Both of these books focus our attention on ugly aspects of contemporary China, including injustice, inequality, arbitrary authority, violence, and lies. Both offer a moral vision that will remind many readers of Vaclav Havel, who appropriately wrote a preface for the collection of Liu Xiaobo's essays. Both authors’ message is that the only way to find dignity in the face of an oppressive system is to maintain steadfast moral resistance.
Jiang Qisheng's book is a memoir of his four years in prison. It begins just prior to his detention in 1999 at which time he had just published an article commemorating the tenth anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations. The first 150 pages recount about a year he spent in the Beijing Detention Center awaiting his trial and sentencing. The next fifty pages are about conditions in the terrible Transfer Center where he spent fifty-three days awaiting assignment to a...
