SOMEONE ALWAYS REMEMBERS

How do Chinse people keep the memory of the June 4 massacre alive? In this piece for The New York Times Opinion section, I look at the rise of grassroots intellectuals, and how they’re undermining the system by keeping the memory of darker chapters alive

I have a bit shout-out in this piece to one of my favorite China-watchers, Sebastian Veg, whose new book on minjian scholars explains this phenomenon. I also revisit a person I wrote about in The Souls of China, Xu Jue, who has since passed away.