Muscle Atrophy: A Chinese International Student’s Reflection on Self-Censorship

Elaine Gao
‘28

Free speech is usually described as a right one either has or does not have, relative to the laws of one’s residence. But a right, like a muscle, is only as strong as its use. When my family flew to the United States in 2018, I naively thought that I had escaped the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) systematic suppression of free speech. I believed that I would access Google, YouTube, and Winnie the Pooh without any need for a VPN to circumvent the “Great Firewall of China,” a term used to describe the CCP’s firm control on online content. But I was clueless: I unknowingly carried a part of the repression within me. 

During my freshman spring at Princeton, I knew I had found the perfect topic for my writing seminar’s “Let Every Voice Be Heard” final paper when I listened to an interview with Bob Fu, a Chinese Christian who escaped the Communist regime. He openly explained that he religiously converted after reading the biography of a prominent Chinese Christian leader, and Fu was imprisoned for leading an underground church. He even started the international organization ChinaAid after resettling in the United States as a refugee to fight for religious freedom and the rule of law in China. His story, contrasted with the many other Chinese immigrants who never spoke publicly – or even with their own children – about what they had endured, was a powerful reminder that one can break free from the chilling effect of having lived under authoritarianism.

I mentioned the topic at home, expecting my parents to be proud and excited. But they were alarmed, and they discouraged me from writing the paper I had imagined: “You still have family in China,” “You could be denied entry at the Chinese border when we visit family,” and “You could be endangering us,” they warned me. I had just assumed that those constraints only applied to the people on some secret list known only to the CCP, not a family that had simply moved abroad or a young college student in America writing an essay for class. I accused my parents of being paranoid, but I didn’t realize at the time that I too still feared the CCP. 

There was a honeymoon stage to my new access to free information. I was surprised by even seemingly mundane activities, like reading headlines that were critical of the U.S. and China, or watching movies like “Seven Years in Tibet.” Larger revelations came when I was watching a documentary about the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, and whenever I was reading about the Belt and Road Initiative’s consequences for Southeast Asian countries. Like a hungry infant, I consumed the free expression of others. I knew I had been set apart from my peers back home, who were still oblivious — by the design of the CCP — to the darker side of the one-child policy and the “educational” camps in Xinjiang, among other things. 

I simultaneously deceived myself into thinking that I, too, had become an expert on speech suppression, though watching someone lift weights does not qualify as exercising. Access to information is merely a single component of true free speech. But perhaps a more important component is actually expressing oneself. I found that to be easy enough when it came to a daily exchange, an argument, or a pretentious speech given at a debate tournament. I liked being heard, and I often made sure that I was heard. But I refrained from discussing the speech suppression that occurred back home, for I still feared that the CCP would punish me.

Ultimately, I let my parents’ fear become my own, so I never wrote that paper. Looking at my final research on a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mission to the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), I wondered why I had accepted my parents’ suggestion to write about something completely different. I wanted to be someone like Bob Fu, not like his adversaries or my parents. Yet when the moment came, I still flinched because I could not fully dismiss my parents’ paranoid-sounding – but somewhat legitimate – concerns. I remembered my mom complaining about having to screenshot a newly published article by a pastor when we were living in China because the article would be removed from the internet the very moment she finished screenshotting. I also remembered my parents whispering with a photographer friend who had not captured one man in his 100,000 pictures of Xinjiang, which is the strongest possible proof of the current persecution of the Uyghur population in northwest China. All the possibilities of what the Chinese government could do to me — as well as the people I loved who still lived there — dominated my thoughts for the rest of the semester, and the following year.

For a while, I found a refuge in history. By researching repressive regimes that have fallen, like the GDR, I drew meaningful lessons that connected with my home country. I convinced myself that I was different from the self-censoring cowards because I was still writing about repression, just not about my own country.

But it is really simpler than that. Free speech does not mean we all need to become whistleblowers who rewrite history. Free speech can look like being free to answer when someone asks me about my experience in China. Free speech can look like writing about a topic of which I am passionate, and taking necessary precautions when sharing or publishing the writing. 

I spent most of my life looking at free speech the wrong way. Self-censorship is not a hidden organ that keeps us healthy; rather, it is more like a debilitating tear in an important muscle. Once our free-speech muscle is injured, we must actively pursue rehabilitation. And throughout your life, you need to regularly hit the gym so that the muscle doesn’t weaken. You will never know how much you can lift, but you will never get close to the answer by watching others play the sport known as debate.

Elaine Gao '28 is studying History, French, and Humanistic Studies. On campus, she is a member of Princeton Christian Fellowship, Princeton Debate Panel, and the vice president of Princeton Legal Journal. She hails from Beijing, China.