I was born in 1957 and spent my childhood in China's remote Xinjiang region, w
here my father, Ai Qing, had been exiled. He was a poet, not a revolutionary,
but the Communist Party had no tolerance for free thinkers. So he spent years
cleaning toilets, enduring beatings and public humiliation. To me, it was a le
sson in how horribly humans can treat one another.

On Oct. 1, the Party will mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Peo
ple's Republic. Thanks to the ability of the Chinese people to struggle and en
dure, the country can also celebrate its arrival as one of the world's most po
werful economies. The government may trumpet this success as the product of it
s own wisdom. It is only natural, though, that when hundreds of millions of ha
rdworking Chinese are finally allowed to rejoin the world after a century of i
solation, they will succeed. As we mark how far China has come in these past 6
0 years, it's also worth noting how far the country has yet to go.
(Read "The 60th Birthday of the People's Republic.")

When the communists were fighting for control of the nation in the 1930s and '
40s, they promised democracy, a free press and an independent judicial system.
Six decades after they came to power, none of those exist.

Take the case of Tan Zuoren, a man charged with "inciting subversion of state
power." In August I went to Sichuan to testify at his trial. Tan is an editor
and environmentalist, not a revolutionary. But like my father, Tan asks the im
portant questions and says what he thinks. Now, as then, that's a dangerous th
ing in China. If you open your mouth to point out something that is clearly wr
ong, if you believe in your essential right to speak, then you can be labeled
an enemy of the state.
(See pictures of the making of modern China.)

After a shocking number of Sichuan schools collapsed in the catastrophic earth
quake last year, Tan decided to compile a list of those students who had died.
I recruited volunteers for a similar project. When you see so many lives vani
sh, you have to ask why. And when the system refuses to provide an answer, you
have to use your own means to uncover it. At every step the government tried
to block our inquiries. Police followed, harassed and in a few cases beat the
volunteers. Tan was arrested on March 28. While I was in Sichuan to speak at h
is trial, police stormed my hotel room in the middle of the night, punched me
and detained several of us. (I had to undergo cranial surgery in Munich for my
head injuries.) The clear intent was to ensure that none of Tan's supporters
could witness his prosecution.

We believe that corruption and shoddy construction contributed to the high stu
dent death toll, which may be as high as 6,000. Why is the government so afrai
d of an independent investigation into this matter? Because the Party knows it
s system is vulnerable, that its credibility is weak and that it has become a
mafia whose only unifying ideology is to hold on to power. The truth about som
ething as simple as why those students died in Sichuan could undermine its aut
hority. To witness this vulnerability, you need only look at the soldiers and
paramilitaries filling the streets of Beijing and the pages of mainland newspa
pers ahead of the Oct. 1 National Day parade. It is more a show of fear than j
oy.

Facing this legacy of repression, it is easy to become pessimistic. Some peopl
e lament that young people today don't share the idealism of students in the 1
980s. But while my generation dreamed lofty goals, they had little foundation.
We were like a tall flower on a thin stem. Faced with armed resistance in 198
9, the students in Beijing were cut down with tragic ease. Today's young peopl
e are more practical, and because of that I am optimistic about their chances
of promoting fundamental change. They aren't ready to march in the streets, bu
t they are equally unwilling to be told what they can or can't read and discus
s online. They simply want to be free to live their own lives.

What I'm talking about is nothing revolutionary like the democracy that the Co
mmunist Party once promised. It is the fundamental matter of protecting one's
individual dignity. It is about seeking answers to simple questions — like wh
y so many students died in Sichuan. It is about demanding answers and accounta
bility from one's government. If Chinese citizens do that, then this 60th anni
versary will not just be about the Party congratulating itself. It will be the
final hurrah of a dying system.

Beijing-born Ai Weiwei is an artist, architect and activist