Soundtrack: Sun Yuanping | I Am Not Fleeing China, I Am “Breaking Out of Prison”

In this episode, Voice of America interviews Sun Yuanping, a businessman from Hebei who fled China by smuggling himself out in the summer of 2026 and has now arrived in Melbourne, Australia. Sun Yuanping recounts his long-term surveillance by state security (MSS) and being subjected to four exit bans due to his posts on Twitter and his contact with Chinese public intellectuals. He shares his mental journey of choosing to risk a 'prison break' in pursuit of freedom and discloses the inside story of how his relatives and friends in China were implicated and arrested after his escape.

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Are there moments when you feel particularly afraid? Fear, not really. I have no fear when facing any powerful, evil things. Life will be lost sooner or later, so why not be brave? I am not leaving a country; I am breaking out of prison. Welcome to Original Soundtrack, I am Xiao Yu. In the summer of 2026, an ordinary businessman from Hebei made a decision that would change the rest of his life: he smuggled himself out of China. His name is Sun Yuanping. He is not a professional activist, just an ordinary person who does business, cares about public affairs, and likes to speak out online. Because of these statements, he got to know a group of public intellectuals in China whom he considers to have the most conscience, and he says these people opened his eyes. In 2019, because of his remarks on Twitter, Sun Yuanping was detained, and subsequently, he was under long-term surveillance and prohibited from leaving the country. Seven years later, he chose a dangerous path of escape. This August in Melbourne, I asked Sun Yuanping how an ordinary person is changed by an era, and why he ultimately had to flee his own country.

Thank you for accepting the interview with Voice of America. Today we are at a friend's home in Melbourne, Australia, in a very lovely small courtyard. I know you arrived in Melbourne on July 9 of this year, and that on July 9 you chose the most dangerous route out of China, a smuggling route. Within the scope of what you can share with us, could you describe how you managed to get out of China along this route?

I left from the Yunnan border, reaching Laos from the Yunnan border. I walked through the tropical rainforest in Yunnan for an entire night, more than ten hours. This period was very dangerous because they also had drones filming at night over there, so we could not turn on any lights. There were no lights at night, so that entire night was filled with fear. The person who dropped you off by motorcycle would tell you that ahead, a bit further on, someone would flash a light twice on the hillside. It wouldn't stay on constantly because of drone surveillance, so you had to rely on your own memory of that spot. He would drop you off there, ride his motorcycle back, and tell you to climb toward where the light flashed. When you climbed a few dozen meters, someone was there. This young man had me climb for ten hours, and we arrived in Laos by noon the next day.

The most dangerous part was the process after you got out and headed into Laos, because Chinese police and Lao police carry out joint law enforcement there. Whenever they saw a Chinese person, they would check you. If you took a car anywhere, they would check whether your passport and visa were legal; if not, they would arrest you and send you back. When you just got out, that passport wasn't on me, so I could only stay in one place and go nowhere, hiding in the mountains. That was when it would have been very simple for someone to make you disappear. Afterwards, when exiting Laos and entering Thailand, my mood suddenly relaxed. As soon as I crossed from Laos into Thailand, I wouldn't say I was completely free yet, but I relaxed a lot knowing it was legal.

