signal That China Won’t Be Bullied Again
阅读简体中文版 | 閱讀繁體中文版
The parade, attended by the leaders of Russia and North Korea, had a defiant message. President Trump fired back, accusing Xi Jinping of ignoring America’s role in World War II.
By David Pierson (David Pierson reported from Beijing, where he was told to be in position at 2:45 a.m. along with other journalists covering the parade.)

China’s flag is raised as a military band plays during a parade.

China’s flag was raised as a military band played during the parade. Credit…Greg Baker/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, presided over a massive military parade in Beijing on Wednesday featuring fighter jets, missiles and goose-stepping troops as he issued a defiant warning to rivals not to challenge his country’s sovereignty.

His message was underscored by the leaders gathered by his side in the viewing gallery, representing states that have challenged or questioned American dominance of the global order. He was flanked by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, along with the leaders of Iran, Pakistan and other mostly authoritarian nations.

Cannons fired 80 times to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II, as soldiers carried a Chinese flag and marched across a red carpet covering part of Tiananmen Square. Crowds watching the parade waved small flags and saluted as the national anthem was played and the flag was raised. Later, pigeons and balloons — said to number 80,000 each — were released into the air.

The parade was the highlight of a weekslong campaign by the ruling Communist Party to stoke nationalism, recast China’s role in World War II and project the party as the nation’s savior against a foreign aggressor, Imperial Japan. The evoking of wartime memories serves to rally domestic Chinese support in the face of economic uncertainty and tensions with the United States, which Mr. Xi has accused of trying to contain and suppress China. Continue reading Xi parades firepower →

Youth Forum and Hu Yaobang

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The cover of the inaugural issue of Youth Forum in November 1984.

Source: China Unofficial Archives (9/2/25)
An Intellectual Beacon of the 1980s: The Intertwined Fates of Youth Forum and Hu Yaobang
By Xiao Shu

[中国民间档案馆 China Unofficial Archives is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber at the above link]

In the 1980s, Wuhan’s Youth Forum was an influential intellectual magazine, on par with Shanghai’s World Economic Herald. The two were collectively known as “the one newspaper and one magazine.” Both actively explored themes of freedom and democracy, touching on politically sensitive issues and playing a significant role in the intellectual enlightenment of the Chinese people. Their fates were equally unfortunate: World Economic Herald was completely shut down after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, while Youth Forum was forced to cease publication during the 1987 Anti-Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign. With their closure, two intellectual beacons of the eighties were extinguished.

More than 30 years later, Li Minghua, the former editor-in-chief of Youth Forum, published An Intellectual Beacon of the 1980s: A Chronicle of Youth Forum. His book offers a firsthand account documenting how Youth Forum survived within the crevices of China’s political system and how this collaboration between people both inside and outside the system was forced to a halt. At the same time, the close association between Hu Deping, the son of former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Hu Yaobang, and Youth Forum began to be more widely known. Continue reading Youth Forum and Hu Yaobang →

Lin Zhao and Me

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Too long to post here in their entirety, find below links to Gu Yan’s two-part memoir about his relationship with Lin Zhao. Fascinating reading.–Kirk Denton

Source: China Unofficial Archives (8/26-27/25)
我与林昭（上篇）： “她走上了夏瑜的道路” （顾雁回忆录选登）
“She Chose a Martyr’s Path”: Lin Zhao and Me (Part 1) (Selected Excerpt from Gu Yan’s Memoirs)

我与林昭（下篇）： “她走上了夏瑜的道路” （顾雁回忆录选登）
“She Chose a Martyr’s Path”: Lin Zhao and Me (Part 2) (Selected Excerpt from Gu Yan’s Memoirs)

Dongji Rescue

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Source: BBC News (8/21/25)
‘He owed his life to those Chinese fisherman’: Dongji Rescue and the true story of a forgotten act of WW2 heroism
A new film dramatises the rescue during WW2 of hundreds of British POWs from the Lisbon Maru, a Japanese cargo liner. The story has not been widely recounted – until now.
By Emma Jones

Trinity Cine Asia Still from Dongji Rescue (Credit: Trinity Cine Asia)

On 1 October 1942, a Japanese cargo liner, the Lisbon Maru, was being used to transport 1,816 British prisoners of war (POWs) to captivity in Japan. It was torpedoed off the coast of China by a US submarine, unaware that Allied prisoners were on board. According to survivors, the Japanese troops battened down the hatches of the hold before they evacuated the ship and left the British prisoners inside.

As the Lisbon Maru sank, the British mounted an escape, only to be fired at by the Japanese troops. Help arrived in the form of Chinese fishermen from the islands nearby, who rescued 384 men from the sea. These true events were the inspiration for first a documentary by Chinese film-maker Fang Li, The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru, released in China in 2024, and now a lavish Chinese blockbuster, Dongji Rescue.

The voice of Jack Hughieson from the Royal Navy describes, in an interview for the Imperial War Museum in London, how he heard doomed men still trapped inside the hold of the Lisbon Maru singing the wartime marching song, It’s A Long Way to Tipperary. “I can still hear it to this day,” he says. “Between the yells, the cries for help, was the singing. You could hear from the water… the cries of men going to meet their maker.” Continue reading Dongji Rescue →