Red Dragon Menacing

Nine Commentaries & CCP’s Global Ambitions

Table Of Contents

Nine Commentaries 1. On What the Communist Party Is

Nine Commentaries 2. On the Beginnings of the Chinese Communist Party

Nine Commentaries 3. On the Tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party

Nine Commentaries 4. On How the Communist Party Is an Anti-Universe Force

Nine Commentaries 5. On the Collusion of Jiang Zemin with the CCP to Persecute Falun Gong

Nine Commentaries 6. On How the Chinese Communist Party Destroyed Traditional Culture

Nine Commentaries 7. On the Chinese Communist Party’s History of Killing

Nine Commentaries 8. On How the Chinese Communist Party Is an Evil Cult

Nine Commentaries 9. On the Unscrupulous Nature of the Chinese Communist Party

CCP’s Global Ambitions(Part I)

CCP’s Global Ambitions(Part II)

Commentary 1: On What the Communist Party Is

(Since its publication in 2004, this legendary book has inspired more than 300 million Chinese to have publicly quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations in an epic endeavor of self-salvation.)

Foreword

For more than 5,000 years, the Chinese people created a splendid civilization on the land nurtured by the Yellow River and the Yangtze River. During this long period, dynasties came and went, and the Chinese culture waxed and waned. Grand and moving stories have played out on the historical stage of China. The year 1840, commonly considered by historians to be the beginning of China’s contemporary era, marked the start of China’s journey from tradition to modernization.

Chinese civilization experienced four major episodes of challenge and response. The first three episodes included the invasion of Beijing by the Anglo–French Allied Force in the early 1860s, the Sino–Japanese War in 1894 (also called the Jiawu War), and the Russo–Japanese War in China’s northeast in 1904–1905.

To these three episodes of challenge, China responded first with the Westernization Movement, which was marked by the importation of modern goods and weapons. Next were the institutional reforms in 1898 known as the Hundred Days’ Reform and the attempt at the end of the late Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) to establish constitutional rule. The third response, in 1911, was the Xinhai Revolution. [1]

At the end of World War I, China, though it emerged victorious, was not among the stronger powers at that time. Many Chinese people believed that the first three episodes of response had failed. The May Fourth Movement [2] would lead to the fourth attempt at responding to the previous challenges and would culminate in the complete westernization of Chinese culture through the communist movement and its extreme revolution.

This chapter concerns the outcomes of the last episode: the communist movement and the Communist Party. Let’s take a close look at the result of what China has chosen or, perhaps one can say, what has been imposed on China after generations of tumults, nearly 100 million unnatural deaths, and the destruction of nearly all Chinese traditional culture and civilization.

I. Relying on Violence and Terror to Gain and Maintain Power

“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” [3] This quote is taken from the concluding paragraph of The Communist Manifesto , the principal guide for all communist movements. Violence is the primary means by which communist parties gained power. This character trait has been passed on to all subsequent forms of the Party that have arisen since its birth.

In fact, the world’s first communist party was established many years after Karl Marx’s death. In the year after the October Revolution in 1917, the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), later to be known as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was born. This party grew out of the use of violence against “class enemies” and was maintained through violence against party members and ordinary citizens. During Joseph Stalin’s purges in the 1930s, the Soviet communists slaughtered more than twenty million so-called spies and traitors, as well as those with dissenting opinions.

The CCP first started as a branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the Third Communist International. Therefore, it naturally inherited a willingness to kill. During China’s first civil war between the Communist Party and the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang), [4] between 1927 and 1936, the population in Jiangxi Province dropped from more than twenty million to about ten million. The damage wrought by the CCP’s use of violence can be seen from these figures alone. Using violence may be unavoidable when attempting to seize political power, but there has never been a regime as eager to kill as the CCP, especially during otherwise peaceful periods. The number of deaths caused by the Party’s violence since 1949, when it emerged victorious the civil war against the Kuomintang and unified China, has surpassed the total deaths during all the wars waged around the world between the Communist Party’s founding in 1921 and when it took power in 1949.

An excellent example of the Communist Party’s use of violence is its support of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge. Under the Khmer Rouge, a quarter of Cambodia’s population, including a majority of Chinese immigrants and their descendants, were murdered. China still blocks the international community from putting the Khmer Rouge on trial, so as to cover up the CCP’s notorious role in the genocide.

The CCP has had close connections with the world’s most brutal revolutionary armed forces and regimes. In addition to the Khmer Rouge, these have included the communist parties in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Burma, Laos, and Nepal — all of which were established with the support of the CCP. Many leaders in these communist parties were Chinese; some of them are still hiding in China to this day. Other Maoist-based communist parties include South America’s Shining Path and the Japanese Red Army, whose atrocities have been condemned by the world community.

One of the theories the communists employ is social Darwinism. The Communist Party applies Darwin’s inter-species competition to human relationships and human history, maintaining that class struggle is the only driving force for societal development. Struggle, therefore, became the primary “belief” of the Communist Party, a tool in gaining and maintaining political control. For instance, a famous quote from Mao Zedong — “With eight hundred million people, how can it work without struggle?” — shows the Party’s logic of “survival of the fittest” at work. Another similarly famous saying from Mao was that a campaign like the Cultural Revolution should be conducted “every seven or eight years.” [5] Repetitive use of force is an important means for the CCP to maintain its rule in China. The goal of using force is to create terror. Every struggle and movement has served as an exercise in terror, so that the Chinese people are in a constant state of fear, become submissive, and are gradually enslaved under the Party’s control.

Today, terrorism has become the main enemy of the civilized and free world. The CCP’s exercise of violent terror, thanks to the apparatus of the state, has been larger in scale and much longer-lasting, and its results have been more devastating. Today, in the twenty-first century, we should not forget this inherited character of the Communist Party, since it will definitely play a crucial role in the destiny of the CCP in the years to come.

II. Using Lies to Justify Violence

The level of violence employed by a form of government determines its level of civilization. By resorting to the use of violence, communist regimes clearly represent a huge step backward in this regard. Unfortunately, the Communist Party has been seen as progressive by those who believe that violence is an essential and inevitable means of societal advancement. This acceptance of violence has to be viewed as one result of the unrivaled and skillful use of deception and lies by the Communist Party, another inherited trait of the CCP.

“Since a young age, we have thought of the U.S. as a lovable country. We believe this is partly due to the fact that the U.S. has never occupied China, nor has it launched any attacks on China. More fundamentally, the Chinese people hold good impressions of the U.S. based on the democratic and open-minded character of its people.” So stated an editorial published on July 4, 1947, in the CCP’s official newspaper, Xinhua Daily . A mere three years later, the CCP sent soldiers to fight American troops in North Korea and painted the Americans as the most evil imperialists in the world. Any Chinese person from mainland China would be astonished to read this editorial written more than seventy years ago. The CCP has banned all publications quoting similar early passages and has published rewritten versions.

Since coming to power, the CCP has employed similar artifices in every single movement, including its elimination of counter-revolutionaries (1950–1953), the “partnership” of public and private enterprises (1954–1957), the Anti-Rightist Movement (1957), the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), the Tiananmen Square massacre (1989), and, most recently, the persecution of Falun Gong, which began in 1999. The most infamous instance was the persecution of intellectuals in 1957. The CCP called on the intellectuals to offer their opinions, but then persecuted them as “rightists,” using their speeches as evidence of their “crimes.” When some criticized the persecution as a conspiracy or “plot in the dark,” Mao proclaimed, “It is not a plot in the dark, but a stratagem in the open.”

Deception and lies have played a vital role in the CCP’s taking control and staying in control. China enjoys the longest and most complete history in the world, and Chinese intellectuals have had the greatest faith in history since ancient times. The Chinese people have used their understanding of history to assess their current reality and even to achieve personal spiritual improvement. To make history serve the current regime, the CCP has made a practice of altering and concealing historical truth. The CCP, in its propaganda and publications, has rewritten history as far back as the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods (770–221 B.C.), and as recent as the Cultural Revolution. Such historical alterations have continued since the CCP seized power, and the Party has ruthlessly blocked and suppressed all efforts to restore historical truth.

When violence alone becomes insufficient to sustain control, the CCP resorts to deception and lies, which serve to justify and mask its rule by violence. Tactics of deception and lies were not invented by communism, of course, but are age-old, unscrupulous ploys that communist regimes have utilized without shame. The CCP promised land to the peasants, factories to the workers, freedom and democracy to the intellectuals, and peace to all. None of these promises has ever been realized. One generation of Chinese died having been deceived, and another generation continues to be cheated. This is the greatest sorrow of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation’s greatest misery.

III. Ever-Changing Principles

In one of the televised U.S. presidential debates in 2004, one candidate said that while one could change his tactics when needed, he should never change his “beliefs” or “core values,” as otherwise, he is not credible.

This statement is worth reflecting on. The Communist Party constantly changes its “beliefs” and “core values.” Since its establishment, the CCP has held 19 national representative conventions and modified the Party constitution nearly two dozen times. Since it came to power in 1949, the CCP has made multiple major modifications to the Chinese Constitution.

A stated goal of communist parties is to bring about social equality that leads to a communist society. Today, however, communist-controlled China has become a nation with the most serious economic inequalities in the world. Many CCP members have become extremely rich, while hundreds of millions of Chinese still live in poverty.

The guiding theories of the CCP started with Marxism-Leninism, to which was added Maoism, then Deng Xiaoping Theory, and more recently Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents.” Marxism-Leninism and Maoism are not at all compatible with Deng’s theories and Jiang’s ideology — they are actually the opposite. This hodgepodge of communist theories employed by the CCP is indeed an abomination of history.

The Communist Party’s evolving principles have largely contradicted one another. From the idea of a global integration transcending the nation-state to today’s extreme nationalism, from eliminating all private ownership and all exploitative classes to today’s notion of promoting capitalists to join the Party, yesterday’s principles have become reversed in today’s politics, with further change expected tomorrow. But no matter how often the CCP changes its principles, the goal remains the same: gaining and sustaining absolute control over society.

In the history of the CCP, there have been more than a dozen movements that were “life and death” struggles. In reality, all of these struggles have coincided with a transfer of power following changes of basic Party principles. Every change in principles has come as the CCP faced a major threat to its legitimacy and survival. Whether it be collaborating with the Kuomintang Party, adopting a pro-U.S. foreign policy, enacting economic reform and market expansion, or promoting nationalism, these decisions were made at a moment of crisis and all had to do with gaining or solidifying power. Every cycle in which a particular group suffered persecution, only for there to be a reversal of that persecution a few years later, has been connected with changes in the basic principles of the CCP.

As a biblical proverb states, “Truth will last forever; lies are soon found out.” There is wisdom in this saying.

IV. Replacing and Eliminating Human Nature

The CCP is a Leninist authoritarian regime. Since the inception of the CCP, three basic lines have been established: the intellectual line, the political line, and the organization line.

The intellectual line refers to the Communist Party’s philosophical foundation. The political line refers to the way it sets goals. The organization line refers to how the goals are achieved within a strict organizational body. The first and foremost requirement of all CCP members and those ruled by the CCP is to obey commands unconditionally. This is what the organization line is all about.

In China, most people know about the double personalities of CCP members. In private settings, CCP members are ordinary human beings with feelings of happiness, anger, sorrow, and joy. They possess ordinary human beings’ merits and shortcomings. They may be parents, husbands, wives, or friends. But placed above their human nature and feelings is their “Party nature,” which, according to the requirements of the Communist Party, overrides humanity. Thus, humanity becomes relative and changeable, while Party nature becomes absolute and beyond any doubt or challenge.

During the Cultural Revolution, it was all too common for fathers and sons to torture each other, husbands and wives to struggle with each other, mothers and daughters to report on each other, and students and teachers to treat each other like enemies. Party nature caused the conflicts and hatred in these cases. During the early period of the CCP’s rule, many high-ranking Party officials could do nothing but watch as their family members were labeled as class enemies. This, again, was driven by Party nature.

The power of Party nature over the individual results from the CCP’s prolonged course of indoctrination. This training starts in preschool and kindergarten, when giving Party-sanctioned answers to questions — answers that do not comply with common sense or a child’s human nature — is rewarded. Students receive political education from primary school through college, and if they do not learn to give standard Party-sanctioned answers, they are not allowed to pass exams and graduate.

A Party member must remain consistent with the Party line when speaking publicly, no matter how he feels privately.

The organizational structure of the CCP is a gigantic pyramid, with the central power on top controlling the entire hierarchy. This structure is one of the most important features of the CCP regime, one that helps it to produce absolute conformity. Today, the CCP has completely degenerated into a political entity struggling to maintain self-interest. It no longer pursues any of the lofty goals of communism. However, the organizational structure of communism remains, and its demand for unconditional conformity has not changed. The Party positions itself above humanity and human nature, removing any organizations or persons deemed detrimental or a potential threat to its hold on power, whether ordinary citizens or high-ranking CCP officials.

V. An Evil Specter That Opposes Nature and Humanity

Everything under heaven experiences a life cycle of birth, maturity, decay, and death.

Unlike the communist regime, non-communist societies, even those suffering under rigid totalitarian rule and dictatorship, often allow some degree of self-organization and self-determination. Ancient Chinese society was ruled according to a binary structure. In rural regions, clans were the center of an independent social organization, while urban areas were organized around local guilds. The top-down government did not extend below the county level. Even the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi) regime, perhaps the cruelest regime under a dictatorship other than those of communist parties, allowed the right to private property. Communist regimes eradicate any forms of social organization or elements independent of the Party, replacing them with highly centralized power structures from the top down. If bottom-up social structures allow for the natural self-determination of individuals or groups, then communist rule by its essence opposes this natural state of society.

The Communist Party does not respect universal truths of human nature. It arbitrarily manipulates concepts of good and evil, as well as all laws and rules. Communists do not allow murder, except of those categorized as enemies by the Communist Party. Filial piety is welcomed, except toward parents deemed to be class enemies. The traditional values of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faithfulness are good, but not applicable when the Party is not willing or doesn’t want to consider them.

The Communist Party completely overthrows the universal standards for human nature and builds itself on principles that oppose human nature.

Non-communist societies generally consider humanity’s dual nature of good and evil, and they rely on fixed social contracts to maintain a balance in society. In communist societies, however, the very concept of human nature is denied, and neither good nor evil is acknowledged. Eliminating the concepts of good and evil, according to Marx, serves to completely overthrow the superstructure [6] of the old society.

The Communist Party does not believe in the divine, nor does it even respect physical nature. “Battle with heaven, fight with the earth, struggle with humans — therein lies endless joy.” This was the motto of the CCP during the Cultural Revolution, a time when unprecedented suffering was inflicted on the Chinese people and the land.

The Chinese traditionally believe in the unity of heaven and human beings. As Lao Tzu said in the Tao-Te Ching , “Man follows the earth, the earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Tao, and the Tao follows what is natural.” [7] Human beings and nature exist within a harmonious relationship in the continuous cosmos.

The Communist Party can be thought of as a kind of being, one that opposes nature, heaven, earth, and mankind. It is an evil specter opposing the universe.

VI. Some Features of Evil Possession

The Communist Party’s organizations themselves never participate in productive or creative activities. Once they grasp power, they attach themselves to the people, controlling and manipulating them. They extend their power down to the most basic units of society, for fear of losing control. They monopolize the resources of production and extract wealth from the populace.

In China, the CCP extends itself everywhere and controls everything, but nobody has ever seen the CCP’s accounting records, only the records of the state, local governments, or enterprises. From the central government down to the village committees in rural areas, municipal officials are always ranked lower than the communist cadres in their strata, so municipal governments must follow instructions from Party committees of the same level. The expenditures of the Party are taken care of by the municipal units and accounted for in the municipal system.

The organization of the CCP, like a giant, evil possessing spirit, attaches to every single unit and cell of Chinese society as tightly as a shadow following an object. The CCP’s finest blood-sucking channels penetrate deeply into every capillary and cell of the society, and thus the Party controls and manipulates all of society. This peculiar structure of evil possession has existed previously in human history, either partially or temporarily, but never has it operated for so long and controlled a society so completely as it does under the rule of the Communist Party.

For this reason, Chinese farmers live in poverty and drudgery. They not only have to support the traditional municipal officials, but also as many or even more communist cadres.

For this reason, Chinese workers have lost their employment in vast numbers. The omnipresent blood-sucking channels of the possessing CCP have been extracting funds from their factories for many years.

For this reason, Chinese intellectuals find it extremely difficult to gain intellectual freedom. In addition to their administrators, there are CCP shadows lurking everywhere, doing nothing but monitoring people.

A possessing spirit has to control absolutely the mind of the possessed in order to drain energy for its survival.

According to modern political science, power comes from three main sources: force, wealth, and knowledge. The Communist Party has never hesitated to use force and monopolistic control to rob people of their property. But more importantly, it has deprived people of freedom of speech and of the press. It has raped people’s spirits and will in order to maintain its rule. The CCP’s evil possession controls society so tightly that it can hardly be compared to any other regime in history.

VII. Get Rid of the CCP’s Possession

In the 1848 The Communist Manifesto, the first programmatic document of the Communist Party, Marx proclaimed, “A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of Communism.” [8]

Over a century later, communism is more than a haunting specter: It has possessed a concrete, material body. It has spread around the world like an epidemic, killing tens of millions and taking away property and the free minds and spirit of hundreds of millions. The basic tenet of the Communist Party is to take away all private property so as to eliminate the “exploitative class.” Private property is the basis of all social rights and often carries national culture. People who are robbed of private property also lose a free mind and spirit. They may further lose the freedom to acquire social and political rights.

Facing a crisis of survival, the CCP was forced to reform China’s economy in the 1980s. Some of the rights to private property were restored to the people. This created a hole in the massive CCP machine of precise control. This hole has become enlarged as the CCP’s members strive to accumulate their private fortunes.

The CCP, an evil possessing specter supported by force, deception, and the frequent change of its appearance and image, has now shown signs of decay and is nervous at every slight disturbance. It attempts to survive by accumulating more wealth and tightening control, but these actions only serve to intensify the crisis. Today’s China appears prosperous, but social conflicts have been built up to a level never before seen. Using political intrigues it used in the past, the CCP may feign some sort of retreat, redressing the Tiananmen Square massacre or the persecution of Falun Gong, then finding other groups to be its chosen enemies, thereby continuing to exercise its regime of violence and terror.

Facing challenges in its contemporary history, the Chinese responded by importing weapons, reforming their political systems, and finally resorting to extreme and violent revolutions. Countless lives have been lost, and most of the Chinese traditional culture has been destroyed. Today’s China shows that this final response — that of violent revolution — has ended in utter failure. When agitation and anxiety occupied the Chinese mind, the CCP took the opportunity to enter the scene, and eventually brought the world’s last surviving ancient civilization under its control.

When it comes to future challenges, the Chinese people will inevitably have to choose again. No matter how the choice is made, every Chinese person must understand that any lingering hope in the CCP will only worsen the damage done to the Chinese nation and inject new energy into this evil possessing CCP.

We must abandon all illusions, thoroughly examine ourselves without being influenced by hatred, greed, or desires. Only then can we rid ourselves of the nightmarish control by the possessing spirit of the CCP of the last several decades. In the name of a free nation, we can reestablish the Chinese civilization based on respect for human nature and compassion for all.

This concludes Commentary One.

Notes:

[1] Xinhai Revolution, named for the Chinese year of Xinhai (1911), was the overthrow (October 10, 1911–February 12, 1912) of China’s ruling Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China.

[2] The May Fourth Movement was the first mass movement in modern Chinese history and began on May 4, 1919.

[3]   www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch04.htm

[4] The Kuomintang, or Chinese Nationalist Party, originated in 1912 and ruled much of China from 1928 until its defeat by the CCP in 1949.

[5] Mao Zedong’s letter to his wife, Jiang Qing (1966).

[6] Marxist thought divides society into two parts: the base, which consists of forces and relations of economic production, and the superstructure, which consists of everything else, including politics and culture.

[7] From Chapter 25 of the Tao-Te Ching , one of the most important Taoist texts.

[8]   www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm

Commentary 2: On the Beginnings of the Chinese Communist Party

Foreword

According to the book Explaining Simple and Analyzing Compound Characters , [1] the traditional Chinese character “dang,” meaning “party” or “gang,” consists of two components (called radicals) that correspond to “promote or advocate” and “dark or black,” respectively. Putting the two radicals together, the character means “promoting darkness.” “Party” or “party member” (which can also be interpreted as “gang” or “gang member”) carries a derogatory root meaning.

Confucius said in The Analects , “A gentleman is proud without being aggressive, sociable but not partisan.” [2] The footnotes of The Analects  explain, “People who help one another conceal their wrongdoings are said to be forming a gang (party).” [3] In Chinese history, political cliques were often called “peng dang” (cabal). It is a synonym for “gang of scoundrels” in traditional Chinese culture, and the meaning implies ganging up for selfish purposes.

Why did the Communist Party emerge, grow, and eventually seize power in contemporary China? The Chinese Communist Party has constantly instilled in the minds of the Chinese people that history chose the Party, that the people chose the Party, and that “without the Party, there would be no new China.” Did the Chinese people choose the Communist Party? Or did the Communist Party “gang up” and force Chinese people to accept it? We must look to history to find the answers.

From the late Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) to the early years of the Republic period (1911–1949), China experienced tremendous external shocks and extensive attempts at internal reform. Chinese society was in painful turmoil. Many intellectuals and people with lofty ideals wanted to save the country and its people. However, in the midst of national crisis and chaos, their sense of anxiety grew, leading first to disappointment and then to complete despair. Like an ill patient who will turn to any available doctor for a treatment or cure, they looked outside China for a solution. When the British and French styles failed, they switched to the Russian method. They did not hesitate to prescribe the most extreme remedy for the illness, in the hope that China would quickly become strong.

The May Fourth Movement in 1919 was a thorough reflection of this despair. Some people advocated anarchism, others proposed to overthrow the doctrines of Confucius, and still others suggested bringing in foreign culture. In short, they rejected Chinese traditional culture and opposed the Confucian doctrine of the middle way. Eager to take a shortcut, they advocated the destruction of everything traditional. On one hand, the radical members among them did not have a way to serve the country. On the other hand, all of the members believed firmly in their own ideals and will. They felt the world was hopeless, believing that only they had found the right approach to China’s future development. They were passionate for revolution and violence.

Different experiences led to different theories, principles, and paths among various groups. Eventually, a group of people met Communist Party representatives from the Soviet Union. The idea of “using violent revolution to seize political power,” lifted from the theory of Marxism-Leninism, appealed to their anxious minds and conformed to their desire to save the country and its people. They immediately allied with each other and introduced communism, a completely foreign concept, to China.

Altogether, 13 representatives attended the first national congress of the CCP. Later, some of them died, some ran away, and some, betraying the CCP or becoming opportunistic, worked for the occupying Japanese and became traitors to China, or quit the CCP and joined the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party). By 1949, when the CCP came to power in China, only Mao Zedong and Dong Biwu remained of the original 13 Party members. It is unclear whether the founders of the CCP were aware at the time that the “deity” they had introduced from the Soviet Union was, in reality, an evil specter, and the remedy they sought for strengthening the nation was actually a deadly poison.

The All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), having just won its revolution, was obsessed with ambition for China. In 1920, the Soviet Union established the Far Eastern Bureau, a branch of the Third Communist International, or the Comintern. The Comintern was responsible for the establishment of communist parties in China and other countries. Boris Shumyatsky was the head of the Far Eastern Bureau, and Grigori Voitinsky was a deputy manager.

They began to prepare for the establishment of the CCP with Chen Duxiu and a handful of other founding members. The proposal they submitted to the Far Eastern Bureau in June 1921 to establish a China branch of the Comintern indicated that the CCP was controlled by the Comintern. On July 23, 1921, under the direction of Vladimir Abramovich Neiman-Nikolsky and Henk Sneevliet (who went by the pseudonym Maring) from the Far Eastern Bureau, the CCP was officially formed.

The communist movement was then introduced to China as an experiment, and the CCP has since set itself above all, conquering all in its path, and thereby bringing endless catastrophe to China.

I. The CCP Grew by Steadily Accumulating Wickedness

It is not an easy task to introduce a foreign and evil specter such as the Communist Party — one that is totally incompatible with the Chinese tradition — to China, a country with a history of five thousand years of civilization. The CCP deceived the populace, and the patriotic intellectuals who wanted to serve the country, with the promise of the “communist utopia.” It further distorted the theory of communism, which had already been severely distorted by Vladimir Lenin, to provide a theoretical basis for destroying all traditional morals and principles. In addition, the CCP’s distorted theory of communism was used to destroy all that was disadvantageous to the CCP’s rule and to eliminate all social classes and people that might pose a threat to its control. The CCP adopted the Industrial Revolution’s destruction of belief as well as communism’s complete atheism. The CCP inherited communism’s denial of private ownership and imported Lenin’s theory of violent revolution. At the same time, the CCP inherited and further strengthened the worst parts of the Chinese monarchy.

The history of the CCP is a process of gradually accumulating every kind of wickedness, both domestic and foreign. The CCP has perfected its nine traits inherited from communism, giving them “Chinese characteristics”: evil, deceit, incitement, unleashing the scum of society, espionage, robbery, fighting, elimination, and control. As a response to the continuous crises facing it, the CCP has honed and reinforced these malicious characteristics, as well as expanding the extent to which they are manifested.

First Inherited Trait: Evil

Marxism initially attracted the Chinese radicals with its declaration that violent revolution is necessary to destroy the old state apparatus and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. This is precisely the root of evil in Marxism and Leninism.

Marxist materialism is predicated on the narrow economic concepts of forces of production, production relations, and surplus value. During the early, underdeveloped stages of capitalism, Karl Marx made the shortsighted prediction that capitalism would die and the proletariat would win, which has been proven wrong by history.

Marxism-Leninism’s violent revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat promote power politics and proletarian domination. The Communist Manifesto  related the Communist Party’s historical and philosophical basis to class conflict and struggle. The proletariat broke free from traditional morals and social relations for the sake of seizing power. From their first appearance, the doctrines of communism were set in opposition to all tradition.

Human nature universally repels violence. Violence makes people ruthless and tyrannical. Thus, in all places and at all times, humanity has fundamentally rejected the premises of the Communist Party’s theory of violence, a theory that has no antecedent in any earlier systems of thought, philosophy, or tradition. The communist system of terror fell upon the earth as if from nowhere.

The CCP’s evil ideology is built on the premise that humans can conquer nature and transform the world. The Communist Party attracted many people with its ideals of “emancipating all of mankind” and “world unity.” [4] The CCP deceived many people, especially those who were concerned about the human condition and were eager to make their mark on society.

The CCP forgot that there is a heaven above. Inspired by the beautiful lie of “building heaven on earth,” the members of the CCP despised traditions and looked down upon the lives of others, which in turn degraded themselves. They did all of this in an attempt to receive praise and gain honor from the CCP.

The Communist Party presented the fantasy of a “communist paradise” as the truth, and aroused people’s enthusiasm to fight for it: “For reason thunders new creation, ‘Tis a better world in birth.” [5] Employing such an absolutely absurd idea, the CCP severed the connections between humanity and heaven, and cut the lifeline that connected the Chinese people to their ancestors and national traditions. By summoning people to give their lives for communism, the CCP strengthened its ability to do harm.

Second Inherited Trait: Deceit

Evil must lie. To take advantage of the working class, the CCP conferred upon it the titles of “the most advanced class,” “the selfless class,” “the leading class,” and “the pioneers of the proletarian revolution.”

When the Communist Party needed the peasants, it promised “land to the tiller.” Mao applauded the peasants, saying, “Without the poor peasants, there would be no revolution; to deny their role is to deny the revolution.” [6] When the Communist Party needed help from the capitalist class, it called them “fellow travelers in the proletarian revolution” and promised them “democratic republicanism.” When the Communist Party was almost exterminated by the Kuomintang, it appealed loudly that “Chinese do not fight Chinese” and promised to submit itself to the leadership of the Kuomintang. As soon as the war against Japan (1937–1945) was over, the CCP turned against the Kuomintang in full force and overthrew its government. Similarly, the CCP eliminated the capitalist class shortly after taking control of China and, in the end, transformed the peasants and workers into a truly penniless proletariat.

The notion of a united front is a typical example of the lies the CCP tells. To win the civil war against the Kuomintang, the CCP departed from its usual tactics of killing every family member of the landlords and rich peasants and adopted a “temporary policy of unification” with its class enemies, including the landlords and rich peasants. On July 20, 1947, Mao announced, “Except for a few reactionary elements, we should adopt a more relaxed attitude toward the landlord class … in order to reduce hostile elements.” After the CCP gained power, however, the landlords and rich peasants did not escape genocide.

Saying one thing and doing another is normal for the Communist Party. When the CCP needed to use the democratic parties, it urged that all parties “strive for long-term coexistence, exercise mutual supervision, be sincere with each other, and share honor and disgrace.” Anyone who disagreed with or refused to conform to the Party’s concepts, words, deeds, or organization was eliminated. Marx, Lenin, and the leaders of the CCP have all said that the Communist Party’s political power would not be shared with any other individuals or groups. From the very beginning, communism clearly carried within it the gene of dictatorship. The CCP is despotic and exclusive. It has never coexisted with any other political parties or groups in a sincere manner, not when it attempted to seize power, nor after it gained control. Even during the so-called “relaxed” period, the CCP’s coexistence with others was at most a choreographed performance.

History tells us never to believe any promises made by the CCP, nor to trust that any of the CCP’s commitments will be fulfilled. Believing the words of the Communist Party — no matter what the issue may be — will cost a person his life.

Third Inherited Trait: Incitement

Deceit serves to incite hatred. Struggle relies on hatred. Where hatred does not exist, it can be created.

The deeply rooted patriarchal clan system in the Chinese countryside served as a fundamental barrier to the Communist Party’s establishment of political power. The rural society was initially harmonious, and the relationship between the landowners and tenants was not entirely confrontational. The landowners offered the peasants a means to live, and in return, the peasants supported the landowners. This somewhat mutually dependent relationship was twisted by the CCP into extreme class antagonism and class exploitation. Harmony was turned into hostility, hatred, and struggle. The reasonable was made to be unreasonable, order made to be chaos, and republicanism made to be despotism.

The Communist Party encouraged expropriation, murder for money, and the slaughter of landlords, rich peasants, their families, and their clans. Many peasants were not willing to take the property of others; some returned at night the property they had taken from the landlords during the day. Such people were then criticized by CCP work teams in rural regions as having “low class consciousness.”

To incite class hatred, the CCP reduced the Chinese theater to a propaganda tool. A well-known story, The White-Haired Girl , [7] was originally about a female immortal and had nothing to do with class conflicts. Under the pens of the military writers, however, it was transformed into a “modern” drama, opera, and ballet about oppression, used to incite hatred between the classes.

When Japan invaded China during World War II, the CCP did not fight against the Japanese troops. Instead, the CCP attacked the Kuomintang government with accusations that the Kuomintang had betrayed the country by not fighting against Japan. Even at the most critical moment of national calamity, it incited people to oppose the Kuomintang government.

Inciting the masses to struggle against each other is a classic trick of the CCP. The CCP created the 95-5 formula of class assignment: 95 percent of the population would be designated as members of various classes that could be won over, while the remaining 5 percent would be designated as class enemies. People within the 95 percent were safe, but those within the 5 percent were “struggled against.” Out of fear, people strived to be included in the 95 percent. This resulted in many cases in which people turned on others, adding to the persecution. The CCP has, through the use of incitement in many of its political movements, perfected this technique.

Fourth Inherited Trait: Unleashing the Scum of Society

Unleashing the scum of society leads to evil, and evil must utilize the scum of society. Communist revolutions have often made use of the rebellion of hoodlums and social scum. The Paris Commune actually involved homicide, arson, and violence led by social scum.

Even Marx looked down upon the “lumpenproletariat.” [8] In The Communist Manifesto , [9] Marx said, “The ‘dangerous class,’ the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.” Peasants, on the other hand, were considered by Marx and Engels to be unqualified to be any social class because of their so-called fragmentation and ignorance.

The CCP developed further the insidious traits of Marxist theory. Mao said, “The social scum and hoodlums have always been spurned by the society, but they are actually the bravest, the most thorough and firmest in the revolution in the rural areas.” [10] The lumpenproletariat enhanced the violent nature of the CCP and established the early political power of the Communist Party in rural areas.

The word “revolution” in Chinese literally means “taking lives,” which sounds horrific and disastrous to all good people. However, the Party managed to imbue “revolution” with positive meaning. Similarly, in a debate over the term “lumpenproletariat” during the Cultural Revolution, the CCP felt that “lumpen” did not sound good, so the term was simply shortened to “proletariat.”

Another behavior of the scum of society is to play the scoundrel. When criticized for being dictators, Party officials would reveal their tendency to bully and would shamelessly pronounce something along the lines of, “You are right, that is precisely what we are doing. The Chinese experience accumulated through the past decades requires that we exercise this power of democratic dictatorship. We call it the ‘people’s democratic dictatorship.’”

Fifth Inherited Trait: Espionage

In addition to cheating, inciting violence, and employing the scum of society, the techniques of espionage and sowing dissension are also used by the CCP. The Party is skillful at infiltration.

Decades ago, the “top three” most outstanding undercover agents for the CCP — Qian Zhuangfei, Li Kenong, and Hu Beifeng — worked for Chen Geng, the manager of the second branch of the spy section of the Central Committee of the CCP.

When Qian was working as a confidential secretary and trusted subordinate of Xu Enzeng, the director of the Investigation Office of the Kuomintang Central Committee, Qian sent secret information to Li about the Kuomintang’s first and second strategic plans to encircle the CCP’s troops in Jiangxi Province. Qian sent the intelligence through the internal mail of the Organization Department of the Kuomintang Central Committee, and Li then hand-delivered it to Zhou Enlai. [11] In April 1930, a special double-agent organization, funded by the Central Investigation Branch of the Kuomintang, was set up in the northeastern region of China. On the surface, it belonged to the Kuomintang and was managed by Qian, but behind the scenes, it was controlled by the CCP and led by Chen.

Li also joined the Kuomintang’s army headquarters as a cryptographer. Li was the one who decoded the urgent message pertaining to the arrest of Gu Shunzhang, [12] a CCP Security Bureau director who became an informant while under the custody of the Kuomintang. Qian immediately sent the decoded message to Zhou, thereby keeping the whole lot of spies from being caught in a dragnet.

Yang Dengying was a pro-communist special representative for the Kuomintang’s Central Investigation Office stationed in Shanghai. The CCP ordered him to arrest and execute those party members whom the CCP considered unreliable. A senior CCP officer from Henan Province once offended a party cadre, and his own people pulled some strings to put him in the Kuomintang’s jail for several years.

During the War of Liberation, [13] the CCP managed to plant a secret agent, whom Chiang Kai-shek [14] kept in close confidence: Lieutenant General Liu Fei. He and the deputy minister of the Ministry of Defense were in charge of deploying the Kuomintang military forces. Before the Kuomintang’s army leadership even found out about their next deployment, information about the plans would have already reached the CCP headquarters in Yan’an. The communists would then come up with a plan of defense accordingly.

In one instance, Xiong Xianghui, a secretary and trusted subordinate of Kuomintang military leader Hu Zongnan, [15] revealed Hu’s plan to invade Yan’an to Zhou. When Hu and his forces reached Yan’an, it was already deserted. Zhou once said, “Chairman Mao knew the military orders issued by Chiang Kai-shek before they even made it to Chiang’s army commander.”

Sixth Inherited Trait: Robbery

Everything the CCP has was obtained through robbery. When it pulled the Red Army together to establish its rule through military force, the army needed money for arms, ammunition, food, and clothes. The CCP raised funds in the form of suppressing the local tyrants and robbing banks, behaving like bandits.

In a mission led by Li Xiannian, [16] one of the CCP’s senior leaders, the Red Army kidnapped individuals from the richest families in county seats in the area of western Hubei Province. They did not just kidnap one single person, but one from every rich family in the clan. The kidnapped were kept alive to be ransomed back to their families for continued monetary support for the army. It was not until either the Red Army was satisfied or the families of the kidnapped were completely drained of resources that the hostages were sent home, many at death’s door. Some had been terrorized or tortured so badly that they died before they could return.

Through “cracking down on the local tyrants and confiscating their lands,” the CCP extended the tricks and violence of their plunder to the whole society, replacing tradition with “the new order.”

The Communist Party has committed all manner of ill deeds, large and small, while it has done no good at all. It has offered small favors to everyone in order to incite some to denounce others. As a result, compassion and virtue have disappeared completely and have been replaced with strife and killing. The “communist utopia” is actually a euphemism for violent plunder.

Seventh Inherited Trait: Struggle

Deceit, incitement, unleashing social scum, and espionage are all for the purpose of robbing and fighting. Communist philosophy promotes struggle. The communist revolution was absolutely not just some disorganized beating, smashing, and robbing. Mao said, “The main targets of peasants’ attacks are local tyrants, the evil gentry, and lawless landlords, but in passing they also struck out against all kinds of patriarchal ideas and institutions, against the corrupt officials in the cities and against the bad practices and customs in the rural areas.” [17] The Party clearly ordered that the entire traditional system and customs of the countryside be destroyed.

Communist struggling also includes armed forces and armed struggle. “A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained, and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.” [18]

Struggle was used by the CCP when it attempted to seize state power by force. A few decades later, the CCP used the same characteristic of fighting to “educate” the next generation during the Cultural Revolution.

Eighth Inherited Trait: Elimination

Communism has done many things with absolute cruelty.

The CCP promised the intellectuals a “heaven on earth.” Later, it labeled them “rightist” and put them into the infamous ninth category [19] of persecuted people, alongside landlords and spies. It deprived landlords and capitalists of their property; exterminated the landlord and rich peasant classes; destroyed rank and order in the countryside; took authority away from local figures; kidnapped and extorted bribes from the rich; brainwashed war prisoners; “reformed” industrialists and capitalists; infiltrated the Kuomintang and disintegrated it; split from the Communist International and betrayed it; cleaned out all dissidents through successive political movements after it came to power in 1949; and threatened its own members with coercion. Everything it did was to the extreme.

The above-mentioned occurrences were all based on the CCP’s theory of genocide. Its every past political movement was a campaign of terror with genocidal intent. The CCP started to build its theoretical system of genocide at its early stage as a composite of its theories on class, revolution, struggle, violence, dictatorship, movements, and political parties. Its system encompasses all of the experiences it has embraced and accumulated through its various genocidal practices.

The essential expression of CCP genocide is the extermination of conscience and independent thought. In this way, a “reign of terror” serves the fundamental interests of the CCP. The CCP will eliminate you not only if you are against it, but also if you are for it. It will eliminate whomever it deems should be eliminated. Consequently, everyone lives in the shadow of terror and fears the CCP.

Ninth Inherited Trait: Control

All of the inherited characteristics are aimed at achieving a single goal: to control the populace through the use of terror. Through its evil actions, the CCP has proved itself to be the natural enemy of all existing social forces.

Since its inception, the CCP has struggled through one crisis after another, among which the crisis of survival has been the most critical. The CCP exists in a state of perpetual fear for its survival. Its sole purpose has been to maintain its own existence and power, for its own highest benefit.

To supplement its declining power, the CCP turns to even more evil measures on a regular basis. The Party’s interest is not the interest of any single party member, nor is it a collection of any individual interests. Rather, it is the interest of the Party as a collective entity that overrides any sense of the individual. “Party nature,” the most vicious characteristic of this evil specter, overwhelms human nature so completely that the Chinese people have lost their humanity.

For instance, Zhou Enlai and Sun Bingwen were once comrades. After Sun died, Zhou took his daughter, Sun Weishi, as his adopted daughter. During the Cultural Revolution, Sun Weishi was reprimanded. She later died in custody from having a long nail driven into her head. Her arrest warrant had been signed by her adoptive father, Zhou.

One of the early leaders of the CCP was Ren Bishi, who was in charge of opium sales during the war against Japan. Opium was a symbol of foreign invasion at that time, as the British used opium exports to drain the Chinese economy and turn the Chinese people into addicts. Despite the strong national sentiment against opium, Ren dared to plant opium in a large area because of his “sense of Party nature,” risking universal condemnation. Due to the sensitive and illegal nature of the opium dealings, the CCP used the word “soap” as a code word for opium. The CCP used the revenue from the illicit drug trade with bordering countries to fund its existence.

At the Centenary of the Birth of Ren, one of the new generation of Chinese leaders highly praised Ren’s aptitude for the Party, or sense of Party nature, claiming: “Ren possessed superior character and was a model Party member. He also had a firm belief in Communism and unlimited loyalty to the cause of the Party.” [20]

Another individual with good aptitude for the Party was Zhang Side. The Party said that Zhang was killed by the sudden collapse of a kiln, but others claimed that he died while roasting opium. Since he was a quiet person, having served in the Central Guard Division and never once asking for a promotion, it was said that “his death is weightier than Mount Tai,” [21] meaning that his life held the greatest importance.

Another model of Party nature, Lei Feng, was well-known as the “screw that never rusts, functioning in the revolutionary machine.” For years, both Lei and Zhang were used to educate the Chinese people to be loyal to the Party.

Mao said, “The power of examples is boundless.” Many Party “heroes” were used to model the “iron will and principle of the Party spirit.”

Upon gaining power, the CCP launched an aggressive campaign of mind control to mold many new “tools” and “screws” from successive generations. The Party formed a set of “proper thoughts” and a range of stereotypical behaviors. These protocols were initially used within the Party but quickly expanded to the entire public. Clothed in the name of the nation, these thoughts and actions worked to brainwash people into complying with the evil mechanism of the CCP.

II. The CCP’s Dishonorable Foundation

The CCP lays claim to a brilliant history, one that has seen victory after victory. This is merely an attempt to prettify itself and glorify the CCP’s image in the eyes of the public. As a matter of fact, the CCP has no glory to advertise at all. Only by using the nine inherited evil traits could it establish and maintain its power.

Establishment of the CCP: Raised on the Breast of the Soviet Union

“With the report of the first cannon during the October Revolution, it brought us Marxism and Leninism.” [22] That was how the Party portrayed itself to the people. However, when the Party was first founded, it was just the Asian branch of the Soviet Union. From the beginning, it was a traitorous party. During the founding period of the Party, its members had no money, no ideology, and no experience. They had no foundation upon which to support themselves.

The CCP joined the Comintern to link its destiny with the existing violent revolution. The CCP’s violent revolution was just a descendant of Marx and Lenin’s revolution. The Comintern was the global headquarters from which to overthrow political powers all over the world, and the CCP was simply an eastern branch of Soviet communism, carrying out the imperialism of the Russian Red Army.

The CCP shared the experience of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party of violent political takeover and dictatorship of the proletariat, and it followed the Soviet Party’s instructions on its political line, intellectual line, and organizational line. The CCP copied the secret and underground means by which an external, illegal organization survived, adopting extreme surveillance and control measures. The Soviet Union was the backbone and patron of the CCP.

The CCP constitution, passed by the First Congress of the CCP, was formulated by the Comintern based on Marxism-Leninism and the theories of class struggle, dictatorship of the proletariat, and party establishment. The Soviet party constitution provided the fundamental basis. The soul of the CCP consists of an ideology imported from the Soviet Union. Chen Duxiu, one of the foremost officials of the CCP, had different opinions from Maring, the representative from the Comintern. Maring wrote a memo to Chen stating that if Chen were a real member of the Communist Party, he would have to follow orders from the Comintern. Even though Chen was one of the CCP’s founding fathers, he could do nothing but listen to and obey orders. In actuality, he and the Party were simply subordinates of the Soviet Union.

During the Third Congress of the CCP in 1923, Chen publicly acknowledged that the Party was funded almost entirely by contributions from the Soviet Comintern. In one year, the Comintern contributed more than 200,000 yuan to the CCP, with unsatisfactory results. The Comintern accused the CCP of not being diligent enough in its efforts. According to incomplete statistics from declassified Party documents, the CCP received 16,655 yuan from October 1921 to June 1922. In 1924, it received $1,500 and 32,927.17 yuan, and in 1927, it received 187,674 yuan.

Tactics commonly used by the CCP today, such as lobbying, offering bribes, using threats, and other ways of going through the backdoor, were already in use back then. The Comintern accused the CCP of continuously lobbying for funds:

They take advantage of the different funding sources (International Communications Office, representatives for the Comintern, and military organizations, etc.) to get their funds because one organization does not know that the other organization has already dispersed the funds. … The funny thing is, they not only understand the psychology of our Soviet comrades; most importantly, they know how to treat differently the comrades in charge of dispersing funds. Once they know that they won’t be able to get it through normal means, they delay meetings. In the end, they use the crudest means to blackmail, like spreading rumors that some grassroots officials have conflicts with the Soviets and that money is being given to warlords instead of to the CCP. [23]

The First Kuomintang–CCP Alliance: A Parasite Infiltrates to the Core and Sabotages the Northern Expedition [24]

The CCP has always taught its people that Chiang Kai-chek betrayed the National Revolution movement, [25] forcing the CCP to rise in armed revolt.

In reality, the CCP is a parasite or possessing specter. It cooperated with the Kuomintang, in the first CCP–Kuomintang alliance, for the sake of expanding its influence through taking advantage of the National Revolution. Moreover, the CCP was eager to launch a Soviet-supported revolution and seize power, and its desire for power in fact led it to destroy and betray the National Revolution movement.

At the Second National Congress of the CCP in July 1922, party members opposing the alliance with the Kuomintang dominated the congress, because they were anxious to seize power. However, the Comintern vetoed the resolution and ordered the CCP to join with the Kuomintang. During the first CCP–Kuomintang alliance, the CCP held its Fourth National Congress in Shanghai in January 1925 and raised the question of leadership in China, before Sun Yat-sen [26] died on March 12, 1925. Had Sun not died, he, instead of Chiang, would have been the target of the CCP in its quest for power.

With the support of the Soviet Union, the CCP wantonly seized political power inside the Kuomintang during their alliance. Tan Pingshan became the minister of the Central Personnel Department of the Kuomintang. [27] Feng Jupo was secretary of the Ministry of Labor and was granted full power to deal with all labor-related affairs. [28] Lin Zuhan was the minister of rural affairs, [29] while Peng Pai was secretary of this ministry. [30] Mao assumed the position of acting minister of the Kuomintang Propaganda Ministry. The military schools and leadership of the military were always the focus of the CCP: Zhou Enlai held the position of director of the Political Department of the Huangpu (Whampoa) Military Academy, and Zhang Shenfu was the associate director. [31] Zhou was also chief of the Judge Advocates Section, and he planted Russian military advisers here and there. Many communists held positions as political instructors and faculty at Kuomintang military schools. CCP members also served as Kuomintang party representatives at various levels of the National Revolutionary Army. [32] It was also stipulated that without a CCP representative’s signature, no order would be deemed effective. As a result of this parasitic attachment to the National Revolution movement, the number of CCP members increased dramatically from less than one thousand in 1925 to thirty thousand by 1928.

The Northern Expedition started in February 1926. From October 1926 to March 1927, the CCP launched three armed rebellions in Shanghai. Later, it attacked the Northern Expedition military headquarters, but failed. Picketers in general strikes in Guangdong Province engaged in violent conflicts with the police every day. Such uprisings caused the Kuomintang to begin a purge of the CCP on April 12, 1927. [33]

In August 1927, the CCP members within the National Revolutionary Army initiated the Nanchang Rebellion, which was quickly suppressed. In September, the CCP launched the Autumn Harvest Uprising to attack Changsha, but that attack was suppressed as well.

The CCP began to implement a network of control in the army whereby “Party branches [were] established at the level of the company in the army,” and it fled to the Jinggang Mountains in Jiangxi Province, [34] establishing rule over the countryside there.

The Hunan Peasant Rebellion

During the Northern Expedition, when the National Revolutionary Army was at war with the warlords, the CCP instigated rebellions in the rural areas in an attempt to capture power. The Hunan Peasant Rebellion in 1927 was a revolt of the riffraff — the scum of society — as was the well-known Paris Commune of 1871, the first communist revolt. French nationals and foreigners who witnessed the Paris Commune saw that it was a group of destructive roving bandits with no vision. Living in exquisite buildings and large mansions and eating extravagant and luxurious meals, the communists cared only about enjoying their momentary happiness and worried not at all about what lay ahead. During the revolt, they censored the press. They took as hostage and later shot the archbishop of Paris, Georges Darboy, who gave sermons to the king. For their personal enjoyment, they cruelly killed sixty-four clergymen, set fire to palaces, and destroyed government offices, private residences, monuments, and inscribed columns.

The wealth and beauty of the French capital had been second to none in Europe. The Paris Commune uprising saw buildings reduced to ashes and people to skeletons. Such atrocities and cruelty had rarely been seen throughout history.

Mao admitted:

It is true that the peasants are in a sense ‘unruly’ in the countryside. Supreme in authority, the peasant association allows the landlord no say and sweeps away his prestige. This amounts to striking the landlord down to the dust and keeping him there. The peasants threaten, ‘We will put you in the other register [the register of reactionaries]!’ They fine the local tyrants and evil gentry, they demand contributions from them, and they smash their sedan chairs. People swarm into the houses of local tyrants and evil gentry who are against the peasant association, slaughter their pigs, and consume their grain. They even loll for a minute or two on the ivory-inlaid beds belonging to the young ladies in the households of the local tyrants and evil gentry. At the slightest provocation, they make arrests, crown the arrested with tall paper hats, and parade them through the village, saying, ‘You dirty landlords, now you know who we are!’ Doing whatever they like and turning everything upside down, they have created a kind of terror in the countryside. [35]

But Mao gave such “unruly” actions his full approval, saying: “To put it bluntly, it is necessary to create terror for a while in every rural area, or otherwise, it would be impossible to suppress the activities of the counter-revolutionaries in the countryside or overthrow the authority of the gentry. Proper limits have to be exceeded in order to right a wrong, or else the wrong cannot be righted. … Many of their deeds in the period of revolutionary action, which were seen as going too far, were in fact the very things the revolution required.” [36]

Communist revolution creates a system of terror.

The Operation ‘Against Japan’

The CCP labeled the Long March as a northbound operation against Japanese forces. It trumpeted the Long March as a Chinese revolutionary fairy tale. It claimed that the Long March was a “manifesto,” a “propaganda team,” and a “seeding machine,” which ended with the CCP’s victory and its enemies’ defeat. The CCP fabricated such obvious lies about marching north to fight the Japanese to cover its failures. From October 1933 to January 1934, the Communist Party suffered a near total defeat: In the fifth operation by the Kuomintang, which aimed to encircle and annihilate the CCP, the CCP lost its rural strongholds one after another. With its base areas continually shrinking, the main Red Army had to flee. This is the true origin of the Long March, which was in fact aimed at breaking out of the encirclement and fleeing to Outer Mongolia and Soviet Russia along an arc that first went west and then north. Once in place, the CCP could escape into the Soviet Union in case of defeat.

