'Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in the Xi Jinping Era' has reached the top of the bestseller lists on major online bookstores. (Source: Weicheng Publishing Facebook)
[People News] On July 15, the Hong Kong police's National Security Department conducted raids on two independent bookstores in Mong Kok—Liu Xia Bookstore and Tian Yuan Bookstore—arresting five individuals under the charge of 'inciting intent' as per Article 24 of the National Security Law, and seizing a significant number of books and evidence.
Media reports indicate that the catalyst for this incident was the earlier interception by Hong Kong Customs of a shipment from abroad, which included Taiwanese books accused of having 'inciting intent'—specifically, 'Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in the Xi Jinping Era.' The author, Feng Zheyun, is a reporter for National Public Radio (NPR) based in Washington, D.C., and the book chronicles the stories of 20 protesters who have voiced their dissent from the margins of the system.
What is it about a book that chronicles the lives of ordinary Chinese citizens that causes such unease for the Chinese Communist Party, which boasts a vast stability maintenance apparatus, millions of law enforcement personnel, and hundreds of billions of yuan in financial resources?
The book "Only Red Flowers Bloom" does not call for the overthrow of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or promote violence; rather, it amplifies the life experiences of over twenty ordinary Chinese individuals. These include rights lawyers, Uyghur fathers, authors of Wuhan lockdown diaries, religious believers, dissidents, and Lin Rongji, the owner of the Causeway Bay Bookstore who fled to Taiwan after facing persecution for his speech. When the Uyghur father shares his experience of losing a child, when Wuhan residents recount their lockdown experiences, when Hong Kong booksellers describe their cross-border kidnappings, and when lawyers discuss how they lost their professional licenses, these narratives validate one another, ultimately creating a public memory that cannot be easily erased. Together, they form an authentic portrayal of Chinese society during Xi Jinping's era. The CCP's greatest fear is the truth.
Why does the CCP fear the truth?
Because totalitarian regimes rely on a monopolistic interpretation of reality, they require the populace to believe that the state is always correct, the leader is eternally wise, society is harmonious, and all suffering is merely the result of rumors spread by foreign forces. As the genuine experiences of ordinary people accumulate, cracks will emerge in this official narrative, exposing the lies and undermining the regime's legitimacy.
'Only the Red Flower Blooms' evokes fear in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) not due to its impressive political appeal, but because it provides testimonies for those silenced, preserving the memories of an era. Each character in the book conveys to the reader: 'These events truly occurred, and they happened to me.' Notably, the book focuses not on political elites but on marginalized individuals. For a regime like the CCP, which relies on propaganda to uphold its legitimacy, the personal accounts of ordinary people often resonate more powerfully than abstract theories.
As George Orwell stated in '1984': 'Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.'
Consequently, in recent years, the CCP has not only deleted posts, banned accounts, and removed educational materials, but has also continuously altered history, rewritten the narrative of the pandemic, downplayed the Cultural Revolution, erased the Tiananmen Square incident, and blocked information from Xinjiang and Hong Kong, all in an effort to plunge society into a state of forgetfulness.
In stark contrast, 'Only the Red Flower Blooms' seeks to do the opposite. It reintroduces those erased by the official narrative back into history, allowing future generations to understand that in this era, not everyone is silent, and not everyone has yielded. To the CCP, this represents its greatest threat.
Adding to the intrigue, one of the characters in the book is Lin Rongji.
A decade ago, the Causeway Bay Bookstore incident sent shockwaves around the globe. Lam Wing-kee was detained across borders for selling political books and later fled to Taiwan, becoming a symbol of the repression of publishing freedom in Hong Kong. Now, ten years later, he finds himself once again under police investigation due to a new book that recounts his experiences. This creates a deeply ironic cycle: a man is criminalized for selling books; after escaping, he becomes the subject of another's narrative, and this book is subsequently banned. This illustrates that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not merely afraid of a specific publication, but of any individual and text that can preserve independent memory.
Today, the CCP has banned 'Only the Red Flower Blooms,' yesterday it was 'Apple Daily,' and further back it was 'Yanhuang Chunqiu.' Even earlier, many more works have been sealed, destroyed, or prohibited from publication.
What changes are the titles of the books, but the CCP's fear remains constant.
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