‘Down With the Communist Party’: Chinese Student Stands up to Regime, Then Disappears

L: Zhang Wenbin's blocked WeChat account. R: Zhang speaks in a video on social media on March 30, 2020, calling on the ruling Chinese Communist Party to step down. Screenshots via Twitter

A college student in China has gone incommunicado after he publicly called for the country’s ruling Communist Party to relinquish power.

“Down with the Communist Party,” Zhang Wenbin, a college senior and programmer from China’s northeastern Shandong Province, said in a March 30 video on Twitter, a platform blocked in China. The student used a VPN, a tool used by Chinese citizens to access overseas websites censored by the regime’s internet firewall.