I heard that your journey all the way was extremely arduous. At the very beginning of the climb, because that mountain wasn't one of those we usually visit for tourism—it had no mountain paths, it was essentially an 80- or 90-degree slope, straight up and down you could say—you genuinely had to climb it, grabbing onto grass with your hands just to move upward. After climbing for just over ten minutes, you were out of breath. Because I hadn't exercised, and my body probably had some issues, within ten minutes my heart was pounding wildly, and I couldn't hold on and needed to rest. Moreover, the ground was soaked, there was a light drizzle, and the leaves and mud were everywhere. With every step you slipped, and you couldn't turn on a light. After walking six or seven kilometers for what felt like several hours, they finally let me turn on my phone and use the light to guide the way. Initially, when we got tired, we would find a rock to sit on and rest. Later, when we got tired and couldn't find a rock, you could only sit on the ground, on the damp leaves, sitting on the ground. Later on, we even lay down; sitting was impossible because we were too exhausted. Having never experienced such high-intensity exercise, I couldn't sit and could only lie flat. My body was still hot and I was sweating—I sweat very easily—and not a single spot on me was dry; my clothes were completely soaked. These border residents, as I understand it, there should be a few who specialize only in guiding this one section through the rainforest. Normally, according to what he told me, it should take four hours to arrive. Because I had no experience and couldn't walk fast, he kept communicating that he wanted to give up. He said, 'It's supposed to be four hours, but you can't even get out after more than ten hours.' He even wanted to give up on me. I said there was no other way. He said he would send me back, and I said that wouldn't do. At that time, I went through a psychological struggle, but turning back was definitely out of the question. Why? Because since I had chosen this direction, I could not walk the road back.

Is it impossible to survive in China? Must one leave that country? You could say it is possible to survive, and even live quite well. I have been working hard in China for over 50 years and have accumulated some savings; even if I did nothing, I would have no problem with food and drink, and I have friends around me. But you have to know that you are living in an environment where, at every moment, your mind is filled with fear. Why? Because you are being monitored. Every time you are on the internet or want to say something, it reaches a point where—well, no one calls you to tell you what to delete, but you are forced to do it yourself. On Twitter, you write a post and then have to delete two sentences yourself because they cannot be said—self-censorship. Sometimes you have nightmares at night, and all sorts of fearful things happen. You live in this state every day, and you cannot do anything. But do you have to post? Some people would surely say, 'I live in China, I know Big Brother is watching me, I know there are things they don't let me say, so I just won't say them.' But you can't hold it in. When you see these things, you cannot go against your own conscience. In 2019, on Twitter—at that time it was tweets—there was someone named Cheng Tao. When we were in China, we were friends, we both painted. He was in Hawaii, and he drew a cartoon of several people playing cards, and among the dictators was Xi Jinping. I retweeted it and said a few words. Just because of this—I didn't feel it was that serious, because at the time, similar things could be said on Weibo, as you weren't slandering him or