The State Department voiced significant concerns after Chinese authorities sentenced New York-based artist Gao Zhen to three years in prison for satirical Mao Zedong sculptures created years before the law used to convict him even existed.
The State Department is pushing back hard after a Chinese court sentenced a New York-based American permanent resident to three years in prison for artwork he created more than a decade before the law used to convict him even existed. Artist Gao Zhen, 70, was handed the maximum sentence Tuesday by the Sanhe City People's Court in Hebei Province for satirical sculptures of Mao Zedong made in the early 2000s.
Washington called the case deeply troubling and noted that Beijing retroactively applied a 2018 statute to punish conduct from years earlier. The sentence is the latest flashpoint in the Trump administration's ongoing standoff with the Chinese Communist Party over human rights and free expression.
Gao was detained in August 2024 while traveling from New York to China to visit family. He has been locked up ever since, and his trial earlier this year lasted just one day behind closed doors before the verdict came down this week.
The court convicted him under China's Law on the Protection of Heroes and Martyrs, a 2018 measure that criminalizes insulting the reputation of the party's venerated dead. The charge stemmed from irreverent sculptures of Mao, including "Mao's Guilt," a bronze statue showing the former leader kneeling with his head bowed and one hand pressed to his chest.
Gao created those works alongside his younger brother, Gao Qiang, drawing on the memory of their father, who died in custody after being arrested as a counter-revolutionary during the Cultural Revolution. The decade-long upheaval unleashed by Mao in 1966 killed millions before his death in 1976.
The State Department said it holds "significant concerns" about the case, stressing that the alleged actions predated the law under which Gao was convicted. "The United States continues to support the right to freedom of expression, including as exercised through art," a department spokesperson said.
American diplomats did not just object from afar. Officials from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and several other diplomatic missions traveled to the courthouse in Sanhe to observe the verdict and sentencing hearing on August 25, only to be denied entry to the hearing room by courthouse officials.
The snub underscores how far Beijing is willing to go to keep the case out of the international spotlight.
The case has also put a harsh spotlight on China's use of exit bans. Gao's wife, Zhao Yaliang, and the couple's 7-year-old son, a U.S. citizen, have been barred from leaving China since mid-2024, shortly after Gao's detention.
The Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a bipartisan federal panel, said the boy has effectively been held hostage in the country. "The guilty verdict against artist Gao Zhen should be condemned globally as an unacceptable restriction of the freedom of expression," the commission said. "Gao Zhen should be released unconditionally, and he and his family must be allowed to return to the United States."
Gao's brother said the artist's health has seriously deteriorated after two years in a Chinese jail cell, with authorities restricting his access to medical treatment.
China's 2018 heroes-and-martyrs law is part of a broader campaign to silence critics of the party's official history. Authorities have used it to arrest and detain citizens who question the regime's narrative on social media, and the case shows the law can reach back in time when it suits the state.
Amnesty International called the maximum sentence an assault on artistic freedom. The group's China director, Sarah Brooks, said the case demonstrates how broadly worded and politically motivated laws are used -- and in this instance retroactively -- to silence artists and activists who express views that differ from those of the Chinese government.
Gao is appealing the conviction and the prison term.
The artist's fate now rests with China's appellate courts, though international pressure is building. The State Department's statement, the denied access for foreign diplomats, and bipartisan criticism from Washington all raise the stakes for Beijing.
For the Trump administration, the case is a clear example of the regime's contempt for basic rights, and it gives American officials fresh ammunition in the broader fight against Chinese authoritarianism. Whether the pressure translates into action on the ground in Gao's case remains to be seen, but the world is watching.
The State Department voiced significant concerns after Chinese authorities sentenced New York-based artist Gao Zhen to three years in prison for satirical Mao Zedong sculptures created years before the law used to convict him even existed.
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