The CCP encountered great difficulties while en route toward Outer Mongolia. It chose to go through Shanxi and Suiyuan. By marching through these northern provinces, it could claim to be “fighting the Japanese” and win people’s hearts. Additionally, these areas were safe, as no Japanese troops were deployed there. The area occupied by the Japanese army was along the Great Wall.

A year later, when the CCP finally arrived at Shanbei (northern Shaanxi Province), the main force of the Red Army had decreased from 80,000 to 6,000 troops.

The Xi’an Incident

In December 1936, two Kuomintang generals, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng, kidnapped Chiang in Xi’an. This has since come to be known as the Xi’an Incident. According to CCP textbooks, the Xi’an Incident was a “military coup” initiated by Zhang and Yang, who delivered a life-or-death ultimatum to Chiang, forcing him to take a stance against the Japanese invaders. Zhou was reportedly invited to Xi’an as a CCP representative to help negotiate a peaceful resolution. With different groups in China mediating, the incident was resolved peacefully, thereby ending a civil war of ten years and starting a unified national alliance against the Japanese. The CCP history books say that this incident was a crucial turning point for China, and they depict the CCP as the patriotic party that took the interests of the whole nation into account.

More and more documents have revealed that many CCP spies had already gathered around Zhang and Yang before the Xi’an Incident. Liu Ding, an underground CCP member, was introduced to Zhang by Song Qingling, wife of Sun Yat-sen, sister of Madame Chiang, and a CCP member. After the Xi’an Incident, Mao praised Liu, saying that “Liu Ding performed meritorious service in the Xi’an Incident.”

Among those working at Yang’s side was his wife, Xie Baozhen, a CCP member who worked in the Political Department of the army under Yang. Xie had married Yang in January 1928 with the approval of the CCP. In addition, CCP member Wang Bingnan was an honored guest in Yang’s home at the time. Wang later became a vice minister for the CCP’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It was these CCP members surrounding generals Zhang and Yang, who directly instigated the coup. At the beginning of the incident, the leaders of the CCP wanted to kill Chiang in revenge for his earlier suppression of the CCP. At that time, the CCP had a fragile base in northern Shaanxi Province and was in danger of being eliminated in a single battle. The CCP, utilizing all of its acquired skills of deception, instigated the revolt by Zhang and Yang.

In order to pin down the Japanese and prevent them from attacking the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin personally wrote to the Central Committee of the CCP, asking it not to kill Chiang, but rather to cooperate with him for a second time. Mao and Zhou realized that they could not destroy the Kuomintang with the limited strength of the CCP alone. If they killed Chiang, they would be defeated and even eliminated by the avenging Kuomintang army.

Under these circumstances, the CCP changed its tune. In the name of joint resistance against the Japanese, the CCP forced Chiang to accept cooperation a second time. The CCP first instigated a revolt, pointing the gun at Chiang, but then turned around and, acting like a stage hero, forced him to accept the CCP again. The CCP not only escaped a crisis of disintegration, but also used the opportunity to latch onto the Kuomintang government a second time.

The Red Army was soon turned into the Eighth Route Army and grew bigger and more powerful than before. Who wouldn’t have been fooled by the CCP’s unmatchable skills of deception?

The War Against Japan

When the war against Japan broke out in 1937, the Kuomintang had more than 1.7 million combat troops, a navy that displaced a total of 110,000 tons, and about 600 fighter planes of various kinds. The total size of the CCP army, including the New Fourth Army, which was newly formed in November 1937, did not exceed 70,000 troops. Its power was weakened further by internal fractional politics; it could have been eliminated in a single battle.

The CCP realized that if it were to face the Japanese in battle, it would not be able to defeat even a single division of Japanese troops. In the eyes of the CCP, sustaining its own power rather than ensuring the survival of the nation was the central focus and the reason for its emphasis on “national unity.” Therefore, during its cooperation with the Kuomintang, the CCP exercised an internal policy of “giving priority to the struggle for political power, which is to be disclosed internally and realized in actual practice.”

After the Japanese occupied the city of Shenyang on September 18, 1931, thereby extending their control over large areas in northeastern China, the CCP fought shoulder to shoulder with Japanese invaders to defeat the Kuomintang. In a declaration written in response to the Japanese occupation, the CCP exhorted the people in the Kuomintang-controlled areas to rebel, calling on “workers to strike, peasants to make trouble, students to boycott classes, poor people to quit working, soldiers to revolt” so as to overthrow the Nationalist government.

The CCP made a show of calling for resistance to the Japanese, but they only had local armies and guerrilla forces in camps away from the frontlines. Except for a few battles, including the one fought at Pingxing Pass, the CCP did not make much of a contribution at all to the war against the Japanese. Instead, it spent its energy expanding its own base. When the Japanese surrendered, the CCP incorporated the surrendering soldiers into its army, claiming to have expanded to more than 900,000 regular soldiers, in addition to 2 million militia fighters.

The Kuomintang army was essentially alone on the frontlines while fighting the Japanese, losing more than 200 marshals in the war. The commanding officers on the CCP side bore nearly no losses. However, the textbooks of the CCP have constantly claimed that the Kuomintang did not resist the Japanese and that it was the CCP that led the great victory in the war against Japan.

Rectification in Yan’an

The CCP attracted countless patriotic youth to Yan’an in the name of fighting against the Japanese, then turned around and persecuted tens of thousands of them during the rectification movement in Yan’an. Since gaining control of China, the CCP has depicted Yan’an as the revolutionary “holy land,” but has not made any mention of the crimes it committed during the rectification.

The rectification movement in Yan’an was the largest, darkest, and most ferocious power game ever played out in the human world. In the name of “cleansing petty bourgeoisie toxins,” the Party washed away morality, independent thought, freedom of action, tolerance, and dignity. The first step of the rectification was to set up individual personnel archives, which included 1) a personal statement; 2) a chronicle of one’s political life; 3) a description of one’s family background and social relationships; 4) an autobiography and record of ideological transformation; and 5) an evaluation according to Party nature.

For the personnel archive, people had to list all of their acquaintances since birth and all important life events, along with the time and place of their occurrence. People were asked to write repeatedly for the archive, and any omissions would be seen as signs of impurity. They had to describe all social activities they had ever participated in, especially those related to joining the Party, with an emphasis on their personal thought processes during these social activities.

Evaluation based on Party nature was even more important, and people had to confess any thoughts or behavior, speech, work attitudes, everyday life, or social activities that opposed the Party. For example, in evaluating their own consciousness, people were required to scrutinize whether they had been concerned about their self-interest, whether they had used work for the Party to reach personal goals, whether they had wavered in trust in the revolutionary future, whether they had feared death during battles, and whether they had missed spouses and family members after joining the Party or the army. There were no objective standards, so nearly everyone was found to have problems.

Coercion was used to extract “confessions” from cadres who were being inspected in order to eliminate “hidden traitors.” Countless frame-ups and false accusations resulted, and a large number of cadres were persecuted. During the rectification, Yan’an was called “a place for purging human nature.” A work team entered the University of Military Affairs and Politics to examine the cadres’ personal histories, inflicting “Red Terror” for two months. Various methods were used to extract confessions, including extemporaneous confessions, demonstrative confessions, “group persuasions,” “five-minute persuasions,” private advice, conference reports, and identifying the “radishes” (meaning those who were “red on the outside but white on the inside”). There was also “picture taking,” lining up everyone on stage for examination. Those who appeared nervous were identified and targeted as subjects to be investigated.

Even representatives from the Comintern recoiled at the methods used during the rectification, saying that the Yan’an situation was depressing. People did not dare interact with one another. Each person had his own ax to grind, and everyone was nervous and frightened. No one dared to speak the truth or protect mistreated friends because each was trying to save his own life. The vicious — those who flattered, lied, and insulted others — were promoted. Humiliation became a fact of life in Yan’an — it was either humiliate others or humiliate oneself. People were pushed to the brink of insanity, having been forced to abandon their dignity, sense of honor or shame, and love for one another to save their own lives and their own jobs. They ceased to express their own opinions and recited Party leaders’ articles instead.

This same system of oppression has been employed in all CCP political activities since it seized power in China.

Betraying the Country to Seize Power

Russia’s February Revolution in 1917 was a relatively mild uprising. The czar placed the interests of the country first and surrendered the throne instead of resisting. Lenin hurriedly returned to Russia from Germany, staged another coup, and, in the name of communist revolution, murdered the revolutionaries of the capitalist class who had overthrown the czar, thus strangling Russia’s bourgeois revolution.

The CCP, like Lenin, picked the fruits of a nationalist revolution. After the war against Japan was over, the CCP launched a so-called “War of Liberation” (1946–1949) to overthrow the Kuomintang government, bringing the disaster of war to China once more.

The CCP is well known for its “huge-crowd strategy,” the sacrifice of a massive number of lives to win a battle. In several battles with the Kuomintang, including those fought in Liaoxi-Shenyang, Beijing-Tianjin, and Huai-Hai, [37] the CCP used the most primitive, barbarous, and inhumane tactics, sacrificing huge numbers of its own people. When besieging Changchun City in Jilin Province, northeastern China, to exhaust the city’s food supply, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was ordered to forbid ordinary people from leaving the city. During the two months of Changchun’s besiegement, nearly two hundred thousand people died of hunger and cold. But the PLA did not allow people to leave. After the battle was over, the CCP, without a tinge of shame, claimed that they had “liberated Changchun without firing a shot.”

From 1947 to 1948, the CCP signed the Harbin Agreement and the Moscow Agreement with the Soviet Union, surrendering national assets and giving away resources from the northeast in exchange for the Soviet Union’s full support in foreign relations and military affairs. According to the agreements, the Soviet Union would supply the CCP with fifty airplanes, give the CCP weapons left by the surrendered Japanese in two installments, and sell the Soviet-controlled ammunition and military supplies in China’s northeast to the CCP at low prices. If the Kuomintang launched an amphibious landing in the northeast, the Soviet Union would secretly support the CCP army. In addition, the Soviet Union would help the CCP gain control over Xinjiang in northwestern China; the CCP and the Soviet Union would build an allied air force; and the Soviets would help equip eleven divisions of the CCP army and transport one-third of its U.S.-supplied weapons (worth $13 billion) into northeastern China.

To gain Soviet support and advanced weapons, the CCP promised the Soviet Union special transportation privileges in the northeast both on land and by air. It offered the Soviets information about the actions of both the Kuomintang government and the U.S. military; it provided them with products from the northeast (cotton and soybeans) and military supplies; it granted them preferential mining rights in China; it allowed them to station armies in the northeast, including Xinjiang; and it permitted them to set up the Far East Intelligence Bureau in China. If war broke out in Europe, the CCP would send an expeditionary army of one hundred thousand, plus two million laborers, to support the Soviet Union. In addition, the CCP promised to merge some special regions in Liaoning Province into North Korea, if necessary.

III. Demonstrating Evil Traits

Eternal Fear Marks the Party’s History

The most prominent characteristic of the CCP is its eternal fear. Survival has been the CCP’s greatest interest since its inception. The desire for survival managed to overcome the fear hidden beneath its ever-changing appearance. The CCP is like a cancer that metastasizes throughout every part of the body, kills the surrounding normal cells, and grows beyond control. In our cycle of history, society has been unable to dissolve such a mutated factor as the CCP and has no alternative to letting it proliferate at will. This mutated factor is so powerful that nothing within the level and range of its expansion can stop it. Much of society has become polluted, and larger and larger areas have been flooded with communism or communist elements. These elements are further strengthened and taken advantage of by the CCP and have fundamentally degraded the morality and society of humankind.

The CCP doesn’t believe in any generally recognized principle of morality and justice. All of its principles are used entirely for its own interest. It is fundamentally selfish, and there are no principles that could restrain and control its desires. Based on its own principles, the Party needs to keep changing how its surface appears by taking on new forms. During the early period when its survival was at stake, the CCP attached itself to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to the Kuomintang, to the Kuomintang’s governing body, and to the National Revolution. After capturing power, the CCP attached itself to various forms of opportunism, to the citizens’ minds and feelings, to social structures and means — to anything it could put its hands on. It has utilized every crisis as an opportunity to gather more power and to strengthen its means of control.

The CCP’s ‘Magic Weapon’

The CCP claims that revolutionary victory depends upon three “magic weapons”: the Party’s construction, armed struggle, and united fronts. The experience with the Kuomintang offered the CCP two more such “weapons”: propaganda and espionage. The Party’s various “magic weapons” have all been infused with the CCP’s nine inherited traits: evil, deceit, incitement, unleashing the scum of society, espionage, robbery, fighting, elimination, and control.

Marxism-Leninism is evil in its nature. Ironically, the Chinese communists do not really understand Marxism-Leninism. Lin Biao [38] said that there were very few CCP members who had really read the works of Marx or Lenin. The public considered Qu Qiubai [39] to be an ideologue, but he admitted to having read very little of Marxist-Leninist theory.

Mao’s ideology is a rural version of Marxism-Leninism that advocates the rebellion of peasants. Deng’s theory of the primary stage of socialism has capitalism as its last name. Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents” [40] was pieced together out of nothing. The CCP has never really understood what Marxism-Leninism is but has inherited its evil aspects, upon which the CCP has foisted off its own even more wicked stuff.

The CCP’s united front is a conjunction of deceit and short-term payoffs. The goal of unity was to strengthen its power, to help it grow from a loner to a huge clan, and to change the ratio of its friends to its enemies. Unity required discernment — identifying who were enemies and who were friends; who were on the left, in the middle, or on the right; who should be befriended and when; and who should be attacked and when. It easily turned former enemies into friends and then back into enemies again. For example, during the period of the democratic revolution, the Party allied with the capitalists; during the socialist revolution, it eliminated the capitalists. In another example, leaders of other democratic parties such as Zhang Bojun [41] and Luo Longji, [42] co-founders of the China Democratic League, were made use of as supporters of the CCP during the period of seizing state power, but later were persecuted as “rightists.”

The Communist Party Is a Sophisticated Professional Gang

The Communist Party has used two-sided strategies, with one side soft and flexible and the other hard and stern. Its softer strategies include propaganda, united fronts, sowing dissension, espionage, instigating rebellion, double-dealing, getting into people’s minds, brainwashing, lies and deception, covering up the truth, psychological abuse, and generating an atmosphere of terror.

In doing these things, the CCP creates a syndrome of fear inside the people’s hearts that leads them to easily forget the Party’s wrongdoings. These myriad methods can stamp out human nature and foster maliciousness in humanity. The CCP’s hard tactics include violence, armed struggle, persecution, political movements, murdering witnesses, kidnapping, suppressing different voices, armed attacks, periodic crackdowns, and the like. These aggressive methods create and perpetuate terror.

The CCP uses both soft and hard methods concurrently. It will be relaxed in some instances while strict in others, or it will be relaxed on the outside while stiff in its internal affairs. In a relaxed atmosphere, the CCP would encourage the expression of different opinions, as if luring a snake out of its hole, then persecute those who spoke up in the following period of strict control. The CCP often used democracy to challenge the Kuomintang, but when intellectuals in the CCP-controlled areas disagreed with the Party, they would be tortured or even beheaded. As an example, we can look to the infamous “Wild Lilies incident,” in which the intellectual Wang Shiwei, who wrote an essay titled “Wild Lilies” to express his ideal of equality, democracy, and humanitarianism, was purged in 1942 during the Yan’an Rectification Movement and hacked to death with axes by the CCP in 1947.

One veteran official who suffered torments during the Yan’an Rectification Movement recalled that when he was under intense pressure, dragged in, and forced to confess, the only thing he could do was betray his own conscience and make up lies. At first, he felt bad to be implicating and framing his fellow comrades. He hated himself so much that he wanted to end his life. Coincidentally, a gun had been placed on the table. He grabbed it, pointed it at his head, and pulled the trigger. But the gun had no bullets! The person who was investigating him walked in and said: “It’s good that you admitted what you’ve done was wrong. The Party’s policies are lenient.” By such measures, the Communist Party would know that a person had reached his limit, that he was “loyal” to the Party and had therefore passed the test. The CCP always puts one in a deathtrap first and then enjoys one’s pain and humiliation. When one reaches the limit and just wishes for death, the Party “kindly” comes out to show one a way to live. “Better a live coward than a dead hero,” it is said. One becomes grateful to the Party for being one’s savior.

Years later, this veteran official learned about Falun Gong, a qigong and self-cultivation practice that started in China. He felt the practice was good. When the communist regime began the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, however, his painful memories of his past torments at the hands of the CCP revisited him, and he no longer dared to say that Falun Gong was good.

The experience of Emperor Pu Yi, [43] China’s last emperor, was similar to that of this official. Imprisoned in the CCP’s cells and seeing people killed one after another, he thought that he would die soon. In order to live, he allowed himself to be brainwashed and cooperated with the prison guards. Later, he wrote an autobiography, The First Half of My Life , which was used by the CCP as an example of successful ideological remolding.

According to modern medical studies, many captives held under intense pressure and in isolation fall prey to an abnormal sense of dependency on their captors, known as Stockholm syndrome. The victims’ moods — happiness or anger, joy or sorrow — are dictated by the moods of their captors. The slightest favor granted the victims is received with deep gratitude. There are accounts in which the victims develop “love” for their captors. This psychological phenomenon has long been used successfully by the CCP both against its enemies and in controlling and remolding the minds of its citizens.

The Party Is the Most Wicked

A majority of the general secretaries of the CCP have been labeled anti-communist. Clearly, the CCP has a life of its own, with its own independent body. The Party runs the officials; the officials do not run the Party.

In the “Soviet regions” [44] of Jiangxi Province, while the CCP was encircled by the Kuomintang and could barely survive, it still conducted internal cleansing operations in the name of cracking down on the Anti-Bolshevik League, [45] executing its own soldiers at night or stoning them to death to save bullets. In northern Shaanxi Province, while sandwiched between the Japanese and the Kuomintang, the CCP began the Yan’an Rectification Movement of mass cleansing, killing many people. This type of repetitive massacre on such a massive scale did not prevent the CCP from eventually expanding its power to rule all of China. The CCP expanded this pattern of internal rivalry and killing from its small revolutionary enclaves to the whole nation.

The Party is like a malignant tumor: In its rapid development, the center of the tumor has already died, but it continues to diffuse to the healthy cells on the outer edges. After the cells are infiltrated, new tumors grow. No matter how good or bad a person was to start with, after joining the CCP, he or she would become part of its destructive force. The more honest the person was, the more destructive he would become. Undoubtedly, this CCP tumor will continue to grow until there is nothing left for it to feed upon. Then, the cancer will surely die.

The founder of the CCP, Chen Duxiu, was an intellectual and a leader of the May Fourth student movement. He showed himself not to be a fan of violence and warned the CCP members that if they attempted to convert the Kuomintang to the communist ideologies or had too much interest in power, it would certainly lead to strained relationships. While being one of the most active members of the May Fourth generation, Chen was also tolerant. He was then the first to be labeled a “right-wing opportunist.”

Another CCP leader, Qu, believed that CCP members should engage in battles and fighting, organize rebellions, overthrow authorities, and use extreme means to return Chinese society to its normal functioning. However, Qu confessed before his death: “I do not want to die as a revolutionary. I had left your movement a long time ago. Well, history played a trick, bringing me, an intellectual, onto the political stage of revolution and keeping me there for many years. In the end, I still could not overcome my own gentry notions. I cannot become a warrior of the proletariat class after all.” [46]

The CCP leader Wang Ming, at the advice of the Comintern, argued for unity with the Kuomintang in the war against the Japanese, rather than expanding the CCP base. At Party meetings, Mao and Zhang Wentian [47] could not persuade this comrade, nor could they reveal the truth of their situation: that due to the limited military strength of the Red Army, they would not be able to hold back even a division of the Japanese by themselves. If the CCP had decided to fight the Japanese, then the history of China would certainly have been different. Mao was forced to remain silent at the meetings. Later, Wang was ousted, first for a “left-wing” deviation, and then for being an “opportunist” of the right-wing ideology.

Hu Yaobang was a Party general secretary (the head of the CCP) who was forced to resign in January 1987. He had won back the Chinese people’s support for the CCP by bringing justice to many innocent victims who had been criminalized during the Cultural Revolution. Still, in the end, he was kicked out.

Zhao Ziyang, the CCP’s fallen general secretary, [48] wanted to help the Party to further reforms, yet his actions brought him dire consequences.

So what could each new leader of the CCP accomplish? To truly reform the CCP would imply its death, and the reformers would quickly find their power taken away by the CCP itself. There is a certain limit to what CCP members can do to transform the CCP system, so there is no chance for any reformation of the CCP to succeed.

If the Party leaders have all turned into “bad people,” how could the CCP have expanded the revolution? In many instances when the CCP was at its best — also its most evil — its highest officials failed in their positions. This was because their degree of evil did not meet the standard of the Party, which has, over and over, selected only the most evil of people. Many Party leaders have seen their political lives end in tragedy, yet the CCP has survived. The CCP leaders who survived their positions were not those who could influence the Party, but those who could comprehend the Party’s evil intentions and follow them. They strengthened the CCP’s ability to survive while in crisis and gave themselves entirely to the Party. It’s no wonder Party members were capable of battling with heaven, fighting with the earth, and struggling against other human beings. But never could they oppose the Party. They are tame tools of the Party or, at most, symbiotically related to the Party.

Shamelessness has become a marvelous quality of today’s CCP. According to the Party, its mistakes were all made by individual Party leaders, such as Zhang Guotao [49] or the Gang of Four. [50] Mao was judged by the Party as having made three parts mistakes and seven parts achievements, while Deng judged himself to have made four parts mistakes and six parts achievements, but the Party itself was never wrong. Even if the Party was wrong, well, it is the Party itself that has corrected the mistakes. Therefore, the Party tells its members to “look forward” and “not to be tangled in past accounts.” Many things can change: The communist paradise has been replaced by the lowly goal of socialist food and shelter; Marxism-Leninism has been replaced by the “Three Represents.”

People should not be surprised to see the CCP promoting democracy, allowing freedom of belief, abandoning Jiang Zemin overnight, or redressing the persecution of Falun Gong, if it deems that doing so necessary to maintain its control. There is one thing that never changes about the CCP: the fundamental pursuit of the Party’s goals — the survival and maintenance of its power and control. The CCP has mixed violence, terror, and high-pressure indoctrination to form its theoretical basis, which has then turned into the Party nature, the supreme principles of the Party, the spirit of its leaders, the functioning mechanism of the entire Party, and the criteria for the actions of all CCP members. The Communist Party is as hard as steel, and its discipline is as solid as iron. The intentions of all members must be unified, and the actions of all members must be in complete compliance with the Party’s political agenda.

Conclusion

Why has history chosen the Communist Party over any other political force in China? As we all know, in this world there are two forces, two choices. One is the old and the evil, whose goal is to do evil and choose the negative way. The other is the righteous and the good, which will choose the right and the benevolent way.

The CCP was chosen by the old forces. The reason for the choice is precisely because the CCP has gathered together all the evil of the world, Chinese and foreign, past and present. It is a typical representative of the evil forces. The CCP took the greatest advantage of people’s inborn innocence and benevolence to cheat, and, step by step, it has prevailed in gaining today’s capacity to destroy.

What did the Party mean when it claimed that there would be no new China without the Communist Party? The evidence shows that without deceit and violence, from the CCP’s founding in 1921 to its rise to political power in 1949, the Party would not be in power. The CCP differs from all other types of organizations in that it follows a twisted ideology of Marxism-Leninism and does as it pleases. It explains all that it does with high theories and cleverly links them to certain portions of the masses, thus “justifying” its actions. It broadcasts propaganda every day, clothing its strategies in various principles and theories and proving itself to be forever correct.

The development of the CCP has been a process of accumulating evil, with nothing glorious at all. The history of the CCP itself precisely shows its illegitimacy. The Chinese people did not choose the CCP. Instead, the CCP forced communism, this foreign evil specter, upon the Chinese people by applying the evil traits that it inherited from the Communist Party — evil, deceit, incitement, unleashing the scum of society, espionage, robbery, fighting, elimination, and control.

This concludes Commentary Two.

Notes:

[1] Xu Shen (c. 58–148), Shuowen Jiezi .

[2] Confucius (551 B.C.–479 B.C.), The Analects . Translated by Simon Leys; edited by Michael Nylan. 2014.

[3] Zhu Xi (1130–1200), Collection of Footnotes of Analects  (“Lunyu”).

[4]   http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/2/4/5/n181606.htm  (in Chinese).

[5] From the communist anthem, “The Internationale.”

[6] Mao Zedong, Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan  (1927).

[7] A Chinese folk legend, The White-Haired Girl  is the story of a female immortal living in a cave who has the supernatural abilities to reward virtue and punish vice, support the righteous and restrain the evil. However, in the Chinese “modern” drama, opera, and ballet, she is described as a girl who is forced to flee to a cave after her father is beaten to death for refusing to marry her off to an old landlord. She becomes white-haired for lack of nutrition. This became one of the most well-known “modern” dramas in China and inspired class hatred toward landlords.

[8] Roughly translates as “slum workers.” This term, coined by Marx in The Class Struggles in France (1848–1850), identifies the class of outcast, degenerate, or underground elements that make up a section of the population of industrial centers. It includes beggars, prostitutes, gangsters, racketeers, swindlers, petty criminals, tramps, chronic unemployed or unemployables, persons who have been cast out by industry, and all sorts of declassed, degraded, or degenerated elements.

[9] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto  (1848).

[10] Mao Zedong, 1927.

[11] Zhou Enlai (1898–1976) was second in prominence to Mao in the history of the Chinese Communist Party. He was the premier of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 until his death.

[12] Gu Shunzhang (1903–1934) was originally one of the heads of the CCP’s special agent system. In 1931, he was arrested by the Kuomintang and assisted them in uncovering many of the CCP’s secret agents. All eight members of Gu’s family were later strangled to death and buried in the French concession in Shanghai.

[13] The War of Liberation of June 1946 was the civil war between the CCP and the Kuomintang. The war is marked by three successive campaigns — Liaoxi-Shenyang, Huai-Hai, and Beiping-Tianjin — after which the CCP overthrew the rule of the Kuomintang, leading to the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, 1949.

[14] Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975), also called Jiang Jieshi, was leader of the Kuomintang and later exiled to become the ruler of Taiwan.

[15] Hu Zongnan (1896–1962), a native of Xiaofeng County (now part of Anji County), Zhejiang Province, was successively deputy commander, acting commander, and chief of staff of the Kuomintang’s southwest military and administrative headquarters.

[16] Li Xiannian (1909–1992) was one of the senior leaders of the CCP. He was president of China in 1983. He played an important role in helping Deng Xiaoping regain his power at the end of the Cultural Revolution in October 1976.

[17] Mao Zedong, 1927.

[18] Mao Zedong, 1927.

[19] When the CCP began land reform, it categorized the people. Among the defined classes of enemies, intellectuals were next to landlords, reactionaries, spies, and the like and ranked as the ninth class.

[20] Hu Jintao (1942–). Speech in the Symposium to Commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Ren Bishi . April 30, 2004. Hu was general secretary of the CCP from 2002 to 2012.

[21] From a poem by Sima Qian (c. 145–87 B.C.), a historian and scholar of the West Han Dynasty. His famous poem says, “Everyone has to die; one dies either more solemn than Mount Tai or lighter than a feather.” Mount Tai is one of the major mountains in China.

[22] Mao Zedong. On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship  (1949).

[23] Yang Kui-song. “Moscow’s Financial Support to the Chinese Communist Party from 1920s to 1940s.” Twenty-First Century . June 2004.

[24] The Northern Expedition was a military campaign led by Chiang Kai-shek from 1926 intended to unify China under the rule of the Kuomintang and end the rule of local warlords. It was largely successful in these objectives. During the Northern Expedition, the CCP had an alliance with the Kuomintang.

[25] The revolutionary movement during the CCP–Kuomintang alliance that carried out the Northern Expedition.

[26] Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) was the first leader of the Kuomintang and often described as the founder of modern China.

[27] Tan Pingshan (1886–1956) was one of the early CCP leaders in Guangdong Province.

[28] Feng Jupo (1899–1954) was one of the early CCP leaders in Guangdong Province.

[29] Lin Zuhan (1886–1960), also known as Lin Boqu, was one of the earliest CCP members.

[30] Peng Pai (1896–1929) was a CCP leader.

[31] Zhang Shenfu (1893–1986), also known as Zhang Songnian, was one of the founders of the CCP who induced Zhou to join the CCP.

[32] The National Revolutionary Army, controlled by the Kuomintang, was the National Army of the People’s Republic of China. During the period of the CCP–Kuomintang alliance, it included CCP members who joined the alliance.

[33] On April 12, 1927, the Kuomintang, led by Chiang Kai-shek, initiated a military operation against the CCP in Shanghai and several other cities. More than five thousand CCP members were captured and many of them were killed by the end of 1927 in Shanghai.

[34] The Jinggang Mountains area is considered the first rural revolutionary base of the CCP and is called “the cradle for the Red Army.”

[35] Mao Zedong, Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan (1927).

[36] Ibid.

[37] Liaoxi-Shenyang, Beijing-Tianjin, and Huai-Hai battles were the three major battles the CCP fought with the Kuomintang, from September 1948 to January 1949, that annihilated many of the Kuomintang’s crack troops. Millions of lives were lost in these three battles.

[38] Lin Biao (1907–1971), a senior CCP leader, served under Mao Zedong as vice premier under Zhou Enlai (from 1954), as vice chairman (from 1958), and as defense minister (from 1959). Lin was designated as Mao’s successor in 1966 but fell out of favor in 1970. Sensing his downfall, Lin reportedly became involved in a coup attempt against Mao and tried to flee to the USSR once the alleged plot became exposed. He died in a plane crash in Mongolia.

[39] Qu Qiubai (1899–1935) was one of the CCP’s earlier leaders and famous leftist writers. He was captured by the Kuomintang in late February 1935 and died on June 18 that year.

[40] The “Three Represents” was initially mentioned in a speech by Jiang Zemin in February 2000. According to this doctrine, the Party must always represent the development trend of China’s advanced productive forces, the orientation of China’s advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people.

[41] Zhang Bojun (1895–1969) was one of the founders of the China Democratic League, a democratic party in China. He was classified as the No. 1 rightist in 1957 by Mao and was one of the few rightists who were not redressed after the Cultural Revolution.

[42] Luo Longji (1898–1965) was one of the founders of the China Democratic League. He was classified as a rightist in 1958 by Mao and was one of the few “rightists” who were not redressed after the Cultural Revolution.

[43] Pu Yi, or Aisin Gioro in Manchurian (1906–1967), was the last emperor of China. After his abdication, the new republican government granted him a large government pension and permitted him to live in the Forbidden City of Beijing until 1924. After 1925, he lived in the Japanese concession in Tianjin. In 1934, he became the emperor of the Japanese puppet state of Manchuria. In 1945, he was captured by the Russian army and became a prisoner until 1950, when he was handed over to the Chinese Communist Party. In 1946, Pu Yi testified at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal that he had been the unwilling tool of the Japanese militarists and not, as they claimed, the instrument of Manchurian self-determination. He was imprisoned at Shenyang until 1959, when Mao granted him amnesty.

[44] The “Soviet regions” were not Soviet at all, but rather were revolutionary enclaves set up by the CCP in the provinces of Hubei, Henan, and Anhui during the time of rebellion against the Kuomintang, prior to Japan’s invasion in World War II.

[45] In this episode during the CCP’s internal struggle in 1930, Mao ordered the killing of thousands of party members, Red Army soldiers, and innocent civilians in Jiangxi Province, in an attempt to consolidate his power in the CCP-controlled areas.

[46] Qu Qiubai. “A Few More Words.” May 23, 1935. Written shortly before his death on June 18, 1935.

[47] Zhang Wentian (1900–1976) was an important leader of the CCP, beginning in the 1930s. He was deputy foreign minister of China from 1954 to 1960. He was persecuted to death during the Cultural Revolution. His case was redressed in August 1979.

[48] Zhao Ziyang (1919–2005) was dismissed as general secretary and put under house arrest due to his disagreement with using force to end the student demonstrations in the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

[49] Zhang Guotao (1897–1979) was one of the founders of the CCP. He was expelled from the CCP in April 1938. He went to Taiwan in November 1948, then to Hong Kong in 1949. He immigrated to Canada in 1968.

[50] The Gang of Four was formed by Mao Zedong’s wife, Jiang Qing (1913–1991), Shanghai Propaganda Department official Zhang Chunqiao (1917–2005), literary critic Yao Wenyuan (1931–2005), and Shanghai security guard Wang Hongwen (1935–1992). They rose to power during the Cultural Revolution and dominated Chinese politics during the early 1970s.

Commentary 3: On the Tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party

Foreword

When speaking about tyranny, most Chinese people are reminded of Qin Shi Huang (259 B.C.–210 B.C.), the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, whose oppressive court burnt philosophical books and buried Confucian scholars alive. Qin Shi Huang’s harsh treatment of his people came from his policy of “supporting his rule with all of the resources under heaven.” [1] His policy had four main aspects: excessive taxation, wasting human labor for projects to glorify himself, brutal torture under harsh laws — even punishing the offenders’ family members and neighbors, and blocking all avenues of free thinking and expression through burning books and even burying scholars alive. During Qin’s rule, China had a population of about ten million; Qin’s court drafted more than two million to perform forced labor. The ruler brought his harsh laws into the intellectual realm, prohibiting freedom of thought on a massive scale. Thousands of Confucian scholars and officials who criticized the government were killed.

Today, the Chinese Communist Party’s violence and abuses are even more severe than those of the tyrannical Qin Dynasty. The CCP’s philosophy is one of struggle, and the CCP’s rule has been built upon a series of class struggles, struggles about the direction of the Party, and ideological struggles, both in China and toward other nations. Mao Zedong put it bluntly by saying: “What can Emperor Qin Shi Huang brag about? He only killed 460 Confucian scholars, but we killed 46,000 intellectuals. There are people who accuse us of practicing dictatorship like Emperor Qin Shi Huang, and we admit to it all. It fits the reality. It is a pity that they did not give us enough credit, so we need to add to it.” [2]

Let’s take a look at China’s harrowing experiences under the rule of the CCP. As its founding philosophy is one of class struggle, the CCP has spared no efforts since taking power to commit class genocide and has achieved its reign of terror by means of violent revolution. Killing and brainwashing have been used hand-in-hand to suppress any beliefs other than communist theory. The CCP has launched one movement after another to portray itself as infallible and godlike. Following its theories of class struggle and violent revolution, the CCP has tried to purge dissidents and opposing social classes, using violence and deception to force all Chinese people to become the obedient servants of its tyrannical rule.

I. Land Reform: Eliminating the Landlord Class

Barely three months after the founding of communist China, the CCP called for the elimination of the landlord class, as one of the guidelines for its nationwide land reform program. The Party’s slogan “land to the tiller” indulged the selfish side of the landless peasants, encouraging them to struggle with the landowners by whatever means and to disregard the moral implications of their actions. The land reform campaign explicitly stipulated eliminating the landlord class and classified the rural population into different social categories. Twenty million rural inhabitants nationwide were labeled landlords, rich peasants, reactionaries, or bad elements. These new outcasts faced discrimination, humiliation, and loss of all their civil rights.

As the land reform campaign extended its reach to remote areas and the villages of ethnic minorities, the CCP’s organizations also expanded quickly. Township Party committees and village Party branches spread all over China. The local branches were the mouthpiece for passing instructions from the CCP’s central committee and were at the frontline of the class struggle, inciting peasants to rise up against their landlords. Nearly one hundred thousand landlords were killed during this movement. In certain areas, the CCP and the peasants killed the landlords’ entire families, disregarding gender or age, as a way to completely wipe out the landlord class. In the meantime, the CCP launched its first wave of propaganda, declaring that “Chairman Mao is the great savior of the people” and that “only the CCP can save China.” During the land reform, landless farmers got what they wanted through the CCP’s policy of reaping without laboring and robbing without concern for the means. Poor peasants credited the CCP for the improvement in their lives, and so accepted the CCP’s propaganda that the Party worked for the interests of the people.

For the owners of the newly acquired land, the good days of “land to the tiller” were short-lived. Within two years, the CCP imposed a number of practices on the farmers, such as mutual-aid groups, primary cooperatives, advanced cooperatives, and people’s communes. Using the slogan of criticizing “women with bound feet” — meaning those who are slow paced — the CCP drove and pushed, year after year, urging peasants to dash into socialism. With grain, cotton, and cooking oil placed under a unified procurement system nationwide, the major agricultural products were excluded from market exchange. In addition, the CCP established a residential registration system, barring peasants from going to the cities to find work or dwell. Those who were registered as rural residents were not allowed to buy grain at state-run stores, and their children were prohibited from receiving education in cities. Peasants’ children could only be peasants, turning the 360 million rural residents of the early 1950s into second-class citizens.

Beginning in 1978, in the first 5 years after moving from a collective system to a household contract system, some among the nine hundred million peasants became better off, with their income increasing slightly and their social status improving somewhat. However, such a meager benefit was soon lost, due to a price structure that favored industrial commodities over agricultural goods; peasants plunged into poverty once again. Today, the income gap between the urban and rural populations has drastically increased, and economic disparity continues to widen. New landlords and rich peasants have re-emerged in the rural areas. Data from Xinhua News Agency, the CCP’s mouthpiece, shows that since 1997 the revenue of the major grain production areas and the income of most rural households have been at a standstill or even have declined in some cases. In other words, the peasants’ return on agricultural production did not really increase. The ratio of urban to rural incomes has increased, from 1.8 to 1 in the mid-1980s, to 3.1 to 1 today.

II. Eliminating the Capitalist Class

Another class the CCP wanted to eliminate was the national bourgeoisie, who owned capital in cities and rural towns. While reforming China’s industry and commerce, the CCP claimed that the capitalist class and the working class were different in nature: the former was the exploiting class while the latter was the class that did not exploit and opposed exploitation. According to this logic, the capitalist class was born to exploit and wouldn’t stop doing so until it perished; it could only be eliminated, not reformed.

The CCP used both killing and brainwashing to “transform” capitalists and merchants. Its long-tested method of supporting the obedient and destroying those who disagreed was employed. If you surrendered your assets to the state and supported the CCP, you were considered just a minor problem among the people. If, on the other hand, you disagreed with or complained about the CCP’s policy, you would be labeled a reactionary and become the target of the CCP’s draconian dictatorship.

During the reign of terror that ensued during these reforms, capitalists and business owners all surrendered their assets. Many of them couldn’t bear the humiliation they faced and committed suicide. Chen Yi, then mayor of Shanghai, asked every day, “How many paratroopers did we have today?” — referring to the number of capitalists who had committed suicide by jumping from the tops of buildings that day. In only a few years, the CCP eliminated private ownership in China.

While carrying out its land and industrial reform programs, the CCP launched many massive movements that persecuted the Chinese people. These movements included suppressing counter-revolutionaries, running thought reform campaigns, “cleansing” the anti-CCP clique headed by Gao Gang and Rao Shushi, [3] probing Hu Feng’s [4] counter-revolutionary group, initiating the Three-Anti Campaign and the Five-Anti Campaign, [5] and further cleansing of the counter-revolutionaries. The CCP used these movements to target and brutally persecute countless innocent people. In every political movement, the CCP fully utilized its control of government resources in conjunction with the Party’s committees, branches, and sub-branches. Three Party members would form a small combat team, infiltrating all villages and neighborhoods. These combat teams were ubiquitous, leaving no stone unturned. This deeply entrenched Party control network, inherited from the CCP’s network of Party branches installed within the army during the war years, has since played a key role in later political movements.

III. The Crackdown on Religions and Religious Groups

The CCP committed another atrocity with its brutal suppression of religion and complete ban of all grass-roots religious groups, following the founding of the People’s Republic of China. In 1950, the CCP instructed its local governments to ban all unofficial religious faiths and secret societies. The CCP stated that those “feudalistic” underground groups were mere tools in the hands of landlords, rich farmers, reactionaries, and special agents of the Kuomintang. In the nationwide crackdown, the government mobilized the classes they trusted to identify and persecute members of religious groups. Governments at various levels were directly involved in disbanding such “superstitious groups,” such as communities of Christians, Catholics, Taoists (especially believers of I-Kuan Tao), and Buddhists. They ordered all members of these churches, temples, and religious societies to register with government agencies and to repent for their involvement. Failure to do so would mean severe punishment. In 1951, the government formally promulgated regulations stating that those who continued their activities in unofficial religious groups would face a life sentence or the death penalty.

This movement persecuted a large number of kind-hearted and law-abiding believers. Incomplete statistics indicate that in the 1950s, the CCP persecuted at least three million religious believers and underground group members, some of whom were killed. The CCP searched almost every household across the nation and interrogated its members, even smashing statues of the Stove King traditionally worshipped by Chinese peasants. The executions reinforced the CCP’s message that communist ideology was the only legitimate ideology and the only legitimate faith. The concept of “patriotic believers” soon emerged, and the state constitution protected only patriotic believers. The reality was that, whatever religion you believed in, there were only these criteria: You had to follow the CCP’s instructions, and you had to acknowledge that the CCP was above all religions. If you were a Christian, the CCP was the God of the Christian God. If you were a Buddhist, the CCP was the Master Buddha of the Master Buddha. Among Muslims, the CCP was the Allah of Allah. When it came to the Living Buddha in Tibetan Buddhism, the CCP would intervene, and itself choose who the Living Buddha would be. The CCP left you no choice but to say and do what the CCP demanded you to say and do. All believers were forced to carry out the CCP’s objectives while upholding their respective faiths in name only. Failing to do so would make you the target of the CCP’s persecution and dictatorship.

According to a February 22, 2002, report by Chinese online magazine Re n yu Renquan  ( Hu manity and Human Rights ), 20,000 Christians conducted a survey among 560,000 Christians in house churches in 207 cities in 22 provinces in China. The survey found that, among house church attendees, 130,000 were under government surveillance. In the book Ho w the Chinese Communist Party Persecuted Christians , [6] it is stated that by 1957, the CCP had killed more than 11,000 religious adherents and had arbitrarily arrested and extorted money from many more. By eliminating the landlord class and the capitalist class and by persecuting large numbers of God-worshipping and law-abiding people, the CCP cleared the way for communism to become the all-encompassing religion of China.

IV. The Anti-Rightist Movement: Nationwide Brainwashing

In 1956, a group of Hungarian intellectuals formed the Petofi Circle, which held forums and debates critical of the Hungarian government. The group sparked a nationwide revolution in Hungary, which was crushed by Soviet soldiers. Mao took this Hungarian event as a lesson.

In 1957, Mao called upon Chinese intellectuals and others to “help the CCP rectify itself.” This movement, known as the Hundred Flowers campaign, followed the slogan of “letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend.” Mao’s purpose was to reveal the anti-Party elements among the people. In his letter to provincial Party chiefs in 1957, Mao stated that his intention was to “luring the snakes out of their holes” by letting them air their views freely in the name of freedom of thought and rectifying the CCP. Slogans at the time encouraged people to speak up and promised no reprisals — the Party would not “grab pigtails, strike with sticks, issue hats, or settle accounts after the autumn,” meaning the Party would not find fault, make attacks, place labels, or seek to retaliate. But soon the CCP initiated the Anti-Rightist Movement, declaring that 540,000 of the people who dared to speak up were “rightists.” Among them, 270,000 lost their jobs and 230,000 were labeled “medium rightists” or anti-CCP, anti-socialist elements.

Later, some summarized the CCP’s political stratagems of persecution with four points: luring the snakes out of their holes; fabricating crimes, attacking suddenly, and punishing with a single accusation; attacking relentlessly in the name of saving people; and forcing self-criticism and using the most severe labels.

What then were the “reactionary speeches” that had caused so many rightists and anti-communists to be exiled for nearly thirty years in far-flung corners of the nation? The three major reactionary theories, which were the targets of general and intensive assaults at the time, consisted of a few speeches by Luo Longji, Zhang Bojun, and Chu Anping. A closer look at what they proposed and suggested shows that their wishes were quite benign.

Luo suggested forming a joint commission of the CCP and various “democratic” parties to investigate the deviations in the Three-Anti Campaign and Five-Anti Campaign, and the movements for purging reactionaries. The State Council itself often presented something to the Political Consultative Committee and the People’s Congress for observation and comment, and Zhang suggested that the committee and the congress be included in the decision-making process. Chu suggested that since non-CCP members also had good ideas, self-esteem, and a sense of responsibility, there was no need to assign a CCP member to head every work unit, big or small, nor for the teams under each work unit, across the nation. There was also no need for everything, major or minor, to be done the way the CCP members suggested. All three had expressed their willingness to follow the CCP, and none of their suggestions had overstepped the boundaries demarcated by the famous words of writer and critic Lu Xun [7]: “My master, your gown has become dirty. Please take it off, and I will wash it for you.” Like Lu, these three rightists expressed docility, submissiveness, and respect. None of them had suggested that the CCP should be overthrown. All they had done was offer constructive criticism. Yet precisely because of these suggestions, tens of thousands of people lost their freedom, and millions of families suffered.

What followed were more movements such as confiding in the CCP, digging out the hardliners, launching the new Three-Anti Campaign, sending intellectuals to the countryside to do hard labor, and catching the rightists who were missed the first time around. Whoever had a disagreement with the leader of the workplace, especially the Party secretary, would be labeled as anti-CCP. The CCP would often subject them to constant criticism or send them to labor camps for forced reeducation. Sometimes the Party relocated whole families to rural areas and barred their children from going to college or joining the army. They couldn’t apply for jobs in cities or towns either. The families lost their job security and public health benefits. They became lowly members of the peasant rank and outcasts even among second-class citizens.

After the persecution of the intellectuals, some scholars developed a two-faced personality. They followed closely the Red Sun (that is, Mao) and became the CCP’s court-appointed intellectuals, doing or saying whatever the CCP asked. Some others became aloof and distanced themselves from political matters. Chinese intellectuals, who have traditionally had a strong sense of responsibility for the nation, have been silenced ever since.

V. The Great Leap Forward: Creating Falsehoods to Test People’s Loyalty

After the Anti-Rightist Movement, China became afraid of the truth. Everyone joined in listening to false words, telling false tales, making up false stories, and avoiding and covering up the truth through lies and rumors. The Great Leap Forward was a nationwide, collective exercise in lying. The people of the entire nation, under the direction of the CCP’s evil specter, did many ridiculous things. Both liars and those being lied to were betrayed. In this campaign of lies and ridiculous actions, the CCP implanted its violent, evil energy into the spiritual world of the Chinese people. At the time, many people sang songs promoting the Great Leap Forward: “It is I who am the Great Jade Emperor, it is I who am the Dragon King. I can move the mountains and rivers. Here I come.” [8]

Policies such as achieving a grain production of 75,000 kilograms (165,347 pounds) per hectare (2.47 acres), doubling steel production, and surpassing Britain in 10 years and the United States in 15 years were attempted year after year. These policies resulted in a grave, nationwide famine that cost millions of lives. During the eighth plenum of the Eighth CCP Central Committee meeting held in Lushan in 1959, who among the participants disagreed with General Peng Dehuai’s [9] view that Mao’s Great Leap Forward was foolish? However, supporting Mao’s policy or not marked the line between loyalty and betrayal, or the line between life and death.

In a story from Chinese history, when Zhao Gao [10] claimed that a deer was a horse, he knew the difference between a deer and a horse, but he purposefully called it a horse to control official opinion, silence debate, and expand his power. The result of the Lushan Plenum was that even Peng was forced to sign a resolution condemning and purging himself from the central government. Similarly, in the later years of the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping was forced to promise that he would never appeal against the government’s decision to remove him from his posts.

Society relies on past experience to understand the world and expand its horizons. The CCP, however, has taken away opportunities from the people to learn from experience and historical lessons. The official censorship of the media has only helped further lower people’s capacity to discern good from bad. After each political movement, the younger generations have been given only the Party’s uplifting accounts and have been deprived of the analyses, ideals, and experiences of the insightful people from older generations. As a result, people have only scattered information as the basis for understanding history and judging new events, thinking themselves correct while deviating thousands of miles from the truth. Thus, the CCP’s policy of keeping people ignorant has been carried out thoroughly.

VI. The Cultural Revolution

The Cultural Revolution was a grand performance put on by the communist specter as it possessed all of China. In 1966, a new wave of violence rolled onto China, and an uncontrollable red terror shook the mountains and froze the rivers. Writer Qin Mu described the Cultural Revolution in bleak terms: “It was truly an unprecedented calamity: [The CCP] imprisoned millions due to their association with a [targeted] family member, ended the lives of millions more, shattered families, turned children into hoodlums and villains, burned books, tore down ancient buildings, and destroyed ancient intellectuals’ gravesites, committing all kinds of crimes in the name of revolution.”

Conservative figures place the number of unnatural deaths in China during the Cultural Revolution at 7.73 million.

People often mistakenly think that the violence and slaughter during the Cultural Revolution happened mostly during the rebel movements and that it was the Red Guards [11] and rebels who did the killing. However, thousands of officially published Chinese county annals indicate that the peak of unnatural deaths during the Cultural Revolution was not in 1966, when the Red Guards controlled most of the government organizations, nor in 1967, when the rebels fought among different armed groups. It was in 1968, when Mao regained control over the entire country. The murderers in those infamous cases were often army officers and soldiers, armed militiamen, and CCP members at all levels of the government.

The following examples illustrate how the violence during the Cultural Revolution was part of the policy of the CCP and the regional government, not the extreme behavior of the Red Guards. The CCP has covered up the direct instigation of and involvement in the violence by Party leaders and government officials.

In August 1966, the Red Guards expelled Beijing residents who had been classified in past movements as landlords, rich farmers, reactionaries, bad elements, and rightists and forced them to the countryside. Incomplete official statistics showed that 33,695 homes were searched and 85,196 Beijing residents were expelled from the city and sent back to where their parents had originally come from. Red Guards all over the country followed suit, expelling more than 400,000 urban residents to the countryside. Even high-ranking officials whose parents were landlords faced exile to the country.

Actually, the CCP planned the expulsion campaign even before the Cultural Revolution began. Former Beijing Mayor Peng Zhen declared that the residents of Beijing City should be as ideologically pure as glass panels and crystals, meaning that all residents with a “bad” class background should be expelled from the city. In May 1966, Mao commanded his subordinates to protect the capital. A capital working team was set up, led by Ye Jianying, Yang Chengwu, and Xie Fuzhi. One of this team’s tasks was to use the police to expel Beijing residents of bad class backgrounds.

This history helps make clear why the government and police departments did not intervene, but rather supported the Red Guards in searching homes and expelling more than 2 percent of Beijing’s residents. The minister of public security, Xie Fuzhi, required the police not to intervene in the Red Guards’ actions, but rather to provide advice and information to them.

