Chongqing Anti-Communist Fighter Qi Hong: Admiration for Falun Gong Helping Chinese People Break Through the Firewall

At about 10 p.m. on August 29, 2025, on the exterior wall of a high-rise building in the bustling core commercial district Xijie of Chongqing University Town, multiple huge “anti-Communist” slogans were suddenly projected. (Video screenshot)

[People News] Qi Hong from Chongqing, China, on August 29 used remote control methods to project huge “anti-Communist” slogans in Chongqing University Town, drawing wide attention. Living in the UK, Qi Hong had already been frequently interviewed by media, and in an exclusive interview with Dajiyuan, he specifically clarified a slip of the tongue he made when first mentioning Falun Gong in an earlier interview. He expressed admiration for Falun Gong practitioners for running media outlets and helping Chinese people break through the firewall to see the world.

Clarifying a slip of the tongue in his first interview

According to a report by Dajiyuan reporters Ning Haizhong and Gu Xiaohua, Qi Hong was born in 1982, now 43 years old. He grew up in a remote mountain village in Chongqing. Due to family circumstances, he dropped out of school at 16. He went to Hangzhou where his father worked to find jobs, also went to Fujian, and later worked in Dongguan, Guangdong, before arriving in Beijing in June 2000.

Qi Hong’s first overseas interview was on August 31, when he appeared on a U.S. YouTube channel. In the interview, he said that he arrived in Beijing in June 2000 and first went sightseeing at Tiananmen: “When I went there it was just the time when Falun Gong believers were self-immolating in Tiananmen Square. I remember I was just playing there, … then (the CCP) treated me as Falun Gong and arrested me.”

Qi Hong said his description that he went to Tiananmen and coincided with “Falun Gong self-immolation” was reported by some Taiwanese media, which confused Falun Gong practitioners. Because Falun Gong scriptures state that killing is forbidden, and even suicide is a sin, and documentaries have long exposed that the Tiananmen self-immolation was a farce directed by the CCP. (link) These truths have already been exposed at home and abroad for many years. Moreover, this event occurred on Chinese New Year’s Eve, January 23, 2001, not in 2000.

“I wasn’t saying (Falun Gong practitioners) were self-immolating there, because the CCP later propagated the Falun Gong self-immolation incident. I was referring to such a big event, connecting it to that period, that’s what I meant.” On September 10, Qi Hong said in his Dajiyuan interview.

Qi Hong stated that indeed in June 2000 he was at Tiananmen during that period, staying for about ten days in a small park near Tiananmen. At that time, Falun Gong leaflets could often be found in phone booths, and plainclothes police were everywhere arresting Falun Gong practitioners. He witnessed from a distance police arresting and beating people. “I saw with my own eyes, they really beat them harshly, especially Falun Gong practitioners.”

He said: “In June, indeed Falun Gong practitioners were there unfurling banners, and the police beat them brutally when catching them. I didn’t see self-immolation, maybe it was a matter of time. Anyway, during that (self-immolation hoax) period, things were very intense.”

When reporters reminded him that the so-called self-immolation case happened on Chinese New Year’s Eve in January 2001, Qi Hong said: “Oh, that’s not right, not right. In my timeframe, they were cracking down especially harshly.”

Qi Hong explained that when he mentioned the self-immolation incident in his first interview, it was probably because he was too deeply influenced by the CCP’s later propaganda, so he connected the two. He meant that period of events. “At that time Falun Gong resistance was very intense in Tiananmen Square. The Communist Party’s repression and arrests were very harsh—that I can be responsible for.”

Qi Hong said when he was in Tiananmen Square, during the day he picked up scraps, at night he slept on benches in the nearby park, sometimes in the underpass at Tiananmen. One night the police came to clear people, and he was muddleheadedly arrested and detained at Donghuamen police station. About ten people were arrested then, but he wasn’t sure if any were Falun Gong practitioners.

Admiration for Falun Gong practitioners establishing media and helping Chinese break through the firewall

Qi Hong said he believes in Buddhism and respects different faiths. “First, you don’t deprive others of personal freedom because of your belief, and you don’t force others to believe in anything. I think that’s fine.”

He had heard about the persecution of Falun Gong but didn’t know much. In China he rarely had contact with practitioners, though later some colleagues were practitioners. “There’s no harm. We all thought it didn’t matter, but knowing he was Falun Gong, none of us reported him, none of us said anything.”