speaking ill of him, it was just a joke, so I didn't pay much attention. Suddenly, several police officers came to my house and took me to the police station. They asked about this Twitter issue, and then they brought out all the other searches—they had printed out everything I had done before. When they laid that stack of paper in front of you, how did you feel? I just thought, 'It's just Twitter, just speaking out, if it's not allowed, I'll just delete it.' That's what I thought. But did you ever think that they were so seriously checking every one of your tweets and using them as evidence against you? No, I didn't think it was that serious. I thought I could just delete it. Weibo had already banned my account, so couldn't I just stop talking? I said I was drunk when I retweeted it, because I like to drink, so I said I was drunk when I retweeted it. Later, things calmed down, and they stopped forcing me to do anything. They wanted to go to my office, open my computer, and check my phone. I didn't give them my phone; when I went, I left my phone at home. I said I lost it. They asked, 'Do we need to help you find it? We can locate it.' I said, 'No need, if I lost it, I lost it.' The first night was spent at the police station. They have a detention room, an iron cage, and you sleep inside. The next day, four or five police officers drove me in a police car to my office. That day was a Saturday or Sunday, and I said no one was there, so it couldn't be opened. 'What about the keys?' I had hidden the keys in the soles of my shoes; there was nowhere else to hide them. After we went there the next day, I said I didn't have the keys, I had lost them. That wouldn't do. They took me back to the police car, and we waited for an hour or two. They showed me a search warrant; their leaders had applied for a search warrant. They said, 'Now we can pick your lock,' and they made a call to summon a locksmith. On the way, I took out the keys and said, 'Here are the keys.' They said, 'Look, we are recording this, aren't you ashamed?' I said, 'I'm not ashamed. Doing this with you, I don't feel ashamed.' When we got to my computer, they used their own software to bypass the Great Firewall, plugged it in, and logged into my Twitter. They didn't need me to log in; they bypassed the firewall for me, and if I needed to log in, I would do it myself. After logging in, there was a 'deactivate account' option on Twitter. These police officers forced me to deactivate it and said it would be fine after that. After deactivating it, they announced that I would be detained for seven days. Still had to be detained for seven days, still had to be detained for seven days. I said, 'Thank you.' I wasn't afraid, and I didn't mean that I was feeling terrible. I said, 'Thank you.' The police officer was also laughing and asked, 'Why are you thanking others?' Why? Everyone else looks miserable when a detention is announced. I said, 'Look, you could have detained me for 15 days, but you only detained me for seven, shouldn't I thank you?' The maximum administrative detention is 15 days, and you didn't even give me the full amount, so I said, 'Thank you.' After I was released from detention, a captain of the state security (MSS) had printed out my Twitter posts, page after page, very thick. He told me very kindly that there were some that needed to be deleted, and asked me to delete them. I said it was impossible to delete all of them. I said I could delete some, because at the time he wasn't using a very hardline management style; he was trying to be friends, saying, 'Look, we are just doing our jobs, we don't know each other, we didn't have any history.' He said, 'Just delete this,' and I said, 'I can't delete all of these.'