The Red Guards were simply utilized by the Party to carry out a planned action, and then, at the end of 1966, these same Red Guards were abandoned by the CCP. Many were labeled counterrevolutionaries and imprisoned, and others were sent to the countryside, along with other urban youth, to labor and reform their thoughts. The Xicheng Red Guard organization, which led the expulsion of city residents, was established under the “caring” guidance of CCP leaders. The order to incriminate these Red Guards was also issued after it was revised by the secretary-general of the State Council.

Following the removal of the Beijing residents of “bad” class background, the rural areas started another round of persecution. On August 26, 1966, a speech by Xie Fuzhi was passed down to the Daxing Police Bureau at their work meeting. Xie ordered the police to assist the Red Guards in searching the homes of the “five black classes” (landlords, rich peasants, reactionaries, bad elements, and rightists). The police were to provide advice and information, and assist the Red Guards in their raids. The infamous Daxing massacre [12] occurred as a result of direct instructions by the police department; the organizers were the director and the CCP secretary of the police department, and the killers were mostly militiamen who did not even spare the children.

Many were admitted into the CCP for their “good behavior” during similar slaughters. According to incomplete statistics for Guangxi Province, about fifty thousand CCP members engaged in killing. Among these, more than nine thousand were admitted into the Party shortly after killing someone; more than twenty thousand committed murder after being admitted into the Party; and more than nineteen thousand other Party members were involved in killing in one way or another.

During the Cultural Revolution, class theory was applied to physical assault: The “bad” deserved it if they were beaten by the “good.” It was honorable for a “bad” person to beat another “bad” person. If a “good” person beat someone else who was “good,” it was a “misunderstanding.” This theory, invented by Mao, was spread widely throughout the rebel movements. Violence and slaughter were widespread, following the logic that the enemies of the class struggle deserved any violence that befell them. From August 13 to October 7, 1967, militiamen in Dao County of Hunan Province slaughtered members of the Xiangjiang Wind and Thunder organization, as well as those of the five black classes. The slaughter lasted 66 days; more than 4,519 people in 2,778 households were killed in 468 brigades (administrative villages) of 36 people’s communes in 10 districts. In the entire prefecture consisting of 10 counties, a total of 9,093 people were killed, of which 38 percent were of the five black classes, and 44 percent were their children. The oldest person killed was 78 years old and the youngest was only 10 days old. This is only one case of violence in one small area during the Cultural Revolution. In Inner Mongolia, after the establishment of the “revolutionary committee” in early 1968, the cleansing of class ranks and purging of the fabricated Inner Mongolia People’s Revolutionary Party resulted in the deaths of more than 350,000 people. In 1968, tens of thousands of people in Guangxi Province participated in the mass slaughter of a public faction known as the “4.22” organization, killing more than 110,000.

These cases show that these major acts of violent killing during the Cultural Revolution were all under the direct instigation and instruction of CCP leaders, who encouraged and utilized violence to persecute and kill citizens. Those killers directly involved in ordering and carrying out the killing were mostly from the military, police, armed militia, and key members of the Party and the Youth League.

If during the Land Reform the CCP used peasants to overthrow landlords to obtain land; and during the Industrial and Commercial Reform the CCP used the working class to overthrow capitalists to gain assets; and during the Anti-Rightist Movement the CCP eliminated all intellectuals who held opposing opinions, then what was the purpose of all the killing during the Cultural Revolution? The CCP used one group to kill another, and relied on no particular class. Even if you were from the workers and peasants, two classes upon which the Party relied in the past, if your viewpoint differed from that of the Party, your life would be in danger.

So in the end, what was it all for? The purpose was to establish communism as the one and only religion dominating the entire country, controlling not just the state but every individual’s mind. The Cultural Revolution pushed the CCP and Mao’s cult of personality to a climax. Mao’s theory had to be used to dictate everything, and one person’s vision had to be embedded in tens of millions of people’s minds.

The Cultural Revolution, in a way unprecedented and never again matched, intentionally did not specify what could not be done. Instead, the Party emphasized what could be done and how to do it. Anything outside of this boundary could not be done or even considered. During the Cultural Revolution, everyone in the country carried out religious-like rituals: asking the Party for instructions in the morning and reporting to the Party in the evening; saluting Chairman Mao several times a day, wishing him endless longevity; and conducting morning and evening political prayers every day. Mao’s quotations were frequently recited: “Fight ferociously against every passing thought of selfishness.” “Execute the Party’s command whether or not you understand it. Even if you do not understand, carry it out anyway, and your understanding should deepen in the process of execution.” Nearly every literate person wrote self-criticism and thought reports. Only one god (Mao) was allowed to be worshipped; only one kind of scripture (Mao’s teaching) was allowed to be studied. Soon the “god-making” process progressed to such a degree that people could not buy food in canteens if they did not recite a quotation or make a greeting to Mao. When shopping, riding the bus, or even making a phone call, one had to recite one of Mao’s quotations, even if it was totally irrelevant. In these rituals of worship, people were either fanatical or cynical and, in either case, were already under the control of the evil communist specter. Producing lies, tolerating lies, and relying on lies became a way of life for the Chinese people.

VII. The Reform and Opening Up

The Cultural Revolution was a period full of bloodshed, killing, grievances, loss of conscience, and confusion of right and wrong. After the Cultural Revolution, the CCP leadership changed its banner frequently, as the government changed hands six times within twenty years.

Over the years, private ownership has returned to China, disparities between the standard of living in cities and rural areas have widened, desert areas have quickly expanded, rivers have been drying up, and drug use and prostitution have increased. All the “crimes” the CCP fought against are now permitted again. The CCP’s ruthlessness, devious nature, evil actions, and ability to bring ruin to the country have increased. During the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, the Party mobilized armies and tanks to kill students protesting in the square. The vicious persecution against Falun Gong practitioners is even worse. And in October 2004, to take land from the peasants, Yulin City in Shaanxi Province mobilized more than sixteen hundred riot police. They arrested peasants, shooting more than fifty.

The political control of the Chinese regime continues to rely on the CCP’s philosophy of struggle and violence. The only difference from the past is that the Party has become even more deceptive.

Law Making

The CCP has never stopped creating conflicts among the people. It has persecuted large numbers of citizens for being “reactionaries,” “anti-socialists,” “bad elements,” or “evil cult members.” The totalitarian nature of the CCP continues to conflict with all other civil groups and organizations. In the name of “maintaining order and stabilizing society,” the Party has kept changing constitutions, laws, and regulations, and has persecuted as reactionaries anyone who disagrees with the regime.

In July 1999, Jiang Zemin [13] made a decision alone, against the will of most other Politburo members, to eradicate Falun Gong in three months. Slander and lies quickly enveloped the country. After Jiang denounced Falun Gong as an “evil cult” in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, Chinese official propaganda followed up by quickly publishing articles pressuring everyone in the country to turn against Falun Gong. The National People’s Congress was coerced into passing a nondescript decision dealing with evil cults. Soon after that, the Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate jointly issued an “explanation” of the “decision.” On July 22, 1999, the Xinhua News Agency published speeches by the CCP’s organization department and propaganda department leaders publicly supporting Jiang’s persecution against Falun Gong. The Chinese people became enmeshed in the persecution simply because it was a decision made by the Party. They can only obey orders and dare not raise any objections.

In the first 5 years following Jiang’s order, the regime utilized one-fourth of the nation’s financial resources to persecute Falun Gong. Everyone in the country had to pass a test. Most who admitted to practicing Falun Gong but refused to give up the practice lost their jobs. Some were sentenced to forced labor.

The Falun Gong practitioners have not violated any laws, nor have they betrayed the country or opposed the government; they have only believed in truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Yet hundreds of thousands have been imprisoned.

While the CCP has enforced a tight blockade on information, more than 1,143 people [14] have been confirmed by their families to have been tortured to death; the true number of deaths is much higher.

News Reporting

On October 15, 2004, the Hong Kong-based newspaper Wenweipo reported that China’s twentieth satellite had returned to earth, falling on and destroying the house of Huo Jiyu in Penglai Township, located in Daying County, Sichuan Province. The report quoted Daying County government office director Ai Yuqing as saying that a “black lump” was confirmed to be the satellite. Ai was himself the on-site deputy director of the satellite recovery project. However, Xinhua News Agency only reported the time of the satellite’s recovery, emphasizing that this was the twentieth scientific and technical experimental satellite recovered by China. Xinhua did not mention a word about the satellite destroying a house. This is a typical example of the Chinese news media’s consistent practice of reporting only the good news and covering up the bad news, as instructed by the Party.

Lies and slander published by newspapers and broadcast on television have greatly assisted the execution of the CCP’s policies in all past political movements. The Party’s commands have been instantly executed by the media in the country. When the Party wanted to start an Anti-Rightist Movement, media all over China reported with one voice on the “crimes of rightists.” When the Party wanted to set up the people’s communes, every newspaper in the nation started to praise the superiority of people’s communes. Within the first month of the persecution of Falun Gong, all television and radio stations slandered Falun Gong repeatedly in their prime-time broadcasting in order to brainwash people.

Since then, Jiang has utilized all media repeatedly to fabricate and spread lies and slander about Falun Gong. This includes the effort to incite nationwide hatred against Falun Gong by reporting false news that Falun Gong practitioners had committed murder and suicide. An example of such false reporting is the staged Tiananmen self-immolation incident, which was criticized by the NGO International Educational Development as a regime-staged action meant to deceive people. No mainland Chinese newspaper or TV station has reported the truth about Falun Gong.

Chinese people are used to the false news reports. A senior reporter of Xinhua News Agency once said, “How could you trust a Xinhua report?” People have even described Chinese news agencies as the Party’s dog. A folk song has it: “It is a dog raised by the Party, guarding the Party’s gate. It would bite anyone the Party wants it to bite, and bite however many times the Party wants it to.”

Education

In China, education has become another tool used to control the people.

The purpose of education is to develop intellectuals to have both knowledge and correct judgment. Knowledge refers to the understanding of information, data, and historical events; judgment refers to the process of analyzing, investigating, critiquing, and reproducing such knowledge — a process of developing an independent mind. Those who have knowledge without proper judgment are referred to as bookworms, not true intellectuals with a social conscience. This is why in Chinese history it was the intellectuals with righteous judgment, not those merely having knowledge, who have been highly respected.

Under the CCP’s control, however, China is filled with intellectuals who have knowledge but not judgment, or who dare not exercise judgment. Education in schools has focused on teaching students not to do things that the Party does not want them to do. In recent years, all schools started to teach politics and CCP history with unified textbooks. The teachers did not believe the content of the text, yet they were forced by the Party to teach it against their will. The students did not believe the text or their teachers, yet they had to remember everything in the text in order to pass exams. Recently, questions about Falun Gong have been included in term and entrance exams for colleges and high schools. Students who do not know the standard answers do not get high scores and thus cannot enter good high schools or colleges. If a student dares to speak the truth, he will be expelled from school immediately and lose any chance of formal education.

In the public education system, due to the influence of newspapers and government documents, many well-known sayings or phrases have been spread as truth, such as Mao’s saying “We should support whatever the enemy opposes and oppose whatever the enemy supports.” The negative effect is widespread: It has poisoned people’s hearts, supplanting benevolence and destroying the moral principle of living in peace and harmony.

In 2004, the China Information Center analyzed a survey done by the China Sina Net, and the results showed that 82.6 percent of Chinese youth agreed that one could abuse women, children, and prisoners during a war. This result is shocking. But it reflects the Chinese people’s mindset, and especially that of the younger generations, who lack a basic understanding of either the traditional cultural concept of benevolent rule or the notion of universal humanity.

On September 11, 2004, a man fanatically slashed 28 children with a knife in Suzhou City. Later that month, a man in Shandong Province injured 25 elementary school students with a knife. Some elementary school teachers forced students to make firecrackers by hand to raise funds for the school, resulting in an explosion in which students died.

Implementing Policies

The CCP leaders have often used threats and coercion to ensure their policies are implemented. One of the means they used was the political slogan. For a long time, the CCP used the number of slogans one posted as a criterion to assess one’s political achievements.

During the Cultural Revolution, Beijing became a sea of red posters overnight, with the slogan “Down with the ruling capitalists in the Party” posted everywhere. In the countryside, ironically, the signs were shortened to “Down with the ruling party.” Recently, to promote a law about protecting forest land, the State Bureau of Forestry and all its stations and forest protection offices strictly ordered a standard amount of slogans be put out. Not reaching the quota would be treated as not accomplishing the task. As a result, local government offices posted a large number of slogans, including “Whoever burns the mountains goes to prison.” In the administration of birth control in recent years, there have been even scarier slogans posted, such as “If one person violates the law, the whole village will be sterilized,” “Rather another tomb than another baby,” or, “If he did not have a vasectomy as he should, his house will be torn down; if she did not have an abortion as she should, her cows and rice fields will be confiscated.” There were more slogans that violate human rights and the constitution, such as “You will sleep in prison tomorrow if you don’t pay taxes today.”

A slogan is basically a way of advertising but in a more straightforward and repetitive manner. Hence, the Chinese regime often uses slogans to promote political ideas, beliefs, and positions. Political slogans can also be viewed as words the regime speaks to its people. However, in the CCP’s policy-promoting slogans, it is not hard for one to sense the tendency toward violence and cruelty.

VIII. Brainwashing the Whole Country

The most effective weapon the CCP uses to maintain its tyrannical rule is its system of control. In a well-organized fashion, the CCP imposes a mentality of obedience on every one of its citizens. Whether the Party contradicts itself or constantly changes policies doesn’t matter, so long as it can systematically organize a way to deprive people of their naturally endowed human rights. The government’s tentacles are omnipresent. Whether in rural or urban areas, citizens are governed by the so-called street or township committees. Until recently, before one could get married, get divorced, or have a child, one needed the approval of these committees.

The Party’s ideology, way of thinking, organizations, social structure, propaganda mechanisms, and administrative systems serve only its dictatorial purposes. The Party, through the system of government, strives to control every individual’s thoughts and actions. The brutality with which the CCP controls its people is not limited to the physical torture it inflicts. The Party also forces people to lose their ability to think independently, and it makes them into fearful, self-protective cowards who dare not speak up. The goal of the CCP’s rule is to brainwash each of its citizens so that each one thinks and talks like the CCP and does what it promotes.

There is a saying, “Party policy is like the moon: It changes every fifteen days.” No matter how often the Party changes its policies, everyone in the nation needs to follow them closely. When you are used as a means of attacking others, you need to thank the Party for appreciating your strength; when you are hurt, you have to thank the Party for “teaching you a lesson”; when you are wrongfully discriminated against and the Party later gives you redress, you have to thank the Party for being generous, open-minded, and able to correct its mistakes. The Party runs its tyranny through continuous cycles of suppression and redress.

After decades of tyranny, the CCP has imprisoned the nation’s mind and enclosed it within the range the Party allows. For someone to think outside this boundary is considered a crime.

After repeated struggles, stupidity is praised as wisdom; being a coward is the way to survive. In a modern society, with the internet as the main way of exchanging information, the CCP asks its people to exercise self-discipline and not read news from outside or visit websites with keywords like “human rights” and “democracy.”

The CCP’s movement to brainwash its people is absurd, brutal, and despicable, yet ubiquitous. It has distorted the moral values and principles of Chinese society and completely rewritten the nation’s standards of behavior and way of life. The CCP continuously uses mental and physical torture to strengthen its absolute authority to rule China with the all-encompassing CCP religion.

Conclusion

Why does the CCP have to fight incessantly to keep its power? Why does the CCP believe that as long as life exists, strife is endless? To achieve its goal, the CCP does not hesitate to murder people or to destroy the natural environment, nor does the CCP care that the majority of farmers and many urban citizens are living in poverty.

Is it for the ideology of communism that the CCP goes through endless strife? The answer is “no.” One of the principles of the Communist Party is to get rid of private ownership, which the CCP tried to do when it came to power. The CCP believed that private ownership was the root cause of all evil. However, after the economic reform in the 1980s, private ownership was allowed again in China and protected by the Chinese Constitution. Piercing through the CCP’s lies, people will see clearly that in its decades of rule, the CCP has merely stage-managed a drama of property redistribution. After several rounds of such distribution, the CCP simply converted the capital of others into its own private property.

The CCP claims to be the pioneer of the working class. Its task is to eliminate the capitalist class. However, the CCP bylaws now unequivocally allow capitalists to join the Party. Members of the CCP no longer believe in the Party and communism, and the CCP’s existence is unjustifiable. What is left of the Communist Party is only a shell, void of its alleged content.

Was the long-term struggle meant to keep CCP members free from corruption? No. Decades after the CCP came to power, corruption, embezzlement, unlawful conduct, and acts that damage the nation and the people are still widespread among CCP officials throughout the country. In recent years, the CCP has investigated or tried millions of officials for embezzlement, abuse of power, and other forms of corruption. Every year, ordinary Chinese submit countless complaints to the higher authorities about officials whose corruption has gone unpunished.

From January to September of 2004, the China Foreign Exchange Bureau investigated cases of illegal foreign exchange clearance in thirty-five banks and forty-one companies and found $120 million in illegal transactions. According to statistics from the time, no less than four thousand CCP officials have escaped China with embezzled money, and their funds stolen from the state add up to tens of billions of U.S. dollars.

Were the struggles aiming to improve people’s education and consciousness and to keep them interested in national affairs? The answer is another resounding “no.” In today’s China, materialistic pursuits are rampant, and people are losing the traditional virtue of honesty.

It has become common for people to deceive relatives and swindle friends. Many Chinese either are unconcerned or refuse to speak about many important issues such as human rights or the persecution of Falun Gong. Keeping one’s thoughts to oneself and choosing not to speak the truth have become basic survival skills in China. In the meantime, the CCP has repeatedly excited the public sentiment of nationalism on opportune occasions. The CCP may, for example, organize Chinese people to throw rocks at the U.S. Embassy and burn U.S. flags. The Chinese people have been treated as either an obedient mass or a violent mob, but never citizens with guaranteed human rights.

The improvement of a nation’s culture is the basis for raising the consciousness of the people. The moral principles of Confucius and Mencius have, for thousands of years, established moral standards and principles. “If all these [moral] principles are abandoned, then people would have no laws to follow and would discern no good and evil. They would lose their direction. … The Tao would be destroyed.” [15]

The purpose of the CCP’s class struggle is to continuously generate chaos, through which it can firmly establish itself as the one and only ruling party and religion in China, using the Party’s ideology to control the Chinese people. Government institutions, the military, and news media are all tools used by the CCP to exercise its violent dictatorship. The CCP, having brought incurable diseases to China, is itself on the edge of demise, and its collapse is inevitable.

Some people worry that the country will be in chaos if the CCP falls apart. Who will replace the CCP’s role in governing China? In China’s five-thousand-year history, the period of the CCP’s rulership is as brief as a fleeting cloud. Unfortunately, however, during this short period, the CCP has shattered traditional beliefs and standards; destroyed the traditional moral principles and social structures; turned care and love among human beings into struggle and hatred; and replaced the reverence for heaven, the earth, and nature with the arrogance of humans conquering nature. With one act of destruction after another, the Party has ravaged the social, moral, and ecological systems, leaving the Chinese nation in deep crisis.

In Chinese history, every benevolent leader viewed loving, nourishing, and educating the people as the duties of government. Human nature aspires to kindness, and the government’s role is to bring about this innate human capacity. Mencius said, “This is the way of the people: Those with constant means of support will have constant hearts, while those without constant means will not have constant hearts.” Education without prosperity has been ineffective; the tyrannical leaders who have had no love for the people and have killed the innocent have been despised by the Chinese people.

In the five thousand years of Chinese history, there have been many benevolent leaders, such as Emperor Yao and Emperor Shun in ancient times, Emperor Wen and Emperor Wu of the Zhou Dynasty, Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing in the Han Dynasty, Emperor Tang Taizong in the Tang Dynasty, and Emperor Kangxi and Emperor Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty. The prosperity enjoyed in these dynasties was all a result of the leaders practicing the heavenly Tao, following the doctrine of the mean, and striving for peace and stability. It is characteristic of a kind leader to make use of virtuous and capable people, be open to different opinions, promote justice and peace, and give the people what they need. This way, citizens will obey the laws, maintain a sense of decorum, live happily, and work efficiently.

Looking at world affairs, we often ask who determines whether a state will prosper or disappear, even though we know that the rise and fall of a nation have its reasons. When the CCP is gone, we can expect that peace and harmony will return to China. People will return to being truthful, benevolent, humble, and tolerant; the nation will again care for the people’s basic needs, and all professions will prosper.

Notes:

[1] From Ha n Shu  ( Hi story of the Former Han Dynasty ) by first-century scholar Ban Gu. “All under heaven” refers to China under the emperors.

[2] Translated from Or iental Culture  by Qian Bocheng (4th ed., 2000).

[3] Gao Gang (1905–1954) and Rao Shushi (1903–1975) were both members of the Central Committee. After an unsuccessful bid in a power struggle in 1954, they were accused of plotting to split the Party and were subsequently expelled from the Party.

[4] Hu Feng (1902–1985), scholar and literary critic, opposed the sterile literature policy of the CCP. He was expelled from the Party in 1955 and sentenced to fourteen years in prison.

[5] From 1951 to 1952, the CCP initiated the Three-Anti Campaign and the Five-Anti Campaign, movements with the stated goal of eliminating corruption, waste, and bureaucracy within the Party, government, army, and mass organizations.

[6] Ho w the Chinese Communist Party Persecuted Christians  (1958). [in Chinese]

[7] Lu Xun (1881–1936) was a left-wing writer often considered the founder of modern vernacular (Baihua) Chinese literature. After returning to China from medical studies in Sendai, Japan, in 1909, he became a lecturer at Peking University and began writing. His books have influenced many contemporary Chinese youth.

[8] Both the Jade Emperor and Dragon King are Chinese mythological figures. The Jade Emperor, known formally as the August Personage of Jade and called informally by children and commoners Grandpa Heaven, is the ruler of heaven and among the most important gods of the Taoist pantheon. Dragon kings are the divine rulers of the four seas. Each sea, corresponding to one of the cardinal directions, is ruled by its own dragon king. Besides ruling over aquatic life, the dragon kings also manipulate clouds and rain. The Dragon King of the Eastern Sea is said to have the largest territory.

[9] Peng Dehuai (1898–1974) was a communist Chinese general and political leader. Peng was the chief commander in the Korean War, vice premier of the State Council, a Politburo member, and minister of defense from 1954 to 1959. He was removed from his official posts after disagreeing with Mao’s leftist approaches at the CCP’s Lushan Plenum in 1959.

[10] Zhao Gao (unknown–210 B.C.) was the chief eunuch during the Qin Dynasty. After Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s death in 210 B.C., Zhao, along with Prime Minister Li Si and the emperor’s second son, Hu Hai, forged two wills of the emperor, making Hu the new emperor and ordering Crown Prince Fu Su to commit suicide. Later, conflicts grew between Zhao and Hu. Zhao brought in a deer to the royal court and said it was a horse. Only a handful of the officials dared to disagree and say it was a deer. Zhao believed those officials who called the animal a deer were against him and removed them from their court positions.

[11]  Red Guards were civilians who were used to lead the way in implementing the Cultural Revolution. Most were youngsters in their mid-teens.

[12] The Daxing massacre occurred in August 1966 during the change of the Party leadership in Beijing. At that time, Xie Fuzhi, the minister of public security, made a speech at a meeting of the Public Security Bureau of Beijing, encouraging the police not to intervene in the Red Guards’ actions against the five black classes. This speech was soon relayed to a Standing Committee meeting of the Daxin Public Security Bureau. After the meeting, the Daxin Public Security Bureau immediately took action and formed a plan to incite the masses in Daxing County to kill the five black classes.

[13] Jiang Zemin (1926–) was formerly the paramount leader of the Chinese regime from 1989 to 2002. He is generally considered to have ruled from behind the scenes from 2002 to 2012, even though he was no longer head of the CCP, and he continues to have influence today. In 2004, Jiang still retained the title of chair of the Central Military Commission.

[14] As of December 19, 2004.

[15] From Kang Youwei, in Collections of Political Writings (1981) by Zhonghua Zhuju. Kang (1858–1927) was an important reform thinker of the late Qing Dynasty.

Commentary 4: On How the Communist Party Opposes the Universe

Foreword

Chinese people value greatly the Tao, or the Way. In ancient times, a brutal emperor would be called “a decadent ruler who lacks the Tao.” Any behavior not conforming to the standard of morality, which in Chinese is denoted by the two characters “Dao” and “de,” meaning “Tao” and “virtue,” respectively, was said “not to follow the principle of Tao.”

Even farmers in revolt put out banners proclaiming “Achieve the Way on behalf of heaven.” Lao Tzu [1] said: “There is something mysterious and whole, which existed before heaven and earth, silent, formless, complete, and never changing. Living eternally everywhere in perfection, it is the mother of all things. I do not know its name; I call it the Way.” This suggests that the world is formed from Tao.

In the last hundred years, the sudden invasion by the communist specter has created a force against nature and humanity, causing limitless agony and tragedy. It has also pushed civilization to the brink of destruction. Having committed all sorts of atrocities that violate the Tao and oppose heaven and the earth, it has become an extremely malevolent force against the universe.

“Man follows the earth, the earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Tao, and the Tao follows what is natural.” [2] In ancient China, people believed in complying with, harmonizing, and co-existing with heaven. Humankind integrates with heaven and earth and exists in mutual dependence with them.

The Tao of the universe does not change, and the universe runs according to the Tao, in an orderly manner. The earth follows the changes of heaven and therefore has four distinct seasons. By respecting heaven and the earth, humankind enjoys a harmonious life of gratitude and blessings. This is reflected in the expression “heaven’s favorable timing, earth’s advantageous terrain, and harmony among the people.” [3] According to Chinese thought, astronomy, geography, the calendar system, medicine, literature, and even social structures all follow this understanding.

But the Communist Party promotes humans over nature and a philosophy of struggle in defiance of heaven, the earth, and nature. Mao Zedong said, “Battling with heaven is endless joy, fighting with the earth is endless joy, and struggling with humanity is endless joy.” Perhaps the Communist Party did acquire real joy from these struggles, but the people have paid a tremendously painful price.

I. Struggling With People and Exterminating Human Nature

Confounding Good and Evil and Eliminating Humanity.

A human being is first a natural being and then a social being. “Men at their birth are naturally good” [4] and “The heart of compassion is possessed by all people alike” [5] are among the many guidelines that human beings bring with them at birth, guidelines that enable them to distinguish right from wrong and good from evil. However, for the CCP, human beings are animals or even machines. According to the CCP, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are just material forces.

The CCP’s purpose is to control people and gradually change them into rebellious, revolutionary ruffians. Karl Marx said, “Material forces can only be overthrown by material force,” and, “Theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.” [6] He believed that all of human history was nothing more than the continuous evolution of human nature, and that human nature is in fact class nature. He posited that there is nothing inherent and inborn — everything is produced by its environment. Marx argued that a human being is a social man, disagreeing with the concept of the “natural man” postulated by German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach.

Vladimir Lenin believed that Marxism cannot be generated naturally among the proletariat, but must be infused from the outside. Lenin tried his best but still could not cause workers to shift from the economic struggle to the political battle for power. So he pinned his hopes on the conditioned reflex theory of behavior put forth by Nobel Prize winner Ivan Petrovich Pavlov. Lenin said this theory “has significant meaning for the proletariat all around the world.”

Leon Trotsky [7] even vainly hoped that the conditioned reflex could not only be used to psychologically change a person, but also physically change the person. In the same way that a dog drools once it hears the lunch bell ringing, soldiers would be expected to rush ahead bravely upon hearing gunshots, thus devoting their lives to the Communist Party.

Since ancient times, people have believed that effort and labor lead to rewards. Through hard work, one was thought to gain a prosperous life. People had contempt for indolence and considered reaping benefits without laboring as immoral. After the Communist Party spread to China like a plague, however, it encouraged social scum and idlers to divide land, rob private property, and tyrannize men and women — all done publicly under the color of law.

Everyone knows that it is good to respect one’s elders and care for the young, and bad to disregard elders and teachers. Ancient Confucian education had two parts: “Xiao Xue” (Small Learning) and “Da Xue” (Great Learning). Xiao Xue education, received by children below the age of fifteen, mainly focused on manners regarding cleanliness, social interactions, and etiquette (education on hygiene, social behavior, speech, and so on). Da Xue education emphasized virtue and acquiring the Tao. [8] An ancient saying goes, “One day as my teacher, and I should respect him as my father for my entire life.”

During the CCP’s campaigns to criticize Lin Biao and Confucius and to denounce respect for teachers, the Party erased all moral standards from the minds of the younger generation. On August 5, 1966, Bian Zhongyun, a teacher of the Affiliated Girls High School of Beijing Normal University, was paraded by her female students on the street while dressed in a tall dunce hat and clothes stained with black ink, and carrying an insulting blackboard over her neck, as the students drummed on dustbins all around her. She was forced to her knees on the ground, beaten with a wooden stick spiked with nails, and burned with boiling water. She was tortured to death.

The female principal of the Affiliated High School of Peking University was forced by students to knock on a broken washbasin and yell, “I am a bad element.” Her hair was cut messily to humiliate her. Her head was beaten until it gushed blood as she was forced to crawl on the ground.

Everyone thinks to be clean is good and to be dirty is bad. But the CCP promotes “getting mud all over the body and covering your hands with calluses” and praises as good that your “hands are dirty and feet smeared with cow-dung.” [9] People like this were considered to be the most revolutionary and could attend universities, join the Party, be promoted, and eventually become Party leaders.

Humankind has progressed because of the accumulation of knowledge, but, under the CCP, gaining knowledge was considered bad. Intellectuals were classified as the stinky ninth category — the worst on a scale of one to nine. Intellectuals were told to learn from illiterates, and to be reeducated by poor peasants in order to be reformed and start new lives.

In the reeducation of intellectuals, professors from Tsinghua University were banished to Carp Island in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. Schistosomiasis [10] was a common disease in this area, and even a labor camp originally located there had to move. Upon touching the river water, these professors were immediately infected and developed cirrhosis, thus losing their ability to work and live.

At the instigation of former Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, the Cambodian Communist Party (Khmer Rouge) carried out the cruelest persecution of intellectuals. Those who had independent thoughts were subjected to reform and extermination, both spiritually and physically. From 1975 to 1978, one-quarter of the Cambodian population was killed; some met their deaths simply on account of the marks left on their faces from wearing glasses. After the Cambodian communists’ victory in 1975, Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot prematurely started to establish socialism — a supposed “heaven in human society” with no class differences, no divides between urban and rural, and no currency or commercial trade. In the end, families were torn apart and replaced with male and female labor teams. They were all forced to work and eat together, wearing the same black revolutionary or military uniform. Husbands and wives could only meet each other once a week with approval.

The Communist Party claims to fear nothing in heaven or earth, and it has attempted with arrogance to reform heaven and earth. This is in complete disregard of all the righteous elements and forces in the universe.

Mao wrote while he was a student in Hunan Province:

In  all centuries, nations have conducted great revolutions. The old is washed away and things are imbued with the new; great changes have occurred, involving life and death, success and ruin. It is the same with the destruction of the universe. This destruction is definitely not the final destruction, and there is no doubt that destruction here will be birth over there. We all anticipate such destruction, because in destroying the old universe, we bring about the new universe. Isn’t that better than the old universe? [11]

Affection is a natural human emotion. Affection among husbands and wives, children, parents, friends, and in society generally is normal. Through incessant political campaigns, the CCP has changed humans to wolves, or even an animal that is fiercer and crueler than the wolf. Even the fiercest tigers would not eat their own young. But under the rule of the CCP, it has been common for parents and children to report on each other, or husbands and wives to expose each other; familial relations were frequently renounced.

In the mid-1960s, a female teacher in an elementary school in Beijing accidentally put together the Chinese characters for “socialism” and “fall down” when she was drilling her students on language. Students reported her. After that, she was criticized every day and slapped by male students. Her daughter severed their relationship. Whenever the revolutionary struggle in her school became more intense, her daughter would criticize her mother’s “new movement in class struggles” during political sessions. For several years following the mishap, the teacher’s only work was cleaning the school, including its toilets.

People who went through the Cultural Revolution will never forget the dissident Zhang Zhixin, who was sent to jail because she criticized Mao for his failure in the Great Leap Forward. Many times, prison guards stripped off her clothes, handcuffed her hands behind her back, and threw her into male prison cells, letting male inmates gang rape her. She eventually went insane. When she was being executed, prison guards feared she would shout slogans in protest. They pressed her head on a brick and sliced a hole in her trachea without any anesthesia, ensuring that she could breathe but not speak.

In the persecution of Falun Gong in recent decades, the CCP continues to use the same old methods of inciting hatred and instigating violence.

The Communist Party suppresses human beings’ virtuous nature and promotes, encourages, and uses the evil side of humanity to strengthen its rule. In one campaign after another, people with a conscience are forced into silence for fear of violence. The Party has systematically destroyed universal moral standards in an attempt to completely demolish the concepts of good and evil and of honor and shame that have been maintained by humankind for thousands of years.

The Evil That Overrides the Law of Mutual Generation and Mutual Inhibition

Lao Tzu said:

Un der heaven, all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil. Therefore, having and not having arise together; Difficult and easy complement each other; Long and short contrast each other; High and low rest upon each other; Voice and sound harmonize each other; Front and back follow one another. [12]

Simply put, the law of mutual generation and mutual inhibition exists in the human world. Not only are humans divided into good and bad individuals, but also good and evil coexist within a single person. Dao Zhi, an icon for bandits in ancient China, told his followers, “Bandits should follow the Way as well.” He said that in being a bandit, one should also be “honorable, courageous, righteous, wise, and benevolent.” That is to say, even a bandit cannot do whatever pleases him, but has to follow certain rules.

The history of the CCP can be said to be full of trickery and betrayal without constraint. For example, what bandits honor the most is “righteousness.” Even their place to share the booty is called “the hall of righteousness for dividing the spoils.” But whenever a crisis arises among comrades within the CCP, they expose and accuse one another and even fabricate false charges to frame one another, adding insult to injury.

Take General Peng Dehuai, for example. Mao, coming from a peasant background, of course knew that it was impossible to produce 130,000 jin of grain per mu [13] and that what Peng said was all true. [14] He also knew that Peng had no intention of taking his power, let alone the fact that Peng had saved his life several times when Peng fought Hu Zongnan’s 200,000 troops with only 20,000 troops of his own during the CCP–Kuomintang war. Nevertheless, as soon as Peng expressed his disagreement with Mao, Mao immediately burst into a rage and threw into a garbage can the poem he wrote in praise of Peng: “Who dares to ride ahead on horseback with sword drawn — only our General Peng!” Mao was determined to put Peng to death despite the nobility of Peng’s life-saving comradeship.

The CCP kills brutally rather than governs with benevolence. It persecutes its own members in contempt of comradeship and personal loyalty. It barters away China’s territory, acting cowardly. It makes itself an enemy of righteous belief, lacking wisdom. It launches mass movements, violating the sage’s way to govern the nation. All in all, the CCP has gone so far as to abandon the minimal moral standard that “even bandits should follow the Way as well.” Its evilness has reached well beyond the law of mutual generation and mutual inhibition in the universe.

The CCP completely opposes nature and humanity for the purpose of confounding the criteria for good and evil and overturning the law of the universe. Its unrestrained arrogance has reached its zenith, and it is doomed to collapse completely.

II. Fighting With the Earth, Bringing Endless Disaster

Extend Class Struggle to Nature

Jin Xunhua was a 1968 high school graduate from the Wusong No. 2 Middle School of Shanghai and a member of the Standing Committee of the Middle School Red Guards in Shanghai. He was sent to the countryside in Heilongjiang Province in March 1969. On August 15, 1969, fierce floods rushed down from a mountain range and soon inundated the areas surrounding the Shuang River. Jin jumped into the swift currents to retrieve two drifting electrical poles for his production team — and drowned.

The following are two of Jin’s diary entries [15] before he died:

Ju ly 4. I am beginning to feel the severity and intensity of the class struggle in the countryside. As a red guard of Chairman Mao, I stand fully prepared to fight head on against the reactionary forces with the invincible Mao Zedong Thought as my weapon. I’m willing to do that even if it means I have to sacrifice my life. I will fight, fight, and fight to the best of my ability to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat.

July 19. The class enemies in that production brigade are still arrogant. Educated youth came to the countryside precisely to participate in the three major revolutionary movements in the countryside: first and foremost, the class struggle. We should rely on the class of the poor- and lower-middle peasants, mobilize the masses, and suppress the arrogance of the enemies. We educated youth should always uphold the great banners of Mao Zedong Thought, never forget the class struggle, and never forget the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Jin went to the countryside with the thought of fighting heaven and earth and reforming humanity. His diaries reveal that his mind was full of fighting. He extended the idea of struggling with humans to fighting with heaven and earth, and eventually lost his life for it. Jin was a typical believer of the philosophy of struggle, and he undoubtedly became its victim.

Engels once said that freedom is the recognition of inevitability. Mao added, “And the reformation of the world.” This final touch fully brought to light the CCP’s view of nature — namely, as something to be changed. The “inevitability” as understood by the communists is a matter outside the range of their view and a pattern whose origin is beyond their exposition. They believe that nature and humanity can be conquered by mobilizing subjective human consciousness to understand objective laws. The communists have made a mess of both Russia and China, their two pilot fields, in their efforts to change nature.

The folk songs during the Great Leap Forward show the arrogance and stupidity of the CCP:

“Let the mountains bow and let the rivers step aside.”

“There’s no Jade Emperor in the heaven, and there’s no Dragon King on the earth. I am the Jade Emperor, and I am the Dragon King. I order the three mountains and five gorges to step aside — here I come!” [16]

The Communist Party has come! So with it comes the destruction of balance in nature and the originally harmonious world.

Disrupting Nature Causes the CCP to Reap What It Has Sown

Under its agricultural policy of keeping grain as “the key link,” the CCP, at will, converted large areas of mountain slopes and grasslands that were unsuitable for farming to farmland, and filled rivers and lakes in China to make cropland. What was the result? The CCP claimed that grain production in 1952 exceeded that of the nationalist period, but what the CCP did not reveal was that it was not until 1972 that the total grain production in China exceeded that of the peaceful reign of Emperor Qianlong (1735–1796) of the Qing Dynasty. Even up to this day, China’s per capita grain production is far below that of the Qing Dynasty and is a mere one-third of that of the Song Dynasty, when agriculture was at its peak in Chinese history.

The indiscriminate cutting of forests, leveling of rivers, and filling of lakes have resulted in drastic ecological deterioration in China. Today, China’s ecosystem is on the brink of collapse. The drying-up of the Hai and Yellow rivers and the pollution of the Huai and Yangtze rivers are severing the lifelines on which the Chinese nation has depended for its survival. With the disappearance of grasslands in Gansu, Qinghai, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang, sandstorms have made their way into the central plains.

In the 1950s, under the guidance of Soviet experts, the CCP built the Sanmenxia hydraulic power station on the Yellow River. To this day, this power station only gives a generating capacity at the level of a medium-sized river, despite the fact that the Yellow River is the second-largest river in China. To make matters worse, this project has caused an accumulation of mud and sand at the river’s upper reaches and raised the height of the riverbed. Because of this, even a moderate flood brings enormous losses of life and property to people on both sides of the riverbank. In the 2003 flood of the Wei River, the peak water flux was 3,700 cubic meters per second, a level that usually occurs every three to five years. Yet that flood caused a disaster unprecedented in the previous fifty years.

There have been a multitude of large-scale reservoirs built in the city of Zhumadian in Henan Province. In 1975, the dams of these reservoirs collapsed one after another. Within only two hours, sixty thousand people drowned. The total death toll reached as high as two hundred thousand. The CCP continues its wanton acts of destruction of the land of China. Projects like the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River and the South-to-North Water Transfer Project are all attempts by the CCP to change the natural ecosystem with investments amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars, not to mention those small and medium-size projects to “fight with the earth.” It was once even suggested within the CCP that an atomic bomb be used to blast open a passage on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau to change the natural environment in western China. Although the CCP’s arrogance and contempt for the land have shocked the world, they are not unexpected.

In the hexagrams (“ ba  gua ”) of Th e Book of Changes , China’s ancestors regarded heaven as “Qian” or the creative and revered it as the heavenly Tao. They considered the earth as “Kun” or the receptive and respected receptive virtues.

Kun, the hexagram following Qian, is explained in Th e Book of Changes as such: “Being in the hexagram of Kun, earth’s nature is to extend and respond. In correspondence with this, superior persons handle and sustain all things with bountiful virtues.”

The Confucian commentary on Th e Book of Changes  says, “Perfect is Kun’s greatness; it brings birth to all beings.”

Commenting further on the nature of Kun, Confucius said: “Kun is the most soft, yet in motion, it is firm. It is most still, yet in nature, square. Through following, she obtains her lord, yet still maintains her nature and thus endures. She contains all things, and is brilliant in transforming. This is the way of Kun — how docile it is, bearing heaven and moving with time.”

Clearly, only through the earth mother’s receptive virtues of softness, stillness, and endurance in following heaven can all things sustain and flourish on earth. Th e Book of Changes  teaches us the proper attitude toward the heavenly Tao and earthly virtues: to follow heaven, abide by the earth, and respect nature.

The CCP, however, in violation of Qian and Kun, promotes “battling with heaven and fighting with the earth.” It has plundered the earth’s resources at will. In the end, it will inevitably be punished by heaven, the earth, and the law of nature.

III. Battling With Heaven

How Can a Limited Life Understand Limitless Space-time?

Albert Einstein’s son Eduard once asked him why he was so famous. Einstein said: “When a blind beetle crawls over the surface of a curved branch, it doesn’t notice that the track it has covered is indeed curved. I was lucky enough to notice what the beetle didn’t notice.” Einstein’s answer truly has deep implications. A Chinese saying conveys a similar meaning: “You do not know the true face of Mount Lu precisely because you are in the mountain.” To understand a system, one must step out of that system to observe it. However, using limited notions to observe the limitless space-time of the universe, mankind will never be able to understand the complete makeup of the universe, and thus the universe will remain forever a mystery to humankind.

The realm that science cannot traverse belongs to spirituality or metaphysics, which falls naturally in the realm of faith.

Faith — a mental activity that involves experience and an understanding of life, space-time, and the universe — lies beyond what can be managed by a political party. “Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” [17] However, based on a pitiful and absurd understanding of the universe and life, the Communist Party calls everything outside of its own theories “superstition,” and it subjects believers of God to brainwashing and conversion. Those unwilling to abandon their faith have been insulted, humiliated, or even killed.

Real scientists hold a very broad outlook of the universe; they will not deny the unlimited unknown using an individual’s limited notions. The renowned scientist Isaac Newton, in his seminal book Pr incipia Mathematica , published in 1678, explained in detail the principles of mechanics, tidal formation, and planetary movement and calculated the movements of the solar system. Newton, who was so eminently accomplished, said repeatedly that his book offered a mere description of surface phenomena and that he absolutely did not dare to speak about the real meaning of the ultimate God in creating the universe. In the second edition of Pr incipia Mathematica , in expressing his faith, Newton wrote: “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being. … As a blind man has no idea of colors, so we have no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things.”

Let us put aside the questions of whether there are heavenly kingdoms that transcend this space-time and whether those seeking the Way can return to their divine origins and true selves. One thing we can all agree on: Followers of a righteous faith all believe in the causal relationship that goodness begets goodness, and evil will be punished. Righteous faiths play a very important role in maintaining human morality at a certain level. From Aristotle to Einstein, many believed in the existence of a prevailing law in the universe. Humanity has never stopped probing for the truth of the universe through various means. Why cannot religion, faith, and cultivation, in addition to scientific exploration, be accepted as approaches through which to uncover universal truths?

Destroying Humanity’s Righteous Faith

All nations have historically believed in God. Precisely because of their belief in God and the karmic causality of good and evil, humans would restrain themselves and maintain the moral standard of society. The orthodox religions in the West, and Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism in the East, have all taught people that true happiness comes from having faith in the divine, worshipping heaven, being compassionate, cherishing what one has, being grateful for one’s blessings, and paying back others’ kindness.

A guiding premise of communism has been atheism — the belief that there is no Buddha, no Tao, no past lives, no afterlife, and no causal retribution. Therefore, communists in different countries have all told the poor and the lumpenproletariat that they do not need to believe in God, that they do not need to pay for what they do, and that they do not need to abide by laws and behave themselves. On the contrary, they tell them they should use trickery and violence to acquire wealth.

In ancient China, emperors, who were considered to be of supreme nobility, still placed themselves below heaven, calling themselves “sons of heaven.” Controlled and restrained by “heaven’s will,” they would, from time to time, issue imperial edicts to blame themselves and repent to heaven. The communists, however, take it upon themselves to represent the will of heaven. Unrestricted by laws or heaven, they are free to do anything they want. As a result, they have created one hell after another on earth.

Marx, the patriarch of communism, believed that religion is the spiritual opium of the people. He was afraid that people would believe in divinity and God and refuse to accept his communism. The very first chapter of Friedrich Engels’s Di alectics of Nature contains a criticism of Dmitri Mendeleyev and his group’s study of mysticism. Engels stated that everything during or before the Middle Ages had to justify its existence before the bar of human rationality. As he made this remark, he regarded himself and Marx to be judges at such a trial. Mikhail Bakunin, an anarchist and friend of Marx, described Marx this way: “He appeared to be God to people. He cannot tolerate anyone else as God except himself. He wanted people to worship him as they would God and pay homage to him as their idol. Otherwise, he would subject them to verbal attack or persecution.”

Traditional, orthodox faiths constitute a natural obstacle to communist arrogance.

The CCP has lost all composure in its frantic persecution of religion. During the Cultural Revolution, numerous temples and mosques were torn down, and monks were paraded in humiliation through the streets. In Tibet, 90 percent of the temples were damaged or destroyed. Even today, the CCP continues to persecute religions, jailing tens of thousands of house church Christians. Gong Pinmei, a Catholic priest in Shanghai, was imprisoned for more than thirty years by the CCP. He came to the United States in the 1980s. Before he died at age ninety-eight, he wrote a will that said, “Move my grave back to Shanghai when the CCP no longer rules China.” During the more than thirty years of solitary confinement inflicted on him because of his belief, the CCP pressured him many times to renounce his faith and to accept the leadership of the CCP’s Three-Self Patriotic Committee [18] in exchange for his release.

In recent years, the CCP’s brutal campaign against Falun Gong practitioners, who stand for the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, has been an extension of its doctrine of “battling with heaven,” as well as an inevitable outcome of its drive to force people against their will.

The atheist communists attempt to channel and control people’s belief in God; they derive joy from battling with heaven. Their absurdity cannot be described in words; descriptions such as arrogance or hubris cannot even begin to depict a fraction of it.

Conclusion

In practice, communism has completely failed across the globe. Jiang Zemin, a former leader of the last major communist regime in the world, said to a correspondent of Th e Washington Post  in March 2001, “When I was young, I thought communism would come very quickly, but now I don’t feel like this.” [19] At present those who truly believe in communism are few and far between.

The communist movement is destined to fail, since it violates the law of the universe and runs counter to heaven. Such opposition to the universe will surely be punished by the will of heaven and the divine.

Though the CCP has survived crises by frequently changing its appearance and clinging to its last desperate contrivances, its inevitable doom is clear to the whole world. Shedding its beguiling masks one by one, the CCP is revealing its true nature of greed, brutality, shamelessness, wickedness, and opposition to the universe. But it continues to control people’s minds, twisting human ethics and thus ravaging human morality, peace, and progress.

The vast universe carries with it the irrefutable will of heaven, which can also be called the will of the divine, or the law and force of nature. Humanity will have a future only if it respects heaven’s will, follows the course of nature, observes the law of the universe, and loves all beings under heaven.

Notes:

[1] “T ao-Te Ching,”  Chapter 25.

[2] From the teachings of Mencius, a Chinese philosopher who lived in the 4th century B.C.

[3] “S an Zi Jing (Rhymes of Three), a traditional Chinese text for elementary education.

[4] Mencius.

[5] Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of Right’  (1844).

[6] Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) was a Russian communist theorist, historian, and military leader who founded the Russian Red Army. He was murdered in Mexico City by agents of Joseph Stalin.

[7]  According to Zhu Xi (1130–1200), also known as Chu Hsi, a neo-Confucian scholar from the Song Dynasty, “Small Learning” deals with proper behavior, while “Great Learning” expounds on the underlying principles behind those behaviors.

[8] Mao Zedong. Ta lks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art  (1942).

[9] Schistosomiasis is a disease caused by parasitic worms. Infection occurs upon contact with contaminated fresh water. Common symptoms include fever, chills, cough, and muscle aches. In more serious cases, the disease can cause liver, intestine, lung, and bladder damage, and, in rare cases, seizures, paralysis, and spinal cord inflammation.

[10] From Ma o Zedong , Chapter 3, published by Chinese Archive Publishing House. Originally published in English in Th e People’s Emperor, Mao: A Biography of Mao Tse-Tung (1980) by D. Wilson.

[11] From Ta o-Te Ching , Chapter 2.

[12] “ Jin” is a Chinese unit for measuring weight. 1 jin = 0.5 kilograms. “Mu” is a Chinese unit for measuring land area. 1 mu = 0.165 acres.

[13] General Peng Dehuai criticized Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward movement, which is widely seen both within and outside China as a major economic disaster. As a consequence, he was removed from all posts and placed under constant supervision and house arrest. His humiliation and disgrace at the hands of the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution continued until he died in 1974 due to a liver disorder.

[14] Translated by the editors.

[15] The Jade Emperor and the Dragon King are Chinese mythological figures. The Jade Emperor, known formally as the August Personage of Jade and called informally by children and commoners as Grandpa Heaven, is the ruler of heaven and among the most important gods of the Chinese Daoist pantheon. Dragon kings are the divine rulers of the four seas. Each sea, corresponding to one of the cardinal directions, is ruled by one dragon king. The dragon kings live in crystal palaces, guarded by shrimp soldiers and crab generals. Besides ruling over aquatic life, the dragon kings also manipulate clouds and rain. The Dragon King of the Eastern Sea is said to have the largest territory.

[16] Matthew 22:21.

[17] The Three-Self Patriotic Committee (or Three-Self Patriotic Church, TSPC) is a creation of the CCP. “Three-self” refers to “self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating.” The committee requires Chinese Christians to sever ties with Christians outside of China. The TSPC controls all official churches in China. Churches that do not join the TSPC are forced to close. Leaders and followers of independent house churches are persecuted and often sentenced to prison terms.

[18] John Pomfret. “Jiang Has Caution For U.S.; China’s Leader Says Taiwan Arms Deal Would Spur Buildup.” Th e Washington Post , March 24, 2001.

