Today, Xi Jinping and the CCP exercise a tighter control than ever over China’s past. The CCP Propaganda Department and other government entities censor all information sources—textbooks, museums, news outlets, novels—to ensure they fit the CCP’s prescribed narrative. This history whitewashes periods of suffering and turmoil, such as the Great Famine, the Cultural Revolution, and the Tiananmen Square massacre, focusing instead on the contributions of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Xi Jinping to China’s rise.
Yet the CCP has not succeeded in effacing these tragic events. Underground historians, hermits, and rebels—known as the jianghu, or the “rivers and lakes” of China—have existed beneath China’s mainstream culture for generations, dedicating their lives to ensuring the CCP cannot make Gong’s fear a reality.
