2017年10月，中国共产党第十九次代表大会上的中国保安人员
弗雷德·杜福（Fred Dufour）/法新社，盖蒂图片社 在习近平2012年上台时，我对中国充满了希望。作为一名培训中共高干的著名党校的教授，我对历史有足够的了解，这让我认识到，中国早已到开放政治体制的时候了。在经历了十多年的停滞之后，中共比以往任何时候都需要改革，而曾暗示具有变革倾向的习近平似乎是领导这场改革的不二人选。
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那个时候，我正在经历长达数十年的对中国官方意识形态的艰难探索，虽然我的职责所在恰恰是对中国官员进行意识形态灌输。我曾是狂热的马克思主义者，但那时在与马克思主义分道扬镳，日益转向西方学术思想以寻求解决中国问题的答案。我曾是官方政策的骄傲捍卫者，但那时已开始为自由化辩护。我曾是中共的忠诚党员，但那时却心中怀疑中共信仰的真实性以及它对中国人民的承诺。
正因为此，当事实证明习近平并非改革者，我并不感到惊讶。在习的执政年代，中共政权进一步沦为政治寡头统治，以极其残酷无情的方式保持权力。它的压迫性与独裁与日俱增。习近平笼罩在个人崇拜的氛围中，进一步强化党对意识形态的控制，消除了那一点点仅存的政治言论和公民社会空间。在过去的八年中，你如果没有在中国大陆生活，那就真的很难理解，这个政权变得有多么残酷，而它又制造了多少无声的悲剧。在公开反对这一制度之后，我得知住在中国不再安全。
一个共产党员的成长
我出生在一个中共军人家庭。1928年国共内战初期，我的外公参加了毛泽东领导的农民起义。第二次世界大战期间，国共停战，我的父母及我母亲一家好几个人都加入了中共领导的军队，投身于抗日战争。
1949年共产党胜利后，对于像我们这样的革命家庭而言，生活是美好的。我父亲担任南京附近地区一支军队的指挥官，我母亲则在父亲部队所在地城市政府的一个机构担任主管。我的父母不允许我和我的两个姐妹有半点特殊待遇，以免我们变成"资产阶级娇小姐"。父亲的公务车绝不允许我们乘坐，警卫员也不能替家里做家务活。尽管如此，我还是从父母的地位中获益，生活无忧，从未遭受过毛时代大多数中国人所经历的困苦，更不知道大跃进期间数千万人被活活饿死。
我眼中所见是一片社会主义的光明前景。我家书架上摆满了马列书籍，如《斯大林选集》和《干部必读》等。记得十几岁的时候，我把这些书当作课外读物。每当打开它们时，我都会充满敬畏之情。尽管我不懂书中复杂的观点论述，但我的人生使命是很清楚的：我必须热爱祖国、继承父辈的革命传统、建设没有剥削压迫的共产主义社会。我是一个虔诚的信徒。
在1969年我17岁参军入伍之后，我对共产主义思想有了更深入的了解。随着文化大革命全面展开，毛泽东要求所有人阅读包括《共产党宣言》在内的六本马列著作。书中有一段描述理想社会的文字给我留下持久印象："代替那存在阶级和阶级对立的资产阶级社会的，将是这样一个联合体，在那里，每个人的自由发展是一切人自由发展的条件。"尽管我当时还不太理解自由概念的含义，但那些话萦绕在心。
正因为此，当事实证明习近平并非改革者，我并不感到惊讶。
部队分配我到军医大学工作，职责包括管理图书，其中不乏"反动"书籍，大多是西方文艺和政治理论的中译本。这些"灰皮书"仅限于体制内人士参阅，目的是让他们了解中国意识形态的敌对方。我私下里读了这些书。让我印象尤其深刻的是美国记者威廉·希尔（William Shirer）所著的《第三帝国的兴亡》以及一些苏联的小说。我意识到，在马克思主义经典之外，还存在着另一个思想世界，但我仍然相信马克思主义是唯一真理。
1978年我离开军队，转业到苏州市郊的一家国营化肥厂，在其工会及党委任职。那时，毛泽东已去世，文革结束了。毛的继任者邓小平开始改革开放，而作为改革开放之一部分，邓招募年轻一代有改革意识的干部，以培养成未来党内接班的人（第三梯队）。每个地方党组织必须选择若干成员充当第三梯队，苏州党组织选择了我。我被送到苏州市委党校学习两年，在那里，我和同学们一起学习马克思主义理论和中共党史。我们还接受了一些古文经典的培训，由于文革期间教育的中断，我们错过了诸如此类文化知识的学习。
我两次通读《资本论》，了解马克思主义理论的来龙去脉。对我影响最大的是马克思关于劳动和价值的理论，即资本家通过剥削工人来积累财富。此外，马克思的哲学方法以及辩证唯物主义也给我留下深刻印象，马克思由此发现：资本主义的政治、法律、文化和道德体系是建立在经济剥削的基础之上的。
1986年我毕业时，学校人手短缺，我被邀请留在当地党校任教。我欣然接受，却让市领导感到失望，他们更看好我作为党工干部的前景。然而，我的新工作开启了我在中共意识形态灌输体系中的学术生涯。
从学生到导师
位于北京的中央党校处于中共党校系统的金字塔尖。自1933年创建以来，中央党校培训了几代中共高级干部，后者管理着全国市级以上官僚机构。中央党校与党内精英关系密切，始终由一名政治局委员领导。 （2007年至2012年，校长是习近平。）
1989年6月，政府镇压了天安门广场上的民主抗议者，造成数百人丧生。私下里我感到十分震惊：解放军竟然向大学生开枪，这与我从小接受的人民军队保护人民的观念背道而驰。只有日本鬼子和国民党反动派才会杀害人民。这些抗议活动以及东欧共产党垮台让中共高层大为惊慌，他们的结论是必须抵制意识形态上的懈怠。党中央要求地方党校派一些教师到中央党校学习以加强党的思想。我所在的苏州党校选派我入京。我在中央党校的短暂逗留激发我想在那里深造的愿望。我花了一年时间准备入学考试，后被中央党校理论系的硕士班录取。那时我如此热衷于中共党的路线，以至于在我背后，同学们戏称我为"马克思老太太"。 1998年，我获得了博士学位。并加入了学校的教职员工行列。
我的一些学生是正规研究生，他们接受马克思主义政治理论的训练，参与中共历史等常规课程的学习。但是，其他学生则是中高级干部，包括一些省市领导和部级官员。我的一些学生还是中共中央委员，该委员会由数百人组成，是中共官僚体制的最高机构，负责批准重大决策。
我眼中所见是社会主义的光明前景。
在中央党校当老师并不容易。教室中的摄像机记录我们的讲课，讲课时会有教学主管人监看。我们必须让班上那些高级别、阅历丰富的学生觉得课程内容生动，但又不能太过灵活地解释党的思想理论，或引起人们对理论"软肋"的注意。一般而言，我们必须面对班上官员提出的棘手问题，并给出明智的答案。
他们的很多问题都跟官方意识形态的内在矛盾所引起的令人困惑不解有关，而中共意识形态恰恰是要为中共所实施的现实政策提供合理性解释。比如，2004年对中国宪法的修正案说，政府保护人权和私有财产，但又该怎么解释马克思关于共产主义制度应该废除私有制的观点？邓小平提出"让一部分人先富起来"，以激励人们并提高生产率，但这与马克思关于共产主义按需分配的诺言相符吗？
不错，我仍然忠于中共，但我在质疑自己的信念。在八十年代，中国学术界一些人从马克思强调人的个性全面发展的思想出发，对"马克思主义人道主义"进行了热烈的讨论。即使在言论空间不断窄缩的情况下，仍有少数学者将这一讨论延续到了九十年代。我研读了《马克思1844年经济学和哲学手稿》，该书认为社会主义的目的是解放个体。我认同那些强调自由的马克思主义哲学家，尤其是安东尼奥·葛兰西和赫伯特·马尔库塞。
在我的硕士论文中，我批评过这样的观点，即人们应该始终牺牲个人利益为党服务。在我的博士论文中，我挑战传统中国"富国强兵"的观念，我认为只有在党允许中国普通平民富裕起来的前提下，中国才会强大。而现在，我再向前推进一步：在多篇论文和演讲中，我指出国有企业在中国经济中的地位太过主导，因此需要进一步改革以使私营企业参与竞争。我还认为，腐败不应被视为个别干部的道德败坏，而应被视为政府控制经济所导致的体制性问题。
