Liu Jiming Interview | One Must Struggle for Truth

Interviewer: The Progressive Culture Interview Team Date of Interview: September 25, 2020 Published in: Renjing Net, November 16, 2025

Progressive Culture: Hello, Teacher Liu! Since your full-length novel The Human Realm was published, it has been selected for the 2016 Harvest Full-Length Novel Rankings, for the list of "Forty Important Full-Length Novels of the Forty Years of Reform and Opening-Up," and for nomination for the Lu Yao Literary Prize. Many critics regard this novel as a summative work in your creative output, comparing it to literary classics such as Midnight, A History of Entrepreneurship, A Bright Sunny Sky, and An Ordinary World, and considering it a pioneering work of "new socialist literature." Yet the mainstream literary world seems to have paid the work rather little attention. How do you see this phenomenon?

Liu Jiming: Once a work is published, it is entirely normal for some people to praise it and others to criticize it, for some to like it and others not, for some to pay it attention and others not. As you say, there are indeed critics who have placed The Human Realm alongside left-wing and socialist literary classics such as Midnight, A History of Entrepreneurship, and A Bright Sunny Sky for discussion — but for nearly forty years now, these very classics have been consistently disparaged and even stigmatized by China's mainstream literary world. If any writer or work is placed within that lineage, it brings not honor but condemnation.

Progressive Culture: The distinguished critic Mr. Li Jingze has called you a "formidable thinker" and on more than one occasion spoken of the "power of thought" in your work — while at the same time observing that "it is precisely this power that has carried him beyond the boundaries of literature." How do you understand that remark?

Liu Jiming: Li Jingze has genuine literary taste and outstanding literary discernment. Several novellas I published in People's Literature in the mid-to-late 1990s were edited and published through his hands. As an editor, his eye and his sensibility are inclusive; as a critic, he seems to have a particular affinity for the avant-garde and for "pure literature." Not long ago, in the preface he wrote for the young critic Li Yunlei's collection How to Tell New Chinese Stories, he wrote: "Yunlei's kingdom was from the very beginning well-ordered and clear in its aims, encompassing a series of interconnected elements: identification with China's historical path since the modern era, identification with the Chinese revolution and socialism, identification with the tradition of China's new literature and its left-wing tradition; correspondingly, he holds a stance of critical reflection toward the mainstream literary conceptions that have prevailed since the 1980s; he firmly believes in the responsibility that literature bears toward the modern nation-state, and regards this as literature's glory…" — offering Li Yunlei's critical practice a thorough and affirmative endorsement. He also spoke of positive insights gained from studying Mao Zedong's "Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art." This shows that Li Jingze's literary views are not fixed and unchanging, but are in a process of continuous development and renewal.

In my view, the boundaries drawn by the advocates of "pure literature" may be precisely the point of departure for "a different kind of literature." In this sense, literature does not possess any uniform boundary, nor is there any meaningful inside or outside — even if such distinctions exist, they exist only within an individual's inner life or consciousness. Take Tolstoy and Nabokov: who can say with any clarity what the literary boundaries in either of their minds looked like?

Progressive Culture: In 2017, you publicly reported Chen Yingsong — then Vice Chairman of the Hubei Provincial Writers' Association and Director of its Literary Institute — through online channels, whereupon he sued you for defamation; Fang Fang, then Chairman of the Hubei Provincial Writers' Association, firmly backed Chen Yingsong, and you in turn sued her for defamation. More than two years have passed — what became of these two lawsuits? Can you give our readers an account of the whole sequence of events?

Liu Jiming: I have already given a detailed account of the origin of this matter in my essay "Why I Reported Chen Yingsong — With a Rebuttal of Fang Fang," and will not repeat it here.

In the defamation case between Chen Yingsong and me, the court ruled against me on the grounds that "Liu Jiming, without having the relevant authorities investigate, verify, and make a legal determination, chose to publicly report Chen Yingsong to society via the internet, and thus exercised his rights in a manifestly improper manner." This judgment is thoroughly absurd and cannot stand on either the facts or the law: if the relevant authorities had already "investigated, verified, and made a legal determination," I would not have needed to make a public report in the first place. It was precisely because the relevant authorities had failed to act on my reports and those of others that I had no choice but to "publicly report Chen Yingsong via the internet" — a right granted to every citizen by the Constitution. In fact, many corruption cases have been investigated and handled by the relevant authorities precisely because they were first publicly reported online.