At that time, there were things regarding Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi. I said that for their statements posted on Twitter, for instance, things involving anti-party or anti-government content I could delete, but if it involved calling out for my friends, I said I couldn't delete it. I said, look, you and I are friends too, and if one day you face unjust treatment, I would speak out for you too. Through reaching this kind of compromise, I deleted a portion of it. And ever since then, about every month or two, he would make me delete things or call me. But slowly, gradually like this, you end up not wanting to post yourself; you might not post even one or two items a month, and when you do post, you self-censor about what should and shouldn't be posted. Were there any zones they made particularly clear as forbidden? Over all these years, do you know where that red line actually is? He tells you the government and Xi Jinping—Xi Jinping cannot be touched, cannot be mentioned, those three words cannot even be mentioned, not even praising him. Praise isn't needed from you; it just cannot be mentioned.

After I got out, I learned that they were monitoring me through one incident after another. For example, once, in late March 2019, after my detention period ended and I was released, it was probably a few months later that I wanted to go to Malaysia. I had a Malaysia My Second Home application and planned to leave from Tianjin. It was my first time being subjected to an exit ban. I had already bought the plane ticket and arrived at customs, but they wouldn't let me leave. After I had finished everything, at that time, the Tianjin customs was manual. You hand over your passport and wait there. He should have stamped it and let you go, but he didn't. After I handed it over, bam, he took out a yellow sign, and it was in traditional Chinese characters, saying 'Please wait, we are verifying.' I was reading it, and before I could even finish, bam, he took out a red sign with the same words. While you were focused on reading that sign, seven or eight police officers came over. They didn't give me back my passport; they took it and said, 'Come with us.' I was very nervous at the time; I didn't know what was going on. It was my first time encountering this. What was this about? I said, 'What is this?' They took me to a small room where two police officers stared at me without blinking. 'Don't move and don't speak,' they said. You try to ask them what's going on, but they won't tell you. Half an hour later, they gave me a slip of paper. It said that because my departure might endanger national security, the Shijiazhuang Public Security Bureau had imposed an exit ban on me. I kept thinking that maybe if I behaved better, it would be okay, because many people, including Ding Jiaxi, had told me that this kind of exit ban usually lasts for three months or half a year, and it would be lifted after they assessed your level, so you could try. I always had this idea; I kept harboring a fantasy that if I stopped speaking out, maybe they would lift it at some point. So, did you really not say anything online during this period? I definitely toned it down a lot; basically, I didn't say anything. I had fantasies about them; I always had fantasies. Later, when did you try again? I know you tried four times in total, right? The second time, a friend of mine who is now in the United States was seeing me off. I mean, they knew, right? As soon as you left, they knew, and they put an exit ban on you. We drove from Shijiazhuang to Tianjin, and they dropped me off. By that time, it was basically fine, so they started driving back. Before they even reached Shijiazhuang, the same scene from last time happened to me again. Was the second time during the pandemic? During the pandemic, everyone was wearing masks. They took me to a small dark room again, and the two police officers were also wearing masks. At that time, they didn't have too many restrictions; you could still hold your phone. I even secretly recorded a short clip on my phone. Actually, it was nothing; it was just because I had said a couple of things online that they did this to me. I said, 'I didn't do anything major, please don't be nervous.' They said, 'Don't talk to us.' I said, 'I just said a few things online, don't talk.' So I waited, and waited for another twenty or thirty minutes, half an hour. Did I know? The second time I was clear about it; someone still came to announce to you, 'So-and-so has placed an exit ban on you, go back.' The next day, was it still 'endangering national security'? Did they tell you? Yes, it was always 'your departure might endanger it.' Did you ever ask them? I am an ordinary person, I'm going abroad, how could I endanger anything? I said, 'I know what this is about, I just said a few things on Twitter, and later I didn't even speak like that anymore.' They wouldn't listen to your explanation. Two or three years later, I specifically bought a train ticket to Zhengzhou and left from Zhengzhou. I even visited a friend in Zhengzhou, and he took me to the airport. I thought I could get out, but it was the same process again. After that, I gave up. Basically, after two or three years of not being able to get out, I stopped trying. Until last year or the year before, the captain of the domestic security division of the Changan District and the captain of the municipal bureau's domestic security division, both captains, applied for me, saying that because I had behaved very well—the district captain said, 'You behaved very well, you don't say much, we will apply for a lifting for you.' They lifted it for you? I don't know how their procedure works. Whatever they tell you to submit, you have to submit. They took all my information and applied for about a year, then told me it wasn't approved. On April 8th of this year, I bought my plane ticket in advance. Actually, they knew I bought the ticket, but no one paid any attention to me. No one paid attention to me, so I thought maybe it was lifted, maybe because it had been so long, over seven years, and I hadn't done anything, I had been cooperating all along. You said they knew when you bought the ticket; can they monitor what you do online? They can monitor it. Every time I go to Beijing, go on a business trip, or go anywhere and buy a train ticket, they all know. They will have the domestic security captain call you: 'So you're on a business trip, Mr. Sun, you've arrived in Tianjin.' Sometimes if we drive somewhere, how could he not know? But as soon as I check into a hotel and swipe my ID card, the phone call comes immediately. It's like, 'You're on a business trip?' I say, 'Yes, I'm on a business trip for something, I have to tell someone.' There is a specific domestic security officer responsible for watching you, a captain in Changan District. So, what about this time today? Before you left, you specifically went to check if this passport would work, if you could leave, right? Is that even a thing?

