Huang Guoan, a former information technologist of the Guangzhou power grid company, became a target of the Chinese police after he participated in the White Paper Movement that broke out in November 2022.
Fearing the regime’s reprisal, he fled China and arrived in New Zealand on July 25.
He recounted his journey of joining the White Paper Movement and getting arrested and fleeing in a recent interview with the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times.
According to Mr. Huang, the regime’s intimidation followed him after he arrived on foreign soil: The authorities blocked his access to his bank account and the police issued him a summon order on his cell phone.
White Paper Movement
The White Paper Movement erupted after a Xinjiang apartment fire in November 2022 claimed at least 10 lives. Due to the strict lockdown measures, control barriers prevented them from escaping the blaze and slowed the response of firefighters.Mourners demanded the lift of lockdowns and protested with blank pieces of white paper.
Mr. Huang became a participant in the White Paper Movement when his city also went through a strict lockdown.
Initially, stringent lockdown measures were limited to inland and northern China during the first two years of the pandemic. It wasn’t until 2022 that major cities like Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen started experiencing lockdowns.
He explained that between November and December last year, the resistance escalated, with several videos circulating online documenting the protests.
In Guangzhou alone, the strict lockdown measures forced numerous individuals to take to the streets, displaying signs actively challenging the lockdowns and mandatory testing policies, he said.
His friends in the Haizhu district defied the lockdown. “The police just struck their heads violently, several people in the front collapsed at the scene, and those in the back also suffered head injuries and bled from the assault, while many were arrested after they were incapacitated by electric shock batons,” said Mr. Huang.
In December, the White Paper Movement extended beyond the university campuses. Local residents and shop owners throughout Guangzhou were actively participating.
They took to the streets and vociferously chanted slogans like, “Xi Jinping step down, Communist Party step down,” said Mr. Huang.
The Hunger
Mr. Huang was one of the active participants in the White Paper Movement, and the direct cause of that was the hunger experience that he endured during the lockdown.He mentioned that he learned how to circumvent online censorship when he was in college. Visiting websites from the free world taught him the deceptive and demonic nature of the communist regime. But not until he went through starvation during the lockdown did he come to full realization of this.
He had a well-off job at China Southern Power Grid, with a salary of 300,000 yuan ($41,000) plus bonuses.
The lockdown in October 2022 had him confined in his apartment for a whole month. The only food he had in stock was half a bag of rice, and some meat and veggies that could only last him for a few days. Living in one of the most prosperous and convenient cities in China, Mr. Huang was not used to keeping food stocks.
To save the rice, he had to make very diluted porridge. “I didn’t understand why people would jump off the building. But when it was my turn to get hungry, I understood it totally,” said Mr. Huang.
He said there were many who committed suicide when Guangzhou was locked down. He mentioned the police were very effective in handling the bodies. “It would take the police and the funeral home no more than 20 minutes to remove and clean everything right on the spot. The apartment rent collectors would know it best,” he said.
Recounting an incident when he accidentally witnessed a body, “the face was totally deformed, and the body was still bleeding, … the police came and checked every passersby’s cell phone to delete all pictures,” said Mr. Huang.
The Retaliation
Starting in January, the CCP’s retaliation against the White Paper Movement participants surged, he said.
Many local college students were arrested: “The college students are relatively brave. People were saying they won’t get a chance to get their degrees. I feel sad for them,” said Mr. Huang, referring to students at local universities such as South China University of Technology and Sun Yat-sen University.
He said those who rushed to the frontline of the street demonstrations have completely disappeared one after another. “They just vanished,” he said.
Mr. Huang engaged in online promotion of the White Paper Movement. “Even for people like me who did not go on the streets, the police still found me.”
The fear of the regime’s reprisal had him start looking for ways to get a visa through travel agents as early as February.
On May 20, the police arrested him from his home. He had his online record deleted, but at the police station he saw the police still kept records of everything.
He was locked in a small cell and handcuffed to a window, which forced him to stay in a half-squat or half-standing position.
He went through a number of tortures, including only one restroom break for the whole day, sleep deprivation with a large incandescent lamp glaring into his eyes, and pepper spray into his nostrils to make him feel like drowning.
At the time, there was a man cursing the CCP in the opposite cell. Mr. Huang said: The man, nicknamed “old diehard,” was said to have been in the cell for five months. The police punished him by beating, kicking, and shocking him with electric shock batons until he foamed at the mouth.
Several days later after the brutal interrogation, Mr. Huang was transferred to a large cell along with 30+ other inmates. The dining hall was packed with around 300 people. “You could imagine how many people have been involved in the movement. The detention center was packed,” he said.
Fleeing China
His company quickly terminated his contract. He dared not to leave China right away. A month later, he was on an airplane to New Zealand on July 25.His landlord in Guangzhou texted him a surveillance clipping on July 31, telling him that the police were looking for him. Since then, his connection to the Chinese landlord was cut off.
In early August, his digital payment services were suspended, and his bank informed him that he must be present in person to unfreeze his remaining balance of 380,000 yuan ($52,000) because he was accused of being involved in telecommunications and cross-border fraud.
“It feels like a trap. This is my first time traveling abroad, and I don’t even have an international bank card. How did I get into cross-border telecommunication fraud?” he said.
On Aug. 14, the police texted him from Tianhe District Police Station, along with a summons order. It stated that they were aware of his situation in New Zealand, instructing him to delete “reactionary speech” and “return and surrender immediately.” He was warned that his case had implicated his family.
But he determined that he’d rather die in the land of the free than return to China. For days, he set up a makeshift stall in front of the China Construction Bank in downtown Auckland, begging for support and expressing his protest against the CCP’s seizure of his assets.
“I want the world to know the CCP’s deprived people’s assets to make up its so-called GDP, while pushing people to the point of begging.
“The ‘Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party’ is right, the CCP is an evil Party. They execute people without any due process. It would kill at its wish. It’s definitely evil,” he said.