As for the judgment in my defamation suit against Fang Fang, it is even more absurd. Fang Fang repeatedly posted on Weibo and WeChat to whitewash Chen Yingsong, to confuse right and wrong, and to slander and defame me — yet at the hearing she actually argued that her posts were not directed at any "specific individual." Still more astonishing: in the face of such incontrovertible facts of rights violation, the court of first instance, the court of second instance, and even the Provincial High Court all accepted Fang Fang's sophistry.

Progressive Culture: It has been reported online that the Hubei Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission issued you a "Party warning," while handing down decisions of "criticism and education" and "admonishment through conversation" in Chen Yingsong's case — though Chen Yingsong denied receiving any Party disciplinary treatment whatsoever. What is the situation here?

Liu Jiming: On April 1, 2019, a group of officials from the discipline inspection team attached to the Publicity Department of the Provincial Party Committee, stationed under the Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission, convened in the second-floor conference room of the Provincial Writers' Association and announced two decisions. First, citing "violation of organizational principles and improper exercise of the right to report," they issued me a "Party warning." I immediately raised an objection and stated that I was reserving the right to appeal to the higher discipline inspection authorities. Second, they informed me of the decision regarding Chen Yingsong's case. The discipline inspection authorities had verified through investigation that Chen Yingsong did indeed have disciplinary violations — but citing reasons including the non-cooperation of certain female students with the investigation and the death from illness of one of those involved, a woman named Liu Mouyang, the Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission hastily closed the case while numerous questions surrounding Chen Yingsong's conduct remained unresolved, handing down the decision of "criticism and education, admonishment through conversation." In response to this decision — which so obviously shielded Chen Yingsong — one online commenter wrote: "A 'Party warning' for the person who reported the problem, 'criticism and education' for the person with the problem — did the Hubei Discipline Inspection Commission take the wrong medicine?" That says everything about how absurd it was.

Afterward, Chen Yingsong spread word far and wide of my punishment. When online sources disclosed the fact that he too had received Party disciplinary treatment, he not only flatly denied it but threatened to sue the websites that had published the relevant articles and information, fabricated a lengthy piece furiously attacking and slandering me — spreading rumors that I suffered from depression, had attempted to "jump off a building," and had "sincerely admitted my mistakes on multiple occasions," and so on. Meanwhile, following the slashing of all four tires on my car, someone painted graffiti on it; I even received death threats. Earlier, a middle school teacher in Qianjiang, Hubei, had had his front door hacked seven times in the middle of the night for forwarding my report letter and exposing Chen Yingsong, and had been subjected to suppression by local propaganda department officials.

What is beyond comprehension is that the relevant authorities not only turned a blind eye to this gangster-style retaliation, but having issued their decisions regarding both Chen Yingsong and me, they long delayed proceeding with the "criticism and admonishment" of Chen Yingsong according to proper organizational procedure. When I questioned the official in charge of the case, the response was evasive — even furious. The hidden reasons require no elaboration.

Progressive Culture: Whether by real name or anonymously, reporting wrongdoing has always been a high-risk act; many people have faced savage retaliation, have been "disappeared," have been involuntarily psychiatrized, have been made to appear to have "jumped off buildings," and some have paid with their lives. As a well-known writer, you must have borne greater psychological pressure than ordinary people in facing this backlash, and your personal rights and reputation have been damaged. Did you anticipate these consequences at the outset? Did you ever consider compromising or backing down?

Liu Jiming: Not long ago the media reported that in Longquan, Zhejiang, several local residents who had reported a senior official for suspected corruption found that not only was the official not investigated — the people who had made the report were subjected to a "counter-investigation" by the public security authorities. In Xinhuang County, Hunan, a teacher named Deng Shiping, who had resisted and exposed the corruption of his school's principal, was silenced at the instigation of the principal's nephew, buried under the track of the school sports ground, while word was spread that Deng Shiping had absconded with funds; it was sixteen years before his remains were discovered. Examples of this kind are beyond counting. By comparison, my own experience has not been worse than theirs — at least, to date, I have not been "silenced." These more than two years of experience have indeed given me a vivid sense of how ferocious and unbridled the retaliators can be. But the slanders of those retaliators, the court's absurd judgments, and the unjust treatment I received from the relevant authorities have not caused me to compromise — they have, on the contrary, strengthened my courage to fight to the end.