I also used internal connections to find a leader at the Public Security Bureau, took my passport, and specifically went to check why I had bought this ticket for April 8. After checking, they said my passport had previously been placed under exit control, but it had been lifted long ago and I was fine now. Since I was fine, I bought a ticket. I bought the ticket, and nobody contacted me; no one said I wasn't allowed to leave. It wasn't until April 7 that Captain Zhang, the captain of the domestic security brigade in Chang'an District, called me. I was going to Shanghai on a business trip, and I said, "You're going? Is there anything you need to report to me?" He didn't say anything else. I thought maybe he didn't know or something, but actually, they definitely knew, because you were leaving the country from Shanghai. Yes, I flew from Shijiazhuang to Shanghai. That night, my flight to Shanghai was fine—from domestic, but once I got out of customs in Shanghai, this time was different from the previous three times. It was electronic in Shanghai; you swiped your passport, the first gate opened, and you walked in. There was another gate ahead, where you had to do facial recognition. You leaned your face in, the front gate would open, and you would walk through. But this time, I leaned my face in, and the door didn't open. I leaned in again, and still it didn't open. At that moment, someone came over and said, "Mr. Sun, give me your passport, take your passport, and come with me." I was taken into a small dark room again, and this time it was even more serious—I wasn't allowed to use my phone. I said, "Right now, you don't have any evidence that I've committed a crime, so you can't stop me from using my phone. You can't just follow orders blindly." I said, "As police officers, as law enforcement agencies, you should execute and obey the law, not just orders." I even reasoned with them, but they wouldn't listen to you and said, "Don't talk to me about that." Refusing to listen lasted twenty-something minutes, and this time it was more formal: they brought out a piece of A4 paper, and two police officers said, "We are here to declare to you that because Sun Yuanping is leaving the country, there is a possibility that you may endanger national security, and it's the same old phrase: the municipal state security department has issued an exit ban against you." You were born in a rural village in Xiongxian, Hebei, born in 1971, and then later you were admitted to the Hebei Youth League School, taking a very stable and smooth broad path. As someone inside the system, after graduation, you indeed entered the system and became an official in the Culture and Sports Bureau, right? A grassroots official. So how is it that step by step, you went from being a youth who could have had a lot of promise, to today—someone who, in their eyes, I must leave my country, flee my country, as a dissident? Yes, I was born in Xiongxian, in a village right at the edge of Baoding Prefecture. It was very impoverished at that time, and my parents were ordinary farmers. Back then, in our village, the way to go was to study hard, take the exams, and get into college. As my aunt put it, it meant "guaranteed income regardless of drought or flood." That means even if our family's crops are flooded or scorched by the sun and produce no grain, you'll still have a bountiful harvest. I asked, "How can there be a bountiful harvest then?" It meant that once you ate commodity grain, the government would issue grain to you at that time. So back then, we studied hard. You said your original intention of going to college was very simple: just to be able to eat commodity grain. Once you ate commodity grain, whether the countryside produced grain or not, you wouldn't starve to death. That was your initial motive. You never thought from the beginning that you wanted to oppose the system or anything like that; you didn't even seem to care much about politics at all. Is that true? Completely indifferent, clueless, ignorant—just surviving. What was your vision for your life at that time? I went to this school, and what kind of person would I become in the future? Graduating from normal school meant teaching, and in our rural area, in that place, for a man to teach was something very looked down upon. Being a teacher—back then, survival was still on one's mind. So at that time, the county's Communist Youth League secretary often came to visit us. Only two people from our Dingzhou Normal School went, and we chatted. He recommended us to this school, and what was the purpose? The purpose was that after graduation, you wouldn't have to teach anymore; you could go to government departments and work in an office. Yes, even after graduating and going to the Culture and Sports Bureau, around 1996 or 1997, many people who hadn't even gone to college went to places like Shenzhen to make batteries or whatever, and they were all making a lot of money. When they came back and we ate together, they'd say, "You went to half a college, and your Culture and Sports Bureau doesn't have any real power either. The little money you earn is just a few hundred yuan a month." It felt like you were inferior to them; they made a lot, at least several thousand. At that time, there was the practice of retaining salary while taking unpaid leave. When I went to find the bureau director, I said, "I want to apply for unpaid leave with my salary retained." The director said, "You don't need that, just go do business. When you make money and come back, maybe you can even become... well, if you bring me 200,000 or 300,000 yuan, I can make you a deputy bureau director." Didn't you understand? He said it, and we actually believed it. In fact, they kept drawing my salary—they split it among themselves—but as far as I was concerned, I was still on normal unpaid leave. Your position is retained, but it doesn't count; you don't accrue work seniority. Was I supposed to think this was a good thing? Just like that, in a muddled way, my official establishment status was also made to disappear. When I went back to look for that bureau director, he had already been transferred to be the director of the Radio and Television Bureau, and when I asked him about it, he had long forgotten about the whole thing.