Commentary 5: On the Collusion of Jiang Zemin and the Chinese Communist Party to Persecute Falun Gong

Foreword

Ms . Zhang Fuzhen, about 38 years old, was an employee of Xianhe Park, Pingdu City, Shandong Province. She went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in November 2000 and was later abducted by the authorities. According to people with knowledge of the case, the police tortured and humiliated Zhang, stripping her naked and shaving her head. They kept her tied to a bed with her four limbs stretched out, and she was forced to relieve herself on the bed. Later, the police gave her an injection of an unknown poisonous drug. After the injection, Zhang was in so much pain that she nearly went insane. She struggled in great pain on the bed until she died. The whole process was witnessed by the local officials of the 610 Office. [1]

Ms . Yang Lirong, 34, was from Beimen Street, Dingzhou City, Baoding Prefecture, Hebei Province. Her family was often harassed and intimidated by the police because she practiced Falun Gong. On Feb. 8, 2002, after a nighttime police raid, Ms. Yang’s husband, a driver working for the Bureau of Standards and Meteorology, was traumatized and afraid of losing his job. He could not withstand the tremendous pressure the authorities exerted on him. Early the next morning, taking advantage of the time when their elderly parents had stepped out of the house, he strangled his wife. Yang Lirong died tragically, leaving behind a 10-year-old son. Soon after, her husband reported the incident to the authorities, and the police hurried to the scene to conduct an autopsy on Ms. Yang’s body, which was still warm. They removed many organs from her body while the organs were still radiating heat, and blood gushed out. A Dingzhou Public Security Bureau staff member said, ‘This is no autopsy; it is vivisection!’  [2]

In  the Wanjia Forced Labor Camp in Heilongjiang Province, a woman who was about seven months pregnant was hung up from a beam. Both of her hands were tied with a coarse rope that was hung over a pulley attached to the beam. The stool that supported her was removed, and she was suspended in the air. The beam was 10 to 12 feet above the ground. The rope went through the pulley, and the prison guards held one end of the rope. When the guards pulled on the rope, she would be suspended in the air. As soon as the police let go of the rope, she would quickly fall to the ground. This pregnant woman suffered painful torture like this until she had a miscarriage. Even crueler was that her husband was forced to watch his wife endure the torture. [3]

These startling tragedies occurred in modern-day China. They happened to Falun Gong practitioners, and they are just a few of the countless cases of torture that have taken place over the past two decades of continuous persecution. [4]

Since China began economic reforms in the late 1970s, the Chinese Communist Party has endeavored to build a positive, liberal image for itself in the eyes of the international community. However, the continuous, long-term persecution, which has been bloody, irrational, widespread, vehement, and brutal, has enabled the international community to once again witness the true face of the CCP and the biggest disgrace on the CCP’s human rights record. The general public in China, under the delusion that the CCP has been improving and progressing, is used to blaming the low morality of the police for the atrocities committed by the Chinese legal system and law enforcement. However, the brutal, systematic persecution of Falun Gong is ubiquitous throughout every level of Chinese society and has burst any illusion of improved human rights.

Many people are now pondering how such a bloody and outrageous persecution could have happened in China. The social order was stabilized after the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. Why has China entered another cycle of nightmarish events? Why is Falun Gong, which upholds the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, and has spread to more than 60 countries worldwide, being persecuted in China? In this persecution, what is the relationship between Jiang Zemin and the CCP?

Jiang lacks both ability and moral integrity. Without a finely tuned machine of violence like the CCP, which is based on slaughter and lies, he would never have been capable of launching this genocide, a genocide that is widespread throughout China and even penetrates its borders. Similarly, the CCP would not have easily gone against the current of the historic trends and the environment created by the Party’s economic reforms and attempts to engage with the world, which were in full swing at the time. Only a stubborn, self-serving dictator like Jiang who was determined to have his way could have ordered such a reversal.

The collusion and resonance between Jiang and the evil specter of the CCP have amplified the atrocities of the persecution to an unprecedented level. It may be likened to how the clashes of a mountain-climber’s equipment resounding on accumulated snow can cause an avalanche.

I. Similar Backgrounds Generate the Same Sense of Crisis

Jiang Zemin was born in the restless year of 1926. Just as the CCP conceals its bloody history, Jiang, in front of the Party and the Chinese people, has also covered up his history of being a traitor to China.

When Jiang was 17, the worldwide anti-fascist war was in full swing. While patriotic youths went one after another to the frontlines to fight Japan and save China, Jiang chose to pursue higher education. In 1942, he attended the Central University in Nanjing established by the puppet regime of Wang Jingwei under the control of the Japanese. Investigations from various sources suggest the true reason was that Jiang’s biological father, Jiang Shijun, was once a high-ranking officer in the anti-China propaganda department of the Japanese army, after Japan occupied Jiangsu Province during its invasion of China. Jiang Shijun was truly a traitor to China.

In terms of betrayal and treachery, Jiang Zemin and the CCP are the same: They are so devoid of feelings and affection for the Chinese people that they recklessly dare to kill innocent people.

To infiltrate the CCP in order to raise his own wealth and rank after the Party won the civil war, Jiang fabricated the lie that he was adopted and raised by his uncle Jiang Shangqing, who had joined the CCP at an early age and was later shot dead by bandits.

Because of his fabricated family history, Jiang Zemin could be promoted from a low-ranking official to become deputy head of the Ministry of Electronics Industry in only a few years’ time. Jiang’s promotion was not granted based on his ability, but rather his personal connections and favors. In his tenure as the Party secretary of the city of Shanghai, Jiang spared no effort in currying favor with CCP magnates like Li Xiannian and Chen Yun, [5] who visited Shanghai every year for the Spring Festival. Even as the Party secretary of Shanghai, Jiang once stood and waited in the deep snow for several hours in order to personally deliver a birthday cake to Li.

The Tiananmen Square massacre [6] on June 4, 1989, was another turning point in Jiang’s life. He became the general secretary of the CCP through supporting the massacre, as well as suppressing a liberal newspaper, the World Economic Herald, and putting the leader of the People’s Congress, Wan Li, under house arrest. Even before the massacre took place, Jiang had delivered a secret letter to Deng Xiaoping requesting that “resolute measures” be taken against the students lest “the Party die and the country be vanquished.”

After he became paramount leader of the CCP, Jiang carried out wanton and often deadly suppression of all dissidents and groups who held independent beliefs, under the pretense of taking “stability as the overriding priority.” After Russia and China made surveys of their common border in 1991, Jiang has fully acknowledged Russia’s territorial gains resulting from invasions by the czar and the Soviet Union, and completely accepted all the unequal treaties between Russia and China since the Treaty of Aigun. Chinese lands covering more than 1 million square kilometers have thus been permanently forfeited by him.

With Jiang’s fictional account of his personal history — pretending to be the orphan of a CCP martyr while in fact being the eldest son of a traitor — he personally followed the CCP’s example of deceit. With his support of the Tiananmen Square massacre and suppression of democratic movements and religious beliefs, he has personally adopted the CCP’s practice of killing.

Just as the CCP used to be under the Soviet Union’s command as a Far East branch of the Communist International, so Jiang now gave out land for free. He is well-versed in the CCP’s characteristic of betrayal

Jiang and the CCP share similar disgraceful origins and history. Because of this, both share an acute sense of insecurity regarding their power.

II. Both Jiang Zemin and the CCP Equally Fear “Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance”

The history of the international communist movement was written with the blood of hundreds of millions of people. Nearly every communist country went through a process similar to the counter-revolutionary suppression by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. Millions or even tens of millions of innocent people were slaughtered.

In the 1990s, the Soviet Union dissolved, and Eastern Europe went through drastic changes. The communist bloc lost more than half of its territory overnight. The CCP learned from this lesson and realized that stopping suppression and allowing the right to free speech would be equivalent to seeking its own doom. If people were allowed to express themselves freely, how could the CCP cover up its bloody atrocities? How could it justify its deceptive ideology? If suppression was stopped and people were free of threats and fears, wouldn’t they dare to choose a lifestyle and a belief other than communism? Then, how would the Communist Party maintain the social state essential to its survival?

The CCP remains essentially the same regardless of any surface changes it might have made. After the Tiananmen Square massacre, Jiang cried out to “eliminate any unstable factors in their embryonic stage.” Extremely afraid, he concluded that he would never give up lying to the public, and he would continue to suppress the people until they were completely immobilized.

During this period, Falun Gong was introduced in China. At first, Falun Gong was regarded by many as merely a type of qigong [7] with an especially powerful ability to keep people healthy and fit. Later, people gradually realized the essence of Falun Gong was not its five easy exercises. Instead, Falun Gong’s essence is to teach people to become better based upon the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.

CCP Brews ‘Deceit, Malice, and Struggle’

Falun Gong promotes truthfulness, including telling the truth and doing truthful things. The CCP relies on lies to brainwash people. If everyone began telling the truth, the public would learn that the CCP grew by murdering, kidnapping, taking flight when convenient, selling opium, ingratiating itself with the Soviet Union, usurping the cause of fighting against the Japanese invasion, and so on. The CCP once claimed, “Nothing significant can be accomplished without lying.” After the CCP seized power, it initiated successive political movements and caused countless bloody debts. Promoting truthfulness would thus spell the end of the CCP.

Falun Gong promotes compassion, including considering others first and being kind to others in all circumstances. The CCP has always advocated “brutal struggle and merciless crackdown.” The CCP’s model hero, Lei Feng, once said, “We should treat our enemies mercilessly, being as cold as the severe winter.” Actually, the CCP treated not only its enemies like that; it has treated its own members no better. The founders of the Communist Party, the supreme commanders and marshals, and even a chairman of the country, were all mercilessly interrogated, brutally beaten, and miserably tortured by their own Party. The slaughter of the so-called “class enemies” was so brutal it could make one’s hair stand on end. If compassion were to become predominant in society, the mass movements based upon malice, as initiated by the Communist Party, would have never been able to take place. The Communist Manifesto states, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.” This represents the Communist Party’s concept of history and the world.

Falun Gong promotes searching inside oneself for one’s own shortcomings in the face of conflict. This introspective and self-restrained outlook is the complete opposite of the CCP’s philosophy of struggle and attack. Struggle is the primary means by which communist parties gain political power and survive. Communist parties periodically initiated political movements to suppress certain groups of people in order to recharge itself and revive its revolutionary fighting spirit. The process was repeated with violence and lies in order to strengthen and renew people’s fear, and thus maintain its power.

From the ideological point of view, the philosophy the Communist Party has relied on for its survival is completely opposite to what Falun Gong teaches.

People With Righteous Beliefs Are Fearless

People who understand the truth are fearless. Christianity was persecuted for nearly 300 years, during which numerous Christians were beheaded, burned to death, drowned, or even fed to lions, but the Christians did not give up their beliefs. Similarly, when Buddhism experienced various “tribulations of the Dharma” throughout history, Buddhists remained faithful.

Atheistic propaganda aims to make people believe there is no heaven or hell and no karmic retribution, so that people are no longer restrained by their conscience and instead focus on wealth and comfort in this world. The weaknesses in human nature can then be manipulated, and intimidation and temptation can be used to fully control people.

However, those with strong beliefs are able to withstand tests of life and death. The illusions of the secular world do not move them. They take the temptations of the earthly world and threats to their lives lightly, thus rendering the Communist Party feeble in any efforts to manipulate them.

The High Moral Standards of Falun Gong

Since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, the ideology of the CCP has gone completely morally bankrupt.

The collapse of the Soviet Communist Party in late 1991 was accompanied by massive changes throughout Eastern Europe. This put the CCP in a state of great fear and pressure. It faced unprecedented challenges to its political legitimacy and the survival of the regime as it encountered great crises both at home and abroad. At that time, the CCP was no longer able to unite its members with its original doctrines of Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism. Instead, it turned to total corruption in exchange for Party members’ loyalty. In other words, whoever followed the Party would be allowed personal benefits, gained through corruption and embezzlement, that were impossible for non-Party members to obtain.

Especially following Deng Xiaoping’s tour of southern China in 1992, [8] regime officials’ profiteering and corruption in real estate and the stock market have run wild. Mistresses and smuggling are everywhere. Pornography, gambling, and drugs have become rampant all over China. Although it may not be fair to say that there is not a single good person in the Communist Party, the general public long ago lost confidence in the Party’s anti-corruption efforts; it is generally assumed that more than half of middle- or high-ranking government officials are involved in corruption.

At the same time, the high moral standards demonstrated by Falun Gong practitioners resonated with the kindness left in the hearts of the public. More than one hundred million people had taken up Falun Gong. Falun Gong is a mirror of righteousness that by its very nature reveals all the unrighteousness of the CCP.

The CCP Was Extremely Jealous

The unique way Falun Gong grew was by spreading person to person, heart to heart. Falun Gong has a loose management structure, and anyone can come and go freely, as one wishes. This differs greatly from the strict organization of the CCP. Despite this strict organization, which includes political study and group activities conducted weekly by CCP branches, it exists only in form. Few Party members actually agree with the Party ideology. By contrast, Falun Gong practitioners conscientiously follow the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.

Because of the powerful effect of Falun Gong in improving people’s mental and physical health, the number of people who practiced Falun Gong grew exponentially, starting in 1992. Practitioners voluntarily studied Mr. Li Hongzhi’s series of books and promoted Falun Gong at their own expense. In a short seven years, the number of Falun Gong practitioners grew from none to one hundred million. Every morning, the exercise music of Falun Gong could be heard in almost every park in China as practitioners gathered to do the exercises.

The Communist Party said that Falun Gong competes with the CCP for the masses, and that it is a religion. In fact, Falun Gong brings to people a culture and a way of life. It is an ancestral culture and the root of Chinese traditions, which the Chinese people had lost long ago. Jiang and the Communist Party feared Falun Gong because once this traditional morality was accepted by the public, nothing could prevent it from spreading rapidly.

The Communist Party has forcibly proscribed and tampered with Chinese traditional beliefs for decades. A return to tradition is history’s choice, the path of return chosen by the vast majority of people following the tribulations and misery visited upon them by the CCP. If given such a choice, people would certainly distinguish between right and wrong and would likely leave wickedness behind. This would certainly be a fundamental denial and abandonment of what the Communist Party has promoted. It would strike at the mortal weakness of the CCP. One can imagine the deep fear and jealousy of the CCP when the number of people who practiced Falun Gong exceeded the number of Communist Party members.

In China, the CCP exerts total control over every part of society. In the countryside, there are Communist Party branches in every single village. In urban areas, branch offices of the CCP are found in every neighborhood administrative office. In the army, government, and enterprises, the Party branches reach to the very roots. Absolute monopoly and manipulation are essential measures that the CCP must take to maintain its regime. The Chinese constitution euphemistically terms this phenomenon as “persisting in the leadership of the Party.”

Falun Gong practitioners, on the other hand, would prefer to take truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance as their principles. The CCP saw this as nothing short of denying the leadership of the Party, something it found absolutely unacceptable.

Threat to the Legitimacy of the Communist Regime

A true theistic belief is bound to be a significant challenge to the Communist Party.

Because the legitimacy of communist rule is based on dialectical materialism and the wish to build a heaven on earth, it could only rely on the leadership of an earthly vanguard — namely, the Communist Party. Meanwhile, the practice of atheism enabled the Communist Party to interpret freely what is virtuous and what is good or bad. The result has been a virtual lack of morality and distinction between good and bad. All that people have to remember is that the Party is always “great, glorious, and correct.”

Theism gives people an unchanging standard of good and bad. Falun Gong practitioners evaluate right or wrong based on truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. This obviously hinders the CCP’s perpetual efforts to “unify” people’s thinking.

Continuing with this analysis, there are still many other reasons why the CCP persecutes Falun Gong. However, any one of the above five reasons involves a fatal weakness of the CCP.

Actually, Jiang suppressed Falun Gong for the same reasons. Jiang started his career by lying about his past, so of course he is afraid of the truth. He became successful and powerful through suppressing people, so of course he dislikes compassion. He maintained his power through political struggles inside the Party, so of course he dislikes tolerance.

From a small incident that took place three years into Jiang’s rule, one can tell how extremely petty and jealous he is. The Museum of Hemudu Cultural Ruins [9] in Yuyao County (now reclassified as a city), Zhejiang Province, is a major historical and cultural site under state conservation. Originally, it was Qiao Shi [10] who wrote the signature inscription for the museum. When Jiang visited the museum in September 1992 and saw Qiao’s inscription, his face turned dark and gloomy. The accompanying personnel were very nervous, as they knew that Jiang could not stand Qiao and that Jiang liked to show off so much that he would write an inscription wherever he went, even when he went to visit the traffic police division of the Public Security Bureau in Jinan City and the Retired Engineers Association of Zhengzhou city. The museum staff dared not slight the petty Jiang. Consequently, in May 1993, under the excuse of renovation, the museum replaced Qiao’s inscription with one of Jiang’s before the reopening.

Mao Zedong is said to have “four volumes of profound and powerful writing,” whereas the “Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping” includes his cat axiom, [11] which has an air of practical wisdom. Jiang racked his brains but could only come up with three sentences and claimed to have come up with the doctrine of the Three Represents. [12] It was published into a book and promoted by the CCP through level after level of government organizations, yet it only sold because people were forced to buy it.

Party members still didn’t respect Jiang, even a little. They spread gossip about his affair with a singer and his embarrassing episodes of singing “O Sole Mio” when he traveled abroad and combing his hair in front of the King of Spain.

When the founder of Falun Gong, Mr. Li Hongzhi, who was born an ordinary Chinese, gave a lecture, the lecture hall would be filled with professors, experts, and Chinese students who had studied abroad. Many people with master’s degrees or doctorates flew thousands of miles to listen to his lectures. When Mr. Li lectured onstage for several hours, he did so eloquently and without using any notes. Afterward, the lecture could be transcribed on paper and made into a book to be published.

All these things were unbearable to Jiang, who is vain, jealous, and petty.

Jiang lives an extremely lavish, lustful, and corrupt life. He once spent 900 million yuan (over $110 million) to buy a luxurious private jet. Jiang often drew money in the tens of billions from public funds for his son to do business. He used nepotism to promote his relatives and minions to high-ranking posts above the ministerial level, and he resorted to desperate and extreme measures in covering up for his cronies’ corruption and crimes. For all these reasons, Jiang is afraid of Falun Gong’s moral authority and even more afraid that heaven and hell, and the principle that good and evil are rewarded accordingly, as addressed by Falun Gong, are indeed real.

Although Jiang held in his hands the greatest power in the CCP, he lacked political achievement and talent, and so he often worried that he would be forced out of power amid the CCP’s ruthless power struggles. He is very sensitive about his status as the core of power. In order to eliminate dissension, he plotted underhanded schemes to get rid of his political enemies Yang Shangkun and Yang’s brother Yang Baibing. At the Fifteenth National Congress of the Communist Party in 1997 and the Sixteenth National Congress in 2002, Jiang forced his opponents to leave their posts. He, on the other hand, ignored the relevant regulations and clung dearly to his posts.

In 1989, as the new general secretary of the CCP, Jiang held a press conference for both domestic and foreign reporters. A French reporter asked about the story of a female college student who, because of her involvement in the June 4 student movement in Tiananmen Square, was transferred to a farm in Sichuan Province to carry bricks from one place to another and was raped repeatedly by the local peasants. Jiang replied: “I don’t know if what you said is true or not, but that woman is a violent rioter. If it is true, she deserved it.” During the Cultural Revolution, Zhang Zhixin [13] was subjected to gang rape. When she was detained in prison, her trachea was cut so that she could not shout out the truth at her execution. Jiang would probably also think that she deserved it. We can easily see Jiang’s unscrupulous and deviant mentality and cruelty.

In summary, Jiang’s hunger for dictatorial power, his cruelty, and his fear of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance are the causes for his irrationally launching the campaign to suppress Falun Gong. This is, in turn, highly consistent with the way the CCP operates.

III. Jiang Zemin and the CCP Colluded with Each Other.

Jiang is known for showing off and employing political trickery. His incompetence and ignorance are well known. Although he wholeheartedly intended to exterminate Falun Gong out of personal spite, he was incapable of doing much, as Falun Gong is rooted in traditional Chinese culture and has become so popular as to gain a broad social base.

The mechanisms of tyranny employed by the CCP, perfected through numerous movements, were in full operation, and the CCP intended to uproot Falun Gong. Jiang thus took advantage of his position as the general secretary of the CCP and personally launched the persecution of Falun Gong. The effect of collusion and resonance between Jiang and the CCP was like an avalanche caused by a mountain climber.

Before Jiang officially issued orders for the persecution of Falun Gong, the CCP had already begun suppressing, monitoring, and investigating Falun Gong. It also began fabricating incidents to be used for framing accusations against Falun Gong. The evil specter of the CCP instinctively felt threatened by truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, not to mention by the unprecedented rapid growth of the practice. Undercover public security personnel in the CCP infiltrated Falun Gong as early as 1994, but they failed to discover any faults, and some even began to practice Falun Gong in earnest.

In 1996, Guangming Daily violated the Three Restrictions [14] by publishing an article denouncing Falun Gong’s tenets. After that, politicians with a background in public security or with the title of “scientist” continually harassed Falun Gong. At the beginning of 1997, Luo Gan, secretary of the Political and Judiciary Committee of the Central Committee of CCP, took advantage of his power and ordered the Public Security Bureau to carry out a nationwide investigation of Falun Gong for the purpose of finding charges to justify a ban on the practice. After it was reported from around the country that no evidence had been found, Luo issued a circular — No. 555, “Notification Regarding Starting an Investigation of Falun Gong” — through the First Bureau of the Public Security Ministry (also called the Political Security Bureau). He first charged Falun Gong with being an “evil cult” and then ordered police departments across the country to investigate Falun Gong systematically, using undercover personnel to collect evidence. The investigation found no evidence to support his accusation.

Before the CCP, the embodiment of an evil specter, could begin to crack down on Falun Gong, it needed the right person to initiate the mechanisms for suppression. How the head of the CCP handled the issue was crucial. As an individual, the CCP’s head could possess both goodness and evil — two opposite aspects of human nature. If he chose to follow his good side, then he could temporarily restrain an eruption of the vile Party nature; otherwise, the evil nature of the CCP would manifest fully.

During the pro-democracy student movement in 1989, Zhao Ziyang, then general secretary of the CCP Central Committee, had no intention of suppressing the students. It was the eight party elders controlling the CCP who insisted on it. Deng Xiaoping said at that time, “[We would] kill two hundred thousand people in exchange for twenty years of stability.” The so-called “twenty years of stability” actually meant twenty years of rule by the CCP. This idea conformed to the CCP’s fundamental goal of being a dictatorship, so it was accepted by the CCP.

Regarding the Falun Gong issue, Jiang was the only one out of the seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee of the CCP Central Committee who insisted on the suppression. The excuse Jiang provided was that it was related to “the survival of the Party and the country.” This touched the most sensitive nerve of the CCP and provoked the CCP’s tendency toward struggle. Jiang’s attempt to maintain his personal power and the CCP’s attempt to maintain its dictatorship by a single party were highly unified on this point.

On the evening of July 19, 1999, Jiang chaired a conference of the CCP’s highest-ranking officials. He overrode the law with his political power, personally “unified” the understanding of all members present, and personally decided to launch a massive campaign against Falun Gong. He banned Falun Gong in the name of the Chinese regime and deceived the public. The CCP, China’s state organization, and the violent mechanisms employed by the CCP were used to their full extent in an overwhelming persecution of millions of innocent Falun Gong practitioners.

If the general secretary of the CCP at that time had been someone other than Jiang, the persecution of Falun Gong would not have taken place. In that respect, we can say that the CCP used Jiang. On the other hand, if the CCP had not incurred so many bloody debts with its unscrupulous, immoral, and savage nature, it would not have considered Falun Gong to be a threat.

Without the CCP’s complete and pervasive control over every part of society, Jiang’s intention to suppress Falun Gong would not have gained organization, financing, and propaganda; nor the support of diplomats, personnel, and equipment; nor the support of prisons, police, the National Security Department, and army; nor the so-called “support” from the circles of religion, science and technology, democratic parties, workers’ unions, Youth Corps Committees, Women’s Associations, and so on.

In this respect, we can say that Jiang used the CCP.

IV. How Jiang Zemin Uses the CCP to Persecute Falun Gong

By taking advantage of the CCP’s organizational principle that requires the entire membership of the Party to be subordinate to the Central Committee, Jiang exploited the vast state machinery controlled by the CCP to serve the objective of persecuting Falun Gong. The CCP-controlled apparatus includes the army, the media, public security personnel, the police, paramilitary police, state security forces, judicial system, the National People’s Congress, and diplomatic personnel, as well as sham religious groups.

The army and paramilitary police, all of which are controlled by the CCP, have directly taken part in the abduction and arrest of Falun Gong practitioners. The news media in China have assisted Jiang’s regime in spreading lies and smearing Falun Gong. The state security system has been exploited by Jiang personally in gathering and submitting information, fabricating lies, and falsifying intelligence. The National People’s Congress and the judicial system have put on the “legal” appearance and the garb of “rule of law” to justify crimes committed by Jiang and the CCP, effectively deceiving people from all walks of life. They have turned themselves into an instrument for the service and protection of Jiang. At the same time, the diplomatic system has spread lies in the international community and enticed foreign governments, senior officials, and international media with political and economic incentives so that they will remain silent regarding the issue of the persecution.

During the Central Committee’s working conference in which the suppression of Falun Gong was ordered, Jiang claimed, “I just don’t believe that the CCP can’t beat Falun Gong.” In planning the strategy of the suppression, three policies were put in place regarding Falun Gong practitioners: “ruin their reputation, bankrupt them financially, and destroy them physically.” A campaign of persecution subsequently went into full operation.

Exploiting the Media to Block the Flow of Information

The policy of “ruining [Falun Gong practitioners’] reputations” has been carried out by the media, which are under the absolute control of the CCP. Starting on July 22, 1999, the third day into the campaign of arresting Falun Gong practitioners across the country, the CCP-controlled news media launched a full-scale anti-Falun Gong propaganda blitz.

Take the Beijing-based China Central Television (CCTV) as an example. In the remaining months of 1999, CCTV broadcast programming that spread lies about Falun Gong for more than seven hours each day. Producers of these programs started by distorting and falsifying speeches by Mr. Li, the founder of the spiritual practice, then threw in fake cases of so-called suicide, murder, and death of practitioners due to their supposed refusal of medical treatment. They did everything they could to smear and frame Falun Gong and its founder. The most publicized case was removing the word “not” from a statement Mr. Li once said at a public event, that “the so-called earth explosion event does not exist.” The CCTV program turned this statement into “the earth explosion event does exist,” thereby claiming that Falun Gong spread doomsday theories.

Subterfuge was also employed in order to mislead the public. An example was transferring the offences of criminals to Falun Gong practitioners. A murder committed by the mentally deranged Fu Yibin in Beijing and a fatal poisoning by a beggar in Zhejiang Province were both blamed on Falun Gong.

The CCP then used the media to instigate hatred among the deceived public, justifying and seeking support for the unpopular, bloody persecution. More than two thousand newspapers, one thousand magazines, and hundreds of local TV and radio stations under the absolute control of the CCP became overloaded in their all-out smear campaign toward Falun Gong. These propaganda programs were further spread to every other country in the world via the official Xinhua News Agency, China News Services, Hong Kong China News Agency, and other CCP-controlled overseas media organizations. Based on incomplete statistics, within only six months, more than three hundred thousand news articles and programs smearing and targeting Falun Gong were published or broadcast, deceiving and poisoning the minds of countless people.

At overseas Chinese embassies and consulates, a large number of albums, CDs, and publications criticizing and pretending to “expose” Falun Gong were displayed. Special columns were set up on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ website to criticize and “expose” Falun Gong. In addition, at the end of 1999 during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit held in New Zealand, Jiang completely dispensed with any pretence and handed out a pamphlet defaming Falun Gong to every head of state attending the conference. In France, Jiang, in violation of the Chinese constitution, labeled Falun Gong an “evil cult” in front of foreign media in order to ruin the reputation of Falun Gong practitioners.

The black cloud of oppression choking China signaled that something as drastic as the Cultural Revolution was about to begin.

The most despicable incident to frame Falun Gong was the so-called self-immolation staged in January 2001, which was reported worldwide at unprecedented speed via Xinhua News Agency. The incident has since been criticized by numerous international organizations, including the International Education and Development Agency at the United Nations in Geneva, as a regime-staged action meant to deceive the world’s people. During questioning, a member of the TV crew that filmed the incident admitted that some of the footage shown on CCTV was in fact shot afterward. The unscrupulous nature of the oppressors is obvious. One can’t help but wonder how these supposed “Falun Gong disciples facing death unflinchingly” (referring to the “self-immolators”) could be so cooperative with the CCP authorities as to let them shoot the footage of their self-immolation twice.

No lies can survive the light of day. While spinning out rumors and fabricating lies, the CCP also has done everything in its power to block the flow of information. It has relentlessly suppressed any overseas reports on Falun Gong activities as well as any reasonable defense by Falun Gong practitioners. All Falun Gong books and other documents have been destroyed without exception. Extreme measures have been taken to guard against any foreign media attempts to interview Falun Gong practitioners in China, including expelling foreign journalists, pressuring foreign news media, or threatening to ban them.

As for the Falun Gong practitioners in China who have tried to transmit overseas the facts about Falun Gong and materials documenting inhumane persecution by the authorities, the CCP has also adopted extreme and brutal measures in suppressing them. Li Yanhua, a 60-year-old woman from Dashiqiao City, Liaoning Province, was kidnapped by the police on on February 1, 2001, while handing out materials with information about the persecution of Falun Gong. She was beaten to death. To cover up their crimes, the police said that she died from being “entranced by Falun Gong.” At Tsinghua University, over a dozen teachers and students were given long prison terms for handing out materials on Falun Gong. After exposing the facts about the rape suffered in detention by Wei Xingyan, a Falun Gong practitioner and graduate student at Chongqing University, seven Falun Gong practitioners in Chongqing were charged and given long prison terms.

Imposing Fines and Ransacking Homes

The entire state apparatus of the CCP has carried out a policy of “bankrupting [Falun Gong practitioners] financially.” In the first 5-plus years after the start of the persecution in 1999, hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners were fined amounts ranging from thousands to tens of thousands of yuan, in an effort to intimidate them and cause them severe financial losses. With no justification whatsoever, local governments, work units, police stations, and public security departments arbitrarily imposed these fines and continue to do so to this day. Those who are forced to pay the fines are not issued any receipts or referred to any articles of law for explanation. There is no due process.

Ransacking homes is another form of robbery and intimidation inflicted on Falun Gong practitioners. Those who have held firm in their belief have had to face unwarranted searches, with the police ransacking their residences at any time. Their cash and other valuables have been confiscated without justification. In the countryside, even stored grain and other food products have not been spared. Likewise, none of the items taken away from Falun Gong practitioners have been documented nor any receipts ever issued. Usually those who confiscate practitioners’ property have kept it for themselves.

At the same time, Falun Gong practitioners have faced the penalty of being laid off from their jobs. In the countryside, the authorities have threatened to confiscate practitioners’ land. The CCP has not even spared the elderly, whose pension plans have been terminated and homes seized by the government. Some Falun Dafa practitioners in business have had their properties confiscated and bank accounts frozen.

In carrying out these policies, the CCP also took the approach of guilt by association. That is, if there were Falun Gong practitioners found in any particular work unit or state enterprise, the leaders and the employees of these units would not receive bonuses, nor would they get promoted. The goal is to instigate hatred toward Falun Gong practitioners in society. Family members and relatives of Falun Gong practitioners also have faced the threat of being dismissed from work, of having their children expelled from school, and of being evicted from their residences. All these measures serve the same purpose: to cut off all possible sources of income for Falun Gong practitioners in order to force them to give up their beliefs.

Brutal Acts of Torture and Wanton Killing

The gruesome policy of “destroying [Falun Gong practitioners] physically” has been primarily carried out by the police, procuratorate, [15] and the court system in China. Based on statistics gathered by the website Minghui.org, as of December 19, 2004, at least 1,143 Falun Gong practitioners had died from persecution in the previous five years. The deaths have occurred in more than 30 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities and under the direct leadership of the central government. By October 1, 2004, the province recording the highest number of deaths was Heilongjiang, followed by Jilin, Liaoning, Hebei, Shandong, Sichuan, and Hubei. The youngest person killed was only 10 months old; the oldest was 82 years old. Nearly 39 percent of those killed were over 50 years of age; 51.3 percent were women. CCP officials have admitted privately that the actual number of Falun Gong practitioners who have died from the persecution is much higher.

The brutal torture methods used on Falun Gong practitioners are many and varied. Beating; whipping; administering electric shocks; exposing them to freezing temperatures; tying them with ropes, handcuffing them, or shackling them for extended periods; burning them with open flame, lit cigarettes, or hot irons; hanging them up by cuffs; forcing them to stand or kneel for extended periods; jabbing them with bamboo sticks or metal wires; and encouraging their sexual abuse and rape are just a handful of examples. In October 2000, guards at the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp in Liaoning Province stripped the clothes off eighteen female Falun Gong practitioners and threw them into the prison cells for male inmates to rape and abuse at will. The crimes are too many to list.

Another common form of inhumane torture is the abusive use of “psychiatric treatment.” Normal, rational, and healthy Falun Gong practitioners have been unlawfully locked up in psychiatric facilities and injected with unknown drugs capable of destroying a person’s central nervous system. As a result, some practitioners have suffered partial or complete paralysis. Some have lost sight in both eyes or hearing in both ears. Some have sustained severe injuries to their muscles or internal organs. Some have lost part or all of their memory and become mentally retarded. Some have suffered complete mental collapse. Some even died shortly after being injected with the drugs.

Statistics as of 2004 indicated that cases of Falun Gong practitioners being persecuted with “psychiatric treatment” had spread to twenty-three out of thirty-three provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities, under the direct leadership of the central authorities in China. At least one hundred psychiatric facilities at the provincial, city, county, or district level had engaged in the persecution.

Based on the number and distribution of these cases, it is clear that the abuse of Falun Gong practitioners with psychiatric drugs was a well-planned, systematically carried out, top-down policy. By 2004, at least one thousand mentally healthy Falun Gong practitioners had been sent to psychiatric facilities or drug rehabilitation centers against their will. Many of them were forcibly injected or force-fed numerous drugs. These practitioners were also bound with ropes and tortured with electric shocks. At least fifteen of them died from abuse.

610 Office Extends Its Tentacles

On June 7, 1999, Jiang slandered Falun Gong without any basis at a Politburo meeting of the CCP. He classified the issue of Falun Gong as a “class struggle,” labeled Falun Gong practitioners as the CCP’s political enemy, provoked the CCP’s reflex for struggle, and passed orders to set up an “office for dealing with the Falun Gong issue” in the Central Committee.

Since this office was established on June 10, it was called the “610 Office.” After that, branches of the agency were set up across the country at all levels of government, from the highest to the lowest, to be specifically in charge of all affairs relating to the suppression of Falun Gong. The Political and Judiciary Committee, the media, public security organizations, the procuratorate, people’s courts, and national security organizations subordinate to the leadership of the CCP Committee all served as the thugs and hitmen for the 610 Office.

While the agency technically reports to the State Council, in reality it is a Party organization that is allowed to exist outside of the established framework of the state and the Chinese government — free from any legal restriction, regulation, or national policies. It is an all-powerful organization very similar to Nazi Germany’s Gestapo, with powers far beyond those of the legal and judiciary systems, allowing it to employ the resources of the country as it sees fit.

On July 22, 1999, after Jiang issued the order to suppress Falun Gong, the Xinhua News Agency released speeches given by officials in charge of the CCP Central Organizational Ministry and the CCP Central Propaganda Ministry showing their open support of the persecution of Falun Gong. All of these entities cooperated under the CCP’s strict organization to carry out Jiang’s vicious scheme.

The many cases that have occurred since have proven that neither the public security departments, nor the procuratorate, nor the people’s courts have the power to make their own decisions on cases related to Falun Gong — they have to take orders from the 610 Office. When the family members of many Falun Gong practitioners who were arrested, detained, and tortured to death inquired and filed complaints with various departments and courts, they were told that all decisions would be made by the 610 Office.

However, the existence of the 610 Office itself has no legal basis. Additionally, when it issues orders to organizations within the system of the CCP, usually it gives oral, not written, commands. Moreover, it stipulates that all those who receive the orders are forbidden from recording it via audio or video, or even written notes.

Using this type of temporary arm of the dictatorship is a tactic the Party has often repeated, without any regard for the law. During all previous political purge movements, the Party always set up irregular temporary organizations, such as the Central Cultural Revolution Group, to lead and spread the Chinese Communist Party’s tyranny to the whole country. During its long-term reign of tyranny and heavy-handed rule, the Party has created the strongest and most evil system of state terror, with violence, lies, and the blocking of information. While the CCP’s degree of inhumanity is extreme, its practice of deceit is highly sophisticated. The scale and extent of this evil system are unprecedented.

In all previous political movements, the Party was accumulating systematic and effective methods and experiences in punishing, harming, and killing people in the cruelest, craftiest, and most duplicitous ways imaginable. In one case mentioned earlier, a husband could not stand the threats and harassment of the police, and so he killed his kind-hearted wife. This is the evil fruit of the CCP’s state terror, including deceit by the media, political pressure, guilt by association, and intimidation, which aims to warp human nature and instigate hatred.

Using the Military and National Financial Resources

The Party controls all state military forces, which allows it to do as it wants, without fear, when it suppresses people. In the suppression of Falun Gong, Jiang not only employed the police and the paramilitary police, but also directly employed armed military forces in July and August 1999, when hundreds of thousands — possibly even millions — of common people from all over the country intended to go to Beijing to peacefully appeal for Falun Gong.

Soldiers were assigned to places inside the city of Beijing. All main thoroughfares to Beijing were lined with soldiers carrying loaded guns. They cooperated with police to intercept and arrest Falun Gong practitioners who went to appeal. Jiang’s direct allocation of the CCP’s armed forces paved the way for the bloody persecution.

The Party controls the state’s finances, which provide backing for Jiang to persecute Falun Gong. A high-ranking officer of the Justice Department of Liaoning Province once said in a conference at the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp, “The financial resources used to deal with Falun Gong have exceeded the outlay for a war.” It is not clear yet how much of the state’s economic resources and the people’s earnings through sweat and toil has been used by the CCP to persecute Falun Gong. However, it is not hard to see that it must be an enormous figure.

In 2001, information from inside the Party’s Public Security Department showed that, at Tiananmen Square alone, the expense of arresting Falun Gong practitioners was 1.7 million to 2.5 million yuan per day, which amounts to 620 million to 910 million yuan per year.

In the whole country — from cities to remote rural areas, from police stations and public security departments to all branches of the 610 Office — Jiang has employed at least a few million people to persecute Falun Gong. The cost in wages alone may exceed one hundred billion yuan per year. Moreover, Jiang spent huge amounts to expand forced labor camps to detain Falun Gong practitioners and build brainwashing centers and bases. For example, in December 2001, Jiang expended 4.2 billion yuan to build brainwashing centers and bases used for “transforming” Falun Gong practitioners. Jiang also used monetary incentives to stimulate and encourage greater numbers of people to participate in persecuting Falun Gong. In many areas, the prize for arresting a practitioner was several thousand or even ten thousand yuan.

The Masanjia Forced Labor Camp is one of the most evil places used in the persecution of Falun Gong. The Party once awarded the camp director 50,000 yuan and the deputy director 30,000 yuan.

Jiang is not only the person who launched the persecution of Falun Gong, but also the person who plotted and directed it, using the mechanisms of the CCP. He bears inescapable responsibility for this historic crime. However, if there were no CCP with its mechanism of violence formed through many political movements, Jiang would have had no way to launch and carry out the evil persecution.

Jiang and the Party make use of each other. They risk everyone’s condemnation to oppose truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, to serve the interests of a person and a party. Their collusion is the real reason why such a tragic and absurd crime was possible.

V. Bringing Down the CCP From the Inside

Motivated by his personal interests, Jiang utilized the inherent evil of the CCP to launch the immense persecution aimed at innocent people who follow truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. He launched a punitive movement against a social force most beneficial and least harmful to the nation and society. This persecution not only drags the nation and people down into crime and disaster, but also defeats the Party at its very foundation. Jiang utilized the Party to employ relentlessly all manner of evil means all over the world to eradicate Falun Gong. Law, morality, and humanity all have suffered great harm, which has destroyed the regime’s legitimacy at the root.

Jiang’s regime employed all available financial, material, and human resources to persecute Falun Gong, which has caused an enormous burden for the nation and society, and huge pressure on the financial system. The Party has no way of sustaining the doomed persecution for an extended period of time. It can only use ordinary people’s savings, issue national bonds, and entice foreign investment to keep the persecution going.

During the persecution, the Party and Jiang have devised all kinds of devious, brutal, and deceitful tactics, employing the Party’s entire repertoire of treachery and evildoing in order to persecute Falun Gong. The Party and Jiang employed every known propaganda tool to fabricate rumors, denigrate the practice, and make excuses for the suppression and persecution.

However, no lie can last forever. Once the lies are finally exposed, and when all the evil is revealed by the failure of the persecution and becomes known to all, their propaganda methods will no longer be able to deceive. The Party will lose its credibility and its hold on people’s hearts completely.

At the beginning of the suppression of Falun Gong in 1999, Jiang intended to eradicate Falun Gong in three months. However, the Party underestimated the power of Falun Gong and the power of tradition and belief.

Since ancient times, evil has never been able to eliminate the righteous. It cannot eradicate the kindness in people’s hearts. Decades years have passed. Falun Gong is still Falun Gong. Moreover, the practice has spread widely all over the world. Jiang and the Party have suffered a severe defeat in this battle between good and evil, and their devious, cruel, and evil nature has been fully exposed. The notorious Jiang is now beset with troubles both at home and abroad and is facing many lawsuits and appeals seeking to bring him to justice.

The Party originally intended to make use of the suppression to consolidate its tyranny. However, the result is that it was not able to recharge but rather exhausted its own energy. Now the Party is too far gone for resuscitation. It is just like a rotten, withered tree — it will collapse by itself in a gust of wind. Any fantasy of salvaging the CCP goes against the tide of history. Holding on to that dream will not only be in vain, but also destroy the participants’ futures.

Conclusion

The former general secretary of the CCP, Jiang Zemin, is the one who launched, plotted, and commanded the evil persecution. Jiang fully utilized the CCP’s power, position, disciplinary methods, and mechanisms for political movements to start this persecution against Falun Gong. He bears unavoidable responsibility for this historic crime. On the other hand, if there were no CCP, Jiang would have been unable to launch and conduct this evil persecution.

From the day it came into being, the CCP has turned against righteousness and goodness. With suppression as its tool of choice and persecution as its expertise, the CCP based its reign on strict mind control that follows a single, central party. By its very nature, the Party dreads truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance and regards Falun Gong as the enemy. Therefore, its suppression and persecution of Falun Gong were inevitable.

While attacking truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, Jiang and the CCP allowed falsehood, evil, violence, poison, wickedness, and corruption to propagate. What followed was a widespread moral decline in the land of China, affecting everyone.

The collusion between the CCP and Jiang has tied their fates together. Falun Gong is now suing Jiang. The day Jiang is brought to justice, the fate of the CCP will be self-evident. Heavenly principles will not tolerate those who conduct inhumane persecution against a group of good people that follow truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. The evil actions of Jiang and the CCP will also become a perpetual and profound lesson for humankind.

Notes:

[1] From a July 23, 2004, report published by the English-language Minghui website.

[2] From a September 25, 2004, report published by Minghui.

[3] From a November 15, 2004, report published by Minghui, with an interview with Ms. Wang Yuzhi, who was tortured for more than one hundred days in the Wanjia Forced Labor Camp.

[4] The Chinese communist regime has continuously persecuted Falun Gong practitioners since 1999, and the brutality of the persecution has not let up to date.

[5] Li Xiannian (1902–1992) was a former president of the PRC and president of the People’s Political Consultative Conference. Chen Yun (1905–1995) was one of the most influential leaders of communist China. Chen was a Politburo Standing Committee member for decades and was chairman of the Central Advisory Committee from 1987 to 1992.

[6] On June 4, 1989, the People’s Liberation Army attacked unarmed students who held demonstrations for democracy in Tiananmen Square. The PLA killed hundreds — possibly thousands — in an event now known as the Tiananmen Square massacre.

[7] “Qigong” is a generic term in Chinese for energy exercises. There are many schools of qigong, most of which are rooted in traditional spiritual beliefs. Falun Gong is a form of qigong.

[8] In 1992, Deng Xiaoping came out of semi-retirement, toured Shenzhen in southern China near Hong Kong, and gave speeches to promote a socialist market economy in China. Deng’s tour is largely considered to have rekindled China’s economic reform after a lull beginning with the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

[9] The Hemudu Cultural Ruin is an important Chinese village site from the Neolithic Age. It was discovered in 1973 and is seven thousand years old.

[10] Qiao Shi (1924–2015) was chairman of the National People’s Congress from 1993 to 1998.

[11] Deng once said, “No matter whether the cat is black or white, if it catches mice it is a good cat.” By this Deng meant that the goal of economic reforms during his tenure was to bring prosperity to the people, regardless of whether they were socialist or capitalist in form.

[12] Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents” claims that the Party must always represent the development trend of China’s advanced productive forces, the orientation of China’s advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people.

[13] Zhang Zhixin (1930–1975) was a female intellectual who was tortured to death by the CCP during the Cultural Revolution for being outspoken in telling the truth.

[14] The “Three Restrictions” was a state policy regarding qigong that held that the state would not advocate, intervene in, or condemn qigong activities.

[15] The procuratorate is the Chinese state organization responsible for prosecution and legal supervision. Its functions include deciding on arrest and prosecution in cases involving major crimes, conducting investigations, initiating and supporting public prosecutions, interpreting the law in specific applications, supervising court decisions, monitoring judicial procedures, and supervising the activities of prisons, detention centers, and labor camps.

Commentary 6: On How the Chinese Communist Party Destroyed Traditional Culture

Foreword

Culture is the soul of a nation. This spiritual factor is as important to mankind as physical factors such as race and land.

Cultural developments define the history of a nation’s civilization. The complete destruction of a national culture leads to the end of the nation. Ancient nations that had created glorious civilizations were considered to have vanished when their cultures disappeared, even though people of their races may have survived. China is the only country in the world whose ancient civilization has been passed down continuously for more than five thousand years. The destruction of its traditional culture is an unforgivable crime.

The Chinese culture, believed to be passed down by the divine, started with such myths as Pangu’s creation of heaven and the earth, [1] Nüwa’s creation of humanity, [2] Shennong’s identification of hundreds of medicinal herbs, [3] and Cangjie’s invention of Chinese characters. [4] “Man follows the earth, the earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Tao, and the Tao follows what is natural.” [5] The Taoist wisdom of the unity of heaven and humanity has coursed through the veins of Chinese culture. “Great learning promotes the cultivation of virtue.” [6] Confucius opened a school to teach students more than two thousand years ago and imparted to society the Confucian ideals represented by the five cardinal virtues of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faithfulness. In the first century, Shakyamuni’s Buddhism, with its emphasis on compassion and salvation for all beings, traveled east to China. The Chinese culture became more wide-ranging and profound. Thereafter, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism became complementary beliefs in Chinese society, bringing the Tang Dynasty (618–907) to a zenith of world-renowned glory and prosperity.

Although the Chinese nation has experienced invasion and attack many times in history, the Chinese culture has shown great endurance and stamina, and its essence has been continuously passed down from one generation to the next. The unity of heaven and humanity represents our ancestors’ cosmology. It is common sense that kindness will be rewarded and evil will be punished. It is an elementary virtue that one should not do to others what one does not want done to oneself. Loyalty, filial piety, dignity, and justice have set the social standards, and Confucius’s five cardinal virtues have laid the foundation for social and personal morality. With these principles, the Chinese culture embodied honesty, kindness, harmony, and tolerance. Inscriptions on the memorial tablets of Chinese commoners show reverence to “heaven, earth, monarch, parents, and teacher.” This is a cultural expression of deeply rooted Chinese traditions, including worship of the divine (heaven and earth), loyalty to the country (monarch), values of family (parents), and respect for teachers. Traditional Chinese culture sought harmony between man and the universe and emphasized an individual’s ethics and morality. It was based on the faiths of the cultivation practices of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, and provided the Chinese people with tolerance, social progress, a safeguard for human morality, and righteous belief.

Unlike laws, which prescribe hard rules, culture works as a soft constraint. The law enforces punishment after a crime has been committed, while culture, by nurturing morality, prevents crimes from happening in the first place. A society’s morality is often embodied in its culture.

Traditional Chinese culture reached its peak during the prosperous Tang Dynasty, coinciding with the height of the Chinese nation’s power. Science was also advanced and enjoyed a unique reputation among all nations. Scholars from Europe, the Middle East, and Japan came to study in Chang’an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty. Countries bordering China took China as their suzerain state. “Myriad states came to pay tribute to China. In order to have a good relationship with China, they would make an effort to translate their languages multiple times, to overcome the language barrier.” [7]

Following the Qin Dynasty (221–207 B.C.), China was often occupied by minority groups. This happened during the Sui (581–618), Tang (618–907), Yuan (1271–1368), and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties and at other times when ethnic minorities established their own rule. Nevertheless, almost all these ethnic groups were assimilated to the Chinese ways. This shows the great integrative power of traditional Chinese culture. As Confucius said, “If the people from afar are not compliant, bring them around by cultivating [our] culture and virtue.” [8]

Since attaining power in 1949, the CCP has devoted the nation’s resources to destroying China’s traditional culture. This ill intention did not come from the CCP’s zeal for industrialization, nor from a foolish desire to emulate Western civilization. Rather, it came from the CCP’s inherent ideological opposition to traditional Chinese culture. Thus, the CCP’s destruction of Chinese culture has been planned, well-organized, and systematic, supported by the state’s use of violence. Since its establishment, the CCP has never stopped “revolutionizing” Chinese culture in its attempt to destroy its spirit completely.

Even more despicable than the CCP’s destruction of traditional culture is its intentional misuse and underhanded modification of traditional culture. The CCP has highlighted the vilest events in China’s history, things that occurred whenever people diverged from traditional values, such as vying for power within the royal family, the use of tactics and conspiracy, and dictatorship and despotism. It has used these historical examples to help create the CCP’s own set of moral standards, ways of thinking, and system of discourse. In doing so, the CCP has created the false impression that this “Communist Party culture” is actually a continuation of traditional Chinese culture. The CCP has even taken advantage of the aversion some people have toward Party culture, encouraging them to further reject the authentic Chinese tradition.

The CCP’s destruction of traditional culture has brought disastrous consequences to China. Not only have people lost their moral bearings, but also they have been forcibly indoctrinated with the CCP’s evil theories.