理论与实践
我的观点恰好与邓小平的继任者江泽民的思想一致。江泽民下决心发展中国的经济，寻求刺激私营企业发展的政策，并力图让中国加入世界贸易组织。然而，这些政策与中共长期倡导的计划经济和国家自给自足的理论相矛盾。由于马克思、毛泽东和邓小平的思想都无法解决这些矛盾，因此江泽民感到不得不提出新的东西。他称其为"三个代表"。
与其他人一样，我第一次听说这一新理论是在 2000年2月25日晚上，中央电视台播出有关"三个代表"的报道。江泽民说，中共必须在中国做到三个代表：代表"先进生产力的发展要求"、进步文化，以及最大多数人的利益。作为中央党校的教授，我马上意识到，这一理论预示着中共意识形态的重大转变。特别是"三个代表"中的第一个代表的提出，意味着江泽民放弃了马克思主义的核心理念，即资本家是一个剥削性的社会群体。取而代之的是，江泽民将党向他们那个阶层开放，我欢迎这一决定。
主管中共党的意识形态工作的机构是中宣部，该机构负有宣传江泽民新理论的责任，但他们有着一个麻烦问题："三个代表"受到了极左派的抨击，他们认为江泽民示好于私营企业家走得太远了。为了避免争论，中宣部选择淡化稀释这一理论。 《人民日报》刊登了整页的文章，通过对马克思、恩格斯、列宁、斯大林、毛泽东和邓小平的文献进行交叉引用，论证了"三个代表"的正确性。
我发现这不能令人信服。如果只是重申现有的意识形态，那又何必要提出"三个代表"呢？我对党的宣传机构的字面化解释方法感到厌恶。我下定决心要揭示"三个代表"的真实含义，这一理论实际上标志着中国的大胆探索。而它也将导致我与中共根深蒂固的官僚主义发生冲突。
不学无术的精英
2001年初的一个偶然机会，使我得以推动对"三个代表"的正确认识。当时中央电视台听说我对江泽民的新理论特别感兴趣，就邀请我为他们制作"三个代表"电视节目撰写脚本。我花了六个月的时间研究和编写纪录片解说文稿，并与电视台制作人进行了详尽的讨论。我在解说词中强调，只有政策创新才能应对新时代的挑战。我强调江泽民的说法：政府要减少对经济的干预，党的任务不再是制造暴力革命反对剥削的资本家，而是要鼓励创造财富，以及平衡社会各阶层的利益。
6月16日下午，中央电视台四位副台长聚集在该台总部的一间工作室中，审查每集30分钟的三集纪录片。看着看着，他们的脸色暗了下来。第一集放完时，其中一位副台长说："让我们停一下。"
"蔡老师，请您来做"三个代表"片子，是为什么？您知道？"他问。
我回答说："党提出了一种新的思想理论，我们需要把它宣传好啊。"
这位官员不为所动，他接着说："您的研究创新尽可以在党校课堂里讲，但不能拿到电视里来讲。电视里要十分保险才是。"那时，没有人能完全确定"三个代表"的最终含义是什么，他担心我的解说词可能与宣传部的观点不一致。 "如果有任何出入，影响将会太大。"
另一位台领导附和说："今年是中共党诞生八十周年，八十大寿啊！"他高声说道。这样的周年纪念日不需要讨论党所面临的挑战，而需要庆祝其英勇获胜的伟业。那一刻，我明白了：中央电视台的人对意识形态的真正含义毫无兴趣，他们只是想让党看起来光鲜亮丽，并吹捧上级。
习近平在北京人民大会堂，2018年3月
Damir Sagolj /每日TPX图片/路透社 接下来的十天，我们为重新制作纪录片而忙活。我们删去敏感词汇，日以继夜地工作，我写的解说词经过党内各官僚团队的数次政治审查。终于这一天，十几名官员开会进行最后一轮审片，而这一回却让我见识了中共党的伪善。会中有个审查委员会的高官发言。在纪录片的第二集中，我引用了邓小平的名言："贫穷不是社会主义，发展才是硬道理。"
这位官员质问： "贫穷不是社会主义？那社会主义是什么？"他继续斥责，声音越来越大。 "发展才是硬道理？这两句话怎么能连得起来？你倒是说说看。"
我被震惊了。这些都是邓小平的原话，而这位国家广电总局的领导、负责监督所有广播媒体的强大机构的高官，竟然不知道？我立即想到毛泽东文革期间对官僚的批评："不读书、不看报"。
空洞的思想
2001年期间，为宣传江泽民理论，中宣部着手为"三个代表"制定学习纲要，将作为中央文件向全党印发，以期学习贯彻。也许是因为我参与了央视节目，并在一次学术会议上就"三个代表"发表看法，所以我被邀请提供帮助。
我被送至北京西山附近的中宣部培训中心，一起随行还有一位学者以及18名宣传部官员。中宣部已经确定了学习纲要的总体框架，我们的工作是在框架中填充内容。我的任务是撰写党建部分。
为中央委员会起草文件是高度机密的。我和我的同事被禁止离开我们写作居住的地方，也不能接待客人。中宣部所召集的会议，如未被邀请参与，就不能去询问。我们这些撰稿人可以在一起吃饭散步，但禁止讨论工作。我是组里唯一的女士。晚餐时，男人们闲聊讲笑话。此类酒精助兴的黄色八卦，我觉得极其庸俗，往往吃了几口饭就溜出来。后来，一位参与者把我叫到一边，对我解释说，谈论公务只会给我们带来麻烦。所以将谈话范围限制在性议题上，更安全愉快。
我下定决心要揭示"三个代表"的真实含义，这一理论实际上标志着中国的大胆创新。
帮助撰写"学习纲要"是我一生中最重要的写作任务，但也是最荒谬可笑的。我的工作是通读一堆记录江泽民思想的文献，包括机密讲话和内部文件。然后，我把相关的合适的引用语摘出来，放在各个小标题下，并注明来源。我不能添加或删减文本，但可以将句号更改为逗号，以及将一句引用语与另一句纠合在一起。这令我惊讶不已，在后毛时代中共正式解释的党最重要的一次意识形态变动，也只不过是剪刀加浆糊的活儿而已。
因为任务是如此简单，所以我花很多时间无聊地等待我干的活儿被审核。有一天，我试探着问一位参与编写工作的人大教授："我们这么编，不就是搞变相的毛主席语录吗？（指类似于文革期间广泛流行的摘录毛警句的红色口袋小书）" 他朝周边看看，诡诘地笑笑说："别操那么多心。这么好的风景地儿，好吃好喝好散步，享受这么好的疗养，哪里找去？找本书来看，只要不耽误叫你开会就行。"
2003年6月，《"三个代表"重要思想学习纲要》新闻发布会在北京人民大会堂高调举行，所有参写人员被邀请出席。当时的中央政治局委员、中宣部长刘云山出席会议并作报告。看着这些官员犹如上台表演似的空谈阔论，我有一种不断地往下沉沦的感觉。我所理解的，作为党的意识形态三个代表思想中的重要关键点，已经被完全从文件中挤牙膏似的挤出去了，而代之以一些陈词滥调来拼凑。想到每天晚上饭桌上的黄段子情景，我第一次感到，那个长期以来被我奉为神圣的体系实在是太荒谬到令人无法忍受。
销售理念
我起草"学习纲要"的经历告诉我，中共所倡导的所谓神圣理论其实是用来欺骗中国人民的自私工具。我很快了解到，它也是一种牟利赚钱的手段。我认识的一位在新闻出版总署工作的官员，该署具有出版书籍和杂志的审批权，这位官员告诉我一件令人不安的事情，涉及中共内部为获得出版收入而进行的争夺战。
多年来，红旗出版社一直是负责出版中共党内教育书籍的三个机构之一。 2005年，该社正着手出版一本党内教育的常规读物，当时遭到来自中央组织部（负责中共人事决定的权力机构）的一位官员干预，并坚持认为只有中组部才有权出版该书。该官员要求新闻出版总署阻止这本书的出版。但是，红旗出版社的主要工作恰恰是出版有关意识形态的书籍。为了摆脱困境，新闻出版总署对这本书进行审查，希望找到可以阻止该书出版的借口，但令人尴尬的是，居然挑不出毛病。
