The 2026 Human Rights Essay Contest is open to students of all ages and offers $4,000 in prize money. The focus for this contest is on the sentencing of human rights activist Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison and how this sentencing should impact US-China relations. The deadline to submit has been extended to July 15th.
For more information, visit humanrights.catholic.edu.
Chen Guangcheng: Later, some information got exposed. Someone said Deng Xiaoping said, “We can kill 200 people to protect our power for 20 years.” That is [what] Deng Xiaoping said.
Will Deatherage: So it sounds like he’d been planning something like this for a long time.
G: Yeah, yeah. I think the CCP’s leaders think [that] if we kill some people to stop the movement, [it will work], right? And [they] use that to scare the people. So they think they are so free that no one will stand up to ask the CCP to change their power again, you know.
W: Right, right. And here we are, thirty…
G: 37 years have passed.
W: Yeah, 37 years later. Yeah. Is anybody in China today talking about it? Are they even allowed to mention…?
G: Yeah, of course. A lot of people remember this and prepare to commemorate the anniversary. Even in mainland China, you know, the CCP has a lot of cameras and use facial and movement recognition to track the people, right? But still have a lot of people use different ways to fight back. Someone wrote some words on a pole and said, “The Chinese Communist Party is the devil.”
W: So like on a telephone pole or something like that, Guangcheng?
G: Yeah. Like the electricity pole. And you know, someone took a picture and shared it on social media. And some person, you know, maybe the person is [a] CCP supporter, he tried to clean it, you know. So not just one thing; that is happening in different provinces. And another thing is some people are resorting to violence.
So I think if the CCP continues to try to control the power, [things] like this will happen more and more. Unfortunately, 37 years have passed. Until now, the CCP still controls Chinese power.
W: Right.
G: And in the whole world, we don’t know how to punish the party. I think every year, a lot of people try to remember Tiananmen Square. But we cannot just think [about] how to remember that. We should think [about] how to punish the party, right?
W: Guangcheng, my last question for today: So you mentioned there’s a lot of people who still remember the massacre, right?
G: Yeah.
W: What about young people? Do young people— I’m guessing they probably never… they’re never taught about it in school or anything. But what do you like? Do young people have feelings about Tiananmen Square at all?
G: I think more and more young people know that, but they’re scared to talk or mention about this on the internet. Because the new technology is very strong now. They can get the free information from a foreign country every year. And especially before the anniversary, in Xianggang, a lot of people joined that, even more than 1 million people joined to remember the Tiananmen Square massacre, right?
I remember when, we called it White Paper Movement, happened several years ago in mainland China, right?
W: Yeah, yeah.
G: Yeah, when the CCP’s official said, “I believe you came out to protest because someone influenced you from [a] foreign country.” And you know, the normal people fight back, and said, “Who is the influencer from [a] foreign country? I think Karl Marx is the big influence from foreign country.” So because of the censorship, it looks like young people don’t know about the Tiananmen Square massacre.
But in reality, because of the CCP abuses, like the 709 crackdown, a lot of people know.
W: Gotcha. And on that note, we definitely encourage you to share our podcast for sure. And you can learn more about a lot of these topics that we discussed on our website at humanrights.catholic.edu. Guangcheng, thank you very much for, you know, the good historical overview of Tiananmen Square and what’s been going on today in response to the anniversary.
G: Thank you, Will. Thank you, everyone.
The 2026 Human Rights Essay Contest is open to students of all ages and offers $4,000 in prize money. The focus for this contest is on the sentencing of human rights activist Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison and how this sentencing should impact US-China relations. The deadline to submit has been extended to July 15th. For more information, visit humanrights.catholic.edu.