The most audacious anti-government protest inside China for years took months of elaborate planning.
Qi Hong, a former factory worker and now enemy of the state, first had to source a powerful enough projector to display his message onto a high rise building.
Then he had to install the device, covering his tracks as he prepared to stage the demonstration on the eve of China’s massive military parade, hosted by leader Xi Jinping.
And finally, he had to get to a safe distance.
When the lights flickered on – illuminating in giant letters “Down with red fascism; overthrow the tyranny of the Communist Party” – Mr Qi was somewhere in Britain, hiding with his family.
“I wanted [people] to realise and remember that nobody – nobody – is safe here in China,” Mr Qi told The Telegraph from an undisclosed location.
Though he knew he would be forced into exile for his one shot at public protest, he said he was no hero.
He felt compelled to stand up and warn his fellow citizens of China’s deepening slide into authoritarianism.
“Why pretend that we have any kind of choice? Why not just say it like it is,” he said.
Mr Qi’s rare protest consisted of four rotating messages projected onto a building mainly housing students.
One beamed: “Only without the Communist Party can there be a new China. Freedom is not a gift – seize it back.
“Rise up, you who refuse to be enslaved; rise up, to resist and reclaim your rights.”
“Not lies, but the truth. Not slavery, but freedom. Communist Party, step down,” the messages continued.
Mr Qi’s hidden camera turned the table on China’s surveillance state
Mr Qi had initially thought about unfurling a large red protest banner – in the style of propaganda slogans used across the country – but decided it was far too dangerous.
Protesters who have done something similar were promptly arrested and imprisoned. So he settled on an innovative idea – to project a message which could be activated remotely.
“I purposefully chose to stage the protest in an area with many university students, and in a building that’s mostly a dormitory,” Mr Qi said in his first sit-down interview, in which he asked for anonymity for fear of reprisals.
“My main priority was to make sure that they saw these messages.”
He hoped the students would be inspired much as he was by other demonstrators, like those who joined the “white paper” protests in 2022.
“Many of them weren’t educated and powerful, like lawyers and professors, but normal people like me,” he said. “They were extremely brave.”
Chinese dissident Qi Hong is interviewed by The Telegraph’s Sophia Yan
Meticulous in his planning, he studied the difference between indoor versus outdoor projectors, the latter of which need to be very bright to counteract ambient light – especially in Chongqing, his hometown and China’s largest city of over 30 million people, where he would make his one-man stand.
He then researched widely to select a target building; the appropriate height and location for set-up; what message he’d project; the most impactful date to hold his protest – and, of course, to prepare an exit strategy to avoid arrest.
Mr Qi sprung into action – keeping his plans secret from everyone, including his family, and hiding out to etch the slides himself, as nobody dared to make such carvings on his behalf.
Through months of preparation, he deftly avoided raising suspicions – a feat of its own in the world’s most tech-savvy authoritarian surveillance state. Many activists are arrested before they can even take action.
Months earlier, he had obtained tourist visas to the UK with the hope of taking a holiday – a fortunate coincidence as he now needed an escape plan. So he spontaneously took his family on vacation, or so they thought.
On Aug 29, Mr Qi hit the button from his remote location in the UK. Some 8,000 miles away in a hotel room, the projector he’d placed lit up.
It took 50 minutes before police found and dismantled the set-up, but the activist wasn’t done with his big debut.
Inside the hotel room where he’d hidden the projector, he also placed a camera to remotely record the predictable police raid, and the discovery of a handwritten note.
“The Chinese Communist Party has committed countless crimes on this land; they are too many to list. Please do not aid and abet their atrocities,” he wrote. “Perhaps for now you are a beneficiary, but there is no doubt that one day here you will become a victim.”
Police soon detained his older brother, and arrived at his mother’s village to interrogate her, the latter scene also captured by a camera Mr Qi installed.
Mr Qi had weaponised the state’s surveillance apparatus – on itself.
“The cleverly executed feat was unprecedented,” said Maya Wang, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Yet the real significance lay in the continued willingness of fearless citizens to boldly and publicly criticise Chinese leader Xi Jinping and call for democratic reforms in the face of ever-growing government repression.”
