My interest in political science traces back to my years at Shenzhen Middle School (SMS), a school once renowned for its experiments in campus democracy and civic education.
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"Shenzhen Middle School is dedicated to nurturing outstanding citizens—individuals of distinct character, full of confidence, and willing to take responsibility, possessed of intellectual depth, leadership, and creativity. Wherever they may be, they serve society with passion, demonstrating in all they do a respect for nature and a care for others."
(The school motto proposed by President Wang Zheng)
In the early 2000s, SMS underwent a radical period of educational reform. After Principal Wang Zheng took office in 2002, the school abolished the traditional fixed-class system in favor of a university-style mode where students chose their own courses, moved between classrooms, and were paired with academic advisors. The curriculum and assessment systems were overhauled, and "civic education" was enshrined in the school's motto and mission. Students were encouraged to govern themselves and participate in school affairs, founding organizations that would later be institutionalized and passed down across generations.
When Principal Wang Zhan'bao succeeded him in 2010, some reforms were rolled back and a measured re-emphasis on exam preparation followed, but the school's distinctive ethos largely survived. Student self-governance was formalized through two bodies: the Student Union and a newly established Student Council (Yishihui), which held the authority to review, and in some cases veto, administrative decisions. The Council drafted virtually all campus regulations.
This changed in December 2016, when Principal Zhu Huawei took office. As a conservative administrator focused on college entrance exam performance, Zhu revised the school motto and institutional mission, displacing the educational philosophy of his predecessors. Student autonomy was progressively curtailed: most campus media outlets ceased operation or were brought under direct administrative oversight and censorship. In late 2018, following a dispute with the administration over a New Year's Eve countdown event, the Council was ordered to disband, and the Student Union's independence was sharply reduced.
I enrolled at SMS in 2019, just as a new Student Congress was being formed. Elected as a delegate for my class, I participated in making its constitution, hoping to rebuild something resembling the Council, a genuine legislative body of the students, by the students, for the students. That effort ended when our Congress refused to recognize a Student Union president installed through what we saw as a manipulated election, and we were dissolved. In 2020, I joined a movement to revive the Council; the school shut that down too.
These failures pushed me toward a question: why did our democratic experiments fail when earlier ones had succeeded? A common explanation points to the tightening of social and ideological space under Xi Jinping's leadership, in which words like "citizen" and "democracy" became increasingly taboo even within schools. But this only led me to bigger questions—why is China an authoritarian state? What makes institutions good or bad? How do authoritarian regimes sustain themselves?
Pursuing these questions, I joined some student societies like SMS's History Research Society and found a community of fellow students equally drawn to social science and campus politics. Together we organized seminars and workshops on comparative constitutionalism, political philosophy, and critical theory. Through these conversations, my intellectual interests crystallized around authoritarian politics, comparative political institutions, and political economy.
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