I. Why Did the CCP Want to Sabotage Traditional Culture?

The Long Tradition of Chinese Culture: Based on Faith and Venerating Virtue

The authentic culture of the Chinese nation started about five thousand years ago with the legendary Yellow Emperor, who is deemed to be the earliest ancestor of Chinese civilization. In fact, Emperor Huang is credited with founding Taoism, which is also called the Huang-Lao school of thought. The profound influence of Taoism on Confucianism can be seen in such Confucian sayings as “aspire to the Tao, align with virtue, abide by benevolence, and immerse yourself in the arts” and “if one hears the Tao in the morning, one can die without regret in the evening.” [9] The “Book of Changes,” or “I Ching”, a record of heaven and earth, yin and yang, cosmic changes, social rise and decline, and the laws of human life, was regarded by Confucians as the top text among all Chinese classics. The prophetic power of the book has far surpassed what modern science can conceive. In addition to Taoism and Confucianism, Buddhism—especially Zen Buddhism — has had a subtle yet profound influence on Chinese intellectuals.

Confucianism was the part of the traditional Chinese culture that focused on “entering the mundane world.” It emphasized family-based ethics, in which filial piety played an extremely important role, teaching that “all kindness starts with filial piety.” Confucius advocated benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faithfulness, but also said, “Aren’t filial piety and brotherly love the roots of benevolence?”

Family-based ethics can be naturally extended to guide social morality. Filial piety can be extended to subordinates’ loyalty to the monarch. Confucius said, “It is seldom that a person with filial piety and brotherly love will be inclined to offend those above.” [10] Brotherly love is the relationship among brothers and can be extended to righteousness and justice among friends. Confucians teach that in a family, a father should be kind, a son filial, an older brother friendly, and a younger brother respectful. Here, fatherly kindness can be extended to the benevolence of a monarch toward his subordinates. As long as the traditions of the family can be maintained, social morality can naturally be sustained. “Cultivate oneself, regulate one’s family, rightly govern one’s state, and pacify all under heaven.” [11]

Buddhism and Taoism are the parts of Chinese culture that focused on “leaving the mundane world.” The influence of Buddhism and Taoism can be found to penetrate all aspects of the Chinese people’s lives. Practices that are deeply rooted in Taoism include Chinese medicine, qigong, feng shui, and divination. These practices — as well as the Buddhist concepts of a heavenly kingdom and a hell, the karmic rewards for good and the retribution for evil — have, together with Confucian ethics, formed the core of traditional Chinese culture.

The beliefs of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism offered the Chinese people a very stable moral system, unchangeable “so long as heaven remains.” [12] This ethical system offered the basis for sustainability, peace, and harmony in society.

Morality belongs to the spiritual realm; thus, it is often conceptual. Culture expresses the abstract moral system in a language that can be commonly understood.

Take the Four Chinese Classics, the four most-renowned novels in Chinese culture, as examples. Th e Journey to the West [13] is a mythical tale. Dr eam of the Red Chamber [14] starts with a dialog among a spirited stone, the Deity of Infinite Space, and the Tao of Boundless Time at the Baseless Cliff of the Great Waste Mountain. This dialog provides clues for the human drama that unfolds in the novel. Ou tlaws of the Marsh  [15] opens with a tale of how Premier Hong, the official in charge of military affairs, accidentally set free one hundred and eight demons. This legend explains the origin of the “one hundred and eight outlaw militants of prowess.” Th ree Kingdoms [16] begins with a heavenly warning of a disaster and ends with the inescapable conclusion of divine will: “The world’s affairs rush on like an endless stream; a heaven-told fate, infinite in reach, dooms all.” Other well-known stories, such as Ch ronicles of the Eastern Zhou  [17]and Th e Complete Story of Yue Fei , [18] all begin with similar legends.

These novelists’ use of myths was not a coincidence, but rather the reflection of Chinese intellectuals’ basic philosophy toward nature and humanity. These novels have had a profound influence on the Chinese mind. When speaking of righteousness, people think of Guan Yu (160–219) of the Three Kingdoms period, rather than the concept itself. They think of how his righteousness toward his friends transcended the clouds and reached heaven; how his unmovable loyalty to his superior and sworn-brother Liu Bei gained him respect even from his enemies; how his bravery in battle carried him through times of peril; and how he made a heroic last stand near the town of Mai and was posthumously reunited with his son upon becoming a deity. When speaking of loyalty, Chinese people naturally think of Yue Fei (1103–1141), a Song Dynasty general who served his country with unreserved integrity, and Zhuge Liang (181–234), prime minister of the Shu State during the Three Kingdoms period, who “gave his all until his heart stopped beating.”

These authors vividly expounded the reverence for loyalty and righteousness that permeates traditional Chinese culture. Abstract moral principles reflected in these dramas have been immortalized in the form of popular cultural expressions.

Taoism emphasizes truthfulness, Buddhism emphasizes compassion, and Confucianism values loyalty, tolerance, benevolence, and righteousness. “While their forms differ, their purposes are the same. … They all inspire people to return to kindness.” [19] These are the most valuable aspects of traditional Chinese culture, based upon the beliefs of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism.

Traditional Chinese culture is filled with concepts and principles such as heaven, the Tao, God, Buddha, fate, predestination, benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, faithfulness, honesty, shame, loyalty, filial piety, dignity, and so on. Many Chinese may be illiterate, but they are still familiar with traditional plays and operas. These cultural forms have been important in helping people to learn traditional morals. Therefore, the CCP’s destruction of traditional Chinese culture is a direct attack on Chinese morality and undermines the basis for peace and harmony in society.

The Evil Communist Theory Opposes Traditional Culture

The “philosophy” of the Communist Party completely contradicts the authentic traditional Chinese culture. Traditional culture respects the mandate of heaven. As Confucius once said, “Life and death are predestined, and wealth and rank are determined by heaven.” [20] Both Buddhism and Taoism are forms of theism that believe in the reincarnation cycle of life and death, and the karmic causality of good and evil.

The Communist Party, on the contrary, not only believes in atheism, but also runs wild in defying the Tao and attacking heavenly principles. Confucianism values family, but the Th e Communist Manifesto  clearly promotes the abolition of the family. Traditional culture differentiates the Chinese from the foreign, but Th e Communist Manifesto  advocates the end of nationality.

Confucian culture promotes kindness to others, but the Communist Party encourages class struggle. Confucians encourage loyalty to the monarch and love for the nation. Th e Communist Manifesto  promotes the elimination of nations.

To gain and maintain power in China, the Communist Party first had to plant its immoral thought on Chinese soil. Mao Zedong claimed, “If we want to overthrow an authority, we must first make propaganda and do work in the area of ideology.” [21]

The CCP realized that its communist theory, which is sustained by force of arms, was the refuse of Western thought and could not stand up to China’s profound five-thousand-year-old cultural heritage. “In for a penny, in for a pound.” The CCP then completely destroyed traditional Chinese culture, so that Marxism and Leninism could rise to prominence on China’s political stage.

Traditional Culture Is an Obstacle to the CCP’s Dictatorship

Mao once said, fittingly, that he followed neither the Tao nor heaven. [22] Traditional Chinese culture undoubtedly served as a huge obstacle for the CCP in its defiance of the Tao and contention with heaven.

Loyalty in traditional Chinese culture did not mean blind devotion. In the eyes of the people, the emperor was a “son of heaven” with heaven above him. The emperor could not be correct at all times. Therefore, observers needed to point out the emperor’s mistakes at all times.

The Chinese chronicle system had historians record all the words and deeds of the emperor. Scholastic officials could become teachers for their sage kings, and the behavior of the emperor was judged by the Confucian classics.

If the emperor was immoral and unenlightened to the Tao, people might rise up to overthrow him, as was the case when Chengtang attacked Jie, or when King Wu removed Zhou from power. [23]

These uprisings, judged from traditional culture, were not considered violations of loyalty or the Tao. Instead, they were seen as enforcing the Tao on behalf of heaven.

When Wen Tianxiang, [24] a well-known military commander in the Song Dynasty, was taken prisoner, he refused to submit to the Mongol invaders even when the Song emperor tried to persuade him to surrender. This was because, as a Confucian, he believed that “the people are of supreme importance; the nation comes next; last comes the ruler.” [25]

The dictatorial CCP could by no means accept traditional beliefs such as these. The CCP wanted to canonize its own leaders and promote a cult of personality, and so would not allow such long-held concepts as heaven, the Tao, or God to govern from above.

The CCP was aware that what it did was considered the most heinous and enormous crime against heaven and the Tao if measured by the standards of traditional culture. They were aware that as long as traditional culture existed, people would not praise the CCP as “great, glorious, and correct.”

Scholars would continue the tradition of “risking their lives to admonish the monarch,” and “maintaining justice at the expense of their lives,” [26] and place the people above the rulers. Thus, the people would not become the CCP’s puppets, and the Party would not be able to force conformity on the thoughts of the masses.

Traditional culture’s respect for heaven, the earth, and nature became an obstacle for the CCP’s battle with nature in its effort to “alter heaven and the earth.” Traditional culture treasures human life, teaching that any situation involving human life has to be treated with the utmost care.

Such a perception was a hindrance to the CCP’s mass genocide and rule by terror. Traditional culture’s ultimate moral standard of the “heavenly Tao” was a hindrance to the CCP’s manipulation of moral principles. For these reasons, the CCP made traditional culture an enemy in an effort to bolster its own control.

Traditional Culture Challenges the Legitimacy of the CCP Rule

Traditional Chinese culture includes faith in gods and the heavenly mandate. Accepting the mandate of heaven means that rulers have to be wise, follow the Tao, and be attuned to destiny. Accepting belief in the divine means accepting that authority over humanity rests with heaven.

The CCP’s ruling principles are summarized by these words: “Never more tradition’s chains shall bind us. Arise ye toilers, no more in thrall. The earth shall rise on new foundations. We are but naught; we shall be all.” [27]

The CCP promotes historical materialism, claiming that communism is an earthly paradise, the path to which is led by the pioneer proletarians, or the Communist Party. Belief in the divine thus directly challenged the legitimacy of the CCP’s rule.

II. How the Communist Party Sabotages Traditional Culture

Everything the CCP does serves a political purpose. In order to seize, maintain and consolidate its tyranny, the CCP needs to replace human nature with its evil Party nature, and the Chinese traditional culture with its Party culture of “deceit, malice, and struggle.”

This destruction and substitution encompasses both tangible artifacts, such as cultural relics, historical sites, and ancient books; as well as such intangible things as the traditional outlook on morality, life, and the world. All aspects of people’s lives are involved, including their actions, thoughts, and lifestyles.

At the same time, the CCP regards insignificant and superficial cultural manifestations as the “essence,” retaining them, and then puts this essence up as a façade. The Party keeps the semblance of tradition while replacing the real tradition with Party culture. It then deceives the people and international society behind a façade of carrying on and developing Chinese traditional culture.

Simultaneously Extinguishing the Three Religions

Since traditional culture is rooted in Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, the CCP’s first step in destroying traditional culture was to extinguish the manifestation of the divine principles in the human world, eradicating the three religions corresponding to them.

All three major religions, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, encountered destruction in different historical time periods. Take Buddhism for example. It has suffered four major tribulations in history, which are historically known as the “Three Wus and One Zong” persecution of Buddhist devotees by four Chinese emperors.

Emperor Taiwu of the Northern Wei Dynasty (386–534) and Emperor Wuzong of the Tang Dynasty (618–907) both tried to extinguish Buddhism in order to have Taoism prevail. Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty (557–581) tried to extinguish Buddhism and Taoism together, but venerated Confucianism. Emperor Shizong of the Later Zhou Dynasty (951–960) tried to extinguish Buddhism merely to use the Buddha statues to mint coins, and did not touch Taoism or Confucianism.

The CCP is the only regime to have extinguished the three religions simultaneously.

Soon after the CCP established a government, it began to destroy temples, burn scriptures, and force the Buddhist monks and nuns to return to secular life. Neither was it any softer in destroying other religious places.

By the 1960s, there were hardly any religious places left in China. The Great Cultural Revolution brought even greater religious and cultural catastrophe in the campaign to destroy “the four olds” [28] — old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits.

For example, the first Buddhist temple in China was the White Horse Temple (Bai Ma Temple) built in the early Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220) outside Luoyang City, Henan Province. It is honored as the “cradle of Buddhism in China” and “the founder’s home.”

During the campaign to destroy the four olds, the White Horse Temple, of course, could not escape looting:

Th ere was a White Horse Temple production brigade near the temple. The Party branch secretary led peasants to smash the temple in the name of ‘revolution.’ The more than one-thousand-year-old clay statues of the Eighteen Arhats built in the Liao Dynasty (916–1125) were destroyed. The Beiye scripture [29] that an eminent Indian monk brought to China two thousand years ago was burned. A rare treasure, the Jade Horse, was smashed to pieces. Several years later, Cambodian King-in-Exile Norodom Sihanouk made a special request to pay homage to the White Horse Temple. Zhou Enlai, the Chinese premier at the time, hurriedly ordered the transport to Luoyang of the Beiye scripture stored in the Imperial Palace in Beijing and the statues of the Eighteen Arhats built in the Qing Dynasty from the Temple of Azure Clouds (Biyun Temple) located at the Xiangshan Park [30] in suburban Beijing. With this bogus replacement, a diplomatic difficulty was ‘solved.’ [31]

The Cultural Revolution began in May 1966. It was in fact “revolutionizing” Chinese culture in a destructive way. Starting in August 1966, the raging fire of the campaign to “destroy the four olds” burned the entire land of China.

Regarded as objects of “feudalism, capitalism, and revisionism,” the Buddhist temples, Taoist temples, Buddha statues, historical and scenic sites, calligraphy, paintings, and antiques became the main targets for destruction by the Red Guards.

Take the Buddha statues for example. There are one thousand colored, glazed Buddha statues in relief on the top of Longevity Hill in the Summer Palace [32] in Beijing. After the campaign to “destroy the four olds,” they were all damaged. None of them has a complete set of the five sensory organs any more.

The capital of the country was like this, and so was the rest of the country. Even the remote county seats did not escape.

Th ere is a Tiantai Temple in Dai County in Shanxi Province. It was built during the Taiyan period of the Northern Wei Dynasty 1,600 years ago and had precious statues and frescos. Although it was situated on a hillside quite a distance away from the county seat, the people who participated in the campaign to ‘destroy the four olds’ ignored the difficulties and made a clean sweep of the statues and frescos there. … The Louguan Temple, where Lao Tzu gave his lecture and left his famous ‘Tao Te Ching’ 2,500 years ago, is situated in the Zhouzhi County in Shaanxi Province. Centered around the platform where Lao Tzu lectured, within a radius of 10 li, [33] there are over 50 historical sites, including the Temple Venerating the Sage (Zongsheng Gong) that Emperor Tang Gaozu Li Yuan [34] built to show respect for Lao Tzu over 1,300 years ago. Now the Louguan Temple and the other historical sites have been destroyed, and all Taoist priests have been forced to leave. According to the Taoist canon, once one becomes a Taoist priest, one can never shave one’s beard or have one’s hair cut. However, now the Taoist priests are forced to have their hair cut, take off their Taoist robes, and become members of the People’s communes. [35] Some of them married daughters of the local peasants and became their sons-in-law. … At the sacred Taoist places in Laoshan Mountain in Shandong Province, the Temple of Supreme Peace, the Temple of the Highest Clarity, the Supreme Clarity Temple, the Doumu Temple, the Huayan Nunnery, the Ningzhen Temple, the Temple of Guan Yu, ‘the statues of the divine, sacrificial vessels, scrolls of Buddhist sutras, cultural relics, and temple tablets were all smashed and burned down.’ … The Temple of Literature in Jilin Province is one of the four famous Temples of Confucius in China. During the campaign to ‘destroy the four olds,’ it was severely damaged. [36]

A Special Way to Destroy Religion

Vladimir Lenin once said, “The easiest way to take a fortress is from within.” As a group that inherited the legacy of Marxism-Leninism, the CCP naturally and tacitly understands this.

In the Ma hayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra , [37] Buddha Shakyamuni predicted that after his nirvana, demons would be reincarnated as monks, nuns, and male and female lay Buddhists to subvert the Dharma.

Of course, we cannot verify what Buddha Shakyamuni was referring to exactly. However, the CCP’s destruction of Buddhism indeed started with forming a united front with some Buddhists.

They even sent some underground Communist Party members to infiltrate the religion directly and subvert it from within. In a criticism meeting during the Cultural Revolution, someone questioned Zhao Puchu, vice president of the Chinese Buddhist Association at the time, saying, “You are a Communist Party member, why do you believe in Buddhism?”

Buddha Shakyamuni attained supreme and complete enlightenment through “precept, concentration, wisdom.” So before his nirvana he instructed his disciples to “uphold and observe the Precepts. Do not fall short of them or violate them.” He also warned: “People who violate the Precepts are abhorred by heaven, dragons, ghosts, and the divine. Their evil reputation spreads far and wide. … When their lives end, they will suffer in hell for their karma, and meet their inexorable doom. Then they will come out. They will continue to suffer by bearing the body of hungry ghosts and animals. They will suffer in a circle like this endlessly with no relief.” [38]

The political Buddhist monks turned deaf ears to the Buddha’s warnings. In 1952 the CCP sent representatives to attend the inaugural meeting of the Chinese Buddhist Association. At the meeting, many Buddhists in the association proposed to abolish the Buddhist precepts. They claimed that these disciplines had caused the death of many young men and women.

Some people even advocated that: “People should be free to believe in any religion. There should also be freedom for the monks and nuns to get married, to drink alcohol, and to eat meat. Nobody should interfere with these.”

At that time, Master Xuyun was at the meeting and saw that Buddhism was facing the danger of extinction in China. He stepped forward opposing the proposals and appealed for the preservation of the Buddhist precepts and dress.

Master Xuyun was then slandered, and labeled as “counter-revolutionary.” He was detained in the abbot’s room, and denied food and drink. He was not allowed out of the room even to use the toilet.

He was also ordered to hand over his gold, silver, and firearms. When Xuyun answered that he had none, he was beaten so badly that his skull was fractured and bleeding and his ribs broken. Xuyun was 112 years old at the time. The military police pushed him from the bed to the ground. When they came back the next day and found Xuyun still alive, they brutally beat him again.

The Chinese Buddhist Association was founded in 1952 and the Chinese Taoist Association was founded in 1957. Both clearly declared in their founding statements that they would be “under the leadership of the People’s government.”

In reality, they would be under the leadership of the atheistic CCP. Both associations indicated that they would actively participate in production and construction activities, and implement government policies. They were transformed into completely secular organizations.

Yet the Buddhists and Taoists who were devoted and abided by the precepts were labeled as counter-revolutionaries or members of superstitious sects and secret societies. Under the revolutionary slogan of “purifying the Buddhists and Taoists,” they were imprisoned, forced to “reform through labor,” or even executed.

Even religions spread from the West, such as Christianity and Catholicism were not spared. “Based on the statistics given in the book Ho w the Chinese Communist Party Persecutes the Christians  published in 1958, even the limited number of documents that have been made public reveal that among the clergymen who were charged as ‘landlord’ or ‘local bully,’ a staggering 8,840 were killed and 39,200 were sent to labor camps. Among the clergymen charged as ‘counter-revolutionaries,’ 2,450 were killed, and 24,800 were sent to labor camps.” [39]

Religions are a way for people to remove themselves from the secular world and cultivate themselves. They emphasize “the other shore” (the shore of perfect enlightenment) and “heaven.” Shakyamuni used to be an Indian prince. In order to seek mu kti , a state in which one can obtain peace of mind, higher wisdom, full enlightenment, and nirvana, [40] he gave up the throne and went to a wooded mountain to cultivate by experiencing hardships and toil.

Before Jesus became enlightened, the devil brought him to the top of a mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in all their splendor. The devil said, “If you will bow down and worship me, I will give you all these things.” But Jesus was not enticed.

Yet the political monks and pastors who formed united fronts with the CCP made up a series of deceits and lies such as “human world Buddhism,” and “religion is the truth, and so is socialism.” They claimed that “there is no contradiction between this shore and the other shore.” They encouraged Buddhists and Taoists to pursue happiness, glory, splendor, wealth and rank in this life, and changed the religious doctrines and their meaning.

Buddhism forbids killing. The CCP killed people like flies during the suppression of counter-revolutionaries. [41] The political monks thereupon cooked up the justification that “killing the counter-revolutionaries is an even greater compassion.” During the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea (1950–1953), [42] monks were even sent directly to the front line to kill.

Take Christianity as another example. In 1950, Wu Yaozong [43] formed the Three-Self Church, which followed the principles of self-administration, self-support, and self-propagation. He claimed that they would break away from “imperialism” and actively join the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea. A good friend of his was imprisoned for more than twenty years for refusing to join the Three-Self and suffered all kinds of torture and humiliation. When he asked Wu Yaozong, “How do you regard the miracles Jesus performed?” Wu answered, “I have discarded all of them.”

Not acknowledging Jesus’s miracles equates to not acknowledging Jesus’s heaven. How can one be counted a Christian when one does not even recognize the heaven Jesus ascended to? However, as the founder of the Three-Self Church, Wu Yaozong became a member of the Political Consultative Conference standing committee. When he stepped into the Great Hall of the People, [44] he must have completely forgotten Jesus’s words. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and greatest commandment” (Matthew 22:37-38). “Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21).

Th e CCP confiscated the temple property, forced monks and nuns to study Marxism-Leninism in order to brainwash them, and even forced them to labor. For instance, there was a ‘Buddhist workshop’ in Ningbo city, Zhejiang Province. Over twenty-five thousand monks and nuns were once forced to work there. What is more absurd is that the CCP encouraged monks and nuns to get married so as to disintegrate Buddhism. For example, just before the March 8 Women’s Day in 1951, the Women’s Federation in Changsha city, Hunan Province, ordered all nuns in the province to make up their minds to get married in a few days. In addition, young and healthy monks were forced to join the army and were sent to the battlefield to serve as cannon fodder! [45]

Various religious groups in China have disintegrated under the CCP’s violent suppression. The genuine elites of Buddhism and Taoism have been suppressed. Among those remaining, many returned to secular life, and many others were undisclosed Communist Party members who specialized in putting on kesa robes, [46] Taoist robes, or pastor’s long gowns to distort the Buddhist scriptures, the Taoist canons, and the Holy Bible and to look for justification for the CCP’s movements in these doctrines.

Destruction of Cultural Relics

The ruination of cultural relics is an important part of the CCP’s destruction of traditional culture. In the campaign to “destroy the four olds” many one-of-a-kind books, calligraphies, and paintings that had been collected by intellectuals were committed to flames or shredded into paper pulp. Zhang Bojun [47] had a family collection of more than ten thousand books. The Red Guard leaders used them to make a fire to warm themselves. What was left was sent to paper mills and shredded into paper pulp.

Th e calligraphy and painting-mounting specialist Hong Qiusheng was an elderly man known as the ‘miracle doctor’ for ancient calligraphy and paintings. He has mounted countless world-class masterpieces, such as Song Emperor Huizong’s [48]  p ainting of scenery, Su Dongpo’s [49]  p ainting of bamboo, and the paintings of Wen Zhengming [50]  a nd Tang Bohu. [51]  O ver several decades, most of the hundreds of ancient calligraphy and paintings that he had rescued had become a first-class national collection. The calligraphy and paintings that he had spared no pains in collecting were labeled as ‘four olds’ and were committed to flames. Afterwards, Mr. Hong said in tears, ‘Over 100 jin [52] (5 0 kilograms) of calligraphy and paintings; it took such a long time to burn them!’ [53]

“While worldly matters come and go,

Ancient, modern, to and fro,

Rivers and mountains are changeless in their glory

And still to be witnessed from this trail.” [54]

If today’s Chinese people were still to remember some of their history, they would probably feel differently when they recite this poem by Meng Haoran. The famous historical sites in the mountains and along the rivers have been ruined and have disappeared in the storm of the campaign to “destroy the four olds.”

Not only was the Orchid Pavilion, where Wang Xizhi [55] wrote the famous Pr ologue to the Collection of Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion , [56] destroyed, Wang Xizhi’s own grave was ruined as well.

Wu Cheng’en’s [57] former residence in Jiangsu Province was demolished; Wu Jingzi’s [58] former residence in Anhui Province was smashed; the stone tablet that had Su Dongpo’s handwritten article “The Roadside Hut of the Old Drunkard” [59] was pushed over by the young revolutionists; [60] and the characters on the stone tablet were scraped off.

The essence of Chinese culture has been inherited and accumulated over several thousand years. Once destroyed, it cannot be restored. Yet the CCP has barbarously destroyed it in the name of “revolution,” without sorrow or shame.

When we sighed over the Old Summer Palace, which is known as the “palace of palaces,” being burned down by the Anglo-French allied forces, when we sighed over the monumental work of the Yongle Encyclopedia [61] being destroyed by invaders’ flames of war, how could we have anticipated that the destruction caused by the CCP would be so much more widespread, long-lasting, and thorough than that caused by any foreign invasion?

Destruction of Spiritual Beliefs

In addition to destroying the physical forms of religion and culture, the CCP has also used every means available to destroy people’s spiritual identity formed by faith and culture.

Take the Party’s treatment of ethnic beliefs for example. The CCP considered the traditions of the Hui Muslim ethnic group to be one of the “four olds” — old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas. Therefore, it forced the Hui people to eat pork. Muslim peasants and mosques were required to raise pigs, and each household had to furnish two pigs to the state every year.

The Red Guards even forced the second highest Tibetan living Buddha, the Panchen Lama, to eat human excrement. They ordered three monks from the Temple of Bliss located in Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, which is the biggest Buddhist temple built in modern times, to hold a poster board that said, “To hell with the sutras — they are full of shit.”

In 1971, Lin Biao, the vice chairman of the CCP Central Committee, attempted to escape China but was killed when his plane crashed in Undurkhan, Mongolia. Later, some Confucian quotations were found in Lin’s Beijing residence at Maojiawan. The Party then began a frantic movement of “criticizing Confucius.”

A writer pen-named Liang Xiao [62] published an article in “The Red Flag,” the CCP’s banner magazine, entitled “Who is Confucius?” The article described Confucius as a “madman who wanted to turn history backward,” and a “deceptive and shrewd demagogue.” A series of cartoons and songs followed, demonizing Confucius.

In this way, the dignity and sacredness of religion and culture were annihilated.

Endless Destruction

In ancient China, the central government only extended its rule to the county level, below which patriarchal clans maintained autonomous control. So in Chinese history, episodes of destruction such as the “burning of books and the burying of Confucian scholars” by Emperor Qin Shi Huang in the Qin Dynasty (221–207 B.C.) or the four campaigns to eliminate Buddhism between the fifth and tenth century by the “Three Wus and One Zong,” all were imposed from the top down. They could not possibly eradicate the culture.

Confucian and Buddhist classics and ideas continued to survive in the vast spaces of society. In contrast, the campaign to “destroy the four olds” by teenage students incited by the CCP was a nationwide, grass-roots movement with “spontaneous enthusiasm.”

The CCP’s extension to every village through village-level Party branches controlled the society so tightly that the CCP’s “revolutionary” movement extended without end and affected every person on every inch of land in China.

Never in history had any emperor eradicated from people’s minds what they considered to be the most beautiful and the most sacred, using slanderous and insulting propaganda in addition to violence, as the CCP has. Elimination of belief can often be more effective and long-lasting than physical destruction alone.

Reforming Intellectuals

China’s written language embodies the essence of five thousand years of civilization. Each character’s form and pronunciation, and the idioms and literary allusions composed through combinations of Chinese characters, express profound cultural meanings.

In addition to simplifying Chinese characters, the CCP also attempted to replace them with the Pinyin Romanization scheme in hopes of purging all cultural tradition from the living written script. The plan to phase out Chinese characters proved unfeasible and was abandoned. However, the Chinese intellectuals who played an equally important role in maintaining traditional culture were not so fortunate.

Before 1949, China had about two million intellectuals. Although a number had studied in Western countries, they still inherited some Confucian ideas. The Communist Party certainly could not relax its control of them because as members of the traditional “scholar-aristocracy” class, their ways of thinking played important roles in shaping the thoughts of ordinary people.

In September 1951, the CCP initiated a large-scale “thought reform movement” starting in Peking University among intellectuals. These intellectuals were required to “organize a movement (among teachers in colleges, middle schools, and primary schools, and among college students) to confess their history faithfully and honestly so as to cleanse any counter-revolutionary elements.” [63]

Mao never liked intellectuals. He said they “ought to be aware of the truth that actually many so-called intellectuals are, relatively speaking, quite ignorant, and the workers and farmers sometimes know more than they do.” [64]

“Compared with the workers and peasants, the unreformed intellectuals were not clean, and in the last analysis, the workers and peasants were the cleanest people, even though their hands were dirty and their feet smeared with cow-dung,” [65] Mao said.

The CCP’s persecution of intellectuals started with various forms of accusations, ranging from the 1951 criticism of Wu Xun [66] for “running schools with begged money” to Mao’s personal attack in 1955 on writer Hu Feng [67] as a counter-revolutionary.

In the beginning, the intellectuals were not categorized as a reactionary class, but by 1957, after several major religious groups had surrendered through the “unified front” movement, the CCP could focus its energy on the intellectuals. Thus began the Anti-Rightist movement.

In the end of February 1957, claiming to “let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend,” the CCP called on intellectuals to voice their suggestions and criticisms to the Party, promising no retaliation.

Those intellectuals had long been dissatisfied with the Communist Party for its insistence on assuming leadership over every field despite being unqualified to do so, its slaughter of innocent people during the movement to suppress counter-revolutionaries in 1950–1953, and the movement to eliminate counter-revolutionaries in 1955–1957.

They thought the CCP had finally become open-minded. So they began to speak their true feelings, and their criticism grew increasingly intense.

Many years later, there are still many people who believe that Mao only started to attack the intellectuals after becoming impatient with their overly harsh criticisms. The facts show otherwise.

On May 15, 1957, Mao wrote an article titled “Things Are Beginning to Change” and circulated it among senior Party officials. The article said: “In recent days the rightists … have shown themselves to be most determined and most rabid. … The rightists, who are anti-communist, are making a desperate attempt to stir up a typhoon above force seven in China … and are so bent on destroying the Communist Party.” [68]

After that, those officials who had been indifferent to the “let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend” campaign suddenly became enthusiastic and earnest.

In her memoir, The Past Doesn’t Disappear Like Smoke, Zhang Bojun’s daughter recounted:

Li  Weihan, minister of the United Front Work Department, called Zhang Bojun in person to invite him to a rectification meeting to offer his opinion about the CCP. Zhang was arranged to sit on a front-row sofa. Not knowing this to be a trap, Zhang articulated his criticisms of the CCP. During the whole meeting, ‘Li Weihan appeared relaxed. Zhang probably thought Li agreed with what he said. He didn’t know Li was pleased to see his prey falling into the trap.’ After the meeting, Zhang was classified as the No. 1 rightist in China.

We can cite a string of dates in 1957 that marked proposals or speeches delivered by intellectuals offering criticisms and suggestions: Zhang Bojun’s “Political Design Institute” on May 21; Long Yun’s “Absurd Anti-Soviet Views” on May 22; Luo Longji’s “Redressing Committee” on May 22; Lin Xiling’s speech on “Criticizing the CCP’s Feudalistic Socialism” at Peking University on May 30; Wu Zuguang’s “The Party Should Stop Leading the Arts” on May 31; and Chu Anping’s “The Party Dominates the World” on June 1. All these proposals and speeches had been invited and were offered after Mao had already sharpened his butcher’s knife.

All of these intellectuals, predictably, were later labeled rightists. There were more than five hundred and fifty thousand such “rightists” nationwide.

Chinese tradition has it that “scholars can be killed but cannot be humiliated.” The CCP was capable of humiliating intellectuals by depriving their right to make a living and even incriminating their families unless they accepted humiliation. Many intellectuals did surrender. During the course, some of them accused others to save themselves, causing deep psychological trauma. Those who did not submit to humiliation were killed — serving as examples to terrorize other intellectuals.

The traditional scholarly class, exemplars of social morality, was thus obliterated.

Mao said:

Wh at can Emperor Qin Shi Huang brag about? He only killed 460 Confucian scholars, but we killed 46,000 intellectuals. In our suppression of counter-revolutionaries, didn’t we kill some counter-revolutionary intellectuals as well? I argued with the pro-democratic people who accused us of acting like Emperor Qin Shi Huang. I said they were wrong. We surpassed him by a hundred times. [69]

Indeed, Mao did more than kill the intellectuals. More grievously, he destroyed their minds and hearts.

Creating the Appearance of Culture by Keeping the Semblance of Tradition but Replacing the Contents

After the CCP adopted economic reform and an open-door policy, it renovated many churches as well as Buddhist and Taoist temples. It also organized some temple fairs in China as well as cultural events overseas. This was the latest effort of the CCP to exploit and destroy the remaining traditional culture.

There were two reasons for the CCP to do this. On the one hand, the kindness inherent in human nature, which the CCP could not possibly eradicate, will lead to the bankruptcy of the “Party culture.” On the other hand, the CCP intended to use traditional culture to apply cosmetics to its true face in order to cover up its evil nature of “deceit, malice, and struggle.”

The essence of culture is its inner moral meaning, while the superficialized forms have only entertainment value. The CCP restored the superficial elements of culture, which entertain, to cover up its purpose of destroying morality.

No matter how many art and calligraphy exhibits the CCP has organized, how many culture festivals with dragon and lion dances it has staged, how many food festivals it has hosted, or how much classical architecture it has built, the Party is simply restoring the superficial appearances of culture, and not its essence. In the meantime, the CCP’s promotion of cultural showpieces both inside and outside China serves the sole, essential purpose of helping the Party maintain its political power.

Once again, temples are an example. Temples are meant to be places for people to cultivate, hearing bells in the morning and drums at sunset, worshiping Buddha under burning oil lamps. People in ordinary human society can also confess and worship there. Cultivation requires a pure heart free of pursuit. Confession and worship also require a serious and solemn environment.

However, temples have been turned into tourist resorts for the sake of economic profits. Among the people actually visiting temples in China today, how many of them have come to contemplate their mistakes with a sincere and respectful heart towards Buddha, right after taking a bath and changing their clothes?

Restoring the semblance, but destroying the inner meaning of traditional culture is the tactic that the CCP has taken to confuse people. Be it Buddhism, other religions, or cultural forms derived from them, the CCP deliberately degrades them in this way.

III. Communist Party Culture

As the CCP destroyed China’s traditional semi-divine culture, it insidiously established its own “Communist Party culture” in the course of repeated political movements. Party culture has transformed the older generation, poisoned the younger generation and also had an impact on children. Its influence has been extremely deep and broad. Even when many people tried to expose the evilness of the CCP, they couldn’t help but adopt the ways of judging good and bad, modes of thought, and vocabulary developed by the CCP, which inevitably carry the imprint of Party culture.

Party culture not only inherited the essential wickedness of the foreign-born Marxist-Leninist doctrine, but also skillfully combined all the negative elements built up over thousands of years of Chinese history with the philosophy of struggle and violent revolution propagated by the Communist Party. Those negative components include internal strife for power inside the royal family, forming cliques to pursue selfish interests, malicious political trickery, dirty tactics, and conspiracy. In its decadeslong efforts to overcome existential crises, the CCP has tirelessly nurtured, enriched, and renewed its essential characteristics of “deceit, malice and violence.”

Despotism and dictatorship are the traits of Party culture. This culture serves the CCP in its political and class struggles. One may understand how it forms the Party’s “humanistic” environment of terror and despotism from four aspects.

The Aspect of Domination and Control

1. A Culture of Censorship

The culture of the Communist Party is an isolated monopoly with no freedom of thought, speech, association, or belief. The mechanism of the Party’s domination is similar to a hydraulic system, relying on high pressure and isolation to maintain its state of control. Even one tiny leak could cause the system to collapse.

For example, the Party refused to hold a dialogue with the students during the June 4 student movement, [70] fearing that if this leak was tolerated, the workers, peasants, intellectuals, and the military would also request dialogue. China would have eventually moved toward democracy, threatening the one-party dictatorship. Therefore, the party leaders chose to commit murder rather than grant the students’ request. Today the CCP employs tens of thousands of “cyber police” to monitor the Internet and directly blocks any overseas websites that the CCP disapproves of.

2. A Culture of Terror

Ever since it took over China in 1949, the CCP has used terror to suppress the minds of Chinese people. They have wielded their whips and butcher’s knives — people never know when unforeseen disasters will befall them — to force the people to conform. Living in fear, the people became obedient.

Advocates of democracy, independent thinkers, skeptics within the CCP’s system, and members of various faith groups have become targets for killing as a way to warn the public. The Party hopes to nip all opposition in the bud.

3. A Culture of Network Control

The CCP’s control of society is all-encompassing. There is a household registration system, a neighborhood residents’ committee system, and various levels of Party committee structure. Party branches are established at the level of the company. Each and every village has its own Party branch. Party and Communist Youth League members hold regular activities.

The CCP also promoted a series of slogans accordingly. A few examples are: “Guard your own door and watch your own people.” “Stop your people from appealing to the authorities.” “Resolutely implement the system to impose duties, guarantee fulfillment of duties, and ascertain where the responsibility lies.

“Guard and control strictly. Be serious about discipline and regulations, and guarantee 24-hour preventive and maintenance control measures.” “The 610 Office [71] will form a surveillance committee to inspect and monitor activities in each region and work unit at random intervals.”

4. A Culture of Incrimination

The CCP completely neglected the principles of rule of law in modern society and vigorously promoted the policy of implication. It used its absolute power to punish relatives of those who were labeled landlords, the rich, reactionaries, bad elements, and rightists. It proposed the class-origin theory. [72]

Today, the CCP will affix the responsibility of the primary leaders and publicly reprimand them if they fail in their leadership roles to take adequate measures to prevent Falun Gong practitioners from going to Beijing “to stir up trouble.” For serious cases, disciplinary action will be taken.

Examples of the implication system regarding Falun Gong: “If one person practices Falun Gong, every family member will be laid off.” “If one employee practices Falun Gong, the bonus of everyone in the company will be withheld.”

The CCP also issued discriminatory policies that classified children between those who could be educated and transformed, and those of the “five black classes” (landlords, rich farmers, reactionaries, bad elements, and rightists).

The Party promoted conformity with the Party and placing its doctrine above family loyalty. Systems (such as the personnel and organizational archive system and temporary relocation system) were established to ensure implementation of its policies. People were encouraged to accuse and expose others, and rewarded for contributions to the Party.

Aspects of Propaganda

1. A Culture of One Voice

During the Cultural Revolution, China was filled with slogans such as, “Supreme instructions,” or “One sentence [of Mao] carries the weight of ten thousand sentences; each one is the truth.”

All media were roused to sing the praises and collectively speak in support of the Party. When needed, leaders from every level of the Party, government, military, workers, youth league, and women’s organizations would be brought out to express their support. Everyone had to go through the ordeal.

2. A Culture to Promote Violence

Mao said, “With eight hundred million people, how can it work without struggle?” In the persecution of Falun Gong, Jiang Zemin said, “There is no punishment for beating Falun Gong practitioners to death.”

The CCP advocated total war and stated: “The atomic bomb is simply a paper tiger. … Even if half of the population died, the remaining half would still reconstruct our homeland from the ruins.”

3. A Culture to Incite Hatred

It became a core national policy “not to forget the suffering of the poor classes and to firmly remember the enmity in tears and blood.”

Cruelty toward class enemies was praised as a virtue. The CCP taught “Bite into your hatred, chew it, and swallow it down. Plant the hatred into your heart so that it sprouts.” [73]

4. A Culture of Deception and Lies

Here are a few examples of the Party’s lies:

“The yield per mu [74] is over 10,000 jin” during the Great Leap Forward (1958).

“Not a single person was killed on Tiananmen Square” during the June 4th massacre in 1989.

“We have controlled the SARS virus” in 2003.

“It is currently the best time for human rights in China.”

The “Three Represents.” [75]

5. The Culture of Brainwashing

These are a few of the slogans that the CCP made up to brainwash people:

“There would be no new China without the Communist Party.”

“The force at the core leading our cause forward is the CCP and the theoretical basis guiding our thinking is Marxism-Leninism.” [76]

“Maintain maximum alignment with the Party’s Central Committee.”

“Execute the Party’s command whether or not you understand it. Even if you do not understand, carry it out anyway, and your understanding should deepen in the process of execution.”

6. A Culture of Adulation

“Heaven and the earth are great but greater still is the kindness of the Party.” “We owe all our achievements to the Party.” “I take the Party as my mother.” “I use my own life to safeguard the Central Committee of the Party.” “A great, glorious, and correct Party.” “An undefeatable Party,” and so on.

7. The Culture of Pretentiousness

The Party established models, set up examples one after another, and launched the “socialist ideological and ethical progress” and “ideological education” campaigns. In the end, people continued to do whatever they did before each campaign. All of the public lectures, study sessions, and experience sharing have become an “earnest showcase,” while the moral state of society has continued to take great leaps backward.

The Aspect of Interpersonal Relations

1. A Culture of Jealousy

The party promoted absolute egalitarianism, making anyone who stands out the target of attack. People are jealous of those who have greater ability or wealth than themselves — the so-called “red-eye syndrome.” [77]

2. A Culture of People Stepping Over Each Other

The CCP promoted “struggle face-to-face and report back-to-back.” Reporting on one’s associates, creating written materials to frame them, fabricating facts, and exaggerating their mistakes — these devious behaviors have been used to measure closeness to the Party and the desire to advance.

Subtle Influences on People’s Internal Psyche and External Behavior

1. A Culture That Transforms Human Beings into Machines

The Party wants the people to be the “never rusting bolts in the machine of revolution,” to be the “tamed tool for the Party,” or to “attack in whatever directions the Party directs us.” “Chairman Mao’s soldiers listen to the Party the most; they go wherever they are needed and settle down wherever there are hardships.”

2. A Culture That Confounds Right and Wrong

During the Cultural Revolution, the CCP would “rather have the socialist weeds than the capitalist crops.” The army was ordered to shoot and kill in the Tiananmen Square massacre “in exchange for 20 years of stability.” The Party “does unto others what one does not want to be done unto oneself.”

3. A Culture of Self-Imposed Brainwashing and Unconditional Obedience

“Lower ranks obey the orders of the higher ranks and the whole Party obeys the Party’s Central Committee.” “Fight ruthlessly to eradicate any selfish thoughts that flash through your mind.” “Erupt a revolution in the depths of your soul.” “Maintain maximum alignment with the Party’s Central Committee.” “Unify the minds, unify the footsteps, unify the orders, and unify the commands.”

4. A Culture of Securing a Servile Position

“China would be in chaos without the Communist Party.” “China is so vast. Who else can lead it but the CCP?” “If China collapses, it will be a worldwide disaster, so we should help the Party sustain its leadership.” Out of fear and self-protection, the groups constantly suppressed by the Communist Party oftentimes appear even more left-wing than the Party itself.

There are many more examples like these. Every reader could probably find various sorts of elements of the Party culture from his personal experiences.

People who experienced the Cultural Revolution might still remember vividly the “model play” of modern operas, the songs with Mao’s words as lyrics, and the Loyalty Dance. Many still recall the words from the dialogue in Th e White-Haired Girl , Tu nnel Warfare , [78] and Mi ne Warfare . [79] Through these works, the CCP has brainwashed people, forcibly filling their minds with messages such as “how brilliant and great” the Party is; how “arduously and valiantly” the Party has struggled against the enemy; how “utterly devoted to the Party” the Party’s soldiers are; how willing they are to sacrifice themselves for the Party; and how stupid and vicious the enemies are.

Day after day, the CCP’s propaganda machine forcibly injects into every individual the beliefs needed by the Communist Party. Today, if one went back to watch “The East is Red,” the CCP’s song-and-dance epic, one would realize that the entire theme and style of the show is about killing, killing, and more killing.

At the same time, the CCP has created its own system of speech and discourse, such as the abusive language in mass criticism, the flattering words to sing the praises of the Party, and the banal official formalities similar to the eight-part essay. [80] People are made to speak unconsciously with the thinking patterns that promote the concept of class struggle, and to extol the Party and use domineering language instead of calm and rational reasoning. The CCP also abuses the religious vocabulary and distorts the content of those terms.

One step beyond the truth is fallacy. Communist Party culture also appropriates traditional morality to a certain extent. For instance, traditional culture values faith, so does the Communist Party. However what it promotes is faithfulness and honesty to the Party.

Traditional culture emphasizes filial piety. The CCP may put people in jail if they do not provide for their parents, but the real reason is that these parents would otherwise become a burden to the government. When it fits the Party’s needs, the children are required to draw clear boundaries separating them from their parents.

Traditional culture stresses loyalty. Nevertheless, “the people are of supreme importance; the nation comes next; last comes the ruler.” The loyalty preferred by the CCP is blind devotion — so completely blind that people are required to believe in the CCP unconditionally and obey it unquestioningly.

The words commonly used by the CCP are very misleading. For example, it called the civil war between the Kuomintang and the communists the War of Liberation, as if the people were being liberated from oppression. The CCP called the post-1949 period “after the founding of the nation,” when, in reality, China existed long before that. The CCP simply established a new political regime.

The three-year Great Famine [81] was called “three years of natural disaster,” when, in fact, it was not at all a natural disaster but, rather, a completely man-made calamity. However, upon hearing these words used in everyday life and being imperceptibly influenced by them, people unconsciously accept the ideologies that the CCP intended to instill in them.

In traditional culture, music is taken as a way to constrain human desires. In the “Book of Music” in volume 24 of the Re cords of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji) , Sima Qian (145–85 B.C.) [82] said the nature of man is peaceful; the sensation of external matters affects one’s emotions and stirs up the sentiment of love or hate based upon one’s character and wisdom. If these sentiments are not constrained, one will be seduced by endless external temptations and assimilated by one’s internal sentiments to commit many bad deeds. Thus, said Sima Qian, the rulers of the past used rituals and music to constrain people. The songs should be “cheerful but not obscene, sad but not overly distressing.” They should express feelings and desires, yet have control over these sentiments.

Confucius said in Th e Analects , “The three hundred verses of ‘The Odes’ [one of the six classics compiled and edited by Confucius] may be summed up in a single sentence: ‘Think no evil.’”

Such a beautiful thing as music, however, was used by the CCP as a method to brainwash the people. Songs like “Socialism Is Good,” “There Would Be No New China Without the Communist Party,” and many others, have been sung from kindergarten to university. In singing these songs, people have unconsciously accepted the meanings of the lyrics. Further, the CCP stole the tunes of the most melodious folk songs and replaced them with lyrics that praise the Party. This has served both to destroy traditional culture and to promote the Party.

As one of the CCP’s classic documents, Mao’s “Speech at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Arts” [83] designated cultural endeavors and military conflict as two battle fronts. It stated that having just an armed military was not enough; an army of arts and culture was also needed.

It stipulated that “arts and literature should serve politics” and “the literary arts of the proletariat class … are the ‘gears and screws’ of the revolution machine.”

A complete system of Party culture was developed out of this, with atheism and class struggle at its core. This system goes completely against traditional culture.

The Party culture has indeed rendered distinguished service in helping the CCP to win power and control over society. Like its army, prisons, and police force, the Party culture is also a machine of violence, which provides a different kind of brutality—cultural brutality.

This cultural brutality, by destroying five thousand years of traditional culture, has diminished the will of the people and undermined the cohesiveness of the Chinese nation.

Today, many Chinese are absolutely ignorant of the essence of traditional culture. Some even conflate the several decades of Party culture with the five thousand years of Chinese traditional culture. This is a sorrowful thing for the Chinese people. Many do not realize that in opposing the so-called traditional culture, they are in fact against the Party culture of the CCP, not the real traditional culture of China.

Many people hope to replace the current Chinese system with the Western democratic system. In reality, Western democracy has also been established on a cultural basis, notably that of Christianity, which, holding that “everyone is equal in the eyes of God,” thus respects human nature and human choices. How could the despotic, inhuman Party culture of the CCP be used as the foundation for a Western-style democratic system?

Conclusion

China started to deviate from its traditional culture in the Song Dynasty (960–1279), and that culture has experienced constant depredation ever since. After the May Fourth Movement of 1919, [84] some intellectuals who were eager for quick success and instant benefit attempted to find a path for China by turning away from the traditional culture toward Western civilization.

Still, conflicts and changes in the cultural domain remained a focus of academic contention without the involvement of state forces. When the CCP came into existence, however, it elevated cultural conflicts to a matter of life-and-death struggle for the Party. So the CCP began to exercise a direct assault on traditional culture, using destructive means as well as indirect abuse in the form of “adopting the dross and rejecting the essence.”

The destruction of the national culture was also the process of establishing the Party culture. The CCP subverted human conscience and moral judgment, thus driving people to turn their backs on traditional culture. If the national culture is completely destroyed, the essence of the nation will disappear with it, leaving only an empty name for the nation. This is not an exaggerated warning.

At the same time, the destruction of the traditional culture has brought us unexpected physical damage.

Traditional culture values the unity of heaven and humans and harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. The Party declares that it derives endless joy from fighting with heaven and earth. This culture of the CCP has led directly to the serious environmental degradation that plagues China today.

Take water resources for example. The Chinese people, having abandoned the traditional wisdom that “a nobleman treasures wealth, but he makes fortune in a decent way,” have wantonly ravaged and polluted the natural environment. Currently, more than 75 percent of the 50,000 kilometers (30,000 miles) of China’s rivers are unsuitable as fish habitats. Over one-third of the groundwater had been polluted by the mid-1990s, and the situation only continues to worsen.

A spectacle of a strange kind occurred on the Huaihe River: A small child playing in the oil-filled river created a spark that, upon striking the surface of the river, lit a flame 5 meters (16 feet) high. As the fire surged into the air, more than ten willow trees in the vicinity were burnt to a crisp. [85] One can easily see that it is nigh impossible for those who drink such water not to develop cancer or other ailments. Other environmental problems, such as desertification and salinization in Northwest China and industrial pollution in developed regions, are all related to society’s loss of respect for nature.

Traditional culture respects life. The CCP urges that revolt is justifiable, and struggling against human beings is full of joy. In the name of revolution, the Party could murder and starve to death tens of millions of people. This has led people to devalue life, which then encourages the proliferation of fake and poisonous products in the market.

In Fuyang City of Anhui Province, for example, many healthy babies developed short limbs, thin and weak bodies, and enlarged heads during their lactation period. Eight babies died because of this strange disease. After investigation, it was discovered that the disease was caused by poisonous milk powder made by a black-hearted and greedy manufacturer.

Some people feed crabs, snakes, and turtles with hormones and antibiotics, mix industrial alcohol with drinking wine, polish rice using industrial oil, and whiten bread flour with industrial brightening agents. For eight years, a manufacturer in Henan Province produced thousands of tons of cooking oil every month using materials containing carcinogens such as waste oil, oil extracted from left-over meals, or discarded argil [86] that contained residual oils after its use.

Producing poisonous foods is not a local or limited phenomenon, but is common all over China. This has everything to do with the single-minded pursuit of material gain that comes in the wake of the destruction of the culture and consequent degeneration of human morality.

