I know that these days many Chinese are preparing to go into exile overseas due to some sort of political pressure, but they are worried that they will not be able to clear customs, or will even be detained when passing through them.

What follows is my own true experience. I hope to help other people in need, and also reveal the inside story of grassroots work. I went into exile in January, 2024. In China I used to be a social worker, i.e. a social-work service provider. This job is contingent employment. Everyone who does it needs to know that they will come into contact with many communities. I was in Chengdu at the time. When I worked at a social-work service center in Jinjiang District, I mainly came into contact with communities in that area. Many community activities were outsourced to us, that is, to those who actually carried out the activities, so that many project budgets, materials, and information would be gathered in this bureaucratic entity. The white-paper movement exploded in 2022. While I supported this movement, at work I was nonetheless exposed to corruption, abuse of power, cover-up of the truth, and other problems at the grassroots level, especially over what happened during the epidemic-lockdown period, which made me more and more disappointed with this system.

The white-paper movement was a watershed. After the movement, the work instructions issued by the central government to the grassroots were to increasingly strengthen the maintenance of local stability and the monitoring of residents, via techniques such as “microgrid verification” [a monitoring and control system implemented during the pandemic], investigation of residents’ economic conditions, etc. In addition, corruption at the grassroots level has become more and more rampant, which has intensified conflicts throughout society. At that time, the projects in my
hands in particular were probably more than 500,000 yuan. I knew all the flows of funds, because I monitored them. At that time, director Zhang Li of Huaxing Street Community in Jinjiang District (she was responsible for community-project contracting) had a conflict and was targeted in various ways. When they learned that my family lived abroad year-round, I began to be focused on as well. Around the end of November I copied all relevant information to a hard drive, and left in December, thus beginning my escape.

Because my name and other identity information were known in various communities, I was very worried at first that they knew I was going to go abroad. After I left in December, the first thing I did was to close all my public, open domestic social media platforms (WeChat Moments, Red and others). During this period, a colleague came to me and asked what I was doing. I said I was traveling. In fact, I had already started to submit a visa application for going abroad. You must be careful with what you say. Before you leave China, don’t tell anyone about it. Even if others ask you, don’t reveal your true intentions.

Since I really only decided to go abroad at the last minute, I had saved no funds. The first time I was refused a visa, so I then began to urgently accumulate money. (I won’t go into details on how.) I submitted my second visa application at the end of December. While I was waiting for the result, I basically didn’t interact with anyone. I tried my best to disappear from the world and only gave yes or no answers to whatever questions I was asked. Then in early January, the visa was successfully issued, I started tidying up my affairs and carrying out other necessary tasks, and booked the fastest plane ticket out of China.

I had to take the data on the hard drive with me, so I was a little worried about being inspected when I went through customs. I wrapped the drive in my suitcase, and the luggage was going directly abroad. I think what worried me most was whether the luggage would be checked. I was sent back for inspection, but it didn’t happen. After my luggage passed through smoothly, I went through customs normally. It wasn’t until I landed in a foreign country that I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

One lesson is that if you are not directly approached by national-security personnel in China, but only by local police (in a local police station, such as one associated with a street or a community), don’t worry, and especially don’t panic. Because even the various local systems within the system do not synchronize information, let alone provincial authorities, even the systems between block-level bureaucracies are not synchronized. Although China’s Big Data monitoring is becoming increasingly strict, monitoring networks themselves are individually distributed all over the country. The authorities can be found on every corner, but the people behind the scenes are actually merely the grassroots staff. What are some features of the system here?

First, these people all do things with the mentality that doing more is better than doing less, so many times they just go through the motions. (If you are dealing with a higher level, the central or a provincial government, it is a different matter.) Authorities at those levels have to take things seriously, particularly if orders directly come from a superior unit. But if not, just look for the local authority, don’t be disputatious or hardline, and just listen to what you are told. The reason is that if you are still in the country at a time like now, if things become serious, they will have to take it seriously, and things will then be very problematic.

Second, because the systems within the system are not interconnected and synchronized, there is a very large information gap among them. The higher the level, the greater the information gap.

Third, there are more and more tasks carried out at the grassroots level, and they are more and more complex. And they focus more on executing work assigned by superiors, rather than on what is actually happening at the grassroots level.

To everyone I would like to say, don’t be afraid, don’t panic, just stay calm. I hope this can help those in need, and I wish that everyone be safe.

Photo source: Radio Free Asia

This piece was translated from Yibao Chinese. If republished, please be sure to add the source and link https://www.yibao.net/?p=247896&preview=true  before the text when reposting. The author’s point of view does not necessarily represent that of this journal.