Shen Qijia’s story reached international audiences after Jennifer Zeng, a prominent overseas Chinese media commentator and former political prisoner, released a video on March 25 featuring his case. Shen addressed the growing attention from audiences on platforms outside China’s censorship apparatus, saying friends inside and outside the country had warned him that Party officials would be furious about the exposure.
“They’ll be furious?” Shen said. “Let me tell you something: I’m even more furious than they are.”
He spoke directly to the authorities: “Twenty-six years. I petitioned more than 300 times. I gave you time. And what did you do? You sat there collecting taxpayers’ money and did nothing. Can you blame me for how things have turned out?”
“Twenty-six years of harm you’ve done to me. It’s time to settle that account. Go ahead and prove to the world just how shameless and lawless you are, and let the world see how helpless and innocent I am.”
He invoked a classical Chinese story of rebellion
Shen framed his outburst by invoking Water Margin, the classical Chinese novel in which honest men are driven to outlawry by corrupt officials. The phrase “forced up Mount Liang” is widely understood in Chinese culture as a declaration that someone has been pushed to rebellion by an unjust system.
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“I have risen up. I have rebelled. The volcano has erupted,” Shen said. “Yes, you have the entire state apparatus at your disposal, and I have nothing. But things have reached this point because you forced me up the mountain.”
He challenged the Party’s most basic claim to legitimacy: “What has your Communist Party regime brought the people? No sense of security. No justice. What is the point of your existence? You push people to the edge with nowhere to turn, and then you try to finish them off. Living under these conditions, what is there to look forward to in life? And what is there to fear in death? Come on, then. I’ve already put everything on the line, because living like this is too humiliating.”
Shen, who uses the screen name “Thunderbolt” online, ran a shopping mall called Daughter’s Best Shopping Plaza in the southern city of Shenzhen through his company, Shenzhen Yinglian Chuangshi Industrial Development Co. Before the year 2000, the Bao’an district government in Shenzhen arrested him on fraud charges and held him for 118 days. The local prosecutor’s office declined to approve the arrest, and Shen was released. The government later paid him 10,000 yuan, roughly $1,400, in state compensation, an implicit admission that the arrest had been wrongful.
The money was meaningless compared to what the government kept. Authorities in Bao’an seized and liquidated 4.87 million yuan, roughly $670,000, in lawful company assets. Over the 26 years that followed, Shen filed more than 300 petitions with various levels of government seeking to recover his property. None succeeded. Police confiscated his company’s financial records and later destroyed them, eliminating the documentary evidence that could have supported his claims. During that period, authorities illegally detained him five more times, each time for 15 days, and placed him under long-term surveillance.
Douyin restricted his account and he snapped.
To support himself after losing his business, Shen tried to build a following as a livestreamer across multiple Chinese social media platforms. Authorities shut down more than 30 of his accounts over the years.
On March 20, when Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, restricted his livestream, Shen reached his breaking point. He launched into an on-camera tirade against the CCP and the platform itself, calling the Party “bandits” and accusing the regime of associating with whichever forces in the world are the most lawless. He said the authorities silence ordinary people and have turned Chinese society into something resembling a prison. “I’ve put everything on the line,” he shouted.
In subsequent videos, Shen described a pattern he had lived with for decades. The Party treats every petitioner as a troublemaker, he said. “They obstruct you at every turn, surveil you everywhere, and harm you constantly. Even if I curse them in the most vulgar language imaginable, it’s not going too far, because they have never done anything decent to begin with.”
He described the CCP’s information control in blunt terms: “You shut off the lights and do your dirty work in the dark, leaving the people with zero sense of security, living in a state of constant terror.”
Shen pointed to a structural problem built into every major Chinese social media platform. Ordinary citizens, struggling under a deteriorating economy, try to earn modest income through Douyin livestreaming. The platform systematically funnels traffic to accounts that promote Party narratives, he said, naming Sima Nan, a well-known pro-CCP commentator notorious for distorting facts and attacking anyone who criticizes the regime. Voices like Sima Nan get amplified. Everyone else gets suppressed.
Anyone who contradicts the Party line, or even discusses international news the regime considers sensitive, gets banned. Shen laid out the logic plainly: “They just want ordinary people to be obedient work animals. The state tells you what to do, and you do it. They claim to speak for you. You’re not allowed to think for yourself or express yourself independently. That right has been completely confiscated. Free speech in the People’s Republic is an absolute joke.”
He says this may be his last video
Shen concluded his March 25 video with a grim reckoning. His story had already spread across platforms outside China’s censorship system. Whether he kept talking or went silent, the consequences would be the same.
“Whether I say something or stay silent, the outcome will be the same. I’ve already put everything on the line. This may be my last video. Or maybe they’ll slap me with some charge like ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble,'” the catch-all offense Chinese authorities use to lock up dissidents and petitioners, “and throw me in a cell. Perhaps this is goodbye. Or perhaps I’ll see you again.”
On March 23, Shen posted a brief update: “Today I’m safe. I’m still alive.” All of his accounts had been blocked from livestreaming.
Chinese internet users responded with a mix of admiration and resignation.
“Another person who charged the tower,” one user wrote, using an internet slang term for openly defying the CCP. “Salute to an unbroken spirit.”
Others offered blunt assessments of his chances: “He’s been petitioning for 26 years with no result. Unless the CCP collapses, he’ll never get one. All I can do is hope he stays alive long enough to see that day.”
“Old bandits: they rob when they want, silence you when they want, arrest you when they want. Even your organs don’t belong to you,” another commenter wrote. A self-described Beijinger added: “The Communist Party is the Communist Party, and the people are the people. They’ve been openly at war with the people for years. I’m from Beijing. I know this firsthand.”
The most common piece of advice was the bleakest: “If you can get out, get out as fast as you can. Under CCP control, ordinary people have no hope.”