By Jianli Yang
Saturday, July 04, 2026
As the United States celebrates the 250th anniversary of
its Founding, I have found myself reflecting on my own journey in America and
what this extraordinary nation has meant to me. I owe my freedom and even my
life to this country. I have told before the story of returning to China from
my graduate studies in the U.S. to participate in the 1989 Tiananmen democracy
movement, surviving the massacre, later earning my doctorate in political
economy from Harvard University, returning once again to China to promote
peaceful democratic reform, being imprisoned by the Chinese Communist Party,
and finally being rescued through the determined efforts of the United States.
My gratitude to America is permanent and profound.
But this is not that story. Instead, I want to share
experiences that I have never written about before, moments that shaped my
understanding of America long before I was forced to depend upon it.
In 1986, I left what many considered an exceptionally
promising future in both academia and politics in China. I came to the United
States to pursue a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of California,
Berkeley. For the first time in my life, I breathed the fresh air of freedom.
Only those who have lived under dictatorship can fully
appreciate what freedom feels like. It is not merely a constitutional principle
or a political slogan. It is an atmosphere. It is the quiet confidence of
ordinary people who do not live in fear. It is the ability to speak without
constantly calculating the consequences. It is the simple dignity of walking
through life without wondering whether someone is watching every move you make.
Despite the tremendous academic pressure and the formidable language barrier I
faced at UC Berkeley, I experienced a sense of inner peace unlike anything I
had known before.
To a young man who had grown up in a country still
emerging from decades of political terror, poverty, and isolation, the San
Francisco Bay Area seemed almost unreal. The Pacific breeze carried not only
the scent of the ocean but also the spirit of liberty. People laughed openly.
They debated passionately. They dressed however they pleased. They criticized
their government without fear. Individuality was not merely tolerated; it was
celebrated.
Berkeley itself was an intellectual revelation. The
university demanded excellence. The competition was intense. Yet what impressed
me even more was the institution’s moral seriousness. Mathematics, philosophy,
economics, history, and political science were not treated as isolated
disciplines but as different paths toward understanding truth. Ideas mattered.
Evidence mattered. Debate mattered.
In China, intellectual inquiry was constrained by
ideology. At Berkeley, questioning authority was considered one of the highest
academic virtues. That experience permanently changed how I viewed both
scholarship and citizenship.
Naturally, I was also astonished by America’s prosperity.
Only days earlier I had left behind a country where
scarcity remained a defining feature of daily life. Standing in San Francisco,
I was amazed to learn that most of the magnificent skyscrapers before me were
privately owned. Banks, automobile manufacturers, and countless other great
enterprises were built and operated not by the state but by private citizens.
This was a society that rewarded initiative, innovation,
and hard work. It was a country where individuals were encouraged to create,
build, and succeed. I began asking myself: Is this what people mean by the
American dream?
Ironically, this did not seem entirely foreign to Chinese
civilization itself. Classical Chinese philosophy never condemned prosperity.
The Zhou Yi (Book of Changes), one of the foundational texts of
Confucian thought, recognizes the pursuit of wealth as part of human nature and
encourages productive labor, creativity, and prosperity pursued with virtue.
Why then, I wondered, had the communist regime deprived generations of Chinese
citizens of private property, economic opportunity, and personal dignity? Why
had a civilization with such rich philosophical traditions become trapped in a
political system that denied so much of human potential?
America’s prosperity and intellectual freedom dazzled me.
But something else moved me even more.
On weekends I often drove my old used car into small
towns throughout Northern California simply to see more of American society.
Their beauty impressed me. Their cleanliness impressed me. Their harmony with
nature impressed me. Yet what touched me most was something remarkably
ordinary: Every town had a beautiful public library. Every library had
wheelchair access. Soon I noticed that buses, public buildings, sidewalks, and
countless other public facilities were also designed to accommodate people with
disabilities.
One day I found myself in tears. Throughout China, I had
seen poor people and disabled people humiliated, ignored, and mistreated, often
with no legal recourse whatsoever. I remembered the helplessness I felt
witnessing their suffering. Here, by contrast, a wealthy society had chosen to
measure itself not only by economic achievement but also by how it treated
those who could contribute least to material prosperity.
That reminded me of a story from a Chinese classic The
Book of Chuang Tzu. An inspector asked a livestock trader how he judged
whether a pig was truly healthy. The trader replied that he examined the parts
of the animal least likely to accumulate fat. If those weakest parts were
healthy, then the whole animal must be healthy. Chuang Tzu used this story to
teach that the true measure of a society is found not at its strongest points,
but at its weakest.
I came to believe that the same principle applies to
politics. A just society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable
citizens. America, imperfect as every nation is, understood this truth better
than many societies I had known.