There was a period of time when I felt that if I didn't watch the CCTV News, I wouldn't know what was happening in the world, just like a blind person; I felt I absolutely had to watch it. By that time, the internet had already started to emerge, right? When I first started doing business, I hadn't come into contact with the internet yet. When I opened my first company at the Donggou Oriental Building, after buying a computer, someone tried to sell me internet access—a certain amount per year, a few hundred yuan to get connected. I asked, 'What is the point of connecting to the internet?' He said, 'You can play games.' I said, 'I can play games without the internet.' The two of us would take turns playing Snake—that kind of game, we just played that. He said, 'This is different; once you connect to the internet, you can play this game and that game.' Later, since it wasn't much money, just a few hundred yuan, I decided to go for it. After connecting, my friend downloaded QQ for me. I didn't know what QQ was for at the time; it was just for talking. He said you don't need to use the phone, you can talk on this, and you can also send files and such. Through this QQ, not long after, on the top right corner of the QQ interface, the second or third icon from the end was a little penguin—Weibo. That was Tencent Weibo. Once Tencent Weibo came out, I registered for it. They explained to me what this Weibo was. Before this, I had been exposed to BBS, specifically the Shijiazhuang Forum. Because I discovered that whenever there was news, I was willing to take pictures and post them, so they made me a moderator of the news section. That was when I first got into this, and later I got into Weibo. Once, there was a heavy rainstorm that flooded the road from Shijiazhuang to Beijing, and the highway was flooded. Because there are mountains to the west, quite a few people must have died on the mountains, but CCTV reported that only a few had died, or very few. Could I only believe CCTV? I didn't know. At that time, on Weibo—because those who were drowned on the mountain couldn't post, and there weren't many survivors either. We had a neighbor who worked for China Railway, building railways, and he was on that mountain. When he came back, he said that there were buses—entire buses—being swept down from the mountain every few minutes. How could only that many people have died? It was through one incident after another that I started to stop believing them, stopped watching their official content, and started going online to see for myself.

As a businessman from a place like Shijiazhuang, you later gradually came into contact with the circle of public intellectuals in Beijing. When they had things going on, they would still invite you to Beijing to attend events and have meals together—all because of Weibo? Back then, we used Tencent Weibo and Sina Weibo. Tencent Weibo was actually better, and back then there weren't really any sensitive words; I didn't even have any account bans back then. Maybe what you said wasn't provocative enough to them, or maybe your mind wasn't quite clear yet. Once we got to Sina Weibo, account bans started happening. People like Elder Sister Gao Yu had her accounts reincarnated so many times. Those of us who followed each other, like Zhang Ming, all connected through Weibo. After he was banned, he would put out a signal, and everyone would help him repost it so it could get out there—like, Elder Sister Gao Yu was reincarnated again. That's just how it was, helping each other out like that. My Weibo accounts were banned 80 times, my WeChat accounts were banned five times, and I've had about 80 reincarnations. It was too difficult. So most people couldn't take it. I know someone who was even much crazier than me, and that was Xiao Han, Teacher Xiao Han from CUPL. Xiao Han went crazy; Xiao Han had over 100 accounts, it seemed. Your circle is actually still an extremely small group in China, isn't it? There must be a lot of people who play on Weibo, but people like Elder Sister Gao Yu, Zhang Ming, He Weifang, and Zhang Qianfan—this circle really does have very few people. What attracts you to it is what they talk about, things you have never heard of, things you have never thought about; it's the kind of stuff that enlightens you. Later on, when you were online, these people were all very busy helping out. I didn't have as many followers as they did, but occasionally when I went to Beijing, people like Zhang Ming and Zhang Yaojie—we could contact each other through Weibo's direct message feature. When I reached Beijing, oh, these professors would say, Yuanping has arrived, let's have a meal, let's have a meal. They were also very willing to accept you. But before meeting them, you would feel like these people might be high and mighty, perhaps hard to approach. Yet after you interacted with them, it was completely not the case at all; they were just like old friends. Like when Zhang Ming came out of Renmin University, we went to a coffee shop and chatted freely, just like old friends. It's such a strange group of people. Are they kindred spirits? Everyone probably feels that way because you share the same values, or is it because of something else that allows you to connect like this? This was analyzed later; at the time, I didn't have those thoughts. I just felt that the biggest impact these people had on me was that they could treat you equally. When you actually went to meet him, you might have respected him just like a professor, feeling that professors are very lofty. Yet they spoke to you as equals, just like old friends. People like He Weifang and Zhang Qianfan were all like this, including Mao Yushi. None of them had what we call class distinctions or airs, giving people a very comfortable feeling.