Progressive Culture: The online scholar She Shui Nongfu, in his essay "There Is a Kind of Honor Called 'Slander,'" wrote: "The reason Liu Jiming was willing to take such great risks is not that he was without any psychological preparation, but that a firm and unwavering conviction in his heart drove him to courageously fight against ugliness and injustice, even at the cost of his own reputation and material interests. … This is neither an isolated incident, nor an accidental occurrence out of nothing. It profoundly reveals the fracture of contemporary Chinese society, the fracture of the intellectual class — the question of which 'hide' the intellectual will attach himself to: whether to attach himself to the hide of the vested-interest class and become a spineless cynic with no autonomous soul, or to attach himself to the hide of the broad masses of the people and work for the interests of the great majority." As the person directly involved, how do you see this question?

Liu Jiming: What She Shui Nongfu says is only half right. In the minds of these people, what "principles" are there? There is only interest. It is precisely for this reason that Chen Yingsong joined forces with Fang Fang: on one hand they turned black into white, slandering my report as "defamation and framing" and a "breach of the basic floor of human conduct"; on the other hand they instigated the writing of anonymous letters to the Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission to frame and incriminate me. All the evidence points to an intricately tangled chain of interests behind this incident — reaching into the judiciary, the discipline inspection apparatus, and the literary world, with quite possibly organized criminal elements as well. In order to fully investigate Chen Yingsong's suspected disciplinary and legal violations and the protective umbrella behind him, I have already filed appeals and charges with the Central Discipline Inspection Commission and other authorities. At the same time, given the erroneous judgments and rulings by the courts in my defamation suit against Fang Fang, I will also be seeking a protest to the Hubei Provincial People's Procuratorate. This is not merely about so-called "rights defense" — I simply want to see to what degree public power has been debased by that crowd of time-servers and double-dealers.

Progressive Culture: Last year, your essay collection Defense and Outcry was published in Taiwan. The distinguished scholar Mr. Kong Qingdong, in his preface "A Cry from Conscience — Preface to Liu Jiming's Defense and Outcry," wrote: "From Lu Xun and Guo Moruo, to Ding Ling and Yao Xueyin, to Wei Wei, Hao Ran, and Chen Yingzhen… each has shouldered a gate of darkness to rebuild the conscience of the Chinese people. … These representative figures of a century's conscience have been drenched in filth one by one, suffering the fate of Bruno and Galileo. And the baseness of the methods and the absurdity of the logic used to slander and frame them are themselves sufficient evidence that the era's conscience is once again tending toward extinction. That Liu Jiming has expanded himself from a novelist of 'cultural concern' into a crier of 'awakening conscience' is nothing more than the cry of the cuckoo — seeing clearly and then crying out in a vain effort to hold back the flood." Do you seek, through your writing about these "representative figures of a century's conscience," to express your own inner indignation?

Liu Jiming: "Essays are written for the times, songs and poems are composed for events" [note: a famous dictum attributed to Bai Juyi, the Tang dynasty poet] — using another's wine cup to pour out the frustrations in one's own heart is as true today as it was in ancient times. Through reflection on these historical figures, I conducted a systematic survey of my own intellectual lineage, and gained from it precious illumination. Mr. Zhang Chengzhi once said: "In today's global climate of pointing at deer and calling them horses [note: a classical idiom for deliberate inversion of truth], the person who dares to say 'I am not' is the truly courageous one." I cannot claim to be "truly courageous" — but though I cannot reach that height, I can at least aspire toward it.

Progressive Culture: From the "cultural concern fiction" of the mid-1990s, to the grassroots literature movement that arose in the early new century, from the self-funded founding of the journal Tianxia some years back, to your recent struggle against the forces of corruption in the literary world — you have consistently adopted the posture of a "dissident," intervening in and critiquing reality, and have emphasized that this critique stands on the position of the great majority of the people rather than the position of a small minority of elites. Some have therefore praised you as a genuine "people's intellectual," and readers have left comments beneath your public account essays such as: "You are a banner of contemporary Chinese writers; you are a hero of this era who, in the face of power, never forsakes conscience or vocation!" and "You have sounded the battle cry against all evil forces — every Chinese person of conscience and justice is your staunch support!" and "Support Teacher Liu! You are the conscience of the intellectual class! You are a courageous warrior in pursuit of justice and light!" Yet compared to the support you receive from ordinary readers and online communities, you appear quite isolated within the literary world — as She Shui Nongfu's essay noted, quite a few people in literary circles have developed misunderstandings of and even hostility toward you. What are your feelings about this?