Unlike the absolute monopoly and exclusiveness of the Party culture, the traditional culture has a tremendous integrative capacity. During the prosperous Tang Dynasty, Buddhist teachings, Christianity, and other Western religions coexisted harmoniously with Taoist and Confucian thought.

Authentic Chinese traditional culture would have kept an open and tolerant attitude toward modern Western civilization. The four “tigers” of Asia (Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong) have created a “New Confucian” cultural identity. Their soaring economies have proven that traditional culture is not a hindrance to social development.

At the same time, authentic traditional culture measures the quality of human life on the basis of happiness from within rather than material comfort from without. “I would rather have no one blame me behind my back, than have someone praise me to my face; I would rather have peace in mind, than have comfort in body.” [87]

Tao Yuanming (365–427) [88] lived in poverty, but he kept a joyful spirit and enjoyed as a pastime “picking asters beneath the eastern fence, gazing upon the Southern Mountain in the distance.”

Culture offers no answers for questions such as how to expand industrial production or what social systems to adopt. Rather, it plays an important role in providing moral guidance and restraint. The true restoration of traditional culture shall be the recovery of humility toward heaven, the earth and nature, respect for life, and awe before the divine. It will allow humanity to live harmoniously with heaven and earth and to enjoy heavenly bestowed longevity.

Notes:

[1] Pangu was the first living being and the creator of all, according to Chinese mythology.

[2] Nüwa was the mother goddess who created humankind, according to Chinese mythology.

[3] Shennong (literally, “the Heavenly Farmer”) is a legendary figure in Chinese mythology who lived about five thousand years ago. He taught the ancient people the practices of agriculture. He is also credited with risking his life to identify hundreds of medicinal (and poisonous) herbs and various plants of that nature, which were crucial to the development of traditional Chinese medicine.

[4] Cangjie is a legendary figure in ancient China. He is said to have been the Yellow Emperor’s official historian and the inventor of the Chinese characters. The Cangjie method of Chinese character computer input is named after him.

[5] From Ta o-Te Ching  by Lao Tzu.

[6] Opening remarks from Th e Great Learning  by Confucius.

[7] From Re cords of the Grand Historian  by Sima Qian (145–85 B.C.), the first major Chinese historian. It served as a model for the official standard histories of the imperial dynasties for the next two thousand years.

[8] From Th e Analects by Confucius.

[9] Ibid.

[10] From Th e Analects  by Confucius.

[11] This is in reference to a statement made by Confucius in Th e Great Learning .

[12] This is in reference to a statement made by Dong Zhongshu (c. 179–104 B.C.), a Confucian thinker during the Han Dynasty.

[13] Th e Journey to the West (the basis of the popular show Mo nkey ), written by Wu Cheng’en (c. 1506–1582), is based on the true story of a famous Chinese monk in the Tang Dynasty, Xuan Zang (602–664).

[14] Dr eam of the Red Chamber , written by Cao Xueqin in the Qing Dynasty, tells a tragic love story that takes place in a declining aristocratic family.

[15] Ou tlaws of the Marsh , written in the 14th century by Shi Nai’an, describes the exploits of one hundred and eight men and women driven into banditry.

[16] Th ree Kingdoms , written by Luo Guanzhong (c. 1330–1400), is based on the history of the Three Kingdoms period (220–280).

[17]  C hronicles of the Eastern Zhou was originally written by Yu Shaoyu in the Ming Dynasty, revised and rewritten by Feng Menglong toward the dynasty’s end, and further revised by Cai Yuanfang in the Qing Dynasty. The novel covers a history of more than five hundred years during the Spring and Autumn period (770–476 B.C.) and the Warring States period (475–221 B.C.).

[18] Th e Complete Story of Yue Fei  was written by Qian Cai in the Qing Dynasty. It described the life of Yue Fei (1103–1142) from the Southern Song Dynasty, one of the most famous generals and patriotic heroes in Chinese history.

[19] From Ab stract of Collected Taoist Scriptures   ( D ao Cang Ji Yao) , compiled during the Qing Dynasty.

[20] See note 8.

[21] From Mao’s speech at the Eighth Session of the Tenth CCP Plenary Meeting.

[22] Mao’s original words in Chinese were a pun: “I am like a monk holding an umbrella — no Tao (or Fa, pun for “hair”) nor heaven (pun for “sky”).”

[23] Jie was the last ruler of the Xia Dynasty (c. 2100–1600 B.C.), and Zhou was the last ruler of the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600–1100 B.C.). Both were known as tyrants.

[24] Wen Tianxiang (1236–1283), a military commander who fought to protect the Southern Song Dynasty against the Mongol invaders, was killed on January 9, 1283, for repeatedly refusing to submit to the Mongol Yuan Dynasty after being taken prisoner.

[25] Mencius.

[26] From a famous saying by Mencius: “I desire life; but I also desire justice. When I cannot have both of them at the same time, I will maintain justice at the expense of my life.”

[27] From the “The Internationale” anthem. The Chinese translation literally means: “There has never been a savior, and we do not rely on God either; to create human happiness, we rely entirely on ourselves.”

[28] The campaign to “destroy the four olds” was a campaign in the mid-1960s during the Cultural Revolution in China. In August 1966, the Red Guards declared “a war against the old world” and announced the intention to “smash all old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits,” “including barbershops, tailor’s shops, photo shops, used-book stores, and so on, with no exceptions.”

[29] The beiye is a subtropical plant belonging to the palm family whose thick leaves were used for record keeping in ancient times, before paper was invented.

[30] Xiangshan Park, also called Fragrant Hills Park, is located 28 kilometers (17 miles) northwest of downtown Beijing. Initially built in 1186 in the Jurchen Jin Dynasty, it became a summer resort for imperial families during the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.

[31] From Ho w Many Cultural Relics Were Committed to Flames  by Ding Shu.

[32] The Summer Palace, located 15 kilometers (9 miles) from Beijing, is the largest and best-preserved royal garden in China, with a history of over eight hundred years.

[33] A “li” is a Chinese unit of length (1 li is 0.5 kilometers or 0.3 miles).

[34] Emperor Gaozu of the Tang Dynasty (ruled 618–626), alias Li Yuan, was the first emperor of the Tang Dynasty.

[35] People’s communes (Renmin Gongshe) were formerly the highest of three administrative levels in rural areas in the period from 1958 to around 1982 in China. The communes had governmental, political, and economic functions. They were the largest collective units and were further divided into production brigades and production teams. After 1982, they were replaced by townships.

[36] From Ho w Many Cultural Relics Were Committed to Flames.

[37] The Ma hayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra  is purported to be the Buddha’s final Mahayana sutra, delivered on the last day of his earthly life. It is claimed to constitute the quintessence of all Mahayana sutras.

[38] From Taisho Tripitaka Vol. T01, No. 7, Ma hayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra . Provisional translation subject to improvement.

[39] Translated from Th e Theory and Practice of the Chinese Communist Party’s Suppression of Religions by Bai Zhi.

[40] “Nirvana,” in Buddhism or Hinduism, is a state of blissful peace and harmony beyond the sufferings and passions of individual existence; a state of oneness with the eternal spirit.

[41] The “suppression of counter-revolutionaries” campaign in 1951 dealt violently with “counter-revolutionaries,” including bandits, local bullies, spies, former members of KMT, and religious associations. According to the CCP’s published records, more than two million people were executed by 1952, while the actual number may be even higher.

[42] The “War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea,” as the CCP called it, broke out in 1950. It is commonly known in the Western world as the Korean War.

[43] Wu Yaozong (1893–1975) and others published the so-called Me ans for Chinese Christianity to Exert Efforts in the Construction of the New China , also called the In novation Manifesto of Three Self , in 1950. They formed the Three-Self Church thereafter.

[44] The Great Hall of the People, located at the west side of Tiananmen Square, is a meeting place for the National People’s Congress of China.

[45] From Th e Theory and Practice of the Chinese Communist Party’s Suppression of Religions.

[46] A kesa robe is a monk’s robe or cassock.

[47] Zhang Bojun (1895–1969) was one of the founders of the China Democratic League, a democratic party in China. He was classified as the “number one rightist” in 1957 by Mao Zedong and was one of the few rightists who were not redressed after the Cultural Revolution.

[48] Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, alias Zhao Ji (ruled 1100–1126).

[49] Su Dongpo (1036–1101) was a famous Chinese poet and writer of the Song Dynasty. He was one of the eight great prose masters of the Tang and Song dynasties.

[50] Wen Zhengming (1470–1559) was a Chinese painter of the Ming Dynasty.

[51] Tang Bohu (1470–1523) was a renowned Chinese scholar, painter, and poet of the Ming Dynasty.

[52] A “jin” is a unit of weight used in China. One jin is 0.5 kilograms, or about 1.1 pounds.

[53] See note 31.

[54] From a poem by Meng Haoran (689–740), a well-known poet of the Tang Dynasty.

[55] Wang Xizhi (321–379), from the Jin Dynasty, is the most famous calligrapher in history.

[56] The original La n Ting Prologue , allegedly written by Wang Xizhi in 353 at the prime of his career, is universally recognized as the most important piece in the history of Chinese calligraphy.

[57] Wu Cheng’en (c. 1506–1582) was a Chinese novelist and poet of the Ming Dynasty. He authored “Journey to the West,” one of the four best-known Chinese novels.

[58] Wu Jingzi (1701–1754) was an elegant writer of the Qing Dynasty and author of Un official History of the Scholars (Rulin Waishi).

[59] Prose written by Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072), one of the eight great prose masters of the Tang and Song dynasties.

[60] Alternative name for the Red Guards.

[61] The Yo ngle Encyclopedia (Yongle Dadian)  is an encyclopedia compiled by scholars in the Ming Dynasty in 1403–1408. It consisted of more than 22,000 manuscript volumes with 370 million words, occupying 40 cubic meters (1,400 cubic feet). Currently only about 800 volumes were partially recovered, and the rest have been destroyed or lost.

[62] “Liang Xiao” represents a group of assigned writers, including Zhou Yiliang, whose involvement in the writing group earned him an anonymous letter from an old friend that referred to “the extreme of shamelessness.”

[63] From Th e Writings of Mao Zedong , 1949–1976 (Vol. 2).

[64] From Re ctify the Party’s Style of Work (1942) by Mao Zedong.

[65] From Ta lks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art  (1942) by Mao Zedong.

[66] Wu Xun (1838–1896), originally Wu Qi, was born in Shandong’s Tangyi. He lost his father at an early age, and his family was impoverished. He had to beg for food to feed his mother and became known as the filial-piety beggar. After his mother passed away, begging became his only means of making a living. Using the money he received from charity, Wu ran schools without charging tuition.\

[67] Hu Feng (1902–1985), scholar and literary critic, opposed the doctrinaire literature policy of the CCP. He was expelled from the Party in 1955 and sentenced to 14 years in prison.

[68] From “Things Are Beginning to Change” by Mao Zedong, in Se lected Works of Mao Zedong , vol. 5 (1957).

[69] From Or iental Culture (2000), fourth ed., by Qian Bocheng.

[70] The June 4 student movement was initiated by college students advocating democratic reforms in China between April 15 and June 4, 1989. Its later suppression by the People’s Liberation Army is generally referred to as the June 4 massacre, or Tiananmen Square massacre.

[71] The 610 Office is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judicial systems.

[72] The class-origin (or bloodline or pedigree) theory claims that one’s nature is determined by the class of the family in which one is born.

[73] From the song of the modern opera “Legend of the Red Lantern,” a popular official “model play” developed during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976).

[74] A “mu” is a unit of area used in China. One mu is 0.165 acres.

[75] Jiang Zemin’s theory, discussed in Commentary Five.

[76] The opening address at the First Session of the First National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China (September 15, 1954).

[77] The “red-eye syndrome” is similar in meaning to the western expression “green-eyed.” Here it is used to describe a person who feels wronged and uncomfortable when he sees other people doing better than he is.

[78] Tu nnel Warfare   ( D idao Zhan)  is a 1965 propaganda film the CCP used to depict its guerrillas in heroic resistance fighting the Japanese invaders from networks of underground tunnels in central China during World War II.

[79] Mi ne Warfare (Dilei Zhan)  is a 1962 film made to depict CCP guerrillas in Hebei Province who supposedly fought the Japanese using homemade landmines.

[80] The eight-part essay ( Ba guwen ) is a style of literary composition prescribed for the imperial civil service examinations. It has come to be associated with rigidity of form and poverty of ideas.

[81] China’s Great Famine of 1959–1961 is the largest famine in human history. The estimated numbers of unnatural deaths from the famine range from eighteen million to forty-three million.

[82] From Re cords of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji)  by Sima Qian (145–85 B.C.), the first major Chinese historian. It served as a model for the official standard histories of the imperial dynasties for the next two thousand years.

[83] By Mao Zedong (1942).

[84] The May Fourth Movement was the first mass movement in modern Chinese history, beginning on May 4, 1919.

[85] From Wa rning of Huaihe River  (1995) by Chen Guili.

[86] Argil is a type of clay used to imitate vegetable oil in the manufacturing process.

[87] From Pr ologue to See Li Yuan to Return to Pangu  by Han Yu (768–824), one of the eight great prose masters of the Tang and Song dynasties.

[88] Tao Yuanming (365–427), also known as Tao Qian, was a great Chinese poet.

Commentary 7: On the Chinese Communist Party’s History of Killing

Foreword

The history of Chinese Communist Party’s rule is written with blood and lies. The stories behind this bloody history are both extremely tragic and little-known. Under the rule of the CCP, eighty million innocent Chinese people have been killed, leaving their broken families behind. Many people wonder why the CCP kills. While the CCP recently suppressed protesting crowds in Hanyuan with gunshots [in November 2004] and continues its brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, many people wonder whether they will ever see the day when the CCP will learn to speak with words rather than guns.

Reflecting on the ravages of the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong said, “From great chaos we have returned the country to order, but in seven or eight years, we will need another round.” [1] In other words, there should be a political campaign every seven or eight years, each time with a new episode of mass killing.

The CCP’s slaughters are a product of both practical necessity and the Communist Party’s underlying ideology.

Ideologically, the CCP believes in the “dictatorship of the proletariat” and “continuous revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Therefore, after the CCP took over China, it killed the landowners to resolve problems with production relationships in rural areas. It killed the capitalists to reach the goal of commercial and industrial reform and solve the production relationships in the cities. After these two classes were eliminated, the problems related to the economic “base” [2] were basically solved. Similarly, solving the problems related to the “superstructure” also called for slaughter. The suppressions of the Hu Feng Anti-Party Group and the Anti-Rightist Movement eliminated the intellectuals. Killing the Christians, Taoists, Buddhists, and popular folk groups solved the problem of religions. Mass murders during the Cultural Revolution established, culturally and politically, the CCP’s absolute leadership. The Tiananmen Square massacre was used to prevent political crisis and squelch democratic demands. The persecution of Falun Gong is meant to resolve the issues of belief and traditional healing. These actions were all necessary for the CCP to strengthen its power and maintain its rule in the face of continual financial crisis (prices for consumer goods skyrocketed after the CCP took power, and China’s economy almost collapsed after the Cultural Revolution), political crisis (some people not following the Party’s orders or some others wanting to share political rights with the Party), and crisis of belief (the disintegration of the Soviet Union, political changes in Eastern Europe, and the Falun Gong issue). Except for the Falun Gong issue, almost all the foregoing political movements were utilized to revitalize the evil specter of the Communist Party and reinforce the zeal for revolution and struggle. The CCP also used these political movements to test the loyalty of its members, weeding out those who did not meet the Party’s requirements.

Killing is also necessary for practical reasons. The Communist Party started as a group of thugs and scoundrels who killed to obtain power. Once this precedent was set, there was no going back. Constant terror was needed to intimidate people and force them to accept, out of fear, the absolute rule of the CCP.

On the surface, it may appear that the CCP’s killings were committed passively, as though various social incidents just happened to irritate the communist evil specter and trigger the Party’s killing mechanism. In truth, these “random” incidents serve to disguise the Party’s need to kill, as periodical killing is required by the CCP. Without these painful lessons, people might begin to think the CCP was improving and start to demand democracy, just as those idealistic students in the 1989 democratic movement did. Recurring slaughter every seven or eight years serves to refresh people’s memory of terror and provides a warning for younger generation: Whoever works against the CCP, wants to challenge the Party’s absolute leadership, or attempts to tell the truth regarding China’s history, will get a taste of the “iron fist of the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

Killing has become one of the most essential ways for the CCP to maintain power. Given the weight of its bloody debts, the Party laying down its butcher knife would be tantamount to encouraging people to take vengeance for its many crimes. Therefore, the CCP not only needed to conduct copious and thorough killing, but the slaughter also had to be done in a most brutal fashion to intimidate the populace effectively, especially early on, when the Party was establishing its rule.

Since the purpose of the killing was to instill maximal terror, the CCP selected its targets arbitrarily and irrationally. In every political movement, the CCP applied genocidal tactics. Take the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries as an example: The CCP did not suppress reactionary behavior so much as the people it labeled reactionaries. Even if one had been enlisted and served a few days in the Chinese Nationalist army but took part in absolutely no political activities after the establishment of communist China, this person would still be killed because of his “reactionary history.” During the land reform campaign, in order to remove the “root of the problem,” the CCP often killed landowners along with their entire families.

Since 1949, more than half of China’s population has suffered persecution by the CCP, including an estimated eighty million who died from unnatural causes. This number exceeds the total number of deaths in both world wars combined.

As with other communist countries, the wanton slaughter committed by the CCP also includes brutal killings among its own ranks in order to remove dissidents who place their sense of humanity over Party nature. The CCP’s rule of terror falls equally on the populace and its members in an attempt to maintain an “invincible fortress.”

In a normal society, people show care and love for one another, hold life in awe and veneration, and give thanks to God. In the East, people say, “Do not impose on others what you would not want done to yourself.” [3] In the West, people say, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” [4] Conversely, the CCP holds that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” [5] In order to keep alive the “struggles” within society, it must encourage hatred. Not only does the CCP itself take lives, it incites people to kill each other. It strives to desensitize people toward others’ suffering by surrounding them with constant killing. It wants them to become numb from frequent exposure to inhumane brutality and develop the mentality that the best one can hope for is to avoid being persecuted. All these lessons taught by brutal suppression enable the CCP to maintain its rule.

In addition to its destruction of countless lives, the Communist Party also aims to destroy the soul of the Chinese people. Countless people have become conditioned to react to the CCP’s threats by entirely surrendering their reason and their principles. In a sense, these people’s souls have died — something more frightening than physical death.

I. Horrendous Massacre

Prior to the CCP’s seizure of power, Mao wrote, “We definitely do not apply a policy of benevolence to the counter-revolutionaries and toward the reactionary activities of the reactionary classes.” [6] In other words, even before the CCP entered Beijing, it had already made up its mind to establish tyranny under the euphemism of the People’s Democratic Dictatorship. The following are a few examples.

The Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries and Land Reform

In March 1950, the CCP announced its Orders to Strictly Suppress Reactionary Elements, which is historically known as the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries.

Unlike the emperors who typically granted amnesty to the entire country after they ascended to the throne, the CCP began killing the minute it gained power. Mao said in a document, “There are still many places where people are intimidated and dare not kill the counter-revolutionaries openly on a large scale.” [7] In February 1951, the central CCP said that except for Zhejiang Province and southern Anhui Province, “other areas which are not killing enough, especially in the large and mid-sized cities, should continue to arrest and kill a large number and should not put an end to it too quickly.” Mao even recommended: “In rural areas, to kill the counter-revolutionaries, there should be over one thousandth of the total population killed. … In the cities, it should be less than one thousandth.” [8] Being that the population of China at that time was approximately six hundred million, this “royal order” from Mao would have caused at least six hundred thousand deaths. Nobody knows where this ratio of one thousandth came from. Perhaps, on a whim, Mao decided these six hundred thousand lives should be enough to lay the foundation for creating fear among the people, and thus ordered it to happen.

Whether those killed deserved to die was not the CCP’s concern. Th e People’s Republic of China Regulations for Punishing the Counter-Revolutionaries  announced in 1951 that those who “spread rumors” could be “executed at will.” While the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries was being hotly implemented, land reform was also taking place on a large scale. In fact, the CCP had already started land reform within its occupied areas in the late 1920s. On the surface, land reform appeared to advocate an ideal similar to that of the Heavenly Kingdom of Taiping: All would have land to farm. [9] But it was really just an excuse to kill. Tao Zhu, who would later rank fourth in the CCP, had a slogan for land reform — “Bloodshed in village, struggle in every household” — indicating that in every village the landowners must die.

Land reform could have been achieved without killing. It could have been done in the same way as the Taiwanese government implemented its land reform by purchasing the property from the landowners. However, as the CCP originated from a group of thugs and lumpenproletariat, all it knew was robbery. Fearing it might suffer revenge after pilfering its victims, the CCP naturally needed to kill them and stamp out a source of potential trouble.

The most common way to kill during the land reform was known as the struggle session. The CCP fabricated crimes and charged the landlords or rich farmers. The public was asked how they should be punished. Some undercover Party members or activists who were already planted in the crowd would shout, “Put them to death!” The landlords and rich peasants were then executed on the spot. At that time, anyone who owned land in the villages was classified as a local “tyrant.” Those who often took advantage of the peasants were called “mean tyrants;” those who often helped with repairing public facilities and donated money to schools and for natural disaster relief were called “kind tyrants;” and those who did nothing were called “still or silent tyrants.” Such classification was meaningless, however, because all the “tyrants” ended up being executed right away regardless of what category of “tyrant” they belonged to.

By the end of 1952, the CCP-published number of executed “reactionary elements” was about 2.4 million. Actually, the total death toll of landowners and former KMT government officials below the county level was at least 5 million.

The Suppression of the Counter-Revolutionaries and land reform had three direct results. First, former local officials who had been selected through clan-based autonomy were eliminated. The CCP killed all the management personnel in the previous system and realized complete control of rural areas by installing a Party branch in each village. Second, a huge amount of wealth was obtained by stealing and robbing. Third, civilians were terrorized by the brutal suppression against the landowners and rich farmers.

The “Three Anti Campaign” and “Five Anti Campaign”

The Suppression of Reactionaries and the land reform mainly targeted the countryside, while the subsequent Three Anti Campaign and Five Anti Campaign could be regarded as the corresponding genocide in the cities.

The Three Anti Campaign began in December 1951 and targeted corruption, waste, and bureaucracy among the CCP cadres. Some corrupt CCP officials were executed. Soon afterward, the CCP attributed the corruption of its government officials to temptation by capitalists. Accordingly, the Five Anti Campaign against bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, jerry-building, and espionage of state economic information was launched in January 1952.

The Five Anti Campaign was essentially stealing capitalists’ property or rather murdering the capitalists for their money. Chen Yi, the mayor of Shanghai at that time, was debriefed on his sofa with a cup of tea in hand every night. He would ask leisurely, “How many paratroopers are there today?” meaning, “How many businessmen jumped out of high buildings to commit suicide?” None of the capitalists could escape the Five Anti Campaign. They were required to pay taxes that had been “evaded” as early as the Guangxu Period (1875–1908) in the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) when the Shanghai commercial market was initially established. The capitalists could not possibly afford to pay such “taxes” even with all their fortunes. They had no other choice but to end their lives, but they didn’t dare to jump into the Huangpu River. If their bodies could not be found, the CCP would accuse them of fleeing to Hong Kong, and their family members would still be held responsible for the taxes. The capitalists instead jumped from tall buildings, leaving a corpse so that the CCP could see proof of their death. It was said that people didn’t dare to walk next to tall buildings in Shanghai at that time for fear of being crushed by people jumping from above.

According to Fa cts of the Political Campaigns After the Founding of the People’s Republic of China , co-edited in 1996 by 4 government units, including the CCP History Research Center, during the Three Anti Campaign and Five Anti Campaign, more than 323,100 people were arrested, and more than 280 committed suicide or disappeared. In the Anti-Hu Feng campaign in 1955, more than 5,000 were incriminated, more than 500 arrested, more than 60 committed suicide, and 12 died from unnatural causes. In the subsequent Suppression of the Reactionaries, more than 21,000 people were executed, and more than 4,300 committed suicide or disappeared. [10]

The Great Famine

The highest death toll was recorded during China’s Great Famine shortly after the Great Leap Forward. The article “Great Famine” in the book Historical Records of the People’s Republic of China states: “The number of unnatural deaths and reduced births from 1959 to 1961 is estimated at about 40 million. … China’s depopulation by 40 million is likely to be the world’s greatest famine in this century.” [11]

The Great Famine was falsely labeled a “Three-Year Natural Disaster” by the CCP. In fact, those three years had favorable weather conditions without any massive natural disasters like flooding, drought, hurricane, tsunami, earthquake, frost, freeze, hail or plague of locusts. The disaster was entirely man-made. The Great Leap Forward campaign required everyone in China to become involved in steel-making, forcing farmers to leave their crops to rot in the field. Despite this, officials in every region escalated their claims of production yields. He Yiran, the first secretary of the Party Committee of Liuzhou Prefecture, on his own fabricated the shockingly high yield of “130,000 catties [65,000 kilograms] of paddy rice per mu” in Huanjiang County. This was right after the Lushan Plenum, when the CCP’s Anti-Rightist Movement spread out to the entire country. In order to demonstrate that the CCP was correct in every circumstance, the crops were expropriated by the government as a form of taxation according to these exaggerated yields. Consequently, the grain rations, seeds, and staple foods of the peasants were all confiscated. When the demand still could not be met, the peasants were accused of hiding their crops.

He Yiran once said that they must strive to get first place in the competition for highest yield no matter how many people in Liuzhou would die. Some peasants were deprived of everything, with only some handfuls of rice left hidden in the urine basin. The Party Committee of Xunle District, Huanjiang County, even issued an order to forbid cooking, preventing the peasants from eating the crops. Patrols were conducted by militiamen at night. If they saw light from a fire, they would proceed with a search and raid. Many peasants did not even dare to cook edible wild herbs or bark, and died of starvation.

Historically, in times of famine, the government would provide rice porridge, distribute the crops, and allow victims to flee from the famine. The CCP, however, regarded fleeing from the famine as a disgrace to the Party’s prestige and ordered militiamen to block roadways to prevent victims from escaping the famine. When the peasants were so hungry as to snatch cereal from the grain depots, the CCP ordered shooting at the crowd to suppress the looting. It then labeled those killed as counter-revolutionary elements. A great number of peasants were starved to death in many provinces, including Gansu, Shandong, Henan, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, and Guangxi provinces. Still, the hungry peasants were forced to take part in irrigation work, dam construction, and steel-making. Many dropped to the ground while working and never got up again. In the end, those who survived had no strength to bury the dead. Many villages died out completely as families starved to death one after another.

In the most serious famines in China’s history prior to the CCP, there were cases in which families exchanged one another’s children to eat, but nobody ever ate his own children. Under the CCP’s reign, however, people were driven to eat those who died, cannibalize those who fled from other regions, and even kill and eat their own children. The writer Sha Qing depicted this scene in his book An  Obscure Land of Bayou:  In a peasant’s family, a father was left with only his son and daughter during the Great Famine. One day, the father drove his daughter out of the house. When she came back, she could not find her younger brother but saw white oil floating in the cauldron and a pile of bones next to the stove. Several days later, the father added more water to the pot and called his daughter to come closer. The girl was frightened and pleaded with her father from outside the door, saying: “Daddy, please don’t eat me. I can collect firewood and cook food for you. If you eat me, nobody else will do this for you.” [12]

The final extent and number of tragedies such as this are unknown. Yet the CCP misrepresented them as a noble honor, claimed that the CCP was leading people bravely to fight “natural disasters,” and continued to tout itself as “great, glorious, and correct.”

After the Lushan Plenum was held in 1959, General Peng Dehuai was stripped of his power because he spoke out for the people. A group of government officials and cadres who dared to speak the truth were dismissed from their posts, detained, or investigated. After that, no one dared to speak out the truth. At the time of the Great Famine, instead of reporting the truth, officials concealed the facts about the deaths from starvation in order to protect their positions. Gansu Province even refused food aid from Shaanxi Province, claiming Gansu had too great a food surplus.

This Great Famine was also a qualifying test for the CCP’s cadres. According to the CCP’s criteria, the cadres who had resisted telling the truth in the face of tens of millions starving to death were certainly “qualified.” With this test, the CCP would then believe that nothing such as human emotions or heavenly principles could become a psychological burden that would prevent these cadres from following the Party line. After the Great Famine, the responsible provincial officials performed self-criticisms, but merely for the sake of formality. Li Jingquan, the CCP secretary for Sichuan Province, where millions of people had died from starvation, was promoted to be the first secretary of the southwestern district bureau of the CCP.

The Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Square Massacre, and Falun Gong

The Cultural Revolution was formally launched on May 16, 1966, and lasted until 1976. This period was called the “Ten-Year Catastrophe” even by the CCP itself. Later, in an interview with a Yugoslav reporter, former CCP General Secretary Hu Yaobang said, “At that time, nearly one hundred million people were implicated, which was one-tenth of the Chinese population.”

According to Fa cts of the Political Campaigns after the Founding of the People’s Republic of China:  “In May 1984, after 31 months of intensive investigation, verification, and recalculation by the Central Committee of the CCP, the figures related to the Cultural Revolution were: Over 4.2 million people were detained and investigated; over 1.73 million people died of unnatural causes; over 135,000 people were labeled as counter-revolutionaries and executed; over 237,000 people were killed; over 7.03 million were disabled in armed attacks; and 71,200 families were destroyed.” Statistics compiled from county annals show that 7.73 million people died of unnatural causes during the Cultural Revolution.

In addition to beating people to death, the beginning of the Cultural Revolution also triggered a wave of suicides. Many famous intellectuals, including Lao She, Fu Lei, Jian Bozan, Wu Han, and Chu Anping all ended their own lives at an early stage of the Cultural Revolution.

The Cultural Revolution was the most frenzied leftist period in China. Killing became a competitive way to exhibit one’s revolutionary standing, so the slaughter of “class enemies” was extremely cruel and brutal.

After the Cultural Revolution ended, the policy of “reform and opening up” greatly advanced the circulation of information, which made it possible for many foreign reporters to witness the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and to air television reports showing tanks chase down and crush college students to death.

Ten years later, on July 20, 1999, Jiang Zemin began his suppression of Falun Gong. By the end of 2002, confidential information from government sources in Mainland China confirmed the cover-up of over seven thousand deaths in detention centers, forced labor camps, prisons, and mental hospitals, with an average of seven people being killed every day.

Nowadays the CCP tends to kill far less than in the past when millions or tens of millions were murdered. There are two important reasons for this. On the one hand, the Party has warped the minds of the Chinese people with its Party culture so that they are now more submissive and cynical. On the other hand, because of excessive corruption and embezzlement by CCP officials, the Chinese economy has become a “transfusion” type of economy, depending substantially on foreign capital to sustain economic growth and social stability. The CCP vividly remembers the economic sanctions that followed the Tiananmen Square massacre, and knows that open killing would result in a withdrawal of foreign capital that would endanger its totalitarian regime.

Nevertheless, the CCP has never given up slaughtering behind the scenes. But today’s CCP does this with a difference: it spares no effort to hide the bloody evidence.

II. Extremely Cruel Ways of Killing

Everything the CCP does serves only one purpose: gaining and maintaining power. Killing is a very important way for the CCP to maintain its power. The more people killed and the crueler the killings, the greater the ability to terrify. Such terror started as early as before the war against Japan.

Massacre in Northern China During the War Against Japan

When recommending the book En emy Within  by Father Raymond J. de Jaegher and Irene Corbally Kuhn, [13] former U.S. President Herbert Hoover commented that the book exposed the naked terror of communist movements. He would recommend it to anyone who wanted to understand such an evil force in this world.

In this book, de Jaegher told stories about how the CCP used violence to terrify people into submission. For instance, one day the CCP required everyone to go to the square in the village. Teachers led the children to the square from school. The purpose for the gathering was to watch the killing of thirteen patriotic young men. After announcing the fabricated charges against the victims, the CCP ordered the horrified teacher to lead the children to sing patriotic songs. Appearing on the stage amid the songs were not dancers, but rather an executioner holding a sharp knife in his hands. The executioner was a fierce, robust young communist soldier with strong arms. The soldier went behind the first victim, quickly raised a big sharp knife and struck downwards, and the first head fell to the ground. Blood sprayed out like a fountain as the head rolled on the ground. The children’s hysterical singing turned into chaotic screaming and crying. The teacher kept the beat, trying to keep the songs going; her bell was heard ringing over and over in the chaos. The executioner chopped thirteen times and thirteen heads fell to the ground. After that, many communist soldiers came over, cut the victims’ chests open, and took out their hearts for a feast. All the brutality was done in front of the children, who went completely pale in terror. Some started throwing up. The teacher scolded the children, and lined them up to return to the school.

After that, de Jaegher often saw children being forced to watch killings. The children became used to the bloody scenes and numb to the killing; some even started to enjoy the excitement.

When the CCP felt that simple killing was not horrifying and exciting enough, they invented all kinds of cruel torture. For example, forcing someone to swallow a large amount of salt without letting him drink any water — the victim would suffer until he died of thirst; stripping someone naked and forcing him to roll on broken glass; creating a hole in a frozen river in the winter, then throwing the victim into the hole — the victim would either freeze to death or drown.

De Jaegher wrote that a CCP member in Shanxi Province invented a terrible torture. One day when he was wandering in the city, he stopped in front of a restaurant and stared at a big boiling vat. Later he purchased several giant vats and immediately arrested some people who were against the Communist Party. During the hasty trial, the vats were filled with water and heated to a boil. Three victims were stripped naked and thrown into the vats to boil to death after the trial. At Pingshan, de Jaegher witnessed a father being skinned alive. The CCP members forced the son to watch and participate in the inhumane torture, to see his father die in excruciating pain and listen to his father’s screams. The CCP members poured vinegar and acid onto the father’s body and then quickly peeled off all his skin. They started from his back, then up to his shoulders, and soon the skin from his whole body was peeled off, leaving only the skin on his head intact. He died in minutes.

Red Terror During ‘Red August’

After gaining absolute control over the country, the CCP did not end its violence. During the Cultural Revolution, such violence became worse.

On August 18, 1966, Mao met with the Red Guard representatives on the tower of Tiananmen Square. Song Binbin, daughter of Communist leader Song Renqiong, put a Red Guard sleeve emblem on Mao. When Mao learned of Song Binbin’s name, which means “gentle and polite,” he said, “We need more violence.” Song therefore changed her name to Song Yaowu (literally meaning “want violence”).

Violent armed attacks soon spread quickly to the whole country. The younger generation, educated in communist atheism, had no fears or concerns. Under the direct leadership of the CCP and guided by Mao’s instructions, the Red Guards, being fanatic and ignorant and holding themselves above the law, started beating people and ransacking homes nationwide. In many areas, all of the “five black classes” (landlords, rich farmers, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements, and rightists) and their family members were eradicated according to a policy of genocide. A typical example was Daxing County near Beijing, where from August 27 to September 1, 1966, a total of 325 people were killed in 48 brigades of 13 People’s Communes. The oldest killed was 80 years old and the youngest only 38 days old. Twenty-two households were killed down to the last family member.

Be ating a person to death was a common scene. On Shatan Street, a group of male Red Guards tortured an old woman with metal chains and leather belts until she could not move any more, and still a female Red Guard jumped on her body and stomped on her stomach. The old woman died on the scene. … Near Chongwenmen, when the Red Guards searched the home of a landlord’s wife (a lonely widow), they forced each neighbor to bring a pot of boiling water to the scene and they poured the boiling water down the old lady’s collar until her body was cooked. Several days later, the old lady was found dead in the room, her body covered with maggots. … There were many different ways of killing, including beating to death with batons, cutting with sickles, and strangling to death with ropes. … The way to kill babies was the most brutal: The killer stepped on one leg of a baby and pulled the other leg, tearing the baby in half. [14]

The Guangxi cannibalism was even more inhumane than the Daxing massacre. Writer Zheng Yi, author of the book Sc arlet Memorial , described the cannibalism as progressing in three stages. [15]

In the beginning stage, the terror was covert and gloomy. County annals documented a typical scene: At midnight, the killers tip-toed to find their victim and cut him open to remove his heart and liver. Because they were inexperienced and scared, they took his lung by mistake; then they had to start over again. Once they had cooked the heart and liver, some people brought liquor from home, some brought seasoning, and then all the killers ate the human organs in silence by the light of the oven fire.

In the second stage, the terror became open and public. During this stage, veteran killers had gained experience in how to remove hearts and livers while the victim was still alive, and they taught others, refining their techniques to perfection. For example, when cutting open a living person, the killers only needed to cut a cross on the victim’s belly, step on his body (if the victim was tied to a tree, the killers would bump his lower abdomen with the knee) and the heart and other organs would just fall out. The head killer was entitled to the heart, liver, and genitals while others would take what was left. These grand yet dreadful scenes were adorned with flying flags and slogans.

The third stage was crazed. Cannibalism became a massive, widespread movement. In Wuxuan County, like wild dogs eating corpses during an epidemic, people were madly eating other people. Often victims were first “publicly criticized,” which was always followed by killing and then cannibalism. As soon as a victim fell to the ground, dead or alive, people took out the knives they had prepared and surrounded the victim, cutting any body part they could get hold of. At this stage, ordinary citizens were all involved in cannibalism. The hurricane of “class struggle” blew away any sense of sin and human nature from people’s minds. Cannibalism spread like an epidemic, and people came to enjoy the feasts. Any part of the human body was considered edible, including the heart, meat, liver, kidneys, elbows, feet, and tendons. Human bodies were cooked in many different ways, including boiling, steaming, stir-frying, baking, frying, and barbecuing. People drank liquor or wine and played games while eating human bodies. During the peak of this movement, even the cafeteria of the highest government organization, the Wuxuan County revolutionary committee, offered human dishes.

Readers should not mistakenly think such a festival of cannibalism was purely an unorganized behavior by the people. The CCP was a totalitarian organization controlling every single cell of society. Without the CCP’s encouragement and manipulation, the cannibalism movement could not have happened at all.

A song written by the CCP in praise of itself says, “The old society [16] turned humans into ghosts, the new society turned ghosts into humans.” However, these killings and cannibalistic show tell us that the CCP could turn a human being into a monster or a devil because the CCP itself is crueler than any monster or devil.

Persecution of Falun Gong

As the people in China step into the era of computers and space travel and can talk privately about human rights, freedom, and democracy, many people think that the gruesome and disgusting atrocities are all in the past. The CCP has donned civilian clothing and gotten ready to connect with the world.

But that is far from the truth. When the CCP discovered that there is a group that does not fear its cruel torture and killing, it became even more manic. The group that has been persecuted in this way is Falun Gong.

The Red Guards’ violence and the cannibalism in Guangxi Province aimed at eliminating the victim’s body, killing someone in several minutes or several hours.

However, Falun Gong practitioners are persecuted to force them to give up their belief in truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. The cruel torture often lasts for days, months, or years. It is estimated that more than ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners have died as a result of torture [as of December 2004, and the persecution has continued to the present].

Falun Gong practitioners who suffered all kinds of torture and escaped from the jaws of death have recorded more than one hundred cruel torture methods; the following are only several examples.

Beating is the method most commonly used to abuse Falun Gong practitioners. The police and head prisoners directly beat practitioners and also instigate other prisoners to beat practitioners. Many practitioners have become deaf from these beatings, their outer ear tissues have been broken off, their eyeballs crushed, their teeth broken, and their skull, spine, ribcage, collarbone, pelvis, arms and legs have been broken; arms and legs have been amputated due to the beatings. Some torturers have ruthlessly pinched and crushed male practitioners’ testicles and kicked female practitioners’ genital areas. If the practitioners did not give in, torturers would continue the beating until the practitioners’ skin was torn and the flesh gaped open.

Electric shock is another method commonly used in Chinese forced labor camps to torture Falun Gong practitioners. The police have used electric batons to shock practitioners’ sensitive parts of the body, including the mouth, top of the head, chest, genitalia, hips, thighs, soles of the feet, female practitioners’ breasts, and male practitioners’ penises. Some police have shocked practitioners with several electric batons simultaneously until burning flesh could be smelled and the injured parts were dark and purple. Sometimes, the head and anus are shocked at the same time. The police have often used ten or even more electric batons simultaneously to beat the practitioners for an extended amount of time. These electric batons often have a charge of tens of thousands of volts. When the baton discharges, it emits blue light with a static-like sound. When the electric current goes through a person’s body, it feels like one is being burned or being bitten by snakes. Every shock is very painful. The victim’s skin turns red and is broken and burned, and the wounds fester. There are even more powerful batons with higher voltage that make the victim feel as if his head is being hit with a hammer. Practitioners’ bodies have become completely deformed from torture and covered in blood, yet the guards have still poured salt water on them and continued to shock them with electric batons. The smell of blood and burning flesh and the screams of agony are miserable. Meanwhile, the torturers also use plastic bags to cover practitioners’ heads in an attempt to make them yield out of fear of suffocation.

Police also use lit cigarettes to burn practitioners’ hands, face, bottoms of the feet, chest, back, nipples, and so on. They use cigarette lighters to burn practitioners’ hands and genitals. Specially made iron bars are heated in electric stoves until they become red-hot. They are then used to burn practitioners’ legs. The police also use red-hot charcoal to burn practitioners’ faces. The police burned a practitioner to death who, after having already endured cruel torture, still had a pulse and was breathing. The police then claimed his death was a “self-immolation.”

Police beat female practitioners’ breasts and genital areas. They have raped and gang raped female practitioners. In addition, police have stripped off female practitioners’ clothes and thrown them into prison cells filled with male prisoners who have then raped them. They have used electric batons to shock their breasts and genitals. They have used cigarette lighters to burn their nipples, and inserted electrical batons into the practitioners’ vaginas to shock them. They have bundled four toothbrushes and inserted them into female practitioners’ vaginas and rubbed and twisted the toothbrushes. They have hooked female practitioners’ private parts with iron hooks. Female practitioners’ hands have been cuffed behind their backs while their nipples are hooked up to wires and shocked with electricity.

They force Falun Gong practitioners to wear “straight jackets,” [17] and then cross and tie their arms behind their backs. They pull their arms up over their shoulders to the front of their chest, tie up the practitioners’ legs and hang them outside a window. At the same time, they gag practitioners’ mouths with cloth, place earphones in their ears, and continuously play messages that slander Falun Gong. According to an eyewitness account, people who suffer this torture quickly sustain broken arms, tendons, shoulders, wrists and elbows. Those who have been tortured this way for a long time have broken spines, and die in agonizing pain.

They also throw the practitioners into dungeons filled with sewage. They hammer bamboo sticks under the practitioners’ fingernails and force them to live in damp rooms full of red, green, yellow, white and other molds on the ceiling, floors and walls, which cause their injuries to fester. They also have dogs, snakes and scorpions bite practitioners and they inject practitioners with nerve-damaging drugs. These are just some of the ways that practitioners are tortured in labor camps.

III. Cruel Struggle within the Party

Because the CCP unifies its members on the basis of Party nature rather than morality and justice, a central question is the loyalty of its members, especially of senior officials, to the supreme leader. The Party needs to create an atmosphere of terror by killing its members. The survivors then see that when the supreme dictator wants someone to die, that person will die miserably.

The internal struggles of communist parties are well known. All members of the politburo of the Soviet Communist Party in the first 2 terms, except Lenin, who had died, and Stalin himself, were executed or committed suicide. In the Soviet Army, 3 of the 5 marshals, 3 of the 5 commanders-in-chief, all 10 secondary army commanders-in-chief, 57 of the 85 army corps commanders, and 110 of the 195 division commanders were executed.

The CCP always advocates “brutal struggles and merciless attacks.” Such tactics not only target people outside the Party. As early as the revolutionary period in Jiangxi Province, the CCP had already killed so many people in the Anti-Bolshevik Corps (AB Corps) that only a few survived to fight the ensuing wars. In the city of Yan’an, the Party carried out a Rectification campaign. Later, after taking power, it eliminated Gao Gang, Rao Shushi, Hu Feng, and Peng Dehuai. By the time of the Cultural Revolution, almost all of the senior members within the Party had been eliminated. Several of the CCP’s former general secretaries have been sacked or imprisoned.

Liu Shaoqi, [18] a former Chinese president who was once the No. 2 figure in the nation, died miserably. On Liu’s seventieth birthday, Mao and Zhou Enlai specifically told Wang Dongxing (Mao’s lead guard) to bring Liu Shaoqi a birthday present, a radio, in order to let him hear the official report of the Eighth Plenary Session of the Twelfth Central Committee, which said, “Forever expel the traitor, spy, and renegade Liu Shaoqi from the Party and continue to expose and criticize Liu Shaoqi and his accomplices’ crimes of betrayal and treason.”

Liu Shaoqi was crushed mentally, and his illnesses rapidly worsened. Because he was tied to the bed for a long time and could not move, his neck, back, hip, and heels had painful festering bedsores. When he felt great pain, he would grab some clothes, articles, or other people’s arms, and clench hard, so the guards simply put hard plastic bottles in each of his hands. When he died, the two hard plastic bottles had become hourglass-shaped from his gripping.

By October 1969, Liu Shaoqi’s body had started to rot all over, and the infected pus had a strong odor. He was as thin as a rail and on the verge of death, but the special inspector from the central Party committee did not allow him to take a shower or turn over his body to change his clothes. Instead, they stripped off all his clothes, wrapped him in a quilt, sent him by air from Beijing to Kaifeng City, and locked him up in the basement of a solid blockhouse. When he had a high fever, they not only did not give him medication, but also transferred the medical personnel away. When Liu Shaoqi died, his body had completely deteriorated, and his disheveled white hair was two feet long. Two days later, at midnight, he was cremated under the fiction that he was the victim of a highly infectious disease. His bedding, pillow, and other items he left behind were all burned. Liu’s death certificate reads: Name: Liu Weihuang; Occupation: unemployed; Cause of death: disease. The CCP tortured the country’s president to death like this without even giving a clear reason.

IV. Exporting the Revolution, Killing People Overseas

In addition to killing people with great delight and using a variety of methods within China and inside the Party, the CCP also participated in killing people abroad, including Chinese in other countries, by exporting the “revolution.” The Khmer Rouge is a typical example.

Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge only existed for four years in Cambodia. Nevertheless, from 1975 to 1978, more than two million people, including over two hundred thousand Chinese, were killed in this small country that had a population of only eight million.

The Khmer Rouge’s crimes are countless, but we will not discuss them here. We must, however, talk about its relationship with the CCP.

Pol Pot worshipped Ma. Beginning in 1965, he visited China four times to listen to Mao’s teachings in person. As early as November 1965, Pol Pot stayed in China for three months. Chen Boda and Zhang Chunqiao [19] discussed with him theories such as “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” “class struggle,” “dictatorship of the proletariat,” and so on. Later, these became the basis for how he ruled Cambodia. After returning to Cambodia, Pol Pot changed the name of his party to the Cambodian Communist Party and established revolutionary bases according to the CCP’s model of encircling cities from the countryside.

In 1968, the Cambodian Communist Party officially established an army. At the end of 1969, it had just over three thousand troops. But in 1975, before attacking and occupying the city of Phnom Penh, it had become a well-equipped and hardened fighting force of eighty thousand soldiers. This was completely due to the CCP’s support. The book Do cumented Account of Supporting Vietnam and Resisting America , by Wang Xiangen [20] says that in 1970 China gave Pol Pot armed equipment for thirty thousand soldiers. In April 1975, Pol Pot took the capital of Cambodia, and two months later he went to Beijing to pay a visit to the CCP and listen to instructions. Obviously, if the Khmer Rouge’s killing had not been backed by the CCP’s ideological and material support, it could not have been done.

For example, after Prince Sihanouk’s two sons were killed by the Khmer Rouge, the Cambodian communists obediently sent Sihanouk to Beijing at Zhou Enlai’s request. It was well known that when the Cambodian Communist Party killed people, they would “even kill the fetus” to prevent any possible trouble in the future. However, upon Zhou Enlai’s demand, Pol Pot obeyed without protest.

A single word from Zhou Enlai saved Sihanouk, but the CCP did not object to the more than two hundred thousand Chinese who were killed by the Cambodian Communist Party. At the time, the Chinese Cambodians went to the Chinese Embassy for help, but the embassy ignored them.

In May 1998, when a large-scale killing and raping of ethnic Chinese took place in Indonesia, the CCP did not say a word. It did not offer any help and even prevented the news from being spread inside China. It seems that the Chinese government does not care about the fate of overseas Chinese; it did not even offer any humanitarian assistance.

V. The Destruction of Family

We have no way to count how many people have been killed in the CCP’s political campaigns. Among the people, there is no way to do a statistical survey because of information blocks and barriers among different regions, ethnic groups, and local dialects. The CCP regime would never conduct this kind of survey, as that would be the same as digging its own grave. The CCP prefers to omit the details when writing its own history.

The number of families damaged by the CCP is even more difficult to know. In some cases, one person died and the family was broken. In other cases, the entire family died. Even when no one died, many were forced to divorce. Fathers and sons and mothers and daughters were forced to renounce their relationships. Some were disabled, some went crazy, and some died young because of serious illness caused by torture. The record of all these family tragedies is very incomplete.

The Japan-based Yomiuri Shimbun once reported that over half of the Chinese population has been persecuted by the CCP. If that is the case, the number of families destroyed by the CCP is estimated to be over one hundred million.

Zhang Zhixin has become a household name, as her story has been widely reported. Many people know that she suffered physical torture, gang rape, and mental torture. Finally, she was driven insane and shot to death after having her trachea cut (which rendered her unable to speak, ensuring that when she was executed, she would appear to those present to have silently accepted her fate). But many people may not know that there is another cruel story behind this tragedy — even her family members had to attend a “study session for the relatives of death row inmates.”

Zhang’s daughter Lin Lin recalled the events of the early spring of 1975:

A person from Shenyang Court said loudly, ‘Your mother is a real die-hard counter-revolutionary. She refuses to accept reform and is incorrigibly obstinate. She is against our great leader Chairman Mao, against the invincible Mao Zedong thought, and against Chairman Mao’s proletariat revolutionary direction. With one crime on top of another, our government is considering increasing the punishment. If she is executed, what is your attitude?’ I was astonished, and did not know how to answer. My heart was broken. But I pretended to be calm, trying hard to keep my tears from falling. My father had told me that we could not cry in front of others, otherwise we had no way to renounce our relationship with my mother. Father answered for me, ‘If this is the case, the government is free to do what it deems necessary.’