为什么中组部如此视出版读物的权力为自己的领地地盘？一切都归结为金钱。许多部门各自有小金库，这些资金用于高级官员的奢侈享受，并给部门内部的员工分配"福利补贴"。补充这些小金库最简单方法是出版书籍。当时，中共有超过360万个草根组织，每个组织都被要求购买新的出版物。如果这本书的定价是每本十元，就意味着至少有3600万元的销售额，相当于今天的500万美元以上。由于这笔钱来自地方党支部的公款预算，因此该计划实质上是强迫地方党政用公款买书，为该党的高层机构带来暴利。难怪中组部每年都会推动一个新的政治教育主题。难怪中共党内几乎所有机构都有自己的出版部门。几乎每个部门都在发明新的赚钱方式，贪腐渗透中共体制。
我虽然越来越失望，但并没有完全弃绝这个党。与许多体制内的学者一样，我仍然希望中共能够接受改革，朝着某种民主的方向发展。在江泽民时代的后期，中共开始容忍党内对敏感问题的相对宽松的讨论，只要这些讨论永不对外公开。在中央党校，我和我的同事——我们自己之间可以自由讨论中国政治制度中深层次的问题。我们讨论过在政府行政事务中让行政官员当家，减少党务官员的作用。我们讨论过司法独立想法，该思想已写入宪法，但从未真正付诸实践。
令我们高兴的是，中共实际上在自己内部和基层社会中尝试民主。我把所有这些视之为进步的充满希望的标志。但随后发生的事件却加剧了我的幻灭感。
另一条道路
一个关键的转折点发生在2008年，当时我去西班牙做短期的却似乎是命中注定的访问旅行。作为访问西班牙学术交流的一部分，我得以深入了解到，在1975年独裁者弗朗西斯科·佛朗哥（Francisco Franco）去世后，西班牙是如何从专制政体过渡到民主制的。我不禁将西班牙的经验与中国进行比较。毛在佛朗哥逝世仅十个月后去世，在随后的三十年中，两国都经历了巨大变化。但是，西班牙迅速和平地完成民主转型，并实现了社会稳定和经济繁荣，而中国仅实现了部分转型，从计划经济过渡到混合经济，却没有实现政治自由。西班牙能教给中国什么呢？
我的悲观结论是，中共不太可能在政治上进行改革。一方面，西班牙的转型是由后弗朗哥政权内的改良主义势力发起的，如胡安·卡洛斯一世国王，他们将国家利益置于个人利益之上。中共在1949年以暴力夺取政权，迷恋于对政治权力具有永久垄断的执念。从中共的历史看，特别是其对天安门广场抗议活动的镇压，在在表明它不会和平放弃垄断权力。邓小平之后的领导人没有一个有勇气推动政治改革，他们只是简单地想把这个责任推卸给未来的领导者。
我还了解到，佛朗哥去世后，西班牙迅速为改革创造了有利环境，巩固了司法独立并扩大了新闻自由，乃至将反对派力量纳入转型过程。相比之下，中共把社会和经济正义的诉求视为对其权力的威胁，他们压制公民社会，严厉限制人民的自由。数十年来，中共政权和人民始终处于对抗之中，很难想象有和解的可能。
对西班牙民主转型的新认识，加上我对前苏联统治集团的研究了解，使我从根本上抛弃了我曾矢志不渝的马克思主义意识形态。我意识到，马克思在19世纪提出的理论既被他的个人才智所局限，也被他所处时代的历史环境所局限。此外，我还意识到，中共所倡导的高度集权化、压迫性的马克思主义更多来自于斯大林，而不是马克思本人。它是彻头彻尾服务于自私自利的独裁专制的意识形态。于是我开始在发表文章和讲座中暗示，马克思主义不应被视为绝对真理，中国必须开启民主之路。 2010年，当一些自由派学者出版《走向宪政》的专辑时，我为其撰写了一篇讨论西班牙经验的文章。
我与其他自由派学者的共同愿景是，中国先从党内民主开始，经过长时间努力，最终导向宪政民主。中国将拥有一个议会，甚至一个真正的反对党。我内心担心，中共可能会粗暴猛烈地抵制这种转型，但我一直把这种担心留给自己。相反，在与同事和学生交谈时，我强调这种转型对中国乃至党本身都是有益的，党可以通过使自己对人民负责来巩固其合法性。我教过的许多官员都承认中共所面临问题，但他们本人却不能说。他们谨慎地敦促我说服上面。
对习近平的失望
问题在于，在那个时候，江的继任者胡锦涛正在朝相反的方向发展。 2003年，胡锦涛仍在接班掌权的过程中，便提出"科学发展观"，以取代江泽民的三个代表。胡的这个理论是另一种尝试，即试图用薄薄的马克思主义意识形态，来证明中国混合发展模式的合法性，它回避了中国所面临的的根本问题。事实上，中国突飞猛进的发展正在引发社会冲突，诸如农民的土地被抢占开发，工厂挤榨工人以获取更多利润。寻求政府补救的请愿人数量急剧增加，在全国范围内，群体事件每年超过10万起。在我看来，这些不满表明，在政治自由缺位的情况下，中国经济发展变得越来越困难。
但是，胡锦涛不这样认为。2008年，他在纪念改革开放30周年的一个庆典上说"不折腾"。我的理解是，胡的这番话意味着中共迄今为止所进行的经济、政治和意识形态改革可得以维持，但不会被推进。胡锦涛其实在为自己辩护，以规避来自两个方向的指责：保守派认为改革走得太远，而自由派认为改革走得不够远。因此，在胡的守护下，中国进入了一个政治停滞期，一个类似于前苏联勃列日涅夫时期所经历的衰退过程。
因此，当习近平将掌权的趋向于明朗化时，我满怀乐观地指望习。轻松容易的改革30年以来该改的都改了，现在是攻坚的时候了。鉴于习近平父亲在老一代领导人中素有自由主义倾向，以及习近平本人在先前职位上表现出一定的灵活度，我和其他改革倡导者都希望这位新的领导人有勇气对中国政治体制进行大刀阔斧的改革。但是，并不是每个人都对习近平抱有这样的信心。我所认识的怀疑者分为两类，而他们都被证明是有先见之明的。
第一类怀疑者是太子党中不认同习的人——中共党的创建者的后代。当然，习近平是太子党，而极有活力的重庆市委书记薄熙来也是。习近平和薄熙来几乎同时升至省部级高位，预计他们都将进入中共最高政治机构政治局常委，并被视为最高领导人大位的强有力的竞争者。
但是，薄熙来在2012年初退出了领导人位置的竞争，当时他卷入了妻子谋杀一名英国商人的案件，而中共政治老人支持稳重的习近平。我认识的一些太子党深谙习近平的残酷无情，他们预言习薄之争不会到此为止。果不出所料，在习近平上台后，薄熙来被判贪污罪，被剥夺全部资产，并被判处无期徒刑。
中共中央政治局常委2012年11月在北京
卡洛斯·巴里亚（Carlos Barria）/路透社 另一类怀疑者是体制内的一些学者。在2012年11月党的十八大召开一个多月前，习近平即将正式出任中共总书记，我陪一位中国大牌杂志的资深记者，采访我校一位担任领导职务的著名教授，后者对习的职业生涯观察有年。他们的访谈进行的很轻松愉快，采访结束即将离开前，那个记者看似不经意地随兴抛出一个问题："听说习近平在中央党校大院住过一段时间，他很快要当党总书记了，你觉得他怎么样？"教授的嘴角撇了一下，口气不屑地说，习近平的"知识不够"。记者和我对这个直率的回答感到震惊。
尽管有这些消极看法，我还是愿意搁置怀疑，将希望寄托于习近平。但在习近平上位后不久，我开始产生疑问。他在2012年12月发表的演讲中暗示了一种改革和进步的心态，但他的其他言论却又暗示要搞倒退，指向改革前的时代。习近平是左还是右？我刚从中央党校退休，但仍与以前的同事保持联系。有一次，我们议论起习近平的某些计划，其中一位说："习不是向左还是向右的问题，而是他缺乏基本判断力，说话没有逻辑。"此话一出，大家静默下来，一股寒意袭入我的背脊一阵阵发冷。习有着像上面所说的这些缺陷，我们怎能指望他能领导推进政治改革呢？
我很快得出结论，我们大概不能指望他。习近平于2013年底发布全面改革计划后，商界和学术界兴奋地预测，他将推进重大改革。我的感觉正好相反。该计划避开了政治改革的所有关键问题。中国长期存在的腐败，债务过多以及国有企业亏损，问题的根源在于党的官员有权干预经济决策而没有公众监督。试图一方面实现经济自由化，而另一方面更收紧政治控制，两者是相互矛盾的。尽管如此，习近平发动了毛泽东去世以来最大规模的意识形态运动以复兴毛式统治。他的计划要求加强社会监控，打压言论自由。厚颜无耻地打着"治理、管理、服务和法律"的旗子，禁止任何关于宪政民主和普世价值的讨论。