Liu Jiming: In today's China, after a portion of the intellectual elite has become one corner of the "iron triangle of interests," the brazenness and arrogance with which they manipulate political, economic, and cultural resources has reached its apex. The literary world is no different. The attitude of "judge only by factional loyalty, ask nothing of right and wrong" is displayed in some people to perfection. The "baseline" they constantly invoke is nothing but a cover for mutual protection, mutual corruption, and collusion within their "social circle." Facts have proven that those who have truly breached the so-called "baseline of human conduct" are precisely they themselves. To construct moral legitimacy for themselves, they have even deliberately confused the essential distinction between reporting wrongdoing and informing on people [note: in Chinese political culture, 举报 — reporting to authorities — is a civic right; 告密 — informing — is associated with betrayal], manufacturing the absurd proposition that "the basic baseline of human conduct is neither to report nor to inform." Yet even in Western countries, reporting all illegal and disciplinary violations is an obligation every citizen is expected to fulfill, backed by strict whistleblower protection legislation. In their world, however, the person who reports suspected illegality is the "villain," while the person guilty of the illegality is the "good person" they work strenuously to shield. This inversion of good and evil, this confusion of right and wrong, this total disregard for social justice — it truly leaves one speechless. It is plain to see how gravely the elite interest bloc has damaged the human spirit and the entire social organism, across the political, economic, legal, cultural, and moral dimensions. It is therefore not at all surprising that I face attack and exclusion from certain people within the institutionalized literary circle. But through this affair, I have seen through the true nature of certain toadies and hypocrites — I was never the same kind of person as them in the first place, and parting ways with them may not be a bad thing at all.

Progressive Culture: The early "cultural concern fiction" of your career frequently features the image of a singular, nonconforming literatus-intellectual who is at odds with reality — such as Huang Mao in Going to Huang Village and Ouyang Yuqiu in Underwater Village. Later you created in Singing Out Loud the folk singer Qian Gaoliang, who, finding no recourse for his case against an unscrupulous boss, climbs the courthouse building and belts out a "three-drum jump" [note: a traditional folk art form]. In the novella Enlightenment you told the story of the renowned writer Qu Boan's fall from an intellectual who "suffers on behalf of the people" to a boss of the "power-and-capital interest group" — after being reported by the indigenous residents of Chunshu Island, Qu Boan directs the underworld to make them disappear, and when taken to court, effortlessly uses his connections to have the case withdrawn. We notice that these characters and stories bear a striking resemblance to what you yourself have experienced in recent years. This may be coincidence — but it looks more like a kind of prophecy. You have also written articles publicly supporting workers' rights movements and the solidarity activities of progressive young students. Does this indicate that you have moved from being a writer who "sits and talks of principle" to an "intellectual of action" who actively engages in social practice? And after going through the "reporting incident," what has been your greatest feeling?

