DECLARATION · 组织宣言
Declaration of the Chinese Traditional Costume Movement Planning Team
October 7, 2026 · Published on the website of the Los Angeles Committee of the China Democracy Party
This team takes culture as its vehicle and traditional costume as its symbol, expressing its convictions by peaceful means: we oppose the one-party political system, and we advocate democracy, freedom, and political rights. We combine traditional costume with photography, film, speeches, artistic creation, social media, and public events to create a new political visual language. The team is organized into an Honorary Guidance System and an Administrative Management System, carrying its message to ever more people through sustained, open, and peaceful action.
“Culture as the vehicle, traditional costume as the symbol; peace as the method, democracy and freedom as the direction.”
Culture can express a stance, art can express resistance, dress can become a symbol — and peace itself is a form of strength.
PHILOSOPHY AND VISION · 理念和愿景
Philosophy and Vision of the Chinese Traditional Costume Movement Planning Team
September 28, 2026 · In front of the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles · Published on the website of the Los Angeles Committee of the China Democracy Party
We stand here not to make trouble, and not to put on a performance. We are here to state openly a right that has always belonged to the Chinese people: the Chinese people have the right to wear their own clothes — and the right to refuse, peacefully, to go on being subjects.
Faced with the return of lifetime rule, we choose neither violence, nor conspiracy, nor harm to anyone. We choose a way that everyone can understand, everyone can learn, and no one can completely ban — putting on ancient Chinese dress. Hanfu, Tang suits, and Song- and Ming-style garments are not stage costumes; they are mirrors: when the highest power drapes itself once more in the shadow of the dragon robe, ordinary people can wear that shadow back onto their own bodies — in daily life, at work, at school, in the streets — to satirize it, to dissolve it, and to force it to confront itself. This is peaceful political resistance with an unmistakable goal: to compel the CCP to compromise, to compel Xi Jinping to step down, and to move the Chinese nation gradually toward a democratic system.
“Putting on traditional costume is not a return to the past; it is a refusal to hand the future back to one man's lifetime power.”
Path of Action
University campuses→High & middle schools→White-collar & blue-collar workers→From cities to the countryside
Modern networks can turn a garment into a signal, a campus into a node, and a walk in the street into a public memory that can never be completely erased. The Costume Movement is not a one-day spectacle; it is a peaceful action that can be replicated and sustained — from campuses to streets, and from overseas back home.
The Founding Essay
On August 2, 2026, Zhao Yantao — dressed in the robes of a Ming-dynasty official — published “The Costume Movement: Letting History Illuminate the Future,” warning of the resurgence of imperial thinking and personality cult, and publicly calling for a nationwide costume movement for the first time: people all across China wearing the traditional dress of any dynasty — even making it at home from bedsheets and old clothes — until one-party dictatorship ends.
Team Structure
The team is organized in three tiers: the Honorary Guidance System, the President, and the Administrative Management System. Between September 29 and October 17, 2026, founder and President Zhao Yantao signed letters of appointment in Los Angeles; the team has 38 official members: 23 in the Honorary Guidance System, the President, and 14 in the Administrative Management System.
Original texts: Los Angeles Committee of the China Democracy Party — “Declaration of the Chinese Traditional Costume Movement Planning Team” (2026-10-07) and “Philosophy and Vision of the Chinese Traditional Costume Movement Planning Team” (2026-09-28, by Zhao Yantao)
