David Auburn reads from The Courage to Stand Alone by Wei Jingsheng at the 2009 Human Rights Book Fair.

Hailing from a household of CPC members, Wei Jingsheng took part in the Cultural Revolution, worked in the countryside, and served in the People’s Liberation Army before returning to Beijing to work as an electrician at the Beijing Zoo. His essay “The Fifth Modernization,” which he posted on Beijing’s Democracy Wall in 1978, caused a sensation, not only because it openly attacked the “people’s democratic dictatorship,” but also because he had signed it and had given his address. His democracy activism earned him two jail sentences, for a total of more than 18 years. The Courage to Stand Alone: Letters from Prison and Other Writings is a compilation of his articles, originally written on toilet paper in jail.

February 12, 1992


Dear Jiang Zemin and Li Peng:

China’s situation today has taken a turn for the better. We’ve already passed through the dangerous rapids in our relations with the West; the economy has left its low valley; and most importantly the “anti-liberalization, anti-peaceful evolution” spirit is weakening. Therefore, the political atmosphere and social relations in our country have hope for gradual improvement. This is the key to allowing the country and its citizens to stand up and move forward, but if this key breaks, how will the other parts function?

But let me get to my point. There are a few matters that must be resolved. My hunger strike to protest the abuse of political prisoners and to demand better treatment must come to some conclusion. Or, to put it another way, your plan to kill a chicken to scare the monkey in order to halt protests by political prisoners must also come to a conclusion. Either the fish will die or the net will tear; something must happen. If the fish dies, then that demonstrates conclusively that the “socialist legal system” of Deng, Jiang, and Li is still nothing more than the anarchy and chaos of the Mao Zedong era.

Although you’ve already used the tactics of mental abuse, starvation, disease, and loud noise, there are still many other ways of ending a life in the blink of an eye. I don’t have enough strength left, however, so please excuse me for quitting before the game is through. It’s a great pity and quite difficult to keep your honorable Party from reaching new heights in the art of punishment and keeping the great minds of your Party’s experts from being utilized to their full potential. Yet it looks like any fantasy I still harbored about you has been destroyed, and I can do nothing more than end my three-month hunger strike and await the consequences as I enter the last substantial period of my confinement. From the looks of it, you can barely hold yourselves back.

Wei Jingsheng

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