However, were dinners like this also under official surveillance? Because we read news like this saying that police frequently harassed them and barged into their gatherings, and maybe if you had something going on—like someone celebrating a birthday—the police might call everyone in advance to say you aren't allowed to gather. Have you ever experienced anything like that? At first, I wasn't quite clear about it, so when I went to Beijing, we frequently kept in touch, had meals, and met up. Later on, I was clear about it. Liu Yawei, a scholar from Shandong, wrote a book, and that day he also wanted to invite everyone to dinner. There were a few of us, including Mao Yushi, Gao Yu, and Pu Zhiqiang—about a dozen people in total—and we all went there unfettered. The few of us went there unfettered. Mao Yushi, Gao Yu—well, Mao Yushi didn't go; he couldn't make it because he was stopped and turned back by the national security police (guobao). When it was Mao Yushi's birthday, they wouldn't disturb you, but they would sit outside the hotel doors in plainclothes and record videos of you. Whoever went in or came out, they recorded all of it. I only found out about that afterwards, and I guess my strict control must be related to these things. Yes, they knew you had been to these events, not just posting things online. No, they won't disturb you, but they will record you. At the time, didn't you realize that those people were plainclothes agents and they were recording videos? No. These were all Elder Bao and Elder Sister Gao Yu; there were just four people sitting outside. Once at Dayou, six or seven of us—several professors from the Central Party School, Mao Yushi, Elder Sister Gao Yu, and Zhang Yaojie—were having dinner there. Elder Bao arrived the latest, and there were a few plainclothes agents eating with him in the lobby. Elder Bao said, "I brought my dog with me today." What did that mean? I didn't understand. Later on, they explained it to me: the national security police (guobao) were following him, a man and a woman at a table not far away, ordering some food and eating there. "May the world attain peace" (愿天下得平安), written by Elder Bao in traditional Chinese characters, created for me. The acrostic of this was my name, Yuanping Sun (愿平孙). I always felt that Elder Bao knew I was going to come out. Why didn't he write Sun Yuanping, but instead wrote Yuanping Sun, putting Sun at the end? I always felt that he had a premonition. He wrote it at home, and later gave it to me—an acrostic for Yuanping Sun. Yes, Elder Bao's thinking was especially agile.

Actually, you have experienced the entire rise of the Chinese internet, followed by increasingly strict control. Up to now, everyone is truly in a state of dead silence; we really don't dare to say much of anything. This includes your friends around you—some have disappeared one by one, and some have already passed away, like Mr. Mao Yushi. What kind of feeling does this give you? Looking at the Chinese intellectuals as a whole, you have been in contact with them, but it feels like a golden age is now... do you have a sense of sadness and desolation that the curtain is falling? There is indeed the feeling you described. What touched me the most were Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi; we had a lot of contact, and we often sat down and talked face-to-face. Lawyer Ding is a very gentle person, while Xu Zhiyong is full of passion and has his own set of ideas for the future of China. Because of that open letter, I didn't expect Zhiyong to be sentenced to 14 years and Ding Jiaxi to 12 years. This time, just for expressing their own thoughts, they could be sent to prison for such a long time. It was only later that I learned about the crime of subverting state power; this is in the criminal law, it exists legally, and that's when I understood these things. Subverting state power—you didn't do it, you just spoke, and speaking is subversion; you can be accused of inciting others to subvert. Pu Zhiqiang was arrested again for inciting ethnic hatred, also just because of a few Weibo posts. This creates fear in your heart. Furthermore, they monitor you, and they don't do it secretly; they tell you who called you, they tell you who called you. Later, I analyzed what this meant: it's to let you know that we are monitoring you, to make you feel fear internally, to make you self-censor, and to achieve that effect. In recent years, I have been self-censoring all the time, every word I say. Not to mention WeChat; on WeChat, I basically don't dare to touch on politics at all.