In every human heart, two aspirations should coexist: the
desire to pursue individual happiness and achievement, and the responsibility
to care for the vulnerable and protect the common good. The healthiest society
is one that safeguards liberty, protects private property, rewards excellence,
creates opportunities for success without artificial ceilings, and
simultaneously ensures that those who are disadvantaged are not abandoned.
Freedom and compassion are not enemies. They are partners.
This conviction has deep philosophical roots in both the
East and West. Nearly simultaneously, Confucius and the great philosophers of
ancient Greece arrived at remarkably similar conclusions. Confucius taught the
Doctrine of the Mean — a politics of balance, moderation, and moral restraint.
The Greeks engraved upon the Temple of Apollo the timeless injunctions: “Know
thyself” and “Nothing in excess.”
Long before I entered politics, I came to believe that
the first principle of good government, or the golden rule of politics, is
simple: Do not go to extremes. Political extremism almost always begins by
claiming moral certainty. It often ends by denying the humanity of those who
disagree. History repeatedly confirms this lesson.
The Chinese Communist Party has governed through
successive extremes. First came radical communism, which abolished private
property and devastated society through campaigns such as the Great Leap
Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Later came state-directed crony
capitalism, in which political privilege — rather than free competition —
determined economic opportunity. In both systems, ordinary citizens ultimately
served the interests of those who held power. Dissent was criminalized.
Independent institutions were crushed. Human rights became subordinate to
political control.
America offered something fundamentally different. Here,
competing political parties represented different interests and different
philosophies, yet they remained bound by constitutional rules, elections,
federalism, and the rule of law. Citizens disagreed vigorously, but
disagreement itself was not a crime. Americans of different races, religions,
backgrounds, and beliefs could largely live together in mutual tolerance while
participating in the same democratic experiment.
I began to believe that the ideals I had encountered in
both Chinese philosophy and Western political thought had found their most
successful practical expression in the American constitutional order. My own
dream merged with the American dream.
The society I envisioned decades ago remains the society
I hope for today: one that firmly protects fundamental human rights, places no
artificial ceiling on individual achievement, guarantees a basic floor of human
dignity for the vulnerable, rewards work and innovation, and preserves liberty
under the rule of law.
Looking back, I recognize that my first impressions of
America were necessarily idealistic and incomplete. Over the years, my
education, friendships, scholarship, and experiences taught me that America’s
history is richer, more complicated, and more self-critical than I initially
understood. Yet complexity has only strengthened, not weakened, my admiration
for this country.
Generation after generation, Americans have expanded the
promise of liberty while preserving constitutional continuity. The country’s
remarkable network of families, churches, civic associations, local
governments, independent courts, and voluntary organizations forms the social
fabric upon which freedom ultimately depends.
After World War II, America became not merely the world’s
strongest nation but the principal defender of the free world, the leading
advocate for human rights, and the brightest beacon for countless people
struggling against tyranny — including me.
I love America not because it is perfect. I love America
because it possesses the moral capacity to correct itself without abandoning
its founding principles.
Of course, America today faces profound challenges.
Political extremism increasingly feeds upon itself, with
excesses on one side often serving to justify excesses on the other. Identity
politics has deepened social divisions. Confidence in the rule of law has
weakened. Constitutional boundaries among the branches of government have
become subjects of growing controversy. America’s retreat from confident
leadership within the free world has created uncertainty about the future of
the international order that generations of Americans built at enormous sacrifice.
Even more consequential may be the revolutionary impact
of information technology, especially artificial intelligence. AI is reshaping
democracy, economic competition, national security, human relationships, and
even our understanding of what it means to be human. The extraordinary
concentration of wealth and power in a handful of technology companies,
combined with their increasingly complex relationship with government,
challenges many of our traditional assumptions about capitalism, liberty,
equality, markets, and constitutional governance.
These are questions that neither conservatives nor
progressives can afford to ignore.
Yet the principles that first inspired me nearly 40 years
ago remain unchanged. A free society should protect human rights. It should
reward excellence without limit. It should guarantee basic dignity to those who
struggle. It should preserve ordered liberty under the Constitution. Above all,
it should reject political extremism and seek the wisdom of moderation.
As someone who has experienced both totalitarianism and
democracy, I remain convinced that America’s greatest strength has never been
ideological purity. It has been constitutional balance, civic virtue, and an
unwavering belief that free people, governed by laws rather than passions, are
capable of self-government.
Those convictions continue to guide my own thinking. They
also shape my hope that America can overcome its present challenges and enter
the second half of its third century stronger, freer, and more confident than
ever. In future essays, I hope to explore these questions in greater depth and
details.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