2014年通过的一揽子法律改革使这一趋势得以继续，进一步暴露了中共以法律为工具维持极权统治的意图。到了这个时候，习近平的偏执和中共的政治倒退都已昭然若揭。如果曾几何时我还对习近平和党抱有一点模糊的希望，那么此时此刻我的幻想终于破灭了。随后的事件只能证实，就改革本身而言，习近平把停滞的中国推向倒退。2015年，中共逮捕了数百名人权律师。第二年，它发起了一场文革式的运动，批判一位直言不讳的房地产大亨。我对那场闹剧的反应使我陷入困境。
最后一根稻草
大亨任志强与习近平的冲突日益加剧，他批评习近平审查中国媒体。 2016年2月，中共网站给任志强贴上"反党"的标签。我本人并不认识任，但他的案子令人非常不安，因为长期以来，我一直信奉这样的原则：在中共内部，我们被允许甚至被鼓励自由发言，以帮助中共纠正自己的错误。一个老党员正因为这样做而被妖魔化。在经历了文革之后，我知道贴有"反党"标签的人会被剥夺权利，并遭受严酷迫害。由于决不允许为任辩护的文章发表在被审查的媒体上，于是我写的文章发给一个微信群，希望我的朋友们分享给和他们联系的人。我的文章很快就四下传开了。
尽管我的文章大多只是引用党的章程和行为守则等，但中央党校纪律检查委员会却指控我犯了严重错误。我面临一系列令人生畏的约谈，讯问者施加心理压力并设置言语陷阱，以期诱使我对所谓不法行为认罪。这让人很不舒服，但我意识到这是一场心理较量。如果我不恐惧他们，他们就先输掉了一半。于是事情陷入僵局：我不断发文章，而当局不断叫我进去问话。不久我断定，安全机构正在窃听我的电话，阅读我的数字通信，跟踪我去哪里以及与谁见面。中央党校的退休教授通常只需要获得学校的许可就可以去香港或国外旅行，但现在学校暗示我，必须先有国家安全机关的批准，我才能出国旅行。
2016年4月发生了一件事：我几个月前在清华大学的演讲稿，其中我有说如果"主义"悖离常识，就会变成谎言，这篇演讲稿在香港有影响力的网站上发表了。时机非常不好，因为习近平刚刚宣称发生在中央党校的一些自由探讨走得太远，他敦促对教授进行更多的监督。结果5月初，学校纪律检查委员会再次约谈我，并指控我反对习近平。从那时起，中共就禁止我的文章发表在中国的媒体上，包括纸质媒体、所有网站和音像视屏，连我的名字都被封杀。7月的一个晚上，我再次被叫到中央党校开会，纪律检查委员会的一名成员在我面前的桌子上放了约30公分高的一堆资料。他说："您已经有了这么多材料了。你自己掂量掂量吧。"很明显，他们警告我要保持沉默，而如果我再在网上说话，我将受到纪律处分，包括降低退休待遇等。我对自己被如此对待而感到愤慨，尽管我知道别人受到更为严厉的对待。
作为中共党员的这些年中，我从未违法乱纪，也从未有过被约谈训斥的经验，但是现在，我经常受到党的官员的讯问。中央党校的纪律检查委员会一再威胁我，说有可能举行当众羞辱的大型公开会议并正式宣布给我惩罚。在每次约谈结束时，他们都要求我保密。一切都是黑社会的做派，见不得光。
然后是警察暴行的掩盖，触发了我与习近平和中共党的最后决裂。早在2016年5月，环境科学家雷洋在前往机场接岳母的路上，因不明原因被北京警方拘留而去世。为了逃避罪责，警察对雷进行了构陷，指控他在招妓。他的大学校友们对这种诽谤行为感到愤怒，组织起来帮助雷的家人讨回公道，事件在全国引起很大反响。为了平息愤怒，中共最高领导层下令进行调查。检方同意进行独立的尸体解剖，并计划进行庭审，对簿公堂。
我对自己被如此对待而感到愤慨，尽管我知道别人受到更为严厉的对待。
然而，奇怪的事情发生了：雷洋家乡的地方政府出面，将雷洋的父母妻儿近乎于"软禁"，向他们提供了约100万美元的巨额赔偿，要求他们放弃对真相的追求。当雷的家人拒绝时，赔偿增加到了300万美元，甚至后来又加进一栋价值300万美元的房子。即使如此，雷的妻子仍坚持要还已故丈夫的清白。政府然后向雷的父母施压，雷的父母在儿媳面前跪下，恳求她放弃此案。是年12月，检察官宣布他们不会为雷洋之死而起诉任何人，雷洋家人的律师透露他被迫停止介入。
当我得知这一结果时，我整夜坐在书桌前，充满悲伤和愤怒。显而易见，雷之死是警察不法行为所致，上司并没有惩罚肇事警察，而是用人民辛苦赚来的巨额税款在庭外寻求和解。官员们不服务于人民，而是沆瀣一气。我于是问自己：如果中共官员有能力采取这种卑鄙的行动，这个党你还能信吗？最重要的是，我还能继续与这个政权为伍吗？
经过20年的犹豫、困惑和痛苦后，我决定走出黑暗，与中共彻底决裂。习近平的大倒退也很快让我别无选择。习近平于2018年废除了国家主席任期制，使新斯大林主义的无限统治成为可能，而我必须在其下生活。第二年夏天，我得以持旅游签证前往美国。在那里，我收到一个朋友的短信告诉我：中国当局指责我从事"反华"活动，如果我返回北京，我将可能被逮捕。我决定延长访问时间，直到一切平静下来。随后爆发了新冠病毒大流行，飞往中国的航班被取消，所以我不得不继续等待。与此同时，我对习近平处理疫情不当很是反感，我签署了一份请愿书，支持武汉眼科医生李文亮。他因向朋友们发新冠疾病警报而被警察骚扰，并最终死于这种疾病。我收到中央党校有关部门急迫的电话，要求我回家。
但是中国的气氛越来越黑暗。持有政治异议的房地产大亨任志强在三月份失踪，不久被开除党籍，并被判处18年徒刑。同时，我跟当局的关系进一步恶化，因为我与一小群朋友进行的一次私下谈话录音，未经我同意就被泄漏在网上发表，在这次私下谈话中，我称中共是"政治僵尸"，并说习近平应该下台等。我发给朋友们的一篇简短文字，文中谴责习近平在香港实施压制性新国家安全法，也有人把它泄漏了出去。
我知道我有麻烦了。很快我被开除党籍，学校取消了我的退休待遇，我的银行帐户被冻结。我要求中央党校当局保证我回国后的人身安全，但官员在电话那头避而不回答这个问题，反而制造模糊的威胁针对我在中国的女儿和她年幼的儿子。正是在这点上我被迫接受这个严酷的真相：我没有回去的路了。
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The Chinese Communist Party's 19th Congress, Beijing, October 2017
Fred Dufour / AFP via Getty Images When Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, I was full of hope for China. As a professor at the prestigious school that educates top leaders in the Chinese Communist Party, I knew enough about history to conclude that it was past time for China to open up its political system. After a decade of stagnation, the CCP needed reform more than ever, and Xi, who had hinted at his proclivity for change, seemed like the man to lead it.