Liu Jiming: If at the very beginning of the reporting incident I still had doubts about whether I had been wrong, those doubts have vanished entirely after more than two years of savage retaliation. I am now certain that my actions were not only right, but necessary. Faced with evil and ugliness, I am unable to maintain silence as most people do. As Tolstoy wrote in his essay "I Cannot Be Silent": "I wish that my exposure of these people might, as I hope, lead by some means or other to my being driven out of the circle in which I now live, and in which I cannot help feeling myself a participant in the crimes committed around me." Not long ago I read on Jiliu Net [note: a left-wing website] an essay discussing the May Fourth movement, in which the author wrote: "Who today are the heroic figures capable of summoning the masses' fighting spirit? How can ordinary people display their own heroism? Who are the true heroes, and who merely play at heroism? The exposers and accusers in the anti-sexual-harassment movement are true heroes — they do not hesitate to reveal that they have been sexually harassed or assaulted by those in superior positions, exposing ugliness to public opinion and seeking justice. The hackers who dig out important information that the ruling class deliberately conceals are true heroes — Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, Edward Snowden, Wikipedia. The star witnesses to the crimes of the ruling class are true heroes — Edward Snowden, John Perkins… In short, any exposure of the abuse and degradation visited by those in superior positions upon those below them is a heroic act. The ancients said: the Confucian scholar subverts law through the written word; the knight-errant violates prohibition through the sword. The knight-errant has exited the stage of history along with the passing of the age of cold weapons, but the scholar-gentleman has found, with the development of the internet, a vast arena for meaningful action. Exposing the lies and abominations of interest groups — this is not a rarified cultural movement, but a social movement in which all commoners can participate. All members and accomplices of interest groups are targets of public censure. Exposing scandal, witnessing scandal, analyzing its roots — this is the first step of social progress, and the intellectuals who have awakened today can only begin from this first step…" Through what appeared to be a chance occurrence, I made a complete break with the literary "circle" that is accelerating in its corruption and degradation. Thinking that I will from now on be free of the all-pervasive temptations and entanglements of fame and profit that come with being inside the institutional system — free to write and live freely — I feel a sense of liberation. This feeling of mine is obviously incomprehensible to those who spend their days scrambling for fame and profit within the system. I said it, I did it, I saved my own soul. As for success or failure, or what others may think — that is no longer something I can control. Justice may be late in arriving, but it cannot be absent forever.

Progressive Culture: In the contemporary Chinese literary world, you are considered one of the few left-wing writers. Some have labeled you "ultra-left." Do you accept this characterization?

Liu Jiming: In the Western context, "ultra-left" and "ultra-right" are both neutral designations with equal political standing. But in today's China, it is a stigmatizing term used by right-wing public intellectuals against left-wing people. In truth, under the current political ecology of China, dividing different groups by "left" and "right" can barely express anyone's real values. Speaking for myself: if two years ago I might still have been willing to accept labels such as "left-wing" or "leftist," this struggle has made me a Marxist. In saying this, I expect some fool will again accuse me of "self-appointment" — even though in today's Chinese public discourse, "Marxism," like "leftist," is not a mark of honor but something regarded as heretical. For me, this is actually an unexpected gain. The Marxism I speak of is neither Western Marxism, nor the kind of Bernsteinism that operates under the banner of Marxism in disguised form — it is what Samir Amin called "Marxism as struggle." In my view, the lines of the Internationale — "Let thought burst the prison bars; one must struggle for truth" [note: from the Chinese version of the Internationale] — remain the goal for which all true Marxists strive.

In this sense, I owe thanks to Fang Fang, Chen Yingsong, and the interest group they represent. Their savage retaliation has not brought me down — it has, on the contrary, propelled me onto a road of "inheriting justice." As I wrote in my essay "The Seventy-Year-Old Educated Youth, or 'The People's Rhetoric' — Reading Notes on Zhang Chengzhi": "As a person of the 'generation born in the 1960s,' one generation after Zhang Chengzhi, I have not contracted the common ailment visible in many of my contemporaries — that lightness, cowardice, and worldliness. Put another way, I still have the capacity to be moved, to be angered, and to act. This too might be regarded as a gift bequeathed to me by 'the great 1960s.'"

Progressive Culture: After completing your full-length novel The Human Realm, you reportedly said you intended to put down your pen for good. Do you still feel that way?

Liu Jiming: I did have that feeling. I felt I had already written the most important work of my life, and that further writing would have no particular meaning. But I have changed my mind. Writing, for me, is no longer only a form of thought — it is also a form of struggle. As Camus said, we find ourselves "at sea in a rising tide"; as long as we are alive, we should row alongside everyone else: "The question is not whether we actively choose to engage, but that it is a form of conscript service."

Progressive Culture: Finally, would you tell us something about your current writing?

Liu Jiming: I am writing a full-length novel. From the second half of 2019 to the present, I have been working in seclusion on an island somewhere far from Wuhan. The specific content is not convenient to disclose for now, but I can tell you this: the scale of this novel far exceeds The Human Realm — it is another "unexpected gain" for me.

Progressive Culture: We look forward to the early publication of this important work. Thank you for accepting our interview!