What impressed Qi Hong deeply was Falun Gong media’s influence and practitioners’ long-term persistence in helping Chinese break through the firewall.

“I think Falun Gong has done very well in media. Other outside organizations should learn from them. At first many people benefited from Falun Gong platforms to get around the firewall, and later more VPN software appeared.” he said.

Experiencing hardship at the bottom and recognizing CCP’s rogue nature

Qi Hong said when he was detained in a shelter, most detainees were drifters, some even younger than him, arrested for lacking temporary residence permits. He himself suffered abuse there, but he doesn’t want to recall it: “It was painful. I really don’t want to talk about it.”

After leaving the shelter in Beijing, he was put on a train and released in Shijiazhuang. With no money, he found a small restaurant, did odd jobs for a day, and got a meal. Later he followed an old man onto a train to scavenge scrap, but as soon as they got off in Beijing, he was caught and the scrap never sold.

During an escape, a gang of thugs at the train station robbed and beat him severely, and the railway authorities did nothing. He walked far along the tracks until a kind-hearted person pitied him, gave him fried rice with egg and soup, then gave him fare money, so he returned to Tiananmen Square.

Later he worked as a helper in small restaurants near Tiananmen, distributed leaflets, worked as a cleaner, and a salesman.

Qi Hong said for many years he was always toiling for survival. He once ran a Taobao shop and a courier station. In 2021, because his child needed schooling, he returned to his registered residence in Chongqing.

During the three-year pandemic, Qi Hong felt the government’s actions were absurd. He refused vaccination, which made finding work difficult. “I didn’t cooperate with them, including doing nucleic acid tests. Basically, I avoided them whenever I could.”

Qi Hong had deep experience of injustice under CCP rule. “Anyone with a brain can figure it out: they say one thing and do another, using both intimidation and small favors to achieve their goals. If you reason with them, they act like rogues; if you act like a rogue, they reason with you. That’s how it is.”

Not willing to let his children suffer red indoctrination; calls for national awakening

Qi Hong had planned the projection of anti-Communist slogans in July, and chose to carry it out before the school term began, because he strongly disliked the brainwashing of students. “Especially the first class of the semester, they insist on saying how great everything is. Our place was a Red Rock revolutionary base, singing Red Rock spirit every day. I really couldn’t stand it. I think this is absolutely intolerable.”

“Red Rock” is a CCP red novel depicting so-called “heroes” of underground CCP members in Chongqing during the civil war, long controversial as propaganda.

Qi Hong said he especially couldn’t allow his children to stay in China. “I feel I can’t let my child be persecuted anymore. Under this kind of education, it damages people’s souls.”

In the Chongqing projection incident, Qi Hong left behind an open letter in his room warning police: “The crimes the Communist Party has committed on this land are innumerable. Please try not to aid the tyrant. Maybe you are benefiting now, but I believe for most people, for your family going back three generations, even one generation, no one escaped CCP persecution. It’s just that Chinese people are too forgetful….” The letter said that ever since the Soviet Communists came to this land and seized power, successive movements “destroyed countless families, persecuted people endlessly. Other than lies, what do they have? They are fascists.”

Qi Hong said, regarding CCP atrocities and lies, only if everyone stands up for their rights is there hope. Only if people truly awaken, no longer endure their persecution, and think of their long-term interests rather than short-term survival, is there real hope. “Relying on just a few people is impossible. In the end, everyone must dare to resist in their own way, not silently endure. That’s the only way there’s hope.”

Afterword: No regrets, but future uncertain

On August 29, the huge anti-Communist projection in Chongqing University Town had a shocking effect. But a week earlier, on the 21st, Qi Hong had already quietly left for the UK with his wife and two daughters, operating the projection remotely.

Qi Hong told reporters that in China none of his relatives dared answer his calls. “Like my brother and my mother, I don’t know if they’ve been taken away now, because I can’t reach them.”

He said he doesn’t regret what he did. “There’s nothing to regret. This is something I would have done sooner or later, maybe even more radically…”

Qi Hong currently holds a tourist visa, which allows him to legally stay in the UK for 180 days. He doesn’t yet know what the future holds: “I don’t know now, but I definitely can’t go back to China. If I return, I won’t even have my life.” △