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By then, I was midway through a decades-long process of grappling with China's official ideology, even as I was responsible for indoctrinating officials in it. Once a fervent Marxist, I had parted ways with Marxism and increasingly looked to Western thought for answers to China's problems. Once a proud defender of official policy, I had begun to make the case for liberalization. Once a loyal member of the CCP, I was secretly harboring doubts about the sincerity of its beliefs and its concern for the Chinese people.
So I should not have been surprised when it turned out that Xi was no reformer. Over the course of his tenure, the regime has degenerated further into a political oligarchy bent on holding on to power through brutality and ruthlessness. It has grown even more repressive and dictatorial. A personality cult now surrounds Xi, who has tightened the party's grip on ideology and eliminated what little space there was for political speech and civil society. People who haven't lived in mainland China for the past eight years can hardly understand how brutal the regime has become, how many quiet tragedies it has authored. After speaking out against the system, I learned it was no longer safe for me to live in China.
THE EDUCATION OF A COMMUNIST
I was born into a Communist military family. In 1928, at the beginning of the Chinese Civil War, my maternal grandfather joined a peasant uprising led by Mao Zedong. When the Communists and the Nationalists put hostilities on hold during World War II, my parents and much of my mother's family fought against the Japanese invaders in armies led by the CCP.
After the Communists' victory, in 1949, life was good for a revolutionary family such as ours. My father commanded a People's Liberation Army unit near Nanjing, and my mother ran an office in that city's government. My parents forbade my two sisters and me from taking advantage of the privileges of their offices, lest we become "spoiled bourgeois ladies." We could not ride in our father's official car, and his security guards never ran family errands. Still, I benefited from my parents' status and never suffered the privations that so many Chinese did in the Mao years. I knew nothing of the tens of millions of people who starved to death during the Great Leap Forward.
All I could see was socialism's bright future. My family's bookshelves were stocked with Marxist titles such as The Selected Works of Stalin and Required Reading for Cadres. As a teenager, I turned to these books for extracurricular reading. Whenever I opened them, I was filled with reverence. Even though I could not grasp the complexity of their arguments, my mission was clear: I must love the motherland, inherit my parents' revolutionary legacy, and build a communist society free of exploitation. I was a true believer.
I gained a more sophisticated understanding of communist thought after joining the People's Liberation Army in 1969, at age 17. With the Cultural Revolution in full swing, Mao required everyone to read six works by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, including The Communist Manifesto. One utopian passage from that book left a lasting impression on me: "In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all." Although I didn't really understand the concept of freedom at that point, those words stuck in my head.
I should not have been surprised when it turned out that Xi was no reformer.
The People's Liberation Army assigned me to a military medical school. My job was to manage its library, which happened to carry Chinese translations of "reactionary" works, mostly Western literature and political philosophy. Distinguished by their gray covers, these books were restricted to regime insiders for the purpose of familiarizing themselves with China's ideological opponents, but in secret, I read them, too. I was most impressed by The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by the American journalist William Shirer, and a collection of Soviet fiction. There was a world of ideas outside of the Marxist classics, I realized. But I still believed that Marxism was the only truth.
I left the military in 1978 and got a job in the party-run trade union of a state-owned fertilizer factory on the outskirts of the city of Suzhou. By then, Mao was dead and the Cultural Revolution was over. His successor, Deng Xiaoping, was ushering in a period of reform and opening, and as part of this effort, he was recruiting a new generation of reform-minded cadres who could run the party in the future.
Each local party organization had to choose a few members to serve in this group, and the Suzhou party organization picked me. I was sent to a two-year program at the Suzhou Municipal Party School, where my fellow students and I studied Marxist theory and the history of the CCP. We also received some training in the Chinese classics, a subject we had missed on account of the disruption of education during the Cultural Revolution.
I plowed through Das Kapital twice and learned the ins and outs of Marxist theory. What appealed to me most were Marx's ideas about labor and value—namely, that capitalists accrue wealth by taking advantage of workers. I was also impressed by Marx's philosophical approach, dialectical materialism, which allowed him to see capitalism's political, legal, cultural, and moral systems as built on a foundation of economic exploitation.
When I graduated, in 1986, I was invited to stay on as a faculty member at the school, which was short-staffed at the time. I accepted, which disappointed some of the city's leaders, who thought I had a promising future as a party apparatchik. Instead, my new job launched my career as an academic in the CCP's system of ideological indoctrination.
THE STUDENT BECOMES THE MASTER
At the top of that system sits the Central Party School in Beijing. Since 1933, it has trained generations of top-ranking CCP cadres, who run the Chinese bureaucracy at the municipal level and above. The school has close ties to the party elite and is always headed by a member of the Politburo. (Its president from 2007 to 2012 was none other than Xi.)
In June 1989, the government cracked down on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds. Privately, I was appalled that the People's Liberation Army had fired on college students, which ran contrary to the indoctrination I had received since my childhood that the army protected the people; only Japanese "devils" and Nationalist reactionaries killed them. Alarmed by the protests, plus the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the CCP's top leadership decided it had to counteract ideological laxity. It ordered local party schools to send some of their teachers to the Central Party School to brush up on the party's thinking. My school in Suzhou chose me. My brief stay at the Central Party School made me want to study there for much longer. After spending a year preparing for the entrance examinations, I was admitted to the master's program in the school's theory department. So devoted was I to the CCP's line that behind my back, my classmates called me "Old Mrs. Marx." In 1998, I received my Ph.D. and joined the school's faculty.
Some of my students were regular graduate students, who were taught a conventional curriculum in Marxist political theory and CCP history. But others were mid- and high-level party officials, including leading provincial and municipal administrators and cabinet-level ministers. Some of my students were members of the CCP's Central Committee, the body of a few hundred delegates that sits atop the party hierarchy and ratifies major decisions.
My mission was clear: I must love the motherland and build a communist society free of exploitation.
Teaching at the Central Party School was not easy. Video cameras in the classrooms recorded our lectures, which were then reviewed by our supervisors. We had to make the subject come alive for the high-level and experienced students in the class, without interpreting the doctrine too flexibly or drawing attention to its weak spots. Often, we had to come up with smart answers to tough questions asked by the officials in our classes.
Most of their questions revolved around puzzling contradictions within the official ideology, which had been crafted to justify the real-world policies implemented by the CCP. Amendments added in 2004 to China's constitution said that the government protects human rights and private property. But what about Marx's view that a communist system should abolish private property? Deng wanted to "let a part of the population get rich first" to motivate people and stimulate productivity. How did that square with Marx's promise that communism would provide to each according to his needs?