Mr Qi, 43, grew up in poverty in a rural village near Chongqing, and has always been, by his account, fairly outspoken with a rebellious streak.
At 16, he dropped out of school and became a migrant worker, drifting from city to city, living hand-to-mouth with temporary, low-wage jobs – labouring at any factory that would take him.
It was also during this period that he heard, in secret, stories from fellow workers about the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, when Chinese soldiers fired and killed scores of peaceful pro-democracy protesters. Any mention of this harrowing, historic event is censored to this day.
After a period of more regular work, he saved 1,200 yuan (£125) and decided in 2000 to try his luck in the capital of Beijing.
Chinese dissident Qi Hong hopes to inspire a new generation of protesters – Heathcliff O’Malley for the Telegraph
Arriving at the train station, he bought a new backpack for 20 yuan, handing over a 100 yuan note, but the vendor refused to give him change, instead calling the police and claiming Mr Qi had paid with counterfeit bills. Officers detained Mr Qi, rather than the vendor.
These injustices bothered him, though he chalked it up to a period of being down on his luck.
It wasn’t until 2017, when President Xi started his second term, that Mr Qi realised something had shifted in the country.
Communist propaganda – on red banners, television and loudspeakers playing recordings on loop, all proclaiming how Xi was to thank for everything – became impossible to stomach.
“Nothing that Xi touted a success – like his big anti-corruption drive – improved my life or that of others. The country wasn’t moving forward at all,” he said. “The country was moving backwards.”
Mr Qi’s worries grew when his children started coming home praising and idolising Xi. They were forced to listen, memorise and recite his speeches and slogans, like “Without the Communist Party, there would be no new China!”
News of lawyers and businessmen being arrested, detained and disappeared – which reached his ears despite the government’s best censorship efforts – were ominous signs about the country’s direction.
The last straw for Mr Qi was China’s draconian zero-Covid measures, when severe lockdowns were imposed – to the point where people who needed life-saving emergency care were denied access to hospitals.
To him, the government had wasted millions with senseless lockdown policies that had taken away the rights and freedoms of 1.4 billion people – liberties he didn’t see returning.
Mr Qi became more vocal, even phoning local officials to lodge complaints.
“I would try to reason with them,” he said. “Is it really true that Xi Jinping has made all our lives better? Well, think about it for yourself – what was your life like before Xi took power, and what has it been like since he took power? Is it really better, and who exactly is benefitting here?
“I’d tell them: ‘Look at the terrible plight of people in North Korea, Russia, Iran. Why do you want to support that kind of fascism, that kind of system here?’”
Though he had never finished his studies, Mr Qi yearned to learn more, sometimes strolling the campus of a top university in Beijing to soak up the atmosphere. He began to read widely, getting his hands on translations of 1984, Brave New World and Animal Farm.
‘Heroes confront authority’
He grew bolder, at one point posting online: “We want democracy, not dictatorship!”
The authorities often respond to such moves by detaining people and shutting down their social media accounts. But for an unknown reason, Mr Qi remained free.
When he heard the government was arranging a massive military parade to celebrate 80 years since the end of fascism – a complete irony to Mr Qi – he knew he had to do something.
Demonstrations, even solo ones, “have an impact on the collective consciousness of a group of people that’s paying attention, and that group feels empowered,” Ms Wang said.
“In a country that’s so severely repressive, it’s hard to know how representative any of this is…[but] it’s a very good sign, a very positive one.”
Since switching his projector on from the UK, Mr Qi’s accounts have all been frozen in China. His relatives are no longer reachable.
He’s not sure what is next; the fact that he’ll likely have to live in exile for the rest of his life is only beginning to sink in. Praise for his activism and heroism has poured in.
“I don’t think of myself as a hero,” he said. “To be honest, I didn’t really think that far. I only wanted to make my voice heard, to speak my truth.
“Never before did people listen to what I had to say, but now, in one fell swoop, I feel that I’ve said everything I’ve ever wanted to say in my lifetime.”
“Heroes dare to confront authority, even if it costs them their lives and freedom,” he added. “I think only people like that are true heroes.”
