TJ-PP ｜ Policy Draft: Redesignating October 1 as “National Suffering and Freedom Memorial Day”

Free China Movement (FCM) Policy Draft v1.0 | Released September 20, 2026 | Status: Public Consultation Draft

I. Policy Name

A policy proposal on redesignating October 1 as the “National Suffering and Freedom Memorial Day” after the democratic-constitutional transition in mainland China.

II. Constitutional Premise

This draft takes a clear political-constitutional premise as its working assumption: after the one-party totalitarian rule of the Chinese Communist Party ends in mainland China, a republican order founded on popular sovereignty, democratic republicanism, the protection of basic rights, and constitutional rule of law will be restored, and the restoration of the actual effect of the Constitution of the Republic of China in mainland China will be one of the core issues that the transition and subsequent constitutional arrangements must handle in accordance with the law.

Article 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of China provides that the Republic of China is a democratic republic, and Article 2 provides that the sovereignty of the Republic of China resides in the whole body of its citizens. The Constitution currently continues to apply within the existing constitutional system of ROC (Taiwan) and is amended by the Additional Articles of the Constitution. Any institutional arrangement concerning the restoration of its actual effect on the mainland must be handled through open, peaceful, lawful, and democratically legitimate procedures.

III. Policy Purpose

This proposal recommends that, once the above democratic-constitutional transition is complete and a lawful legislative process established, October 1 should no longer be observed as a national celebration marking the Chinese Communist Party’s establishment of the mainland regime; instead, a lawfully constituted legislature would deliberate on whether to redesignate the date as the “National Suffering and Freedom Memorial Day.”

The purpose of a memorial system should be to preserve facts, recognize victims, restore individual dignity, build a public archive, and advance accountability and institutional reflection in accordance with the law — not to extend responsibility to any ethnic group, region, family members, ordinary party members, ordinary civil servants, or any other persons without individual responsibility.

IV. Scope of Commemoration

A future national memorial mechanism could, in accordance with the law, cover victims connected with war, political violence, political campaigns, arbitrary detention, the laogai (reform-through-labor) system, severe policy disasters, persecution, abuses of state power, and other grave human-rights violations — both before and after the Chinese Communist Party established and sustained its political rule over the mainland. Specific historical events, death tolls, attribution of responsibility, and state compensation must all be determined on the basis of open archives, independent research, judicial evidence, and case-by-case review — never substituting political slogans for fact-finding.

V. Recommended Institutions

1. National victims’ registry and digital archive: record names, dates, locations, incidents, sources of evidence, and missing-or-deceased status case by case, and allow family members to apply for additions, corrections, and re-examination.
2. National archive-openness mechanism: open, in accordance with the law, government and party archives relating to major political campaigns, detentions, executions, disappearances, laogai, policy disasters, and systematic persecution, while protecting the privacy of unrelated individuals and necessary legitimate security interests.
3. Independent truth-investigation body: a statutorily independent body investigates major historical events and publishes its findings of fact, evidence gradings, disputed matters, and what could not be established.
4. Memorial museums and public education: establish a national-level memorial museum, online archives, local memorial facilities, and educational resources, so that future generations can understand how systemic abuses occurred and how to prevent their recurrence.
5. Compensation, rehabilitation of reputation, and judicial remedies: establish channels for compensation, rehabilitation of reputation, correction of identity records, and judicial remedy for victims and family members whose status can be confirmed in accordance with the law.
6. Principle of individual responsibility: criminal, administrative, or civil liability must be based on individual conduct, evidence, and statutory procedures. No collective punishment, guilt by bloodline, presumption of guilt based on party membership, or retaliatory purges.
7. Annual national memorial ceremony: on October 1, the main forms of observance would be flag-lowering, a moment of silence, the release of newly confirmed victims’ names, the opening of archives, and public-education activities — not a party celebration.

VI. Name and Legal Form

The proposed name is the “National Suffering and Freedom Memorial Day.” The final name, whether it is listed as a statutory public holiday, the memorial ceremony, the archive system, and the budget should be decided by a specially enacted law passed by a future lawfully constituted legislature with democratic authorization.

This proposal does not advocate that any interim body should unilaterally and permanently decide the national memorial day. Transitional bodies may propose interim memorial arrangements, but a permanent system should be subject to legislative deliberation, public hearings, expert opinions, participation by victims and family members, and judicial review.

