A still image from a video provided by Qi Hong shows police officers in a hotel room where the Chinese activist had set up a projector. It took them 50 minutes to locate where it was coming from. Photo / Qi Hong via the New York Times
On the eve of China’s grand military parade, an activist in a city with 30 million people staged a protest that doubled as performance art, proof that defiance can still surface, and survive, even in a surveillance state.
At 10pm local time last Friday in Chongqing, a large projection on a building lit up the night with slogans calling for the end of Communist Party rule.
“Only without the Communist Party can there be a new China,” read one.
Another declared, “No more lies, we want the truth. No more slavery, we want freedom.”
It took the police 50 minutes to locate where the projection was coming from — a hotel nearby — and shut it down.
That’s usually the end of such protests in China.
Not in this case.
A few hours later, the activist released video footage of five police officers entering the hotel room, rushing to the window and finding the projector hidden behind a half-closed curtain. While four of them were fiddling to shut it down, another officer pointed with surprise to a surveillance camera aimed at them.
A handwritten letter addressed to the police was on the coffee table: “Even if you are a beneficiary of the system today, one day you will inevitably become a victim on this land. So please treat the people with kindness.”
The activist also circulated the letter online.
The next day, the man who staged the incident, Qi Hong, published another image from surveillance footage showing police officers questioning his frail, hunched mother in front of her village home.
It was both a protest and a performance, documented in real time. The protest, staged through light and cameras, turned the state’s gaze back on itself.
When put together, the visuals had the look of performance art mocking the Communist Party security apparatus.
By the time the police arrived, Qi had already left China nine days earlier with his wife and daughters.
He had turned on the projection and recorded the police’s response from a remote location in Britain.
Technology has strengthened the Chinese government’s ability to control its people.
Qi illustrated how the same tools can enable resistance.
“Qi Hong outwitted the police, outmanoeuvred the state machinery — and there was little they could do about it,” said Li Ying, who runs perhaps the most influential Chinese-language X social media account and often posts protest footage. “It was incredibly cool.”
Li called the act “a serious blow” to authorities who had poured enormous resources into ensuring stability before yesterday’s parade.
“His action showed that the CCP’s control isn’t airtight. It’s not like we can’t do anything,” he said.
The videos, circulated through the social media accounts of Li and others, reached an unusually large audience. One post of the projected slogans drew more than 18 million views in four days.
Qi said he had never thought of his act as art or even bravery.
“My only intention was to express myself,” he said in his first media interview. “The party installs surveillance cameras to watch us. I thought I could use the same method to watch them.”
Many people online called him a hero and offered their thanks. Some commenters said Qi’s ingenuity in using technology had inspired them.
Qi himself is a copycat.
Like other protesters, he drew inspiration from Peng Lifa, the man who in October 2022 unfurled banners on a busy Beijing overpass calling for China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, to step down.
Peng, soon tagged “Bridge Man” in a nod to “Tank Man” of the 1989 Tiananmen protests, was quickly seized by the police and has not been heard from.
The copycat effect may be the biggest headache for the Chinese Government. The country’s economy is experiencing a years-long slowdown, and many college graduates, migrant workers and professionals are struggling to find jobs.
Li, the blogger, said many more people were sending him protest footage this year than in the previous two years.
Qi insists he is not courageous. Soft-spoken, he said he felt compelled to share what he thinks and to urge more Chinese people to see what he called the brutality and absurdity of the Communist Party’s rule.
Born in 1982 in a mountain village near Chongqing, Qi grew up in poverty. At 16, he dropped out of school and joined the tide of migrant workers seeking work in China’s booming cities.
Without the temporary residence permits required at the time, he said, he was detained and beaten by police officers in Guangdong and Beijing, once for more than 20 days. The experience, he said, persuaded him to avoid authorities at all costs.
He cycled through jobs working in factories, sanitation and sales. In 2006, his fortune turned when he started selling inexpensive items online on Taobao. Within a few years, he married and bought a modest apartment in Beijing.
In 2013, restless and drawn to Buddhism, he shut down the online shop, moved his family to a village outside Beijing and ran a small package pick-up station. By 2021, with their eldest daughter about to enter middle school, the family returned to Chongqing.
There, Qi worked as an electrician and grew more politically aware.
He bristled at the propaganda in his daughters’ textbooks, the Government’s stoking of nationalism and the suppression of free speech. “I was dissatisfied with the Government, but I didn’t dare to speak out,” he said.
He turned to books for answers. He read 1984, Animal Farm and Brave New World. “I was terrified that they’re still ruling us the same way,” he said.
His WeChat posts became more pointed.
On the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre in 2022, he wrote, “The pursuit of light is something every thinking human should strive for. Light of wisdom, light of civilisation, light of humanity, light of democracy.”
His New Year wish for 2024 was simple: “May everyone have freedom from fear”.
In May, he posted what he assumed would get his WeChat account deleted: “We want democracy, not dictatorship!”
Nothing happened. But for him, the words were a turning point.
By July, with news of Xi’s planned military parade, Qi decided it was time.
He surveyed locations and chose a busy section of Chongqing’s university area.
On August 10, he checked into a hotel, spent 10 days practicing laser projection on a nearby high-rise and prepared the slogans he would beam into the night sky. To test, he beamed harmless phrases like “Be healthy” and “Be happy.” Then he and his family left China.
On August 29, he switched on the projector remotely.
He clipped together footage of the slogans and the police raid, shared them with influential people online like Li and watched as they spread across the internet.
The state struck back.
The police detained one of his brothers and a friend and interrogated his mother outside her home.
He had told no one about his plans except his wife and daughters.
The Chongqing police did not respond to a request for comment.
Qi said he’s stunned by the reactions online and is unsure of what lies ahead.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Li Yuan
Photographs by: Qi Hong
©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES