 Although known for his works about the "Chinese Gulag", Cong did not want to be compared to the Soviet writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and wrote the essay "I Am Not Solzhenitsyn".He criticized Solzhenitsyn for being too one-sided and negative, recalling his personal experience with a kind prison guard.Cong served as chief editor of the Writers Publishing House, but was forced to resign after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.