Mournful residents of Shanghai, China, watched Jifeng Bookstore close its doors for the last time on Jan. 31, 2018. The establishment was best known for carrying books and hosting forums that pushed the boundaries on issues deemed sensitive by the Chinese Communist Party.
The forced closure of the bookstore was part of a broader crackdown on free speech and civic discourse by Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government.
Nearly seven years later, Jifeng reopened Sept. 1 in a new location—Washington, D.C.—under the name JF Books. The bookstore’s grand opening attracted a diverse assortment of local scholars, journalists, activists, and members of diaspora communities from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
The excitement was palpable as visitors perused books, took in memorabilia from the shuttered Shanghai store, and registered for upcoming lectures, which are starting back up this month after a hiatus of nearly seven years.
Jifeng’s rebirth in Washington as JF Books is the latest in a recent trend of bookstores and civic groups established in cities throughout the world by Chinese intellectuals who were pushed out of their native country by a government that increasingly rejects any voice not controlled by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, or CCP.
Back in February, months before Jifeng owner Yu Miao announced his new store’s opening, New York Times journalist Li Yuan noted this trend. Diaspora communities across the globe “are creating an alternative China, a more hopeful society,” she reported. “In the process, they’re redefining what it means to be Chinese.”
That’s not what the Chinese Communist Party had in mind when it decided to clamp down on civil society. The party used to tolerate some degree of civic discourse, and organizations engaged in such activities were common in China’s major cities in the 2000s and early 2010s.
Although they had to navigate government minders and stay within bounds set by the state, they were free to carry on such activities provided they didn’t cross any lines. The CCP realized these discussions would occur whether or not it wanted them to; the party seems to have decided it was best to keep these activities in the open, where authorities could hold them in check.
All of this started to change when Xi took power in 2012. By 2017, the landlord of Jifeng’s last remaining branch was prohibited from renewing the bookstore’s lease, and the authorities saw to it that no one else would take in the shop. Similar episodes played out with independent organizations across China during this period.
What worried Xi and the Chinese government most about these groups wasn’t the content they propagated but the associations they fostered among academics and liberal-minded citizens. The Chinese Communist Party knows the power of organization, having itself begun as a small group that brought together concerned citizens to discuss matters of culture and politics. The party thus views as a threat any organization that independently convenes citizens to discuss civic matters.
But shutting down civil society in China was a strategic blunder for the communist regime. By not allowing civil society to remain where it could be kept within approved bounds, the CCP essentially is forcing it to develop in locations where the party lacks any authority to control narratives or force groups to disband.
The Chinese Communist Party long has feared overseas Chinese communities, and it’s not hard to see why. Intellectuals trained overseas played leading roles in every successful modern Chinese revolution—including the one that eventually brought the CCP to power in 1949.
JF Books and the other bookstores and civil society groups sprouting up throughout the world are not dissident organizations seeking to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party, but that’s precisely why they are so dangerous from the party’s perspective.
These shops and activities represent the majority of Chinese emigrants, who don’t consider themselves dissidents and fear the potential repercussions of associating with overtly anti-CCP causes but long for a safe place to discuss political and social issues openly without fearing reprisal from Beijing.
JF Books isn’t the first organization to open in Washington with a mission to strengthen civil society independent of meddling by the Chinese Communist Party. Last year, a group of Chinese students at George Washington University formed an independent student union to give young local Chinese a platform to socialize and hold discussions free from the control of the party and the Chinese Embassy-funded Chinese Students and Scholars Association.
The global phenomenon represented by both these developments began almost imperceptibly as the world reemerged from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chinese living overseas were appalled at the human cost of Xi’s “zero-COVID” policy and related lockdowns in 2022. Many feared their country was being led down a dangerous path, and they needed spaces not only to vent but to have unfiltered discussions about conditions facing their loved ones back home.
Media reported widely on the short-lived “white paper protests” in China that fall, but many missed the awakening among overseas communities that continues to this day.
As Chinese civil society is reborn abroad, there’s no telling how it will develop. Observers should have modest expectations about any impact on politics in China. However, there’s no question that Chinese diaspora communities are seeking greater independence from Beijing. This is a healthy development—not only for Chinese who live abroad but for society as a whole.
The Chinese Communist Party probably will seek to quash or coopt these new social forces, as it did to most of the previously independent Chinese-language media in the U.S. beginning in the early 2000s. This cannot be allowed to happen.
Authorities and civil society in the locations where these nascent groups operate must be vigilant against Beijing’s long-arm tyranny. In addition to helping their immigrant neighbors integrate into local communities, they should fiercely uphold their right to free expression and association and not let an adversarial regime on the other side of the world infringe on these rights.
They should encourage the development of a Chinese civil society free from communist infiltration and actively protect it from a hostile regime intent on intimidating it out of existence.