I remained loyal to the CCP, yet I was constantly questioning my own beliefs. In the 1980s, Chinese academic circles had engaged in a lively discussion of "Marxist humanism," a strain of Marxist thinking that emphasized the full development of the human personality. A few academics continued that discussion into the 1990s, even as the scope of acceptable discourse narrowed. I studied Marx's Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, which said that the purpose of socialism was to liberate the individual. I identified with the Marxist philosophers who stressed freedom—above all, Antonio Gramsci and Herbert Marcuse.
Already in my master's thesis, I had criticized the idea that people should always sacrifice their individual interests in order to serve the party. In my Ph.D. dissertation, I had challenged the ancient Chinese slogan "rich country, strong army" by contending that China would be strong only if the party allowed its citizens to prosper. Now, I took this argument a step further. In papers and talks, I suggested that state enterprises were still too dominant in the Chinese economy and that further reform was needed to allow private companies to compete. Corruption, I stressed, should be seen not as a moral failing of individual cadres but as a systemic problem resulting from the government's grip on the economy.
THEORY AND PRACTICE
My thinking happened to align in part with that of Deng's successor, Jiang Zemin. Determined to develop China's economy, Jiang sought to stimulate private enterprise and bring China into the World Trade Organization. But these policies contradicted the CCP's long-held theories prizing the planned economy and national self-sufficiency. Since the ideology of neither Marx nor Mao nor Deng could resolve these contradictions, Jiang felt compelled to come up with something new. He called it "the Three Represents."
I first heard of this new theory when everyone else did. On the evening of February 25, 2000, I watched as China Central Television (CCTV) broadcast a report on the Three Represents. The party, Jiang said, had to represent three aspects of China: "the development requirements of advanced productive forces," cultural progress, and the interests of the majority. As a professor at the Central Party School, I immediately understood that this theory presaged a significant shift in CCP ideology. In particular, the first of the Three Represents implied that Jiang was abandoning the core Marxist belief that capitalists were an exploitative social group. Instead, Jiang was opening the party to their ranks—a decision I welcomed.
The Central Propaganda Department, the body in charge of the CCP's ideological work, was responsible for promoting Jiang's new theory, but they had a problem: the Three Represents had come under attack from the extreme left, which thought Jiang was going too far in wooing entrepreneurs. Hoping to skirt this dispute, the Propaganda Department chose to water down the theory. The People's Daily published a full-page article demonstrating the correctness of the Three Represents with cross-references to texts by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Deng.
I found this unconvincing. What was the purpose of the Three Represents if it merely restated existing ideology? I was disgusted by the superficial methods of the party's publicity apparatus. I grew determined to reveal the true meaning of the Three Represents, a theory that in fact marked a bold departure for China. This, it turned out, would bring me into conflict with the entrenched bureaucracy of the CCP.
THE UNLEARNED ELITES
My opportunity to promote a proper understanding of the Three Represents arrived in early 2001, when CCTV, hearing from a colleague that I was especially interested in Jiang's new theory, invited me to write a television program on it. I spent six months researching and writing the documentary and discussing it at length with producers at the network. My script emphasized the need for innovative new policies to meet the challenges of a new era. I stressed the same things Jiang did: that the government was now going to reduce its intervention in the economy and that the role of the party was no longer to make violent revolution against the exploitative capitalists—instead, it was to encourage the creation of wealth and balance the interests of different groups in society.
On the afternoon of June 16, four CCTV senior vice presidents gathered in a studio in the network's headquarters to review the three 30-minute episodes. As they watched it, their faces darkened. "Let's stop here," one of them said when the first episode ended.
"Professor Cai, do you know why you were invited to produce a program on the Three Represents?" he asked.
"The party has put forward a new ideological theory," I replied, "and we need to publicize it."
The official was unmoved. "Your research and innovation can be presented at the Central Party School, but only the safest things can be shown on TV," he said. At that point, nobody was quite sure what the Three Represents would ultimately be interpreted to mean, and he worried that my script might be out of step with the Propaganda Department's views. "If there's any discrepancy, the impact would be too great."
Another station administrator chimed in. "This year is the 80th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party!" he exclaimed. Such an anniversary demanded not a discussion of challenges facing the party but a heroic celebration of its triumphs. At that moment, I understood. The CCTV people weren't interested in the real implications of ideology. They just wanted to make the party look good and flatter their superiors.
The Central Party School in Beijing, June 2019
Ben Blanchard / Reuters Over the next ten days, we scrambled to remake the documentary. We edited out potentially offensive words and phrases, working day and night as my script went through several political reviews by teams from across the party bureaucracy. Finally, a dozen officials arrived for one last review, during which I learned even more about the party's hypocrisy. At one point, a high-level member of the vetting committee spoke up. In the program's second episode, I had quoted two of Deng's famous sayings, which are often strung together: "Poverty is not socialism; development is the hard truth."
"Poverty isn't socialism?" the official asked dubiously. "So what is socialism?" His critique went on, growing louder. "And development is the hard truth? How are those two sentences related? Tell me!"
I was dumbfounded. These were Deng's exact words, and this senior official—the head of the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television, the powerful agency overseeing all broadcast media—didn't know it? I thought immediately of Mao's criticism of bureaucrats during the Cultural Revolution: "They don't read books, and they don't read newspapers."
AN EMPTY IDEOLOGY
Over the course of 2001, as part of its efforts to promote Jiang's signature theory, the Propaganda Department began work on a study outline for the Three Represents, a summary that would be issued as a Central Committee document for the entire party to read and implement. Perhaps because I had worked on the CCTV program and had given a speech on the Three Represents at an academic conference, I was asked to help.
Along with another scholar and 18 propaganda officials, I was sent to the Propaganda Department's training center near the foothills west of Beijing. The department had settled on a general framework for the outline, and now it was asking us to fill the framework with content. My task was to write the section on building the party.
Drafting documents for the Central Committee is a highly confidential process. My colleagues and I were forbidden from leaving the premises or receiving guests. When the Propaganda Department convened a meeting, those who weren't invited weren't allowed to ask about it. We writers could eat and take walks together, but we were prohibited from discussing our work. I was the only woman in the group. At dinner, the men gossiped and cracked jokes. I found the off-color, alcohol-fueled conversation vulgar and would always slink out after a few bites of food. Finally, another participant took me aside. Talk of official business would only get us in trouble, he explained; it was safer and more enjoyable to confine the conversation to sex.
I was disgusted by the superficial methods of the party's publicity apparatus.
Helping with the study outline was the most important writing assignment of my life, but it was also the most ridiculous. My job was to read through a stack of documents cataloging Jiang's thoughts, including confidential speeches and articles intended for the party's internal consumption. I would then extract relevant quotations and place them under various topic subheadings, annotating the source. I couldn't add or subtract text, but I could change a period to a comma and connect one quote to another. I was amazed that the formal explanation of one of the party's most important ideological campaigns in the post-Mao era would be little more than a cut-and-paste job.
Because the task was so easy, I spent a lot of time waiting in boredom for my work to be vetted. One day, I sounded out another participant, a professor from Renmin University of China. "Aren't we just creating another version of Quotations From Chairman Mao?" I asked, referring to the Little Red Book, a pocket volume of out-of-context aphorisms that circulated during the Cultural Revolution. He looked around and smiled wryly. "Don't worry about it," he told me. "We're in a lovely scenic location with good food and pleasant walks. Where else could we convalesce so comfortably? Just go fetch a book to read. All that matters is that you're here when they call you for a meeting."
In June 2003, a high-profile press conference was held at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing, to unveil the study outline, and all of us who had helped write it were told to attend. Liu Yunshan, a Politburo member and the head of the Propaganda Department, presented the report. As he and other officials took to the stage, I felt a sinking feeling. My understanding of the Three Represents as an important pivot in the ruling party's ideology had been completely squeezed out of the document and replaced with pablum. Remembering the lewd chatter around the dinner table every night, I felt for the first time that the system I had long considered sacred was in fact unbearably absurd.
