Chinese Entrepreneur Who Spent 26 Years Petitioning the Regime Escapes to Germany

A Chinese entrepreneur who says the regime seized hundreds of thousands of dollars from him and who spent more than two decades petitioning the government has escaped China and arrived in Germany, where he plans to seek political asylum.

Shen Qijia, 64, who uses the online name “Jinglei,” announced on X on Sept. 12 that he had reached Germany after a difficult journey out of China and across Europe. He described the journey as a desperate attempt to reach the free world.

“I made it out,” Shen told The Epoch Times on Sept. 12 while traveling to Germany.

The journey had taken a physical toll. He said he had spent more than 30 hours crossing mountainous terrain the previous day, leaving him barely able to stand.

“Freedom comes at a price,” he said.

His escape comes after years of increasingly open opposition to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), following a decades-long dispute with the regime over property that he says was seized from him.

Shen previously operated a company in Shenzhen. In 2000, authorities in the city’s Bao’an District shut down a subsidiary of his business and accused him of offenses including “false registered capital” and fraud.

He was detained for 118 days before prosecutors declined to approve his arrest, and he was released.

After his release, Shen sought the return of more than 4 million yuan ($600,000) in property that he said had been seized. He spent the next 26 years petitioning regime authorities more than 300 times, according to his account.

He said he received only slightly more than 10,000 yuan ($14,900) in state compensation. Shenzhen police returned 900,000 yuan ($134,000), while the Bao’an District government returned another 200,000 yuan ($29,800). Shen said the remaining money was never returned.

His repeated petitions brought him into conflict with regime authorities over the years, and he eventually became an online commentator critical of the CCP. Petitioning is an administrative procedure to seek redress of grievances. However, in practice, the regime routinely harasses and persecutes petitioners for expressing dissent.

In March, Shen posted a video criticizing authorities for blocking his online livestreams. In an interview with The Epoch Times afterward, he said the harm he had suffered led him to fundamentally change his view of the regime.

“I have personally already risen up,” he said.

In July, police again came to his home after he read a speech by President Donald Trump during a livestream, according to Shen’s account. He said police pressured him to stop speaking publicly.

He subsequently published a statement under his real name on the Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP website, declaring his withdrawal from the CCP’s Young Pioneers, an organization he had previously joined as a child, which is mandatory in Chinese public schools.

Shen said his social media accounts had been blocked after his departure but that his years of activism had been worthwhile.

Shen said he did not intend to leave China simply to enjoy personal freedom.

“Coming overseas is not to enjoy the freedom of the free world, not simply for my own freedom,” he said. “It is to overthrow the CCP.”

Shen cited the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, and the suppression of the 2022 White Paper Movement as examples of what he called the regime’s crimes.

“Since the CCP came to power in 1949, its crimes are too numerous to record,” he said. “They have committed many monstrous crimes, and we have to settle accounts with them.”

According to Shen, he had long wanted to leave China but was unable to obtain a passport from authorities.

His departure marks a dramatic turn after 26 years of petitioning the regime over his property dispute and increasingly public criticism of the CCP. Now in Germany, he plans to seek political asylum and continue his activism from outside China.

Tang Bing and Hong Ning contributed to this report.