The person from court asked again, ‘Will you collect her body if she is executed? Will you collect her belongings in prison?’ I lowered my head and said nothing. Father answered for me again, ‘We don’t need anything.’ … Father held my brother and me by the hands and we walked out of the county motel. Staggering along, we walked home against the howling snowstorm. We did not cook; father split the only coarse corn bun we had at home and gave it to my brother and me. He said, ‘Finish it and go to bed early.’ I lay on the clay bed quietly. Father sat on a stool and stared at the light in a daze. After a while, he looked at the bed and thought we were all asleep. He stood up, gently opened the suitcase we brought from our old home in Shenyang, and took out Mother’s photo. He looked at it and could not hold back his tears.

I got up from bed, put my head into Father’s arms and started crying loudly. Father patted me and said, ‘Don’t do that; we cannot let the neighbors hear.’ My brother woke up after hearing me cry. Father held my brother and me tightly in his arms. That night we did not know how many tears we shed, but we could not cry freely. [21]

One university lecturer had a happy family, but his family encountered a disaster during the process of redressing the rightists. At the time of the Anti-Rightist Movement, the woman who would become the university lecturer’s wife was dating someone who was labeled a rightist. Her lover was later sent to a remote area and suffered greatly. Because she, as a young girl, could not go along, she gave her lover up and married the lecturer instead. When her beloved one finally came back to their hometown, she, now a mother of several children, had no other way to repent her betrayal in the past. She insisted on divorcing her husband in order to redeem her guilty conscience. By this time, the lecturer was over 50 years old. He could not accept the sudden change and went insane. He tore off his clothes and ran all over to look for a place to start a new life. Finally, his wife left him and their children. The painful separations decreed by the Party created a problem with no solution, an incurable social disease that could only replace one separation with another.

The family is the basic unit of Chinese society. It is also traditional culture’s last defense against Communist Party culture. For this reason, the cruelest element in the CCP’s history of killing is its damage to the family.

Because the CCP monopolizes all social resources, when a person is classified as being on the opposing side of the dictatorship, he or she will immediately face a crisis in livelihood, be accused by everyone in society, and stripped of his or her dignity. Because they are treated unjustly, the family is the only safe haven for these innocent people to be consoled. But the CCP’s policy of implication kept family members from comforting each other; otherwise, they too risked being labeled opponents of the dictatorship. Zhang Zhixin, for instance, was forced to divorce. For many people, family members’ betrayal — reporting on, fighting, publicly criticizing, or denouncing them — is the last straw that breaks their spirit. Many people have committed suicide as a result.

VI. The Patterns and Consequences of Killing

The Guiding Doctrine Behind the CCP’s Killing

The CCP has always touted itself as being talented and creative in its development of Marxism-Leninism, but in reality the CCP creatively developed an evil the likes of which had never been witnessed in any time or place. It uses the communist ideology of social unity to deceive the public and intellectuals. It seizes the opportunity of science and technology’s undermining belief to promote complete atheism. It uses communism to deny private ownership, and uses Lenin’s theory and practice of violent revolution to rule the country. At the same time, it combined and further reinforced the most evil part of Chinese culture that deviates from mainstream Chinese traditions.

The CCP invented a complete theory and framework of “revolution” and “continuous revolution” under the dictatorship of the proletariat; it used this system to change society and ensure the Party dictatorship. Its theory has two parts — economic base and superstructure under the dictatorship of the proletariat, in which the economic base determines the superstructure, while the superstructure in turn acts on the economic base. In order to strengthen the superstructure, especially the Party’s power, it must first start the revolution from the economic base, which includes: killing the landowners to solve the relations of production [22] in the countryside, and killing the capitalists to solve relations of production in cities.

Within the superstructure, killing is also repeatedly carried out to maintain the Party’s absolute control in the ideological field. This includes:

1. Solving the Problem of Intellectuals’ Political Attitude Toward the Party

Over a long period of time, the CCP has launched multiple campaigns to reform the thought of the intellectuals. They have accused intellectuals of bourgeois individualism, bourgeois ideology, apolitical viewpoints, classless ideology, liberalism, and the like. The CCP stripped intellectuals of their dignity through brainwashing them and eliminating their conscience. The CCP nearly eliminated the independent thinking and many other good qualities of the intellectuals, including the tradition of speaking out for justice and devoting one’s life to uphold justice. That tradition teaches that the intellectual should “not be led into excesses when wealthy and honored or deflected from his purpose when poor and obscure, nor can he be made to bow before superior force.” [23] “One should be the first to worry for the state and the last to claim his share of happiness.” [24] “Every ordinary man shall hold himself responsible for his nation’s success and failure.” [25] “In obscurity a gentleman makes perfect his own person, but in prominence he makes perfect the whole country as well.” [26}

2. Launching a Cultural Revolution and Killing People in Order to Gain the CCP’s Absolute Cultural and Political Leadership

The CCP mobilized mass campaigns inside and outside the Party, starting to kill in the areas of literature, art, theater, history, and education. The CCP targeted the first attacks on several famous people such as the “Three-Family Village,” [27] Liu Shaoqi, Wu Han, Lao She, and Jian Bozan. [28] Later, the number of people killed increased to “a small group inside the Party,” then “a small group inside the army,” and finally, the killing escalated from among all inside the Party and army to all the people around the country. Armed struggle eliminated physical bodies; cultural attacks killed people’s spirit. It was an extremely chaotic and violent period under the CCP’s control. The evil side of human nature had been amplified to the maximum by the Party’s need to revive its power in a crisis. Everyone could arbitrarily kill under the name of “revolution” and “defending Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line.” It was an unprecedented nationwide exercise of eliminating human nature.

3. Tiananmen Square Massacre

The CCP fired at students in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, in response to the democratic demands following the Cultural Revolution. This was the first time that the CCP army killed civilians publicly in order to suppress the people’s protest of embezzlement, corruption, and collusion between government officials and businessmen, and their demand for the freedoms of press, speech, and assembly. During the Tiananmen Square massacre, in order to instigate hatred between the army and civilians, the CCP even staged scenes of people burning military vehicles and killing soldiers, obfuscating the tragedy of the people’s army massacring its own people.

4. Killing People of Different Beliefs

The domain of faith is the lifeline of the CCP. In order to let its heresy deceive people at the time, the CCP started to eliminate all religions and belief systems at the beginning of its rule. When facing a spiritual belief in a new era — Falun Gong — the CCP once again grabbed its butcher’s knife. The CCP’s strategy is to take advantage of Falun Gong’s principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance and the fact that practitioners do not lie, do not use violence, and will not cause social instability. After gaining experience in persecuting Falun Gong, the CCP made itself better able to eliminate people of other faiths. This time, Jiang Zemin and the CCP themselves came to the front of the stage to kill instead of utilizing other people or groups.

5. Killing People in Order to Cover Up the Truth

The people’s right to know is another weak point of the CCP. The CCP also kills people in order to block information. In the past, “listening to enemy radio broadcasts” was a felony punishable with prison terms. Now, in response to multiple incidents of the interception of the state-owned television system to reveal the truth about the persecution of Falun Gong, Jiang Zemin issued the secret order to “kill instantly without mercy.” [29] Liu Chengjun, who carried out such an interception, was tortured to death. The CCP has mobilized the 610 Office (an organization that was created to persecute Falun Gong and is similar in function to the Gestapo in Nazi Germany), the police, prosecutors, courts, and a massive Internet police system to monitor people’s every action.

6. Depriving People of Their Rights for the Sake of CCP Interests

The CCP’s theory of continuous revolution means, in practice, that it will not give up its power. Currently, embezzlement and corruption inside the CCP have developed into conflicts between the Party’s absolute leadership and people’s right to life. When people organize to protect their rights legally, the CCP uses violence, waving its butcher’s knife toward the so-called “ringleaders” of these movements. The CCP has already prepared over one million armed police for this purpose. Today, the CCP is much better prepared for killing than it was at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, when it had to mobilize temporarily its field army. However, while forcing its people on a road to ruin, the CCP has also forced itself into a dead end. The CCP has come to such an extremely vulnerable stage that it even “takes trees and grass as enemies when the wind blows,” as the Chinese saying goes.

We can see from the above that the CCP is by nature an evil specter. No matter how it changes at a specific time and place in order to maintain absolute control, the CCP will not change its history of killing: It killed people before, is killing people now, and will continue to kill in the future.

Different Killing Patterns under Different Circumstances

1. Leading With Propaganda

The CCP has used various ways to kill people, depending on the period of time. In most situations, the CCP created propaganda before killing. The CCP has often said, “Only killing could appease the public’s indignation,” as if the people had requested the CCP to kill. In reality, this “public indignation” has been incited by the CCP.

For example, the drama Th e White-Haired Girl , a total distortion of a folk legend, and the fabricated stories of rent collection and water dungeons told in the drama Li u Wencai  were used as tools to “educate” people to hate landlords. The CCP commonly demonizes its enemies, as it did in the case of China’s former president Liu Shaoqi. In particular, the CCP staged a self-immolation incident on Tiananmen Square in January 2001 to incite people’s hatred toward Falun Gong, and then redoubled its massive genocidal campaign against Falun Gong. Not only has the CCP not changed its ways of killing people, but instead has perfected them by employing new information technology. In the past, the CCP could only deceive the Chinese people, but now it also deceives people all over the world.

2. Mobilizing the Masses to Kill

The CCP not only kills people through the machine of its dictatorship, but also actively mobilizes people to kill each other. Even if the CCP observed some regulations and laws in the beginning of these mobilizations, by the time it has incited people to join in, nothing could stop the slaughter. For example, when the CCP was carrying out its land reform, a land reform committee could decide on the life and death of landlords.

3. Destroying One’s Spirit before Killing the Physical Body

Another pattern of killing is to crush one’s spirit before killing the human body. In China’s history, even the most cruel and ferocious Qin Dynasty (221–207 BC) did not destroy people’s spirits. The CCP has never given people the chance to die a martyr. They promulgated policies such as, “Leniency to those who confess and severe punishment to those who resist,” and “Lowering one’s head to admit the crime is the only way out.”

The CCP forces people to give up their own thoughts and beliefs, making them die like dogs without dignity; a dignified death would encourage followers. Only when individuals die in humiliation and shame can the CCP achieve its purpose of “educating” the people who admired the victim. The reason that the CCP persecutes Falun Gong with extreme cruelty and violence is that Falun Gong practitioners consider their beliefs more important than their lives. When the CCP was unable to destroy their dignity, it did everything it could to torture their physical bodies.

4. Killing People by Alliances and Alienation

When killing people, the CCP uses both the carrot and the stick, befriending some people and alienating others. The CCP has always tried to attack a small portion of the population, using the proportion of 5 percent. The majority of the population are always good, always the objects of “education.” Such education consists of terror and care. Education through terror uses fear to show people that those who oppose the CCP will come to no good end, making them stay far away from those previously attacked by the Party. Education through “care” lets people see that if they can earn the CCP’s trust and stand together with the CCP, they will not only be safe but also have a good chance to be promoted or gain other benefits.

Lin Biao once said, “A small portion [suppressed] today and a small portion tomorrow, soon there will be a large portion in total.” Those who rejoiced surviving one movement often became victims of the next.

5. Nipping Potential Threats in the Bud and Secretive Extra-Judicial Killings

Recently the CCP has developed the killing pattern of nipping problems in the bud and killing secretly outside the law. For example, as workers’ strikes or peasants’ protests become more common in various places, the CCP eliminates the movements before they can grow by arresting the so-called “ringleaders” and sentencing them to severe punishment. In another example, as freedom and human rights have ever more become a commonly recognized trend throughout the world, the CCP did not sentence any Falun Gong practitioner to death, but under Jiang Zemin’s instigation of “no one is held responsible for killing Falun Gong practitioners,” Falun Gong practitioners have commonly been tragically tortured to death all over the country.

The Chinese Constitution stipulates the citizens’ right of appeal if one has suffered an injustice. Nevertheless, the CCP uses plainclothes policemen or hires local thugs to stop, arrest, and send appellants back home, even putting them into labor camps.

6. Killing One to Warn Many

The persecutions of Zhang Zhixin, Yu Luoke, and Lin Zhao [30] are all such examples.

7. Using Suppression to Conceal the Truth of Killing

Famous people with international influence are usually suppressed but not killed by the CCP. The purpose of this is to conceal the killing of those whose deaths will not draw public attention. For example, during the campaign of Suppression of the Counter-Revolutionaries, the CCP did not kill high-ranking Kuomintang generals such as Long Yun, Fu Zuoyi, and Du Yuming, but instead killed lower-level Kuomintang officers and soldiers.

The CCP’s killing has, over a long period of time, distorted the Chinese people’s souls. In today’s China, many people harbor murderous thoughts. When terrorists attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, many Chinese cheered the attacks on mainland Chinese Internet message boards. The chilling idea of “unrestricted warfare” was promoted widely.

Conclusion

Due to the CCP’s information blockade, we have no way of knowing exactly how many people have died from the various movements of persecution that occurred during its rule. Tens of millions of people died in the foregoing movements. In addition, the CCP also killed ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, and other places. Information on these incidents is difficult to find. The Washington Post once estimated that the number of people persecuted to death by the CCP is as high as eighty million. [31]

Besides the number of deaths, we have no way of knowing how many people became disabled, mentally ill, enraged, depressed, or frightened to death through the persecution they suffered. Every single death is a bitter tragedy that leaves everlasting agony to the family members of the victims.

As the Japan-based Yo miuri Shimbun  once reported, [32] the Chinese central government conducted a survey on the casualties inflicted during the Cultural Revolution in twenty-nine provinces and municipalities directly under the central government. Results showed that nearly six hundred million people were persecuted or incriminated during the Cultural Revolution, which comprises about half of China’s population.

As the apocryphal line often attributed to Stalin goes, the death of one man is a tragedy, but the deaths of a million is merely a statistic. When told that many people starved to death in Sichuan Province, Li Jingquan, the former Party secretary of Sichuan Province, remarked, “Which dynasty didn’t have people die?” Mao said: “Casualties are inevitable for any struggle. Death often occurs.” This is the atheist communists’ view on life. That’s why twenty million people died as a result of persecution during Stalin’s regime, which constituted 10 percent of the population of the Soviet Union at the time. The CCP has killed at least eighty million people, which was also nearly 10 percent of the nation’s population [at the end of the Cultural Revolution]. The Khmer Rouge killed two million people, or one quarter of Cambodia’s population at that time. In North Korea, the death toll from famine is estimated to be over one million. These are all bloody debts owed by the communist parties.

Evil cults sacrifice people and use their blood to worship evil specters. Since its beginnings, the Communist Party has continued to kill people as sacrifices for its “class struggles,” “inter-party struggles,” and other evil doctrines. It even put its own Party general secretary, marshals, generals, ministers, and others on the sacrificial altar of the evil cult.

Many think the CCP should be given time to improve itself, saying that it is quite restrained in its killings now. First of all, killing one person still makes one a murderer. Moreover, because killing is one of the methods the CCP uses to govern its terror-based regime, the CCP ratchets its killings up and down according to its needs. The CCP’s killings are, in general, unpredictable. When people lack a strong sense of fear, the CCP could kill more to increase their sense of terror. When people are already fearful, killing a few could maintain the sense of terror. When people can’t help but fear the CCP, then announcing the intention to kill, with no need really to kill, would be enough for the CCP to maintain terror. After having experienced countless political and killing movements, people have formed a conditioned-reflex response to the CCP’s terror. Therefore, there is no need for the CCP to even mention killing. Even the propaganda machine’s tone of mass criticism is enough to bring back people’s memories of terror.

The CCP would adjust the intensity of its killing once people’s sense of terror changes. The magnitude of killing itself is not the goal of the CCP. The key is its consistency in killing for the sake of maintaining power. The CCP has not become lenient, nor has it laid down its butcher’s knife. Conversely, the people have become more obedient. Once the people stand up to request something that goes beyond the tolerance of the CCP, the CCP will not hesitate to kill.

Random killing is the most powerful way to maintain terror. In the large-scale killings that took place previously, the CCP intentionally kept vague the standards by which it selected people for punishment, defined “crimes,” and determined sentences. To avoid being included as the targets for killing, people would often restrict themselves to a “safe zone” based on their own judgment. Such a safe zone was sometimes even narrower than the one that the CCP intended to set. That’s why, in every single movement, people tend to “always choose the left over the right.” As a result, a movement is oftentimes enlarged beyond its intended scale because people at different levels voluntarily impose restrictions on themselves for their own protection. The lower the level, the crueler the movements became. Such society-wide, voluntary intensification of terror, stems from the CCP’s wanton killing.

In its long history of killing, the CCP has metamorphosed itself into a depraved serial killer. Through killing, it satisfies its perverted sense of the ultimate power of deciding people’s life and death. Through killing, it eases its own innermost fear. Through killing, it suppresses social unrest and resentment caused by its earlier murders. Today, the compounded bloody debts of the CCP have made a benevolent solution impossible. It can only rely on intense pressure and totalitarian rule to maintain its existence until its final moment. Despite occasionally disguising itself through restoring the reputation of its murder victims, the CCP’s bloodthirsty nature has never changed. As time passes, it will only become less likely to change its ways.

Notes:

[1] Mao Zedong’s letter to his wife, Jiang Qing (1966).

[2] According to Marxist theory, the economic “base” describes the technical forces of production and division of labor, which largely determine the cultural and moral institutions of society forming its “superstructure.” The superstructure is thus seen as legitimizing and perpetuating the social system that Marxists believe must be overthrown through violent revolution.

[3] From Th e Analects  by Confucius.

[4] Leviticus 19:18.

[5] From Ma nifesto of the Communist Party  (1848), chap. 1.

[6] From Th e People’s Democratic Dictatorship  (1949) by Mao Zedong.

[7] From We  Must Fully Promote [the Suppression of Counter-Revolutionaries] So Every Family is Informed (1951) by Mao Zedong.

[8] From We  Must Forcefully and Accurately Strike the Counter-Revolutionaries  (1951) by Mao Zedong.

[9] The Heavenly Kingdom of Taiping (1851–1864), also known as the Taiping Rebellion, was one of the bloodiest conflicts in Chinese history. It was a clash between the forces of Imperial China and those inspired by a self-proclaimed mystic of the Hakka cultural group named Hong Xiuquan, who was also a Christian convert. At least 30 million people are believed to have died.

[10] Excerpt from the book published by the Hong Kong-based Chengming magazine (October issue, 1996).

[11] From Hi storical Records of the People’s Republic of China (Red Flag Publishing House, 1994).

[12] From An  Obscure Land of Bayou (Yi Xi Da Di Wan) (1988) by Sha Qing.

[13] From En emy Within by Raymond J. de Jaegher and Irene Corbally Kuhn (Guild Books, Catholic Polls, Incorporated, 1968).

[14] From In vestigation of Daxing Massacre  by Yu Luowen. The Daxing massacre occurred in August 1966 during the change of the Party secretary of Beijing. At that time, a speech was made by the minister of Public Security, Xie Fuzhi, in a meeting with the public security bureau of Beijing regarding no intervention with the Red Guards’ actions against the “black five classes.” Such a speech was soon relayed to a standing committee meeting of the Daxing public security bureau. After the meeting, the Daxing Public Security Bureau immediately took action and formed a plan to incite the masses in Daxing County to kill the “five black classes.”

[15] From Sc arlet Memorial  by Zheng Yi. (Taipei: Chinese Television Publishing House, 1993). This book is also available in English as Sc arlet Memorial: Tales of Cannibalism in Modern China , translated and edited by T. P. Sym (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1998).

[16] The “old society,” as the CCP calls it, refers to the period prior to 1949, and the “new society” refers to the period after 1949, when the CCP took control over the country.

[17] The strait jacket is a jacket-shaped torture implement. The victim’s arms are twisted and tied with a rope behind the back and then pulled to the front from over the head; this torture can instantly cripple one’s arms. After that, the victim is forcefully put into the strait jacket and hung up by the arms. The most direct consequence of this cruel torture is the fracture of the bones in the shoulder, elbow, wrist, and back, causing the victim to die in excruciating pain. Several Falun Gong practitioners have died from this torture. For more information see (in Chinese) search.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/9/30/85430.html and (in English)   http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/9/10/52274.html

[18] Liu Shaoqi, chairman of the PRC between 1959 and 1968, was considered to be the successor to Mao Zedong. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), he was persecuted as a traitor, spy, and renegade by the CCP itself. He died in 1969 after being severely abused under the CCP’s imprisonment.

[19] Chen Boda (1904–1989) served as Mao Zedong’s political secretary and editor-in-chief of the CCP journal Ho ngqi (Red Flag) . He was a leader of the Cultural Revolution Group and wrote the People’s Daily editorial “Sweep Away All Monsters and Demons” in 1966, which marked the beginning of one of the biggest purges during the Cultural Revolution. Zhang Chunqiao (1917–) served as second deputy premier in 1975. He was a member of the Gang of Four, a group of leaders during the Cultural Revolution. His most widely known article is “On Exercising All-Round Dictatorship over the Bourgeoisie.”

[20] From Do cumentary of Supporting Vietnam and Fighting With America by Wang Xiangen. (Beijing: International Cultural Publishing Company, 1990).

[21] From “Report: Children among victims of Falun Gong persecution,” Laogai Research Foundation (October 12, 2004).

[22] One of the three tools (means of production, modes of production, and relations of production) that Marx used to analyze social class. Relations of production refers to the relationship between the people who own productive tools and those who do not, for example, the relationship between landlord and tiller or the relationship between capitalist and worker.

[23] From Me ncius , Book 3. Penguin Classics series, translated by D.C. Lau.

[24] From “Climbing the Yueyang Tower,” a well-known prose essay by Fan Zhongyan (989–1052), a prominent Chinese educator, writer and government official from the Northern Song Dynasty.

[25] By Gu Yanwu (1613–1682), an eminent scholar of the early Qing Dynasty.

[26] From Me ncius , Book 7. Penguin Classics series, translated by D.C. Lau.

[27] Three-Family Village was the pen name of three writers in the 1960s, Deng Kuo, Wu Han, and Liao Mosha. Wu was the author of the play Ha i Rui Resigning from His Post , which Mao considered a political satire about his relationship with General Peng Dehuai.

[28] Lao She (1899–1966) was a Chinese writer known for depicting the life of the Chinese during the war years. Many of his books have been turned into TV shows and movies. He was cruelly treated during the Cultural Revolution and drowned himself in a lake in 1966. Jian Bozan (1898–1968) was vice president of Peking University and a history professor. Mao had specially instructed that he be used as a negative example of a counter-revolutionary intellectual. He and his wife committed suicide together by taking an overdose of sleeping pills in December 1968.

[29] According to Clearwisdom.net, Falun Gong’s official website, Jiang Zemin had ordered that Falun Gong practitioners be killed without mercy, and that any death be counted as suicide. See “Sweden: Letter from Falun Dafa Association to Foreign Minister Regarding the Geneva UN Human Rights Conference.”   http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/3/18/33461.html

[30] Yu Luoke was a human rights thinker and activist who was killed by the CCP during the Cultural Revolution. His monumental essay “On Family Background,” written on January 18, 1967, was one that enjoyed the widest circulation and the most enduring influence of all the essays reflecting the non-CCP thought during the years of the Cultural Revolution. Lin Zhao, a Beijing University student majoring in journalism, was classified as a rightist in 1957 for her independent thinking and outspoken criticism of the communist movement. She was charged with conspiracy to overthrow the people’s democratic dictatorship and arrested in 1960. In 1962, she was sentenced to twenty years of imprisonment. She was killed by the CCP on April 29, 1968, as a counter-revolutionary.

[31]   http://www.laojiao.org/64/article0211.html

[32] An open letter from Song Meiling to Liao Chengzhi (August 17, 1982).

Commentary 8: On How the Chinese Communist Party Is an Evil Cult

Foreword

The collapse of the communist bloc headed by the Soviet Union in the early 1990s marked the failure of communism after almost a century. However, the CCP unexpectedly survived and still controls China, a nation with one-fifth of the world’s population. An unavoidable question arises: Is the CCP today still truly communist?

No one in today’s China, including Party members, believes in communism. After fifty years of socialism, the CCP has now adopted private ownership and even has a stock market. It seeks foreign investment to establish new ventures, while exploiting workers and peasants as much as it can. This completely opposes the ideals of communism. Despite compromising with capitalism, the CCP maintains autocratic control of the people of China. The constitution, as revised in 2004, still rigidly states, “Chinese people of various ethnicities will continue adhering to the people’s democratic dictatorship and socialist path under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the guidance of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong’s ideology, Deng Xiaoping’s theory, and the important thought of the “Three Represents.”

“The leopard has died, but its skin is still left.” [1] Today’s CCP only has “its skin” left. The CCP inherited this skin and uses it to maintain its rule over China.

What is the nature of the skin inherited by the CCP, that is, the very organization of the CCP?

I. The Cultish Traits of the CCP

The Communist Party is essentially an evil cult that harms mankind.

Although the Communist Party has never called itself a religion, it matches every single trait of a religion (see the table below). At the beginning of its establishment, it regarded Marxism as the absolute truth in this world and denied the existence of anything beyond this world. It piously worshipped Karl Marx as its god, and exhorted people to engage in a life-long struggle for the goal of building a “communist heaven on earth.”

Religious Traits of the CCP.

The Communist Party is significantly different from any righteous religion. All orthodox religions believe in the divine and benevolence, and their purpose is to instruct humanity about morality and to save souls. The Communist Party does not believe in the divine and opposes traditional morality.

What the Communist Party has done proves itself to be an evil cult. The Communist Party’s doctrines are based upon class struggle, violent revolution, and the dictatorship of the proletariat and have resulted in the so-called communist revolution full of blood and violence. The red terror under communism has lasted for over a century, bringing disaster to dozens of countries in the world and costing tens of millions of lives. The communist belief, one that created a hell on earth, is nothing but the vilest cult in the world.

The Communist Party’s cultish traits can be summed up by the following six points:

1. Concoction of Doctrines and Elimination of Dissidents

The Communist Party holds up Marxism as its religious doctrine and shows it off as the unbreakable truth. The doctrines of the Communist Party lack benevolence and tolerance. Instead, they are full of arrogance. Marxism was a product of the initial period of capitalism when productivity was low and science was underdeveloped. It didn’t have a correct understanding at all of the relationships between humanity and society or humanity and nature. Unfortunately, this heretical ideology developed into the international communist movement and harmed the human world for over a century before the people discarded it, having found it completely wrong in practice.

Party leaders since Vladimir Lenin have always amended the cult’s doctrines. From Lenin’s theory of violent revolution, to Mao’s theory of continuous revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, to Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents,” the Communist Party’s history is full of such heretical theory and fallacy. Although these theories have constantly caused disasters in practice and are self-contradictory, the Communist Party still proclaims it is universally correct and forces the people to study its doctrines.

Eliminating dissidents is the most effective means for the evil cult of communism to spread its doctrine. The ridiculousness of this evil cult’s doctrines and actions means that the Communist Party has to force people to accept them, relying on violence to eliminate dissidents. After the CCP seized the reins of power in China, it initiated land reform to eliminate the landlord class, socialist reform in industry and commerce to eliminate capitalists, the movement of purging reactionaries to eliminate folk religions and officials who held office before the communists took power, the Anti-Rightist Movement to silence intellectuals, and the Cultural Revolution to eradicate traditional Chinese culture. The CCP was able to unify China under the communist evil cult and achieve a situation where everyone read the Red Book, performed the “loyalty dance,” [2] and “asked for the Party’s instructions in the morning and reported to the Party in the evening.” In the period after Mao’s and Deng’s reigns, the CCP asserted that Falun Gong, a traditional spiritual practice that believes in truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, would compete with it for the masses. It therefore attempted to eradicate Falun Gong and initiated a genocidal persecution against it, which continues today.

2. Promoting Worship of the Leader and Supremacist Views

From Marx to Jiang, the Communist Party leaders’ portraits are prominently displayed for worship. The absolute authority of the Party leaders forbids any challenge. Mao was set up as the “red sun” and “great liberator.” The Party spoke outrageously about his writing, saying “one sentence equals ten thousand ordinary sentences.” As an ordinary Party member, Deng once dominated Chinese politics like an overlord. Jiang’s “Three Represents” theory is merely a little over forty characters long, including punctuation, but the CCP’s Fourth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee boosted it as “providing a creative answer to questions such as what socialism is, how to construct socialism, what kind of party we are building, and how to build the Party.” The Party also spoke outrageously about the philosophy of the “Three Represents,” claiming that it was a continuation and development of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, and Deng Xiaoping theory.

Joseph Stalin’s wanton slaughter of innocent people, the catastrophic Cultural Revolution launched by Mao, Deng’s order for the Tiananmen Square massacre, and Jiang’s ongoing persecution of Falun Gong are the dreadful results of the Communist Party’s heretical dictatorship.

On one hand, the CCP stipulates in its constitution, “All power in the People’s Republic of China belongs to the people. The organs through which the people exercise state power are the National People’s Congress and the local people’s congresses at different levels.” “No organization or individual may enjoy the privilege of being above the constitution and the law.” [3] On the other hand, the CCP Charter stipulates that the CCP is the core of the leadership for the Chinese-featured socialist cause, overriding both the country and the people. The chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress made “important speeches” across the country, claiming that the National People’s Congress, the highest organ of state power, must adhere to the CCP’s leadership. According to the CCP’s principle of democratic centralism, the entire Party must obey the Central Committee of the Party. Stripped to its core, what the National People’s Congress really insists upon is the dictatorship of the general secretary, which is in turn protected in the form of legislation.

3. Violent Brainwashing and Mind Control

The CCP’s organization is extremely tight: One needs two Party members’ references before admission; a new member must swear to be loyal to the Party forever once admitted; Party members must pay membership dues, attend organizational activities, and take part in group political study. The Party organizations penetrate all levels of the government. There are basic CCP organizations in every single village, town, and neighborhood. The CCP controls not only its Party members and Party affairs, but also those who are not members because the entire regime must “adhere to the Party’s leadership.” In those years when class struggle campaigns were carried out, the “priests” of the CCP religion, namely, the Party secretaries at all levels, more often than not, did not know exactly what they were to do other than discipline people.

The “criticism and self-criticism” in the Party meetings serves as a common, unending means for controlling the minds of Party members. Throughout its existence, the CCP has launched a multitude of political movements for purifying the Party members, rectifying the Party atmosphere, capturing traitors, purging the Anti-Bolshevik Corps (AB Corps), disciplining the Party, and periodically testing the sense of Party nature — that is, using violence and terror to test the Party members’ devotion to the Party, while ensuring they keep in step with it forever.

Joining the CCP is like signing an irrevocable contract to sell one’s body and soul. With the Party’s rules being always above the laws of the nation, the Party can dismiss any Party member at will, while the individual Party member cannot quit the CCP without incurring severe punishment. Quitting the Party is considered disloyal and will bring about dire consequences. During the Cultural Revolution when the CCP cult held absolute rule, it was well-known that if the Party wanted you dead, you could not live; if the Party wanted you alive, you could not die. If a person committed suicide, he would be labeled as “dreading the people’s punishment for his crime,” and his family members would also be implicated and punished.

The decision process within the Party operates like a black box, as the intra-Party struggles must be kept in absolute secrecy. Party documents are all confidential. Dreading exposure of their criminal acts, the CCP frequently silences dissidents by charging them with “divulging state secrets.”

4. Urging Violence, Carnage, and Sacrifice for the Party

Mao said: “A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained, and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.” [4]

Deng recommended “killing two hundred thousand people in exchange for twenty years’ stability.”

Jiang ordered, “Destroy them [Falun Gong practitioners] physically, ruin their reputation, and bankrupt them financially.”

The CCP promotes violence and has killed countless people throughout its previous political movements. It educates people to treat the enemy “as cold as the severe winter.” The red flag is understood to be red for having been “dyed red with martyrs’ blood.” The Party worships red due to its addiction to blood and carnage.

The CCP makes an exhibition of “heroic” examples to encourage people to sacrifice for the Party. When Zhang Side died working in a kiln to produce opium, Mao praised his death as being “heavy as Mount Tai.” [5] In those frenzied years, “brave words” such as “Fear neither hardship nor death” and “Bitter sacrifice strengthens bold resolve; we dare to make the sun and moon shine in new skies” gave aspirations substance amid an extreme shortage of material supplies.

At the end of the 1970s, communist Vietnam dispatched troops and overthrew the Khmer Rouge regime, which was fostered by the CCP and committed unspeakable crimes. Although the CCP was furious, it could not dispatch troops to support the Khmer Rouge, since China and Cambodia did not share a common border. Instead, in the name of self-defense, the CCP launched a war against Vietnam along the China–Vietnam border to punish the Communist Party of Vietnam. Tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers therefore sacrificed blood and life for this struggle between communist regimes. Their deaths had in fact nothing to do with territory or sovereignty. Nevertheless, several years later, the CCP disgracefully memorialized the senseless sacrifice of so many naive and bright young lives as “the revolutionary heroic spirit,” irreverently borrowing the song “The Elegant Demeanor Dyed by Blood.” One hundred and fifty-four Chinese martyrs died in 1981 recapturing Mount Faka in Guangxi Province, but the CCP casually returned it to Vietnam after China and Vietnam surveyed the boundary.

When the rampant spread of SARS threatened people’s lives at the beginning of 2003, the CCP readily admitted many young female nurses. These women were then quickly confined in hospitals to nurse SARS patients. The CCP pushes young people to the most dangerous fronts, in order to establish its “glorious image” according to which one should “fear neither hardship nor death.” However, the CCP has no explanation as to where other tens of millions of Party members were and what image they brought to the Party.

5. Denying Belief in the Divine and Stamping Out Human Nature

The CCP promotes atheism and claims that religion is the opiate of the people. It used its power to crush all religions in China, and then it deified itself, giving absolute rule of the country to the CCP cult.

At the same time that the CCP sabotaged religion it also destroyed traditional culture. It claimed that tradition, morality, and ethics were feudalistic, superstitious, and reactionary, eradicating them in the name of revolution. During the Cultural Revolution, widespread ugly phenomena violated Chinese traditions, such as married couples accusing each other, students beating their teachers, fathers and sons turning against each other, Red Guards wantonly killing the innocent, and mobs beating, smashing, and looting. These were the natural consequences of the CCP’s smothering human nature.

After establishing its regime, the CCP forced minority nationalities to pledge allegiance to the communist leadership, compromising the rich and colorful ethnic culture they had established.

On June 4, 1989, the so-called People’s Liberation Army massacred many students in Beijing. This caused the Chinese people to completely lose hope in China’s political future. From then on, everyone’s focus turned to making money. From 1999 to this day, the CCP has been brutally persecuting Falun Gong, turning against truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance (the fundamental principles of Falun Gong) and thereby causing an accelerated decline in moral standards.

Since the beginning of this century, a new round of illegal land enclosure [6] and seizure of monetary and material resources by the corrupt CCP officials in collusion with profiteers has driven many people to become destitute and homeless. The number of people appealing to the government in an attempt to have an injustice settled has increased sharply, and social conflict has intensified. Large-scale protests are frequent, which the police and armed forces have violently suppressed. The fascist nature of the “Republic” has become prominent, and society has lost its moral conscience.

In the past, a villain didn’t harm his next door neighbors, or, as the saying goes, the fox preys far from home. Nowadays, when people want to con someone, they would rather target their relatives and friends, and call it “killing acquaintances.”

In the past, Chinese people cherished chastity above all else, whereas people today ridicule the poor but not the debauched. The history of the destruction of human nature and morals in China is vividly summed up in a ballad below:

In  the ’50s, people helped one another,

In the ’60s, people struggled with one another,

In the ’70s, people swindled one another,

In the ’80s, people cared only for themselves,

In the ’90s, people took advantage of anyone they came across.

6.  Monopolization of the Economy

The sole purpose of establishing the CCP was to seize power by armed force and then to generate a system of state ownership in which the state holds monopolies in the planned economy. The CCP’s wild ambition far surpasses that of the ordinary evil cults who simply accumulate money.

In a country of socialist public ownership ruled by the Communist Party, Party organizations that hold great power (that is, the Party committees and branches at various levels) are imposed upon or possess the normal state infrastructure. The possessing Party organizations control state machinery and draw funds directly from the budgets of the governments at different levels. Like a vampire, the CCP has sucked a huge amount of wealth from the nation.

II. The Damage the CCP Cult Has Wrought

At the mention of incidents like Aum Shinrikyo’s killing people with sarin nerve gas, the Solar Temple’s members “ascending to heaven” by suicide, or the mass suicide of over nine hundred followers of Jim Jones’s People’s Temple, everyone trembles with fear and outrage. The CCP, however, is an evil cult that commits crimes a thousand times worse, harming countless lives. This is because the CCP possesses the following unique features that ordinary cults lack.

The Evil Cult Became a State Religion

In most countries, if you do not follow a religion, you can still enjoy a happy life without reading the literature or listening to the principles of a religion. It is impossible to live in mainland China without constant exposure to the doctrines and propaganda of the CCP cult, as the CCP, upon seizing power, turned its evil cult into a state religion.

The CCP begins to instill its political preaching as early as kindergarten and elementary school. One cannot receive higher education or promotion to higher office without passing the Political Examination. None of the questions in the Political Examination allow independent thinking. Those taking the exams are required to memorize the standard answers provided by the CCP in order to pass. The unfortunate Chinese people are forced to repeat the CCP’s preaching even when they are young, brainwashing themselves over and over again. When a cadre is promoted to a higher office in the government, even though he is a member of the CCP, he has to attend the Party School. He won’t be promoted until he has met the requirements for graduation from the Party School.

In China, where the Communist Party is the state religion, groups with different opinions are not allowed to exist. Even the “democratic parties,” which are merely set up by the CCP as a political screen, and the reformed Three-Self Church (self-administration, self-support, and self-propagation) must formally acknowledge the leadership of the CCP. Loyalty to the CCP is the first priority before entertaining any other beliefs, according to the very cultish logic of the CCP.

Social Controls Go to Extremes

This evil cult was able to become a state religion because the CCP had complete social control and deprived individuals of freedom. This kind of control is unprecedented. The CCP had deprived people of private property, which is one foundation of freedom. Before the 1980s, people in urban areas could only earn a living by working in Party-controlled enterprises. Farmers in the rural areas had to live on the farmland belonging to the communes of the Party. Nobody could escape the CCP’s control. In a socialist country like China, the Communist Party organizations are ubiquitous—from the central government to the most grass-roots levels of society, including villages and neighborhoods. Through the Party committees and branches at all levels, the CCP maintains its absolute control over society. Such strict control completely crushes individual freedom—the freedom of movement (residence registration system), freedom of speech (five hundred thousand rightists were persecuted by the CCP because they exercised free speech), freedom of thought (Lin Zhao [7] and Zhang Zhixin [8] were executed for having doubts about the CCP), and freedom to obtain information (it is illegal to read forbidden books or listen to “enemies’ radio stations;” Internet browsing is monitored as well).

One might say that private ownership is allowed now by the CCP, but one should not forget that this policy of reform and openness only came about when socialism reached a point where people did not have enough to eat, and the national economy was on the brink of collapse. The CCP had to take a step back in order to save itself from destruction. Nevertheless, even after the reform and opening, the CCP has never relaxed its control over the people. The ongoing brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners could have only occurred in a country controlled by the Communist Party. If the CCP were to become an economic giant as it wishes, it is certain that the CCP would intensify its control over the Chinese people.

Advocating Violence and Despising Life

Almost all evil cults control their followers and resist external pressure through violence. However, few have resorted to the extent the CCP has to violent means without compunction. Even the total number of deaths caused by all other evil cults across the world cannot compare to the number of people killed by the CCP. The CCP cult sees humanity as merely a means to realize its goal; killing is just another means. Thus, the CCP has no reservations or scruples about persecuting people. Anyone, including supporters, members, and leaders of the CCP, can become a target of its persecution.

The CCP fostered the Cambodian Khmer Rouge, a typical case of the Communist Party’s brutality and disregard for life. During its reign of three years and eight months, the Pol Pot-led Communist Party of Cambodia, inspired and guided by Mao’s teaching, slaughtered two million people — about one-fourth of this small country’s entire population — in order to eliminate the system of private ownership. Among those killed, more than two hundred thousand were of Chinese ethnicity.

To commemorate the crimes committed by the Communist Party and memorialize the victims, Cambodia set up a museum for documenting and exhibiting the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge. The museum is in a former Khmer Rouge prison. Originally a high school, the building was transformed by Pol Pot to the S-21 Prison, which was used specifically for dealing with prisoners of conscience. Many intellectuals were detained there and tortured to death. Displayed along with the prison buildings and various torture instruments are the black and white photos of the victims before they were put to death. There are many horrible tortures documented: throats cut, brains drilled, infants thrown to the ground and killed, and the like. All these torture methods were reportedly taught by the “experts and technical professionals” that the CCP dispatched in support of the Khmer Rouge. The CCP even trained the photographers who specialized in taking pictures, whether for documentation or entertainment, of the prisoners before they were executed.

In this same S-21 Prison a head-drilling machine was devised to extract human brains for making nutritious meals for the Khmer Rouge leaders. Prisoners of conscience were tied to a chair in front of the machine. A rapidly turning drill bit punctured the heads of the terrified victims from behind, quickly and effectively extracting the brains as the victim died.

III. The Communist Party’s Cult Nature

What makes the Communist Party so tyrannical and so evil? When the specter of the Communist Party came to this world, it came with a chilling mission. Th e Communist Manifesto  has a very famous passage toward the end: “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”

The mission of this specter was to use violence to openly challenge human society, to smash the old world, to eliminate private ownership, to eliminate the character, independence, and freedom of the bourgeoisie, to eliminate exploitation, to eliminate families, and to let the proletarians govern the world.

This political party, which openly announced its desire to “beat, smash, and rob,” not only denies that its point of view is evil, but also declared self-righteously in Th e Communist Manifesto , “The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional relations; no wonder that its development involved the most radical rupture with traditional ideas.”

Where do traditional thoughts come from? According to the atheist’s law of nature, traditional thoughts come naturally from the laws of nature and society. They are the result of systematic movements of the universe. According to those who believe in the divine, however, human traditions and moral values are given by the divine. Regardless of their origin, the most fundamental human morality, behavioral norms, and standards of judging good and bad are relatively stable; they have been the basis for regulating human behavior and maintaining social order for thousands of years. If mankind lost the moral norms and standards for judging good and bad, wouldn’t humans degenerate into animals? When Th e Communist Manifesto  declares it will bring about “the most radical rupture with traditional relations,” it threatens the basis for the normal existence of human society. The Communist Party was bound to become an evil cult that brings destruction to mankind.

The entire Co mmunist Manifesto  is permeated with extreme pronouncements, but not a bit of kindness and tolerance. Marx and Friedrich Engels thought they had found the law of social development through dialectical materialism. Hence, with the “truth” in hand, they questioned everything and denied everything. They stubbornly imposed the illusions of communism on the people and did not hold back in advocating the use of violence to destroy existing social structures and cultural foundations. Th e Communist Manifesto  had the effect of injecting into the newborn Communist Party an iniquitous specter that opposes the laws of heaven, exterminates human nature, and appears arrogant, extremely selfish, and totally unconstrained.

IV. The Communist Party’s Doomsday Mentality: Existential Fears of Regime Collapse

Marx and Engels endowed the communist movement with an evil specter. Lenin established the Communist Party in Russia and, through thuggish violence, overthrew the transitional government built after the February Revolution, [9] derailed Russia’s bourgeois revolution, took over the government, and obtained a foothold for the communist cult. However, Lenin’s success did not make the proletarians win the world. Quite the contrary, as the first paragraph in Th e Communist Manifesto  says, “All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter.” After the Communist Party was born, it immediately faced the crisis of its survival and feared elimination at any time.

After the October Revolution, [10] the Russian communists, or Bolsheviks, did not bring the people peace or bread, but only wanton killing. The front line was losing the war, and the revolution worsened the economy in the society. Hence, the people started to rebel. Civil war quickly spread to the entire nation, and the farmers refused to provide food to the cities. A full-scale riot originated among the Cossacks near the River Don; its battle with the Red Army brought brutal bloodshed. The barbaric and brutal nature of the slaughter that took place in this battle can be seen from literature, such as Sholokhov’s Ti khii Don  and his other Don River story collections. The troops, led by the former White Army Admiral Aleksandr Vailiyevich Kolchak and General Anton Denikin, almost overthrew the Russian Communist Party at one point. Even as a newborn political power, the Communist Party was opposed by almost the entire nation, perhaps because the communist cult was too evil to win the people’s hearts.

The experience of the CCP was similar to Russia’s. From the Mari incident and April 12 massacre, [11] to being suppressed five times in areas the Chinese communists had controlled, and eventually being forced to undertake a 25,000-kilometer (15,600-mile) “Long March,” the CCP always faced the crisis of being eliminated.

The Communist Party was born with the determination to destroy the old world by all means. It then found itself having to face a real problem: how to survive without being eliminated. The Communist Party has been living in constant fear of its own demise. To survive has become the communist cult’s top concern, its all-consuming focus. With the international communist alliance in disarray, the CCP’s crisis of survival has worsened. Since 1989, its fear of its own doomsday has become more real as its demise has come nearer.

V. The Communist Party’s ‘Magic Weapon’ for Survival: Brutal Struggle

The Communist Party has constantly emphasized iron discipline, absolute loyalty, and organizational principles. Those who join the CCP must swear: “I wish to join the Chinese Communist Party, to support the Party’s constitution, follow the Party’s regulations, fulfill the member’s obligations, execute the Party’s decisions, strictly follow the Party’s discipline, keep the Party’s secrets, be loyal to the Party, work diligently, dedicate my whole life to Communism, stand ready to sacrifice everything for the Party and the people, and never betray the Party.” [12]

The CCP calls this spirit of cult-like devotion to the Party the “sense of Party nature.” It asks a CCP member to be ready any time to give up all personal beliefs and principles and to obey absolutely the Party’s will and the leader’s will. If the Party wants you to be kind, then you should be kind; if the Party wants you to do evil, then you should do evil. Otherwise you would not meet the standard of being a Party member, having not shown a strong sense of Party nature.

Mao said, “Marxist philosophy is a philosophy of struggle.” To foster and maintain the sense of Party nature, the CCP relies on the mechanism of periodical struggles within the Party. Through continuously mobilizing brutal struggles inside and outside the Party, the CCP has eliminated dissidents and created the red terror. At the same time, the CCP continuously purges Party members, makes its cult-type rules stricter, and fosters members’ aptitude for the “Party nature,” all to enhance the Party’s fighting capacity. This is the “magic weapon” the CCP uses to prolong its survival.

Among CCP leaders, Mao was the most adept at mastering the magic weapon of brutal struggle within the Party. The brutality of such struggle and the maliciousness of its methods began as early as the 1930s in areas controlled by the Chinese communists, the so-called “Soviet regions.”

In 1930, Mao initiated a full-scale revolutionary terror in the Soviet area in Jiangxi Province, known as the purging of the Anti-Bolshevik Corps, or the AB Corps. Thousands of Red Army soldiers, Party and League members, and civilians in the communist bases were brutally murdered. The incident was caused by Mao’s desire for despotic control. After Mao established the Soviet area in Jiangxi, he was soon challenged by the local Red Army and Party organizations in southwest Jiangxi led by Li Wenlin. Mao could not stand any organized opposition force right under his nose, and he used the most extreme methods to suppress the Party members he suspected of being dissidents. To create a stern atmosphere for the purge, Mao did not hesitate to start with troops under his direct control. From late November to mid-December, the First Front Red Army went through a “quick military rectification.” Organizations for purging counter-revolutionaries were established at every single level in the army, including division, regiment, battalion, company, and platoon, arresting and killing Party members who had complaints or were from families of landlords or rich peasants. In less than one month, among more than 40,000 Red Army soldiers, 4,400 were named as AB Corps elements, including more than 10 captains (the AB Corps captains); all of them were executed.

In the following period, Mao began to punish those dissidents in the Soviet area. In December 1930, he ordered Li Shaojiu, secretary general of the General Political Department of the First Front Red Army and chairman of the Purge Committee, to represent the General Frontier Committee and go to the town of Futian in Jiangxi Province where the communist government was located. Li Shaojiu arrested members of the Provincial Action Committee and eight chief leaders of the Twentieth Red Army, including Duan Liangbi and Li Baifang. He used many cruel torture methods such as beating and burning the body. People who were tortured like this had injuries all over their bodies, fingers fractured, burns all over, and could not move. According to the documentary evidence at that time, the victims’ cries were so loud as to pierce the sky — the torture methods were extremely inhumane.

On December 8, the wives of Li Baifang, Ma Ming, and Zhou Mian went to visit their husbands in detention, but they were also arrested as members of the AB Corps and cruelly tortured. They were severely beaten, their bodies and vulvae burned and breasts cut with knives. Under the cruel torture, Duan Liangbi confessed that Li Wenlin, Jin Wanbang, Liu Di, Zhou Mian, Ma Ming, and others were leaders of the AB Corps and that there were many members of the AB Corps in the Red Army’s schools.

From December 7 to the evening of December 12, in merely five days, Li Shaojiu and others arrested more than one hundred and twenty alleged AB Corps members and dozens of principal counter-revolutionaries in the severe AB Corps purge in Futian. More than forty people were executed. Li Shaojiu’s cruel acts finally triggered the Futian incident [13] on December 12, 1930, which shocked residents throughout the Soviet region.

From the Soviet area to Yan’an, Mao relied on his theory and practice of struggle and gradually sought and established his absolute leadership of the Party. After the CCP came to power in 1949, Mao continued to rely on this kind of inner-party struggle. For example, in the eighth plenum of the Eighth CCP Central Committee meeting held in Lushan in 1959, Mao launched a sudden attack on Peng Dehuai and removed him from his position. [14] All of the central leaders who attended the conference were asked to take a stand; the few who dared to express different opinions were all labeled the Peng Dehuai anti-Party bloc. During the Cultural Revolution, the veteran cadres at the CCP’s Central Committee were punished one after another, but all of them gave in without putting up a fight. Who would dare to speak a word against Mao? The CCP has always emphasized iron discipline, loyalty to the Party, and organizational principles, requiring absolute obedience to the hierarchy’s leader. This kind of Party nature has been ingrained in the continuous political struggles.