What is the time you miss the most with them, what were you doing with them? And what is your biggest regret? Having left that land, what do you feel you have lost now? What I miss the most is the time on Weibo and BBS, that free space where you could say whatever you wanted. The biggest regret is that many of my friends still have to live in such an environment, for the rest of their lives, yes. And as many people you mentioned, like Xu Zhiyong and lawyer Ding Jiaxi, are still in prison. I deeply admire Zhiyong and Jiaxi; I couldn't do what they did, I became a deserter. Speaking of leaving China, and speaking of these friends, you are particularly moved. Why do you think it touches that particularly sorrowful part inside you? I was born in China, that is my country. I was forced to leave it because I didn't want to consume the rest of my life, I didn't want to spend it in prison. Mr. Sun, before today's interview, you actually had some inner struggle, because I understand that after you came out, some friends who helped you were arrested in China. Can you tell us how these friends were arrested at the time, and why you felt that you might not be able to accept this interview, yet until today, sitting here, you still decided to say these words? Why? I have four friends who were criminally detained. There is one friend of mine, Zhan Fei, who repairs mobile phones. I just left my domestic mobile phone number and phone with him to keep it charged, and he was also detained. There is another friend, Wang Haipo, who bought my car—I had to sell my car so I could leave, and I also needed the money—he was also criminally detained. And another friend, a property management company manager named Liang Haiing, he just traveled with us to Yunnan. Because I kept it very confidential at the time and didn't say I was leaving, he had no idea at all. It was only when I arrived in Yunnan and we were having a meal that I said, I'm not going back this time. Even a person like that was criminally detained. Why? Because the Ministry of Public Security sent people, and this case is very big. I don't know if this case is very big, can they disregard the law? He didn't know anything about it, yet he still gets detained and sentenced? And many of my relatives and friends, they will harass you. Even if you have nothing to do with it and are not involved in my case, just because you were a bit close to me, they will tell you: I will summon you. I may not be able to detain you, but I can summon you for 12 hours. For those of you who work inside the system, working within the system, I will summon you every day so you cannot work. That is very terrifying. So my heart was also tormented: should I speak out or not? But if I don't speak out, is it better for them? I can't guarantee that. Because before they detained them, a friend of mine called me and said, as long as you stop speaking out on Twitter and stop accepting interviews, we will handle it anew and will no longer pursue the matter. I believed it, and said from now on, I will no longer speak on Twitter and I will no longer accept interviews. That afternoon, they all detained them, criminally detained them. When you comply with them, they don't keep their word, which made my heart turn cold. I read a quote from Murong Xuecun: compliance cannot buy mercy. This sentence gave me encouragement to definitely speak the truth, to let the whole world know about these domestic law enforcement agencies and law enforcement personnel. I say to you, handle cases according to the law, and I believe you are just doing your job. If you use your current power and influence to achieve a certain goal, persecuting my friends and threatening them—like what you said about being able to summon someone for 12 hours every day just because they work in the system—is this something the judicial organs should be doing? This is acting like a hooligan. Because my affairs implicated these friends, I really feel very uncomfortable in my heart, but I am powerless. Leaving a country and heading towards freedom in any country is a human right, but leaving prison has a term called jailbreak. Why are so many people implicated? I am not just leaving a country, I am breaking out of prison.