VII. Relationship with the Current Legal Status of October 1

Currently, the People’s Republic of China designates October 1 as its National Day. On December 2, 1949, the Central People’s Government Council adopted the relevant resolution, establishing October 1 as the National Day of the People’s Republic of China from 1950 onward. The current mainland holiday system continues to list October 1 among its National Day holidays.

This proposal is therefore a recommendation for a future institutional change, not a description of the current legal status. Implementing this policy must await lawful democratic-constitutional procedures and corresponding legislation.

VIII. Relationship with the Restoration of the Actual Effect of the Constitution of the Republic of China

If a future political transition chooses to restore the actual effect of the Constitution of the Republic of China on the mainland, the legal status of the October 1 memorial system should be handled together with the new constitutional order, the division of authority between central and local governments, the protection of basic rights, legislative procedures, and the relationship with the current institutions of ROC (Taiwan). These higher-level constitutional questions cannot be resolved by a mere commemorative resolution alone.

This draft therefore expressly lists “restoring the actual effect of the Constitution of the Republic of China on the mainland” as its policy working assumption, while reserving for future lawful democratic procedures the decisions on the specific implementation path, timetable, and legal effects.

IX. Policy Principles

Commemorate the victims, not the rule; preserve facts, not rewrite them; pursue individual accountability, not manufacture collective guilt; build national memory through open archives, independent investigation, judicial procedures, and democratic legislation.

X. Matters Requiring Further Research

Before formal legislation, the following should be studied further: (1) the scope of commemoration and the criteria for case determination, including but not limited to: victims of the Cultural Revolution who suffered persecution, unlawful detention, torture, death, disability, property confiscation, or other serious rights violations; those who died or were otherwise seriously victimized in the Great Famine caused by the 1958–1961 “Great Leap Forward” and related state policies, grain requisition, and governance failures; prisoners of conscience, political prisoners, and other victims who, since 1949, have suffered detention, sentencing, laogai, disappearance, torture, or other persecution because of their thought, conscience, religion, expression, press, academic work, association, peaceful political participation, or human-rights activities; victims of the June Fourth events who were killed, injured, detained, sentenced, or otherwise persecuted during the crackdown of June 3–4, 1989 and its aftermath; and civilians who died or were seriously harmed in major sieges, blockades, grain requisitions, bombings, and other military operations during the Nationalist–Communist civil war, including civilians who died or were victimized during the 1948 siege of Changchun because of the prolonged blockade, grain shortages, and hunger — as well as other victims of major political persecution, state violence, war, and serious human-rights violations confirmed by independent investigation, archives, judicial evidence, or reliable case materials. Specific scope, fact-finding, death tolls, and attribution of responsibility should be determined case by case on the basis of evidence, never substituting fact-finding with unverified figures or political labels; (2) evidentiary gradings for data on deaths, disappearances, detentions, and persecution; (3) rules for archive openness and privacy protection; (4) eligibility for compensation and fiscal ceilings; (5) criminal liability and statutes of limitations; (6) the independence of truth-investigation bodies; (7) the interface between the current laws of ROC (Taiwan) and transitional mainland laws; (8) the relationship between October 1 and other national memorial days, republic memorial days, and constitution commemoration days.

Sources: Legal and Official Materials

• Office of the President, Republic of China (Taiwan): the Constitution of the Republic of China, especially Articles 1 and 2: https://english.president.gov.tw/Page/94
• The Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China: National Day (the history of October 1 as National Day): https://english.www.gov.cn/archive/china_abc/2014/08/27/content_281474983873427.htm
• Ministry of Justice of the People’s Republic of China, National Administrative Regulations Database: Measures on National Holidays for Festivals and Memorial Days.

This page is an FCM policy-research and public-discussion draft; it is not a binding legal text for any future legislature.

XI. Implementation Legal Package

To turn this policy from a principled initiative into an actionable Third Republic legal blueprint, FCM has established a set of mutually referencing model legal drafts:

• Truth Commission Act (Model Draft)
• Archives Openness Act (Model Draft)
• Transitional Justice and Victim Reparation Act (Model Draft)
• October 1 Memorial Day Act (Model Draft)

Master portal: Third Republic Transitional Justice Legal Package (v1.0).

Languages: English · 简体中文 · 繁體中文 · Français · Deutsch · Español