IDEAS FOR SALE
My experience with the study outline taught me that the ideas the party sanctimoniously promoted were in fact self-serving tools used to deceive the Chinese people. I soon learned that they were also a way of making money. An official I came to know at the General Administration of Press and Publication, which controls the right to publish books and magazines, told me of a disturbing episode involving a turf war over publishing revenues within the CCP.
For many years, Red Flag Press had been one of three organizations responsible for publishing the party's educational books. In 2005, the press was in the process of publishing a routine book of readings when an official from the Central Organization Department, the powerful agency in charge of the CCP's personnel decisions, stepped in to insist that only his department had the authority to publish such a book. He tried to get the General Administration of Press and Publication to prevent the book from being published. But Red Flag Press's main job was precisely to publish works on ideology. To get out of this fix, the agency vetted the book in the hopes of finding problems that would justify banning it—but awkwardly, it came up empty.
Why was the Organization Department so territorial about publishing? It all came down to money. Many departments have slush funds, which are used for the lavish enjoyment of senior officials and divided among personnel as "welfare subsidies." The easiest way to replenish those funds is to publish books. At that time, the CCP had more than 3.6 million grassroots organizations, each of which was expected to buy a copy of a new publication. If the book was priced at ten yuan per copy, that meant a minimum of 36 million yuan in sales revenue—equivalent to more than $5 million today. Since that money was coming from the budgets of the party branches, the scheme was essentially an exercise in forcing one public entity to transfer money to another. No wonder the Organization Department promoted a new political education topic every year. And no wonder almost every institution within the CCP had a publishing arm. With nearly every unit inventing new ways to make money, venality has permeated the regime.
Despite my growing disillusionment, I didn't completely reject the party. Along with many other scholars inside it, I still hoped that the CCP could embrace reform and move in the direction of some form of democracy. In the later years of the Jiang era, the party started tolerating a relatively relaxed discussion of sensitive issues within the party, as long as the discussions never went public. At the Central Party School, my fellow professors and I felt free to raise deep-seated problems with China's political system among ourselves. We talked about reducing the role of party officials in deciding administrative issues that were best handled by government officials. We discussed the idea of judicial independence, which had been written into the constitution but never really practiced.
To our delight, the party was in fact experimenting with democracy, both within its own operations and in society at the grassroots level. I saw all of this as hopeful signs of progress. But subsequent events would only cement my disillusionment.
ANOTHER WAY
A key turning point came in 2008, when I took a brief but fateful trip to Spain. Visiting the country as part of an academic exchange, I learned how Spain had transitioned from autocracy to democracy after the death of its dictator, Francisco Franco, in 1975. I could not help but compare Spain's experience to China's. Mao died just ten months after Franco, and both countries underwent tremendous changes in the ensuing three decades. But whereas Spain quickly and peacefully made the leap to democracy and achieved social stability and economic prosperity, China accomplished only a partial transition, moving from a planned economy to a mixed economy without liberalizing its politics. What could Spain teach China?
I came to the pessimistic conclusion that the CCP was unlikely to reform politically. For one thing, Spain's transition was initiated by reformist forces within the post-Franco regime, such as King Juan Carlos I, who placed national interests above their personal interests. The CCP, having come to power in 1949 through violence, was deeply wedded to the idea that it had earned a permanent monopoly on political power. The party's record, particularly its crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests, demonstrated that it would not give up that monopoly peacefully. And none of the post-Deng leaders had the courage to push for political reform; they simply wanted to pass the buck to future leaders.
China's Politburo Standing Committee members in Beijing, November 2012
Carlos Barria / Reuters I also learned that after Franco's death, Spain quickly created a favorable environment for reform, consolidating judicial independence and expanding freedom of the press. It even incorporated opposition forces into the transition process. The CCP, by contrast, has treated demands for social and economic justice as threats to its power, suppressing civil society and restricting people's liberties. The regime and the people have been locked in confrontation for decades, making reconciliation unthinkable.
My newly acquired understanding of the democratic transition in Spain, along with what I already knew about those in the former Soviet bloc, led me to fundamentally reject the Marxist ideology in which I once had unshakable faith. I came to realize that the theories Marx advanced in the nineteenth century were limited by his own intellect and the historical circumstances of his time. Moreover, I saw that the highly centralized, oppressive version of Marxism promoted by the CCP owed more to Stalin than to Marx himself. I increasingly recognized it as an ideology formed to serve a self-interested dictatorship. Marxism, I began to hint in publications and lectures, should not be worshiped as an absolute truth, and China had to start the journey to democracy. In 2010, when some liberal scholars published an edited volume called Toward Constitutionalism, I contributed an article that discussed the Spanish experience.
My vision—shared with other liberal scholars—was that China would start by implementing democracy within the party, which, over the long run, would lead to a constitutional democracy. China would have a parliament, even a real opposition party. In my heart, I worried that the CCP might violently resist such a transition, but I kept that thought to myself. Instead, when speaking with colleagues and students, I argued that such a transition would be good for China and even for the party itself, which could consolidate its legitimacy by making itself more accountable to the people. Many of the officials I taught acknowledged that the party faced problems, but they could not say so themselves. Instead, they cautiously urged me to persuade their superiors.
THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF XI
The problem was that at that very time, Jiang's successor, Hu Jintao, was moving in the opposite direction. In 2003, while in the process of taking over the reins of power, Hu had put forward "the Scientific Outlook on Development," his substitute for Jiang's Three Represents. The concept was another attempt to justify China's mixed development model with a thin cover of Marxist-sounding ideology, and it avoided the big questions facing China. China's breakneck development was producing social conflict as farmers' land was seized for development and factories squeezed workers for more profits. The number of petitioners seeking redress from the government increased dramatically, and nationwide, demonstrations eventually exceeded 100,000 per year. To me, the discontent showed that it was becoming harder for China to develop its economy without liberalizing its politics.
Hu thought otherwise. "Don't muck up things," he said in 2008, at a ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the policy of reform and opening. I understood this to mean that the economic, political, and ideological reforms the party had made so far should be maintained but not pushed forward. Hu was defending himself against accusations from both sides: from conservatives who thought that reform had gone too far and from liberals who thought it hadn't gone far enough. So China, under his watch, entered a period of political stagnation, a decline similar to what the Soviet Union experienced under Leonid Brezhnev.
Thus it was with optimism that I looked to Xi when it became clear that he was going to take power. The easy reforms had all been made 30 years ago; now it was time for the hard ones. Given the reputation of Xi's father, a former CCP leader with liberal inclinations, and the flexible style that Xi himself had displayed in previous posts, I and other advocates of reform hoped that our new leader would have the courage to enact bold changes to China's political system. But not everyone had such confidence in Xi. The skeptics I knew fell into two categories. Both proved prescient.
The first group consisted of princelings—descendants of the party's founders. Xi was a princeling, as was Bo Xilai, the dynamic party chief of Chongqing. Xi and Bo rose to senior provincial and ministerial positions at almost the same time, and both were expected to join the highest body in the CCP, the Politburo Standing Committee, and were considered top contenders to lead China. But Bo fell out of the leadership competition early in 2012, when he was implicated in his wife's murder of a British businessman, and the party's senior statesmen backed the safe and steady Xi. The princelings I knew, familiar with Xi's ruthlessness, predicted that the rivalry would not end there. Indeed, after Xi took power, Bo was convicted of corruption, stripped of all his assets, and sentenced to life in prison.
The highly oppressive version of Marxism promoted by the CCP owed more to Stalin than to Marx himself.
The other group of skeptics consisted of establishment scholars. More than a month before the 18th Party Congress of November 2012, when Xi would be formally unveiled as the CCP's new general secretary, I was chatting with a veteran reporter from a major Chinese magazine and a leading professor at my school who had observed Xi's career for a long time. The two had just wrapped up an interview, and before leaving, the reporter tossed out a question: "I hear that Xi Jinping lived in the Central Party School compound for a period of time. Now he's about to become the party's general secretary. What do you think of him?" The professor's lip twitched, and he said with disdain that Xi suffered from "inadequate knowledge." The reporter and I were stunned at this blunt pronouncement.
