WASHINGTON — September 30, 2026 — The Free China Movement (FCM) calls for October 1 — observed by the People’s Republic of China as its National Day — to be remade by a future democratically authorized legislature into a national day of remembrance for the victims of more than seven decades of party-state rule, under the proposed name “National Day of Suffering and Freedom” (国家受难与自由纪念日).
The call is anchored in FCM’s research paper, From Mao to the Party-State: October 1, the Constitutional Evolution of the PRC, and the Restoration of Constitutional Democracy, which traces mainland China’s constitutional history from the 1949 Common Program through the 1954, 1975, 1978, and 1982 PRC constitutions and the 2018 amendments, examining the relationship between constitutional text, party leadership, state institutions, citizens’ rights, and constraints on political power.
The paper opens with a documented historical fact: the 1949 resolution that adopted October 1 as the PRC’s National Day explicitly stated it was chosen to “replace the old National Day of October 10” — the Republic of China’s Double Ten Day.
“The party-state itself defined October 1 by erasing another national day,” FCM states. “A future free China has every right to define it again — this time by remembering.”
FCM’s September 20, 2026 public-consultation policy proposal sets out what remembrance could entail: a national victim registry and digital archive; opening party and state archives; an independent truth commission; a national memorial and public education; and compensation, rehabilitation, and judicial remedy for verified victims, with individual responsibility based on evidence and due process rather than collective punishment.
FCM emphasizes that this is its own policy proposal, not the policy of any government, and that no permanent arrangement should be made except through lawful, public, and democratically authorized procedures following a transition.
Related documents
- Research paper: From Mao to the Party-State
- Policy proposal: October 1 — National Day of Suffering and Freedom
Media contact: Free China Movement — contact@freechina.live