July 1, the anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, carries deep personal significance for the former ‘little pink.’
While July 1 marked the anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), it also coincided with a lesser-known date among Chinese dissidents abroad—Global Quitting the CCP Day—a movement to encourage Chinese citizens and CCP members to formally cut ties with the regime.
For 21-year-old Jiang Zihan, who once fiercely defended the regime online, the date carries deep personal significance. Now living in the United States, the former “little pink,” a term used to describe young pro-CCP nationalists who staunchly support the CCP online, says he once believed in the Party’s propaganda but has since had a radical change of heart.
A Childhood Shaped by Propaganda
Jiang grew up in Zhejiang, one of China’s economic powerhouses. As a teenager, he was swept up by the CCP’s nationalist fervor, fueled by state-run propaganda media.
“When I was in middle and high school, I’d get angry if anyone criticized China,” he recalled in an interview with The Epoch Times. “I thought everyone around me lived well, so why were people complaining?”
Like many of his peers, Jiang participated in online “expeditions,” or “chuzheng” in Chinese, a slang term for pro-CCP nationalistic trolling campaigns.
“During the 2022 Winter Olympics and when [former U.S. House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, I joined the online attack campaigns,” he said. “I left insulting comments on her posts, demanding she stay out of Taiwan. I was a ‘little pink’ at that time. I felt that she threatened China’s politics [and] China’s national security.”
Jiang admitted he also directed abuse at athletes from countries including Japan and South Korea. “State media portrayed them as unsportsmanlike or implied that they were somewhat involved in cheating. That made me furious,” he said, now feeling that he was manipulated by the CCP’s propaganda that perpetuated those views.
Breaking Through CCP Censorship
Although Jiang had been using VPN software to bypass the CCP’s internet censorship since middle school, he initially used it just to access pop culture content. However, everything changed when he stumbled upon information about two censored events in China’s history: the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989 and the White Paper protests in 2022, when Chinese citizens rallied against harsh COVID lockdowns.
