Letters From China, Written in Blood

In "Out of Mao's Shadow" (Simon & Schuster, 368 pages, $28), Philip Pan tells us the compelling stories of a handful of strong-willed Chinese individuals who insist on changing China. As he does so, we see the sickness of the country's political system — and the strength of this great nation's people.

Mr. Pan, a former Washington Post Beijing bureau chief, divides his fine book into three parts. First, there are the stories of people trying to preserve the memory of the early years of the People's Republic of China. He begins with the funeral of former Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang, a top official and reformer who challenged Deng Xiaoping and sided with the demonstrators in the run-up to the Tiananmen massacre in June 1989. Because he would not confess error and endorse the slaughter in Beijing, Zhao remained under house arrest until he passed away in January 2005. "Zhao's death revealed a scar on the nation's conscience," writes Mr. Pan, and the story of Wang Junxiu, a Tiananmen protester who would later find success as an Internet entrepreneur, shows why that wound has not healed, even after almost two decades. In what is the most powerful story of the book, Mr. Pan then writes about the obsessive quest of Hu Jie, a documentary filmmaker, to understand his subject, Lin Zhao, a political prisoner who wrote hundreds of pages with her own blood as ink from her cell.

The second section of the book is a set of three stories that show how the Communist Party changed after the death of Mao Zedong. There is the account of the strike leaders of perhaps the most significant worker protest that has occurred in the last three decades, a profile of one of the richest women in China, and a portrait of a pugnacious party boss from a backwater county.

The final part of the book contains stories of four ordinary Chinese — a determined military doctor, an idealistic and wily newspaper editor, and two extremely tough advocates — who refuse to accept the one-party state as it is. For instance, Mr. Pan follows Chen Guangcheng, a blind lawyer, as he eludes government-hired goons and special police in foot chases through villages, fields, and the subways of Beijing.

Not all Mr. Pan's subjects succeed in their individual quests. Some pay a horrible price for resistance to authority. A few of them end up broken. Yet all of them inspire and show the drive, ambition, and resilience of the Chinese people. Mr. Pan has chosen his subjects well, lets them speak, and delivers a fascinating portrait of New China, as the Communist Party calls the nation it leads. What comes through in chapter after chapter is that some Chinese are determined to make their society better, are willing to take on an abhorrent system, and are prepared to pay the price for defiance.

What is less thrilling — discordant even — is Mr. Pan's commentary that both precedes and follows his portraits. Without exception, his profiles showcase an ugly, abusive, and corrupt political system responsible for millions upon millions of deaths and untold needless suffering. Yet in the introduction, he writes, "By almost any measure, the country's last twenty-five years have been the best in its five-thousand-year history." And in the epilogue, he notes, "Rarely has a government had a better case for authoritarianism than this one." But Mr. Pan has already delivered more than 300 pages of unrelenting indictment of the Communist Party's record during decades of horrible misrule. By the end of the book, it's clear the testimony of those who have struggled against that rule speak more clearly than does Mr. Pan.

Mr. Pan is, however, correct when he writes on the last few pages that the Communist Party is on the wrong side of the struggle for China's future. Hu Jie, Chen Guangcheng, and the others profiled by Mr. Pan may appear weak and hopelessly outnumbered, yet we sense that in the end they or their successors will prevail over the seemingly invincible one-party state centered in Beijing. China has too many people — and they are too resourceful and relentless — to believe that they will allow their country to be forever oppressed by the autocrats, cadres, police, and thugs that keep the Communist system in place.

Mr. Pan's stories are remarkable for many reasons, but especially because the people he has profiled have attracted so much support from their less heroic or determined neighbors and even strangers. What makes the party so vulnerable is that, as this book well illustrates, one man or woman can create a movement that can change society overnight. China's people may not yet have escaped the shadow of Mao Zedong, but Mr. Pan shows they will do so one day. Chen Guangcheng, the blind lawyer, says he hopes that happens during his lifetime. With people like Mr. Chen, that day will undoubtedly be soon.

Mr. Chang is the author of "The Coming Collapse of China." His Web site is gordonchang.com.