**PR No:** FCM-PR-2026-10-02-01
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 2, 2026
Double Tenth is the birthday of a republic founded for the people. October 1 is the birthday of a party-state.
WASHINGTON / TAIPEI — With eight days left before October 10, organizers are asking Chinese people on every continent to raise the flag of the Republic of China (中華民國) and mark the 115th National Day of the republic founded after the 1911 Wuchang Uprising. The appeal is simple: celebrate the republic that belongs to the people, and join a public campaign for the same freedom on the mainland.
October 10 is Double Tenth (雙十節), the National Day of the Republic of China. It commemorates the uprising in Wuchang on October 10, 1911, which ended more than two thousand years of imperial rule and led to the proclamation of the Republic on January 1, 1912. In the Republic of China calendar, 2026 is year 115 (民國一百一十五年). This year the day falls on a Saturday.
The campaign’s message turns on one contrast.
The Republic of China was founded on Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People. Article 1 of its Constitution says it is a democratic republic of the people, to be governed by the people and for the people (民有、民治、民享). On Taiwan, that promise is now practiced: competing parties, a free press, an independent judiciary, and peaceful changes of government. Power can be taken from the ruling party at the ballot box. That is government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
The so-called People’s Republic of China is not that kind of republic. It was proclaimed on October 1, 1949, after the Chinese Communist Party won the civil war and the Republic of China government relocated to Taiwan. Its own Constitution does not vest sovereignty in a competitive citizenry. It defines the state as a people’s democratic dictatorship and names leadership by the Communist Party as the defining feature of the system. The eight small “democratic parties” sit under that leadership. They do not replace it. There is no lawful path for the people to retire the ruling group. Courts, media, and the army answer to the Party. “Whole-process people’s democracy” is the Party’s name for a system in which the Party does not face the people at a real election.
That is the difference the campaign wants Chinese families to say out loud on Double Tenth. One holiday marks a republic the people can correct. The other marks a ruling group the people cannot remove. Reunion worth wanting is not the absorption of a free people into a party-state. It is the reunion of Chinese people with the right to choose their government — on the mainland as on Taiwan.
Organizers ask communities to do four things before and on October 10:
– Raise the Republic of China flag at homes, associations, campuses, and places of worship, and share the photographs.
– Host a Double Tenth gathering that reads Article 1 of the Republic of China Constitution beside Article 1 of the PRC Constitution, and lets the text speak.
– Tell the story straight: 1911 ended the empire; 1949 did not fulfill the republic; the party that took the mainland kept the state for itself.
– Join the Free China campaign: a standing appeal for an end to one-party rule on the mainland, for the release of prisoners of conscience, and for a future constitution in which the people, not a ruling group, are sovereign.
The flag in the sunset is not nostalgia. It is a claim that the Chinese people are capable of self-government, and that a free China is unfinished business, not a closed chapter.
This campaign continues the fight of the pioneers and fighters for a free China who came before — Dr. Wang Bingzhang, Hu Shi, Lei Zhen, and the many others who devoted their lives to the cause.
## Further reading
– National Day of the Republic of China (history of Double Tenth and the 1911 uprising): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Day_of_the_Republic_of_China
– Republic of China Constitution, Article 1 (of the people, by the people, for the people): https://law.moj.gov.tw/ENG/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?pcode=A0000001
– Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, Article 1 (people’s democratic dictatorship; Communist Party leadership): https://english.www.gov.cn/archive/lawsregulations/201911/20/content_WS5ed8856ec6d0b3f0e9499913.html
– How October 10 is remembered differently in Taipei and Beijing: https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/divergent-legacies-on-double-ten-day-10-october-in-china-and-taiwan/
## Related campaign pages
– On the Republic of China and Double Tenth: https://freechina.live/?p=16112
– On the campaign for a free China: https://freechina.live/?p=16113
**Media contact:** Lian Shengde, Co-founder, Free China Movement · 2027468459 · press@freechina.live · freechina.live
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*Publication author: Free China Movement.*