Fighting the State to Keep Memory Alive

Ian Johnson, with more than 20 years of direct experience in China, has written an extraordinary account of the struggle to resist the repressive power of the Chinese state. In contrast to the dominant view of it as an all-pervasive actor, using nationalism, surveillance and brutal repression to control people, Johnson offers a more optimistic perspective.

China’s deep history is replete with examples of individuals resisting central authority, even at the cost of their lives, but aware that resistance invariably succeeds in the long term. A similar mentality informs today’s intelligentsia, including academics, filmmakers, artists, journalists and novelists committed to correcting the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts since 1949 to distort the past. Technology can control but can also be used to bypass censorship, whether through spreading PDF files, historical fiction or covertly circulated documentary films.

Johnson covers the CCP’S past violent repressive techniques, Xi Jinping’s efforts to promote a distorted historical narrative, and developments in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and the reaction against the state’s Covid-19 policies. Through a series of personal histories, Johnson shows that people and places and counter-memories are limiting the state’s efforts to dominate the historical landscape in a bitter battle that continues to unfold with unclear consequences.

People and places and countermemories are limiting the state’s efforts to dominate.

Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future

By Ian Johnson

Oxford University Press, 2023, 400 pages, $20.30 (Hardback)