In spite of these negative views, I willingly suspended disbelief and put my hopes in Xi. But shortly after Xi's ascension, I started to have my doubts. A December 2012 speech he gave suggested a reformist and progressive mentality, but other statements hinted at a throwback to the pre-reform era. Was Xi headed left or right? I had just retired from the Central Party School, but I still kept in touch with my former colleagues. Once when I was talking to some of them about Xi's plans, one of them said, "It's not a question of whether Xi is going left or right but rather that he lacks basic judgment and speaks illogically." Everyone fell silent. A chill ran down my spine. With deficiencies like these, how could we expect him to lead a struggle for political reform?
I soon concluded that we probably could not. After Xi released his comprehensive reform plan in late 2013, business and academic circles excitedly predicted that he would push ahead with major reforms. My feeling was just the opposite. The plan avoided all the key issues of political reform. China's long-standing problems of corruption, excessive debt, and unprofitable state enterprises are rooted in party officials' power to meddle in economic decisions without public supervision. Trying to liberalize the economy while tightening political control was a contradiction. Yet Xi was launching the biggest ideological campaign since Mao's death to revive Maoist rule. His plan called for intensified societal surveillance and a clampdown on free expression. A ban on any discussion of constitutional democracy and universal values was shamelessly promoted under the banner of "governance, management, service, and law."
This trend continued with a package of legal reforms passed in 2014, which further exposed the party's intent to use the law as a tool for maintaining totalitarian rule. At this point, Xi's perverse tendencies and the CCP's political regression were clear. If I once had a vague hope for Xi and the party, my illusions were now shattered. Subsequent events would only confirm that when it came to reform, Xi was taking China from stagnation to regression. In 2015, the party rounded up hundreds of defense lawyers. The next year, it launched a Cultural Revolution–style campaign against an outspoken real estate tycoon. It was my reaction to that episode that landed me in hot water.
THE LAST STRAW
The tycoon, Ren Zhiqiang, had increasingly come into conflict with Xi, whom he criticized for censoring Chinese media. In February 2016, a CCP website labeled Ren as "anti-party." I didn't know Ren personally, but his case struck me as especially disturbing because I had long relied on the principle that within the CCP, we were allowed—even encouraged—to speak freely in order to help the party correct its own mistakes. Here was a longtime party member who had been demonized for doing just that. Having lived through the Cultural Revolution, I knew that people branded with the label "anti-party" were deprived of their rights and subjected to harsh persecution. Since a defense of Ren could never be published in censored media outlets, I wrote one up and sent it to a WeChat group, hoping my friends would share it with their contacts. My article went viral.
Although most of my article simply quoted the party's constitution and code of conduct, the Central Party School's disciplinary committee accused me of serious errors. I faced a series of intimidating interviews in which my interrogators applied psychological pressure and laid word traps in an effort to induce a false confession of wrongdoing. It was uncomfortable, but I recognized the process as a psychological contest. If I didn't show fear, I realized, they would lose half the battle. And so a stalemate ensued: I kept publishing, and the authorities kept calling me in for questioning. Soon, I concluded that security agencies were tapping my phone, reading my digital correspondence, and following me to see where I went and with whom I met. Retired professors from the Central Party School usually need permission only from the school to travel to Hong Kong or abroad, but now the school hinted that I had to clear such trips with the Ministry of State Security in the future.
In April 2016, the text of a speech I had given a few months earlier at Tsinghua University—in which I argued that if ideology violates common sense, it deteriorates into lies—was published on an influential website in Hong Kong. The timing was bad: Xi had just announced that some of the free inquiry taking place at the Central Party School had gone too far and urged greater supervision of its professors. As a result, in early May, I was called in again by the school's disciplinary committee and accused of opposing Xi. From then on, the CCP blocked me from all media in China—print, online, television. Even my name could not be published. Then, one night in July, I was summoned again to a meeting at the Central Party School, where a member of the disciplinary committee placed a foot-tall pile of documents on the table in front of me. "There's already this much material on you," he said. "Think it over." It was clear that I was being warned to keep silent and that if I so much as tweeted a word, I would be subjected to disciplinary action, including reduced retirement benefits. I was indignant at my treatment, even though I understood that others had been dealt with even more harshly.
If the CCP's officials are capable of such despicable actions, how can the party be trusted?
In all my years as a member of the CCP, I had never violated a single rule, nor had I ever been called in for a reprimand. But now, I was regularly interrogated by party officials. The school's disciplinary committee repeatedly threatened the humiliating prospect of holding a large public meeting and announcing a formal punishment. At the end of each conversation, my interrogators demanded I keep it a secret. It was all part of an underworld that couldn't be exposed to the light of day.
Then came a cover-up of police brutality that triggered my final break with Xi and the party. Earlier, in May 2016, Lei Yang, an environmental scientist, was on his way to the airport to pick up his mother-in-law when, in circumstances that remain murky, he died in the custody of the Beijing police. In order to evade responsibility for the crime, the police framed Lei, alleging that he had been soliciting a prostitute. His classmates from his university days, outraged at this attempt at defamation, banded together to help his family seek justice, starting a campaign that reverberated throughout China. To quell the fury, the CCP's top leaders ordered an investigation. The prosecution agreed to an independent autopsy, and a trial was scheduled to argue the matter.
A strange thing happened next: Lei's parents, wife, and children were put under house arrest, and the local government offered them massive compensation, about $1 million, to give up their pursuit of the truth. When Lei's family refused, the payment was increased to $3 million. Even after a $3 million house was thrown in, Lei's wife insisted on clearing her late husband's name. The government then pressured Lei's parents, who knelt before their daughter-in-law and begged her to abandon the case. In December, prosecutors announced that they would not charge anyone for Lei's death, and his family's lawyer revealed that he had been forced to stand down.
When I learned of this outcome, I sat at my desk all night, overcome with grief and anger. Lei's death was a clear-cut case of wrongdoing, and instead of punishing the police officers responsible, their superiors had tried to use the people's hard-earned tax money to settle the matter out of court. Officials were closing ranks rather than serving the people. I asked myself, If the CCP's officials are capable of such despicable actions, how can the party be trusted? Most of all, I wondered how I could remain part of this system.
After 20 years of hesitation, confusion, and misery, I made the decision to emerge from the darkness and make a complete break with the party. Xi's great leap backward soon left me with no other choice. In 2018, Xi abolished presidential term limits, raising the prospect that I would have to live indefinitely under neo-Stalinist rule. The next summer, I was able to travel to the United States on a tourist visa. While there, I received a message from a friend telling me that the Chinese authorities, accusing me of "anti-China" activities, would arrest me if I returned. I decided to prolong my visit until things calmed down. Then the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, and flights to China were canceled, so I had to wait a little longer. At the same time, I was disgusted by Xi's mishandling of the outbreak and signed a petition supporting Li Wenliang, the Wuhan ophthalmologist who had been harassed by police for warning his friends about the new disease and eventually died of it. I received urgent phone calls from the authorities at the Central Party School demanding that I come home.
But the atmosphere in China was growing darker. Ren, the dissident real estate tycoon, disappeared in March and was soon expelled from the party and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Meanwhile, my problems with the authorities were compounded by the unauthorized release of a private talk I had given online to a small circle of friends in which I had called the CCP "a political zombie" and said that Xi should step down. When I sent friends a short article I had written denouncing Xi's repressive new national security law in Hong Kong, someone leaked that, too.
I knew I was in trouble. Soon, I was expelled from the party. The school stripped me of my retirement benefits. My bank account was frozen. I asked the authorities at the Central Party School for a guarantee of my personal safety if I returned. Officials there avoided answering the question and instead made vague threats against my daughter in China and her young son. It was at this point that I accepted the truth: there was no going back.