During the Cultural Revolution, Li Lisan, once a CCP leader, was driven to the limit of his endurance. At 68 years of age, he was interrogated on average seven times per month. His wife Li Sha was treated as a “Soviet revisionist” spy, had already been sent to jail, and her whereabouts were unknown. With no other choice and in extreme despair, Li committed suicide by swallowing a large quantity of sleeping pills. Before his death, Li Lisan wrote a letter to Mao, truly reflecting the sense of Party nature that a CCP member dares not abandon even in his final moments:

Ch airman,

I am now stepping onto the path of betraying the Party by committing suicide, and have no means to defend my crime. Only one thing, that is, my entire family and I have never collaborated with foreign powers. Only on this issue, I request the central government to investigate and examine the facts and draw conclusions based on truth. …

Li Lisan

June 22, 1967 [15]

While Mao’s philosophy of struggle eventually dragged China into an unprecedented catastrophe, this kind of political campaign [the Cultural Revolution] and the inner-party struggle, which is widespread once “every seven or eight years,” have ensured the survival of the CCP. In each campaign, a minority of 5 percent would be persecuted, and the remaining 95 percent would be brought to an obedient adherence to the Party’s basic line, thereby enhancing the Party organization’s cohesive force and destructive capacity. These struggles also eliminated those “faltering” members who were not willing to give up their conscience, and attacked any force that dared to resist. Through this mechanism of struggle, those CCP members who have the greatest desire for struggle and are best at using the methods of hoodlums have gained control. The CCP cult leaders are all fearless people rich in the experience of struggle and full of the Party spirit. Such brutal struggle also gives those who have experienced it a “blood lesson” and violent brainwashing. At the same time, it continuously energizes the CCP, further strengthening its desire for struggle, ensuring its survival, and preventing it from becoming a temperate group that gives up the struggle.

This kind of Party nature required by the CCP comes precisely from the Party’s cultish character. In order to realize its goals, the CCP is determined to break away from all conventional principles, and use all means to do fierce battle with any force that hinders it. Therefore it needs to train and enslave all its members to become the Party’s heartless, unjust, and faithless tools. This nature of the CCP originates from its hatred toward human society and traditions, its delusional self-evaluation, and its extreme selfishness and contempt for other people’s lives. In order to achieve its so-called ideal, the CCP has used violence at all costs to smash the world and eliminate all dissidents. Such an evil cult would meet with opposition from people of conscience, so it must eliminate people’s conscience and benevolent thoughts to make people believe in its evil doctrine. Therefore, in order to ensure its survival, the CCP first of all must destroy people’s conscience, benevolent thoughts, and moral standards, turning people into tame slaves and tools. According to the CCP’s logic, the Party’s life and interest override everything else. They even override the collective interest of all Party members, thus any individual Party member must be prepared to sacrifice for the Party.

Looking at the CCP’s history, individuals who retained the mindset of traditional intellectuals like Chen Duxiu and Qu Qiubai or who still cared about people’s interests like Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang or who are determined to be clean officials and bring real service to the people such as Zhu Rongji —no matter how much they contributed to the Party, and no matter how devoid of personal ambitions they were, they were inevitably purged, cast aside, or restricted by the Party’s interests and discipline.

The sense of Party nature or the aptitude for the Party that was fostered in their bones over many years of struggle often made them compromise and surrender in critical moments because in their subconscious, the Party’s survival is the highest interest. They would rather sacrifice themselves and watch the evil force within the Party commit murder than challenge the Party’s survival by following their conscience and compassion. This is precisely the result of the CCP’s mechanism of struggle: It turns good people into its instruments, and uses Party nature to constrict and even eliminate human conscience to the greatest possible extent. Dozens of the CCP’s “line struggles” brought down more than ten top-level Party leaders or designated successors. None of the top Party leaders came to a good end. Although Mao called the shots for forty-three years, shortly after he died, his wife and nephew were put in jail, an event cheered by the entire Party as a great victory of Maoism. Is this a comedy or a farce?

After the CCP seized political power, there were unceasing political campaigns, from inner-party fights to struggles outside the Party. This was the case during the Mao era, and is still the case in the post-Mao era of “reform and openness.” In the 1980s, when people just began to have a slight bit of freedom in their thinking, the CCP launched the campaign of “Opposition to Bourgeois Liberalization” and proposed the Four Fundamental Principles [16] in order to maintain its absolute leadership. In 1989, the students who peacefully asked for democracy were bloodily suppressed because the CCP does not allow democratic aspirations. The 1990s witnessed a rapid increase in Falun Gong practitioners who believe in truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, but they were met with genocidal persecution beginning in 1999 because the CCP could not tolerate human nature and benevolent thoughts. It must use violence to destroy people’s conscience and ensure its own power. Since the twenty-first century, the internet has connected the world together, but the CCP has spent great sums of money in setting up network blockades to trap online liberals because the CCP greatly fears people freely obtaining information.

VI. The Degeneracy of the CCP’s Evil Cult

The CCP evil cult essentially rules in opposition to human nature and the principles of heaven. The CCP is known for its arrogance, self-importance, selfishness, and brutal, unrestrained acts. It consistently brings disasters to the country and the people, yet it never admits its mistakes and would never reveal its true nature to the people. The CCP has never hesitated to change its slogans and labels, which are regarded by the CCP as the means to maintain its control. It will do anything to keep in power with total disregard for morality, justice, and human life.

The institutionalization and socialization of this evil cult are bound to lead to its collapse. As a result of the centralization of power, public opinion has been silenced, and all possible monitoring mechanisms have been destroyed, leaving no force to stop the CCP from sliding into corruption and disintegration.

Today’s CCP has become the largest ruling party based on embezzlement and corruption in the world. According to Chinese official statistics as of 2004, among the twenty million officials, officers, or cadres in the Party or government over the previous twenty years, eight million were found guilty of corruption and disciplined or punished based on Party or government regulations. If the unidentified corrupt officials are also taken into account, the corrupt Party and government officials are estimated to be at over two-thirds, of whom only a small portion have been investigated and exposed.

Securing material benefits by means of corruption and extortion has become the strongest coherent force for the unity of the CCP today. The corrupt officials know that without the CCP, they would have no opportunity to connive for personal gain. If the CCP falls, they would not only lose their power and position, but would also face investigation. In Heaven’s Wrath, a novel that exposes the behind-the-scenes machinations of CCP officials, author Chen Fang spelled out the CCP’s top secret using the mouth of Hao Xiangshou, a deputy director of a municipal CCP office: “Corruption has stabilized our political power.”

The Chinese people see it clearly: “If we fight corruption, the Party will fall; if we do not fight corruption, the nation will perish.” The CCP, however, will not risk its own doom to fight corruption. What it will do is to kill a few corrupt individuals as a token sacrifice for the sake of its image. This prolongs its life for a few more years at the expense of a small number of corrupt elements. Today, the only goals of the CCP evil cult are to keep its power and steer clear of its demise.

In today’s China, ethics and morality have deteriorated beyond recognition. Shoddy products, prostitution, drugs, conspiracies between officials and gangs, organized crime syndicates, gambling, bribery — corruption of every kind is prevalent. The CCP has largely ignored such moral decay, while many high-ranking officials are the back-room bosses who are extorting protection fees from fearful people. Cai Shaoqing, an expert studying mafia and crime organizations at Nanjing University, estimates that the number of organized crime members in China totals at least one million. Each captured syndicate figure always exposes some corrupt communists who are government officials, judges, or police operating out of the public view.

The CCP is afraid the Chinese people might gain a sense of conscience and morality, so it does not dare to allow the people to have faith in religion or freedom of thought. It uses all its resources to persecute the good people who have faith, such as the underground Christians and the Falun Gong practitioners, who seek to be truthful, compassionate, and tolerant. The CCP is afraid that democracy would end its one-party rule, so it does not dare to give people political freedom. It acts swiftly to imprison independent liberals and civil rights activists. It does, however, give people a deviated freedom. As long as people do not care about politics and do not oppose the CCP’s leadership, they may let their desires go in any way they want, even if they do wicked, unethical things. As a result, the CCP is deteriorating dramatically, and social morality in China is experiencing an alarmingly sharp decline.

“Blocking the road to heaven and opening the gate to hell” best describes how the evil cult of the CCP has devastated Chinese society today.

VII. Reflections on the Evil Rule of the CCP

What Is the Communist Party?

This seemingly simple question has no simple answer. Under the pretense of being “for the people” and in the guise of a political party, the Communist Party has indeed deceived millions of people. And yet it is not a political party in the ordinary sense, but a harmful, evil cult possessed by an evil specter. The Communist Party is a living being that manifests in this world through the Party organizations. What truly controls the Communist Party is the evil specter that first entered it, and it is that evil specter that determines the evil nature of the Communist Party.

The leaders of the Communist Party, while acting as the gurus of the cult, serve only as the mouthpieces of the evil specter and the Party. When their will and purpose are in line with the Party and can be used by it, they will be chosen as leaders. But when they can no longer meet the needs of the Party, they will be ruthlessly overthrown. The mechanism of struggle of the Party makes sure that only the craftiest, the most evil, and the toughest will hold steadily to the position of guru of the Communist Party. A dozen or so ranking Party leaders have fallen from grace, which proves the truth of this argument. In fact, the top leaders of the Party are walking on a very narrow tightrope. They can either break away from the Party line and leave a good name in history, as Gorbachev did, or be victimized by the Party, as happened to many of its general secretaries.

The people are the targets of the Party’s enslavement and oppression. Under the Party’s rule, the people have no right to reject the Party. Rather, they are forced to accept the Party’s leadership and fulfill the obligation to sustain the Party. They are also subjected to regular cult-type brainwashing under the threat of coercion from the Party. The CCP forces the whole nation to believe in and sustain this evil cult. This is rarely seen in the world today, and we have to recognize the CCP’s unmatchable skill in such oppression.

The Party members are a physical mass that has been used to fill up the body of the Party. Many among them are honest and kind and may even be quite accomplished in their public life. These are the people the CCP likes to recruit since their reputation and competence may be used to serve the Party. Many others, out of their desire to become an official and enjoy a higher social status, would work hard to join the Party and aid the evil being. There are also those who chose to join the Party because they wanted to accomplish something in their lives and realized that under the Communist Party rule they could not do so unless they joined the Party. Some joined the Party because they wanted the allocation of an apartment or simply wanted a better image. Thus, among the tens of millions of Party members, there are both good and bad people. Regardless of motive, once you swear your allegiance in front of the Party’s flag, willingly or otherwise, that means you have voluntarily devoted yourself to the Party. You will then go through the brainwashing process by participating in the weekly political studies. A significant number of Party members will have little, if any, of their own thoughts left and will be easily controlled by the evil specter of the CCP host body as a result of the indoctrination by the Party. These people will function within the Party like the cells of a human body and work nonstop for the Party’s existence, even though they themselves are also part of the population enslaved by the Party. Sadder still, after the bondage of “Party nature” is imposed, it becomes very hard to remove. Anyone who shows a human side will be purged or persecuted. Even if an individual wants to withdraw from the Party, doing so is not allowed. The Party, which one may join but is never permitted to leave, regards withdrawal as an act of treason. That is why people often reveal a dual nature: in their political life, the nature of the Communist Party; in their daily life, human nature.

The Party cadres are a group that retains power among Party members. Though they may have choices between good and bad and make their own decisions on specific occasions, at specific times, and specific events, they, as a whole, have to follow the will of the Party. The mandate dictates “the whole Party obeys the Central Committee.” The Party cadres are the leaders at different levels; they are the Party’s backbone. They too are merely tools for the Party. They too have been deceived, used, and victimized during the past political movements. The CCP’s underlying criterion is to test whether people are following the right guru and are sincere in their devotion.

Why Do People Remain Unaware?

The CCP has acted viciously and wickedly throughout its decades-long rule over China. But why do the Chinese people lack a realistic understanding of the CCP’s evil nature? Is it because the Chinese are dumb? No. The Chinese constitute one of the wisest nations in the world and boast a rich traditional culture and heritage of five thousand years. Yet the Chinese people are still living under the CCP’s rule, completely afraid of expressing their discontent. The key lies in the mind control practiced by the CCP.

If the Chinese people enjoyed freedom of expression and could debate openly the merits and demerits of the CCP, we could imagine the Chinese would have long ago seen through the Party’s malicious nature and freed themselves from the influence of this evil cult. Unfortunately, the Chinese people lost their freedom of expression and thought over half a century ago with the advent of the CCP’s rule. The purpose behind persecution of the rightists among the intellectuals in 1957 was to restrain free expression and to control people’s minds. In a society so lacking fundamental freedoms, most of the youth who had wholeheartedly studied the works of Marx and Engels during the Cultural Revolution were ironically labeled an “anti-Party clique” and subsequently persecuted. Discussing the CCP’s rights and wrongs was simply out of the question.

Not many Chinese would even dare to think of calling the CCP an evil cult. However, were that assertion made, those who have lived in China would not find it hard to discover strong evidence supporting the argument, from both their own experience and those of their family and friends.

The Chinese people have not only been deprived of freedom of thought, they have also been indoctrinated with the teachings and culture of the Party. Thus, all that people could hear have been the praises of the Party, and their minds have been impoverished to the point of no thoughts other than those which reinforce the CCP. Take the Tiananmen Square massacre for example. When shots were fired on June 4, 1989, many demonstrators instinctively ran to hide in the bushes. Moments later, despite the risks, they came bravely out of hiding and sang “The Internationale” together. These Chinese were indeed courageous, innocent, and honorable, yet why did they sing “The Internationale,” the communist anthem, when confronted with the communist killing? The reason is simple. Educated in the Party’s culture, all the pitiable Chinese people know is communism. Those in Tiananmen Square did not know any songs other than “The Internationale” and a few others that praise the Communist Party.

What Is the Way Out?

The CCP has been moving toward its complete doom. Sadly, it is still trying to tie its fate to the Chinese nation before its demise.

The dying CCP is apparently weakening and its control over people’s minds is loosening. With the advance of telecommunications and the internet, the CCP has found it increasingly difficult to control information and suppress expression. As the corrupt officials increasingly plunder and oppress the people, the public is beginning to wake up from their illusions about the CCP, and many of them have started to exercise civil disobedience. The CCP has not only failed to achieve its goal of increased ideological control in its persecution of Falun Gong, but also further weakened itself while revealing its absolute ruthlessness. This opportune moment has made people reconsider the CCP, paving the way for the Chinese nation to free itself from ideological bondage and completely break away from the control of the communist evil specter.

Having lived under the evil rule of the CCP for decades, the Chinese people do not need a violent revolution; rather, they need redemption of their souls. This can be achieved through self-help, and the first step toward that goal is to become aware of the evil nature of the CCP.

The day will come when people cast aside the Party’s organizations that are attached to the state apparatus, allowing the social systems to function independently, backed up by the core forces of the society. With the passing of a dictatorial Party organization, the efficiency of the government will be improved and enhanced. And that day is right around the corner. In fact, as early as the 1980s, the reformers inside the Party advocated the idea of “separating the Party from the government” in an attempt to exclude the Party from the government. The reform efforts from within the CCP have proven to be inadequate and unsuccessful because the ideology of “the absolute leadership of the Party” has not been totally rejected.

The Party culture is the environment necessary for the survival of the communist evil cult. Removing the CCP’s possession of people’s minds may prove to be more difficult than clearing out the CCP’s possession of state administrations, but such a removal is the only way truly to uproot the evil of communism. This can be achieved only through the efforts of the Chinese people themselves. With their minds set right and human nature no longer violated, the public would regain its morality and succeed in a transition to a decent non-communist society. The cure for this evil possession lies in the recognition of the evil specter’s nature and harmfulness, eradicating it from people’s minds, and clearing it out, so that it has no place to hide. The Communist Party stresses ideological control since it is nothing but an ideology itself. That ideology will dissipate when all Chinese reject the communist falsehood in their minds, actively wipe out the Party culture, and rid their own mentalities and lives of the influences from the communist evil cult. As people save themselves, the CCP will disintegrate.

Nations ruled by communists are associated with poverty, totalitarianism, and persecution. There are very few such countries left, namely China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba. Their days are numbered.

With the wisdom of the Chinese people, inspired by the historical glory of the Chinese nation, a China freed from the evil possession of communism has a promising future awaiting it.

Conclusion

The CCP no longer believes in communism. Its soul has died, but its shadow remains. It has inherited only the “skin” of communism but still manifests the nature of an evil cult: arrogance, conceit, selfishness, and indulgence in wanton destructiveness. The CCP has inherited the communist denial of the law of heaven, and its rejection of human nature has remained unchanged.

Today, the CCP continues to rule China with the methods of struggle mastered over the years, using its close-knit organizational system coupled with the ruling form of “Party possession,” as well as evil propaganda that functions as a state religion. The six features of the Communist Party outlined above place today’s CCP firmly within the definition of an evil cult; it does no good, only evil.

As it nears death, this communist evil cult is accelerating the pace of its corruption and degeneration. What is most troublesome is that it is stubbornly doing what it can to take the Chinese nation with it into an abyss of corruption and degeneration.

The Chinese people need to help themselves. They need to reflect, and they need to shake off the CCP.

Notes:

[1] “The leopard has died, but its skin is still left” is from the ancient Chinese book of prophecy, the Plum Blossom Poem by Shao Yong (1011–1077). The leopard here refers to the geographic territory of the Soviet Union, which resembled a running leopard in shape. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the essence of the communist system has disintegrated, leaving only the “skin” (the form), which the Chinese Communist Party inherited.

[2] A kind of group dance popular during the Cultural Revolution to show loyalty to Mao and the Party.

[3] Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (official translation, 1999).

[4] From Re port on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan  (1927) by Mao Zedong.

[5] From a poem by Sima Qian (about 140–87 B.C.), a historian and scholar in the West Han Dynasty. His famous poem says, “Everyone has to die; one dies either more solemn than Mount Taishan or lighter than a feather.” Mount Taishan is one of the major mountains in China.

[6] The Land Enclosure Movement relates to a dark side of the economic reforms of China. Similar to the industrial revolution in England (1760–1850), agricultural lands in today’s China have been demarcated to build various economic zones at all levels (county, city, provincial, and state). As a result of the land enclosure, Chinese farmers have been losing their land. In the cities, residents in older city and town districts were frequently forced to relocate in order to vacate the land for commercial development, with minimal compensation for the residents.

[7] Lin Zhao (1932–1968), a Peking University student majoring in journalism, was classified as a “rightist” in 1957 for her independent thinking and outspoken criticism of the communist movement. She was charged with conspiracy to overthrow the people’s democratic dictatorship and arrested in 1960. In 1962, she was sentenced to twenty years of imprisonment. She was killed by the CCP on April 29, 1968, as a counter-revolutionary.

[8] Zhang Zhixin (1930–1975) was an intellectual who was tortured to death by the CCP during the Cultural Revolution for criticizing Mao’s failure in the Great Leap Forward and for being outspoken in telling the truth.

[9] The February Revolution refers to the Russian Bourgeois Revolution in February 1917, which resulted in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II.

[10] The October Revolution, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was led by Vladimir Lenin and occurred in October 1917. During the revolution, the revolutionaries of the capitalist class who had overthrown the Tsar were murdered, thus strangling the Russian Bourgeois Revolution.

[11] Both the Mari incident and the April 12 massacre refer to the Kuomintang’s attacks on the CCP. The Mari incident happened on May 21, 1927, in Changsha City, Hunan Province. The April 12 massacre occurred on April 12, 1927, in Shanghai. In both cases, some CCP members and pro-CCP activists were attacked, arrested, or killed.

[12] See the CCP Constitution, Chapter One, Article Six.

[13] Liu Di, a political officer of the Twentieth Red Army who was accused of being a member of the AB Corps, led a revolt in Futian, charging Li Shaojiu as a counter-revolutionary. They took control of Futian City, released more than one hundred people arrested for being members of the AB Corps, and shouted the “Down with Mao Zedong” slogan. For information about the AB Corps purge, see Ga o Hua, Historical Investigation of Mao Zedong’s Purge of the ‘AB Corps’ in the Soviet Area, Jiangxi Province.

[14] Peng Dehuai (1898–1974) was a Chinese communist general and political leader. Peng was the chief commander in the Korean War, vice-premier of the State Council, Politburo member, and minister of defense from 1954–1959. He was removed from his official posts after disagreeing with Mao’s leftist approaches at the CCP’s Lushan Plenum in 1959.

[15] From Li  Lisan: The Person for Whom Four Memorial Services Have Been Held.

[16] The four principles are socialist path, dictatorship of the proletariat, the CCP’s leadership, and Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought.

Commentary 9: On the Unscrupulous Nature of the Chinese Communist Party

Foreword

The communist movement, which produced a big fanfare for over a century, has brought mankind only war, poverty, brutality, and dictatorship. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European communist parties, this disastrous and outrageous drama finally entered its last stage at the end of the last century. No one, from the ordinary citizens to the general secretary of the CCP, believes in the myth of communism anymore.

The communist regime came into being due to neither the “mandate of Heaven” [1] nor democratic election. Today, with its ideology destroyed, the legitimacy of its reign is facing an unprecedented challenge.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is unwilling to leave the historical stage in accordance with the current of history. Instead, it is using the ruthless methods developed during decades of political campaigns to renew its crazed struggle for legitimacy and to revive its dead mandate.

The CCP’s policies of reform and opening up disguise a desperate intention to maintain its group interest and totalitarian rule. Despite tight restrictions, the economic achievements earned by the hard work of the Chinese people in the past twenty years did not persuade the CCP to put down its butcher knife. Instead, the CCP stole these achievements and used them to validate its rule, making its consistently unprincipled behavior more deceptive and misleading. What is most alarming is that the CCP is going all out to destroy the moral foundation of the entire nation, attempting to turn every Chinese citizen, to various degrees, into a schemer in order to create an environment favorable for the CCP to “advance over time.”

In this historical moment today, it is especially important for us to understand clearly why the CCP acts like a band of scoundrels and to expose its villainous nature, so that the Chinese nation can achieve lasting stability and peace, enter an era free of the CCP as soon as possible, and construct a future of renewed national splendor.

I. The Unscrupulous Nature of the CCP Has Never Changed

Who Benefits From the CCP’s Reform?

Throughout history, whenever the CCP encountered crises, it would demonstrate some traces of improvement, enticing people to develop illusions about the CCP. Without exception, the illusions were shattered time and again. Today, the CCP has pursued short-term benefits and in doing so has produced a show of economic prosperity that has once again persuaded the people to believe in fantasies about the CCP. However, the fundamental conflicts between the interests of the CCP and those of the nation and the people determine that this false prosperity will not last. The “reform” the CCP has promised has one purpose — to maintain its rule. It is a lame reform, a change in surface but not in substance. Underneath the lopsided development lies a great social crisis. Once the crisis breaks out, the nation and the people will suffer once again.

With the change of leadership, the new generation of CCP leaders had no part in the communist revolution, and therefore have less and less prestige and credibility in managing the nation. Amidst the crisis of its legitimacy, the CCP’s protection of the Party’s interests has increasingly become the basic guarantee for maintaining the interests of individuals within the CCP. The CCP’s nature is selfish. It knows no restraint. To hope such a Party might devote itself to developing the country peacefully is wishful thinking.

Consider what Pe ople’s Daily , the mouthpiece of the CCP, said in a front-page story on July 12, 2004: “The historical dialectics have taught the CCP members the following: Those things that should be changed must change, otherwise deterioration will follow; those that should not be changed must remain unchanged, otherwise it will lead to self-destruction.”

What is it that should remain unchanged? The Pe ople’s Daily explains, “The Party’s basic line of ‘one center, two basic points’ must last solidly for one hundred years without any vacillation.” [2]

People don’t necessarily understand what the “center” and “basic points” stand for, but everyone knows that the communist specter’s determination to maintain its collective interest and dictatorship never changes. Communism has been defeated globally and is doomed to become more and more moribund. Nevertheless, the more corrupt a thing is, the more destructive it becomes in its dying struggle. To discuss democratic improvements with the Communist Party is like asking a tiger for its skin.

What Would China Do Without the Communist Party?

As the CCP is waning, people have come to discover unexpectedly that for decades the evil specter of the CCP, with its ever-changing villainous means, has instilled its vile elements into every aspect of ordinary people’s lives.

At the time of Mao Zedong’s death, so many Chinese cried bitterly before Mao’s portrait, wondering, “How can China go on without Chairman Mao?” Ironically, two decades later, when the Communist Party has lost its legitimacy to rule the country, the CCP has spread a new round of propaganda, making people again wonder anxiously, “What would China do without the Communist Party?”

In reality, the CCP’s all-pervasive political control has so deeply branded the current Chinese culture and shaped the mindset of the Chinese people that even the criteria with which the Chinese people judge the CCP have the mark of the CCP, or have even come from the CCP. If in the past, the CCP controlled people by instilling its elements into them, then the CCP has now come to harvest what it sowed, since those things instilled in people’s minds have been digested and absorbed into their very cells. People think according to the CCP’s logic and put themselves in the CCP’s shoes in judging right and wrong. Regarding the CCP’s killing of student protesters on June 4, 1989, some people said, “If I were Deng Xiaoping, I too would quell the protest with tanks.” In the persecution of Falun Gong, some people are saying, “If I were Jiang Zemin, I too would eliminate Falun Gong.” About the ban on free speech, some people are saying, “If I were the CCP, I would do the same.” Truth and conscience have vanished, leaving only the CCP’s logic. This has been one of the vilest and most ruthless methods used by the CCP due to its unscrupulous nature. As long as the moral toxins instilled by the CCP remain in the people’s minds, the CCP can continue to gain energy to sustain its iniquitous life.

“What would China do without the CCP?” This mode of thinking fits precisely the CCP’s aim of having people reason by its own logic.

China came through her five-thousand-year history of civilization without the CCP. Indeed, no country in the world would stop social advancement because of the fall of a particular regime. After decades of the CCP’s rule, however, people no longer recognize this fact. The CCP’s prolonged propaganda has trained people to think of the Party as their mother. The omnipresent CCP politics have rendered people unable to conceive of living without the CCP.

Without Mao, China did not fall. Will China collapse without the CCP?

What Is the Real Source of Turmoil?

Many people know and dislike the CCP’s Machiavellian behavior, and loathe its struggles and deceptions. But, at the same time, they fear the CCP’s political movements and the resulting turmoil, and fear chaos will visit China again. Thus, once the CCP threatens people with “turmoil,” people fall into silent acceptance of the CCP’s rule and feel helpless in the face of the CCP’s despotic power.

In reality, with its several million troops and armed police, the CCP is the real source of turmoil. Ordinary citizens have neither the cause nor the capability to initiate turmoil. Only the regressive CCP would be so reckless as to bring the country into turmoil at any hint of change. “Stability overrides everything else” and “Nipping the buds of all unstable elements” — these slogans have become the theoretical basis for the CCP to suppress people. Who is the biggest cause of instability in China? Is it not the CCP, who specializes in tyranny? The CCP instigates turmoil, and then in turn uses the chaos it creates to coerce the people. This is a common action of all villains.

II. The CCP Sacrifices Economic Development

Taking Credit for the Achievements of People’s Hard Work

The CCP’s claim to legitimacy lies in China’s economic development over the past few decades. In reality, however, such development was gradually achieved by the Chinese people after the fetters of the CCP were slightly relaxed and, therefore, has nothing to do with the CCP’s own merit. The CCP has, however, claimed this economic development as its own achievement, asking people to be grateful for it, as if none of these developments would have taken place without the CCP. We all know, in reality, that many non-communist countries achieved faster economic growth a long time ago.

The winners of Olympic gold medals are required to thank the Party. The Party did not hesitate to use the contrived image of a “great nation of sports” to eulogize itself. China suffered a great deal in the SARS epidemic, but Pe ople’s Daily  reported that China defeated the virus “relying on the Party’s basic theory, basic line, basic principle, and basic experience.” The launching of China’s spaceship Shenzhou-V was accomplished by the professionals of astronautic science and technology, but the CCP used it as evidence to prove that only the CCP could lead the Chinese people to enter the rank of powerful countries in the world. As for China’s hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games, what was in reality an “olive branch” given by Western countries to encourage China to improve its human rights, the CCP uses the games to enhance its claims to legitimacy and to provide a pretext for suppressing the Chinese people. China’s “great market potential,” which is sought after by foreign investors, stems from the capacity for consumption of China’s population of 1.3 billion. The CCP usurps credit for this potential, and turns it into a keen weapon used to coerce Western societies into cooperating with the CCP’s rule.

The CCP attributes anything bad to reactionary forces and the ulterior motives of individuals, while crediting everything good to the Party leadership. The CCP will make use of every single achievement to make its claim to legitimacy more attractive. Even the wrongdoing that the CCP commits can be turned into something “good” to serve its purposes. For example, when the truth about the rampant spread of AIDS could no longer be covered up, the CCP suddenly created a new identity. It carefully mobilized its propaganda machine, utilizing everyone from well-known actors to the Party’s general secretary, in order to portray the prime culprit, the CCP, as a blessing for patients, a destroyer of AIDS, and a challenger to disease. In dealing with such a serious life-and-death issue, all the CCP could think of was how to use the issue to glorify itself. Only a schemer as vicious as the CCP is capable of such ruthless behavior as brazenly or underhandedly taking credit while utterly disregarding human life.

Economic Disadvantage Caused by Shortsighted Behavior

Facing a serious crisis of legitimacy, the CCP carried out the policies of reform and opening up in the 1980s in order to maintain its rule. Its eagerness for quick success has placed China at a disadvantage, termed by economists as the “curse of the latecomer.”

The concept of “curse of the latecomer,” or “latecomer advantage” as some other scholars call it, refers to the fact that underdeveloped countries, which set out late for development, can imitate the developed countries in positive or negative ways. The imitation can take two forms: imitating the social system or imitating the technological and industrial models. Imitating a social system is usually difficult, since the necessary reforms would endanger the vested interests of some social or political groups. Thus, underdeveloped countries are inclined to imitate developed countries’ technologies. Although technological imitation can generate short-term economic growth, it may result in many hidden risks or even failure in long-term development.

It is precisely the “curse of the latecomer,” a path to failure, that the CCP has followed. Over the past two decades, China’s technological imitation has led to some achievements, which have been taken by the CCP for its own advantage in order to prove its legitimacy and continue to resist political reform that would undermine the CCP’s own interests. Thus, the long-term interests of the nation have been sacrificed.

A Painful Cost for the CCP’s Economic Development

While the CCP constantly brags about its economic advancement, in reality, China’s economy today ranks lower in the world than in previous times. During the reign of Qianlong (1711–1799) in the Qing Dynasty, China’s GDP accounted for 51 percent of the world’s total. When Dr. Sun Yat-sen founded the Republic of China in 1911, China’s GDP accounted for 27 percent of the world’s total. By 1923, the percentage dropped, but still was as high as 12 percent. In 1949, when the CCP took control, the percentage was 5.7. But in 2003, China’s GDP was less than 4 percent of the world’s total. In contrast to the economic decline during the republican era that was caused by several decades of war, the continuing economic decline during the CCP’s reign occurred during times of peace.

Today, in order to legitimize its power, the CCP is eager for quick successes and instant benefits. The economic reform that the CCP launched to safeguard its interests has cost the country dearly. The rapid economic growth in the past twenty years is built, to a large extent, on the excessive use or even waste of resources, and has been gained at the cost of environmental destruction. A considerable portion of China’s GDP is achieved by sacrificing the opportunities of future generations. In 2003, China contributed less than 4 percent to the world economy, but its consumption of steel, cement, and other materials amounted to one-third of the total global consumption. [3]

From the 1980s to the end of the 1990s, desertification in China increased from a little over 1,000 to 2,460 square kilometers (386 to 950 square miles). The per capita arable land also decreased from about 2 mu (1 mu equals approximately .16 acres) in 1980 to 1.43 mu in 2003. The widespread upsurge of land enclosure for development has led China to lose 100 million mu of arable land in just a few years’ time. However, only 43 percent of the confiscated land is actually used. Currently, the total amount of wastewater discharge is 43.95 billion tons, exceeding the environmental capacity by 82 percent. In the seven major river systems, 40.9 percent of the water is not suitable for drinking by humans or livestock. Seventy-five percent of the lakes are so polluted as to produce various degrees of eutrophication. [4] The conflicts between man and nature in China have never been as intense as they are today. Neither China nor the world can withstand such unhealthy growth. Deluded by the superficial splendor of high-rises and mansions, people are unaware of the impending ecological crisis. Once the time comes for nature to exact its toll on human beings, however, it will bring disastrous consequences to the Chinese nation.

In comparison, since abandoning communism, Russia carried out both economic and political reforms at the same time. After experiencing a short period of agony, it entered a period of rapid development. From 1999 to 2003, Russia’s GDP increased by a total of 29.9 percent. The living standard of its citizens improved significantly.

Western business circles began not only to discuss the “Russian economic phenomenon,” but also started investing in Russia, the new hotspot, on a large scale. Russia’s ranking among the most attractive nations for investment jumped from seventeenth in 2002 to eighth in 2003, becoming one of the world’s top ten most popular nations for investment.

Even India, a country that, in the view of many Chinese, is poverty-stricken and full of ethnic strife, has enjoyed a significantly expedited development and has achieved an economic growth rate of seven to eight percent per year since its economic reforms in 1991.

India has a relatively complete legal system and a market economy, a healthy financial system, a well-developed democratic system, and a stable public order. The international community has recognized India’s great development potential.

On the other hand, the CCP only engages in economic reform without political reform. The false appearance of an economy that flourishes in the short run has hindered the natural evolution of social systems. This incomplete reform has caused an increasing imbalance in the Chinese society and sharpened social conflicts.

The financial gains achieved by the people are not protected by a stable social system. Furthermore, in the process of privatizing the state-owned properties, the CCP’s power-holders have utilized their positions to fill their own pockets.

Cheating the Peasants

The CCP relied on the peasantry to gain power. The rural residents in the CCP-controlled areas in the early stage of its buildup devoted all they had to the CCP. But since the CCP obtained control of the country, peasants have experienced severe discrimination.

After the CCP established the government, it set up a very unfair system — the residential registration system. The system forcefully classifies people into rural and non-rural populations, creating an unreasonable separation and opposition within the country. Peasants have no medical insurance, no unemployment welfare, no retirement pensions, and cannot take loans from banks. Peasants are not only the most impoverished class in China, but also the class carrying the heaviest tax burden. Peasants need to pay a mandatory provident fund, public-welfare fund, administrative-management fund, extra-education fee, birth-control fee, militia-organization-and-training fee, country road-construction fee, and military service-compensation fee. Besides all these fees, they also have to sell part of the grains they produce at a flat rate to the state as a mandatory requirement, and pay agriculture tax, land tax, special local produce tax, and butchery tax in addition to numerous other levies. In contrast, the non-rural population does not pay these fees and taxes.

In the beginning of 2004, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao issued the “No. 1 Document,” stating that rural China was facing the most difficult time since the beginning of the economic reform in 1978. Income for most peasants had stagnated or even declined. They had become poorer, and the income gap between urban and rural residents continued to widen.

In a tree farm in eastern Sichuan Province, upper-level authorities distributed 500,000 yuan (approximately $60,500) for a reforestation project. The leaders of the tree farm first put 200,000 yuan in their own pockets and then allocated the remaining 300,000 yuan to tree planting. But as the money was taken away when passing through each level of the government, very little was left in the end for local peasants tasked with actually planting the trees. The government did not need to worry that the peasants would refuse to work on the project because of inadequate funding. The peasants were so impoverished that they would work for very little money. This is one of the reasons that products made in China are so cheap.

Using Economic Interests to Pressure Western Countries

Many people believe that trade with China will promote human rights, freedom of speech, and democratic reform in China. After more than a decade, it is clear that this assumption is only wishful thinking. A comparison of the principles for doing business in China and the West provides a common example. The fairness and transparency of Western societies are replaced by nepotism, bribery, and embezzlement in China. Many Western corporations have become leading culprits by further exacerbating China’s corruption. Some companies even help the CCP hide its human rights violations and persecution of its own people.

The CCP behaves like the Mafia by playing the economic card in foreign diplomacy. Whether China’s aircraft manufacturing contract is given to France or the United States depends on which country keeps quiet on the CCP’s human rights issues. Many Western businessmen and politicians are driven and controlled by economic profits from China. Some information-technology companies from North America have supplied specialized products to the CCP for blocking the internet. In order to gain entry to the Chinese market, some internet web sites have agreed to censor themselves and filter out information disliked by the CCP.

According to data from China’s Ministry of Commerce, by the end of April 2004, China had seen a total $990 billion of foreign investment in various contracts. The huge “blood transfusion” to the CCP’s economy from foreign capital is apparent. But investment has not brought democracy, freedom, and human rights as fundamental principles to the Chinese people. In its propaganda, the CCP capitalizes on the unconditional cooperation by foreign investors and foreign governments and the flattery of some countries. By making use of China’s superficial economic prosperity, CCP officials have become extremely adept at colluding with businesses to divide state wealth and block political reforms.

III. The CCP’s Brainwashing Techniques Change

People are often heard to say, “I know the CCP lied very often in the past, but this time it is telling the truth.” Ironically, in retrospect, this was what people would say each time the CCP made a grave mistake in the past. This reflects the ability the CCP has acquired over the decades to use lies to fool people.

People have developed some resistance to the CCP’s tall tales. In response, the CCP’s fabrication and propaganda have become more subtle and “professional.” Evolving from the slogan-style propaganda of the past, the CCP’s lies have become more refined and subtle. Particularly under the conditions of the information blockade the CCP has erected around China, it makes up stories based on partial facts to mislead the public, which is even more detrimental and deceptive than tall tales.

Chinascope, an English-language journal, carried an article in October 2004 that analyzes cases where the CCP uses more subtle means of fabricating lies in order to cover up the truth. When SARS broke out in mainland China in 2003, the outside world suspected that China had hidden information about the epidemic, and yet the CCP repeatedly refused to acknowledge it. To find out if the CCP had been truthful about its reporting on SARS, the author of the article read all four hundred-plus reports on SARS that were posted on the Xinhua website from the beginning up to April 2003.

These reports told the following story: As soon as SARS appeared, governments at central and local levels mobilized experts to give timely treatment to the patients who later were discharged from hospitals upon recovery. In response to troublemakers’ inciting people to stock-pile goods in order to avoid going out when the disease became widespread, the government wasted no time in stopping rumors and taking steps to prevent their spread, so social order was effectively ensured. Although a very small number of anti-China forces groundlessly suspected a cover-up by the Chinese government, most countries and people did not believe these rumors. The upcoming Guangzhou Trade Fair would have the largest participation ever from businesses around the world. Tourists from overseas confirmed that it was safe to travel in China. In particular, experts from the World Health Organization [who had been deceived by the CCP] publicly stated that the Chinese government had been forthcoming in cooperating and taking appropriate measures in dealing with SARS, so that there should be no problems. And specialists gave the go-ahead [after a delay of over twenty days] to Guangdong Province for a field inspection.

These more than four hundred articles gave the author the impression that the CCP had been transparent during these four months, had acted responsibly to protect the people’s health, and had convinced the people that the CCP hadn’t hidden anything. However, on April 20, 2003, the Information Office of the State Council announced in its press conference that SARS had indeed broken out in China and thus indirectly admitted that the government had been covering up the epidemic. Only then did this author see the truth and understand the deceptive, unscrupulous methods employed by the CCP, which have also “advanced with time.”

On the general election in Taiwan, the CCP, using the same subtle and “refined” approach, suggested that a presidential election would lead to disasters — a surge in the suicide rate, collapsing stock markets, an increase in “weird diseases,” mental disorders, out-migration of the island inhabitants, family feuds, a callous attitude towards life, a depressed market, indiscriminate shooting in the streets, protests and demonstrations, a siege on the presidential building, social unrest, political farce, and so on. The CCP filled the heads of the people in mainland China with these ideas on a daily basis in an attempt to lead the people to believe that all of these calamities are the disastrous results of an election and that China should never hold a democratic election.

On the issue of Falun Gong, the CCP has displayed an even higher level of skill in creating deceptions designed to frame Falun Gong. The CCP kept its staged shows coming one after another. No wonder so many Chinese have been misled. The CCP’s villainous propaganda has been so deceptive that the victims willingly believe in the lies and think that they have the truth in hand.

The CCP’s propaganda still brainwashes the Chinese people, but over the past decades it has become more refined and subtle, which is a natural extension of its unscrupulous nature.

IV. The CCP’s Hypocrisy in Human Rights

From Usurping Democracy to Seize Power to Feigning Democracy to Maintain Despotic Rule

“In a democratic nation, sovereignty should lie in the hands of the people, which is in line with the principles of heaven and earth. If a nation claims to be democratic and yet sovereignty does not rest with its people, that is definitely not on the right track and can only be regarded as a deviation, and this nation is not a democratic nation … how could democracy be possible without ending the Party rule and without a popular election? Return people’s rights to the people!”

Does this quotation sound like something from an article written by “overseas enemies” intent on slamming the CCP? In fact, the statement comes from a September 27, 1945, article in Xi nhua Daily , the Party’s official newspaper.

The CCP, which had trumpeted “popular elections” and demanded “returning people’s rights to the people,” has been treating “popular suffrage” as taboo since it usurped power. The people, who are supposed to be “the masters and owners of the state,” have no rights whatsoever to make their own decisions. Words are inadequate to describe the CCP’s unscrupulous nature.

If you fancy that what’s done is done and the evil CCP cult that has flourished on killing and has ruled the nation with lies will reform itself, become benevolent, and be willing to “return people’s rights to the people,” you are wrong. Let us see what the People’s Daily, the CCP’s mouthpiece, had to say on November 23, 2004, sixty years after the public statement quoted above: “A steadfast control of ideology is the essential ideological and political foundation for consolidating the Party’s rule.”

Recently, the CCP proposed a so-called new “Three No’s Principle,” [5] the first of which is “Development with no debates.” The mention of “development” is phony. The CCP’s real purpose is to justify “no debates.” It actually wishes to emphasize the principle of “one voice, one hall.”

When Jiang Zemin was asked in 2000 by the renowned CB S  correspondent Mike Wallace why China had not conducted popular elections, Jiang responded, “The Chinese people’s educational level is way too low.”

However, as early as February 25, 1939, the CCP cried out in its Xi nhua Daily : “They [the Kuomintang — the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party and the CCP’s main enemy] think that democratic politics in China are not to be realized today, but some years later. They hope that democratic politics will wait until the knowledge and education levels of the Chinese people reach those of bourgeois democratic countries in Europe and America … but only under the democratic system will it become easier to educate and train the people.”

The hypocritical difference between what Xinhua said in 1939 and what Jiang said in 2000 reflects the true picture of the CCP’s iniquitous nature.

After the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, the CCP re-entered the world stage with a miserable human rights record. History gave the CCP a choice. Either it could respect its people and truly improve human rights, or it could continue to commit abuses inside China while pretending to the outside world to respect human rights in order to evade international condemnation.

Unfortunately, consistent with its despotic nature, the CCP chose the second path without hesitation. It gathered together and sustained a large number of unscrupulous but talented people in the scientific and religious fields and specifically directed them to publish deceptive propaganda overseas in order to promote the CCP’s feigned progress in human rights. It concocted an array of nonsense such as “the right to survival,” or “rights to shelter and food.” The argument went like this: “When people are hungry, do they not have the right to speak? Even if the hungry cannot speak, would it be allowed for those who have eaten their fill to speak for the hungry?” The CCP tried to deceive the Chinese people and Western democracies by playing games with human rights, even blatantly claiming that “human rights in China are better now than ever before.”

Article 35 of China’s constitution stipulates that citizens of the People’s Republic of China have the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, association, protest, and demonstration. The CCP is simply playing word games. Under the CCP’s rule, countless people have been deprived of their rights to belief, speech, publication, assembly, and legal defense. The CCP even ordered that the appeals of certain groups — the Chinese constitution guarantees a right to appeal for the redress of injustice to all citizens — be considered illegal. On more than one occasion in 2004, some civilian groups applied to demonstrate in Beijing. Instead of granting approval, the government arrested the applicants. The “one country, two systems” policy for Hong Kong affirmed by the CCP’s constitution is also a ruse. The CCP talks about no change in Hong Kong for fifty years, and yet it has tried to change the two systems into one by attempting to pass tyrannical legislation, Basic Law Article 23, within just five years after Hong Kong’s return to China. [6]

A sinister new ploy of the CCP is to use a fake “relaxation in speech” to cover up its extensive monitoring and control. The Chinese now appear to speak their minds more freely and, besides, the internet has allowed news to travel faster. So the CCP claims that it now allows freedom of speech, and quite a number of people have fallen for this. This is a false appearance. It is not that the CCP has become benevolent; rather, the Party cannot stop society from developing and technology from advancing. Let us look at the role the CCP is playing regarding the internet: It is blocking websites, filtering information, monitoring chat rooms, controlling e-mails, and incriminating Internet users. Everything it does is regressive in nature. Today, with the help of some capitalists who disregard human rights and their own conscience, the CCP’s police have been equipped with high-tech devices by which they are able to monitor from inside a patrol car every move internet users make. When we look at the degeneracy of the CCP — committing evil deeds in broad daylight — in the context of the global movement toward democratic freedom, how can we expect it to make any progress in human rights? The CCP itself said it all: “The Party appears to the outside to loosen up, while tightening up internally.” The CCP’s unscrupulous nature has never changed.

To create a good image for itself at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, in 2004 the CCP staged an array of events to severely punish those who abuse human rights. The events, however, were for foreigners’ eyes only and had no substance. In China the biggest human rights abuser was the CCP itself, including its former General Secretary Jiang, former secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission Luo Gan, then-Minister of Public Security Zhou Yongkang, and Deputy Minister of Public Security Liu Jing [all Jiang appointments]. Their show of punishing human rights abusers is like a thief shouting, “Catch the thief!”

An analogy could be made to a serial rapist who, when hidden from public view, used to assault ten girls in a day. Then, because there are too many people around, he only assaults one girl in front of the crowd. Can the rapist be said to have changed for the better? His going from assaults behind the scenes to raping in public only proves that the rapist is even more base and shameless than before. The nature of the rapist has not changed at all. What has changed is the ease with which he can commit the crime.

The CCP is just like this serial rapist. The CCP’s dictatorial nature and its instinctive fear of losing power determine that it will never respect people’s rights. The human, material, and financial resources used to cover up its human rights record have far exceeded its efforts in the true improvement of human rights. The biggest misfortune of the Chinese people has been the CCP’s indulgence in wanton massacre or persecution throughout China.

Hiding Behind the “Law”

To protect the gains of special-interest groups, the CCP has, on the one hand, eliminated their previous façade and completely abandoned the workers, peasants, and the populace, and, on the other hand, has advanced their deceitful and villainous means as more and more of the CCP’s human rights abuses are exposed to the international community. The CCP has used popular vocabulary such as “the rule of law,” “market,” “for the people,” and “reform” to confuse people. The CCP cannot change its wicked nature even if it dresses itself up in a “Western-style suit.” Such an image is just more misleading than the CCP “in a Mao suit.” In George Orwell’s An imal Farm  (published in 1945), the pigs learned to stand and walk on two legs. The newly acquired skill gave the pigs a new image, but did not change their pig nature.

A. Making Laws and Regulations in Violation of the Chinese Constitution

Laws and regulations in violation of the constitution are passed on to law enforcement personnel at various levels as the “legal basis” to obstruct the people’s efforts to stop persecution, gain freedom, and uphold human rights.

B. Non-Political Problems Are Handled with Political Means

An ordinary social problem would be elevated to the height of “competing with the Party for the masses,” “bringing demise to the Party and the country,” “turmoil,” and the actions of “enemy forces.” A non-political issue would intentionally be politicized, so that the CCP could use political movements as a propaganda tool to incite people’s hatred.

C. Political Issues Are Managed with Underhanded Means

The CCP’s latest ploy for attacking citizens favoring democracy and independent-thinking intellectuals is to set up traps in order to imprison them. Such traps include false accusations of civil offenses such as prostitution and tax evasion. The attackers keep a low profile to avoid condemnation by outside groups. These crimes, which are enough to ruin the reputations of the accused, are also used to humiliate the victims in public.

The only change, if any, in the CCP’s unscrupulous nature is that it has become even more disgraceful and inhuman.

Holding Over One Billion People Hostage

Imagine that a licentious criminal broke into a home and raped a girl. At the trial, this criminal defends himself by arguing that he did not kill the victim; he only raped her. Because murder is worse than rape, he argues that he is innocent and should be released immediately. He says that people should also praise him for only raping and stopping short of murder.

This logic sounds ridiculous. However, the CCP’s logic in defense of its Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 1989, is exactly the same as that of this hypothetical criminal. The CCP has argued that “suppressing the students” avoided a potential “internal disorder” in China. In order to prevent “internal disorder,” the suppression of students was thus justified.

“Which is preferable, murder or rape?” For a criminal on trial to ask a judge such a question would only reveal the criminal’s utter shamelessness. Similarly, in the issue of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the CCP and its cohorts did not reflect on whether it was guilty of killing. Instead, they asked society which one is better — “Suppressing the students, or internal disorder that could lead to civil war?”

The CCP is in control of the entire state machine and all means of propaganda. In other words, the 1.4 billion Chinese people are held hostage by the CCP. With 1.4 billion hostages in hand, the CCP can always make appeal to its “hostage theory”: If it does not suppress a certain group of people, the whole nation will be in turmoil or disaster. Using this as an excuse, the CCP could suppress any individual or group at will, and its suppression could always be justified. Given such deceitful arguments and fallacious reasoning, is there any criminal more shameless in the world than the CCP?

The Carrot and the Stick

Many Chinese people feel that they enjoy more “freedom” now than before, so they hold out hope for the prospect of the CCP’s improvement. As a matter of fact, the degree of freedom “bestowed” upon people depends on the CCP’s sense of crisis. The CCP would do anything to maintain the collective interests of the Party, including giving so-called democracy, freedom, or human rights to the people.

However, under the CCP’s leadership, the so-called “freedom” bestowed by the CCP is not protected by any legislation. Such “freedom” is purely a tool to deceive and control people amidst the international trend toward democracy. In essence, this “freedom” is in irreconcilable conflict with the CCP’s dictatorship. Once such a conflict is beyond the CCP’s tolerance level, the CCP could take back all the “freedom” instantly. In the history of the CCP, there were several periods during which speech was relatively free, with each one followed by a period of strict control. Such cyclical patterns occur throughout the history of the CCP, demonstrating the CCP’s iniquitous nature.

In today’s internet era, if you visit the CCP’s official Xi nhua  website or the Pe ople’s Daily  online, you will find that indeed quite a few reports there contain negative information about China. Firstly, this is because there is too much bad news circulating rapidly in China these days, and the news agency has to report these stories in order to stay credible. Secondly, the standpoint of such reports conforms with the CCP’s interest: That is “minor criticism offers great help.” The reports would always attribute the cause of bad news to certain individuals, having nothing to do with the Party, while crediting the CCP’s leadership for any solution. The CCP skillfully controls what to report, what not to report, how much to report, and whether to have Chinese media or the CCP-controlled overseas media report it.

The CCP is proficient at manipulating bad news into something that can achieve the desired result of winning people’s hearts. Many youth in mainland China feel that the CCP now offers a good degree of freedom of speech and thus have hopes for and are appreciative of the CCP. They are victims of the “refined” strategies of the iniquitous state-controlled media. Moreover, by creating a chaotic situation in Chinese society and then giving it some media exposure, the CCP can convince people that only the CCP can control such a chaotic society. It can thus manipulate people into endorsing CCP rule.

Therefore, we should not mistakenly think the CCP has changed by itself, even if we see some signs of its improving human rights. In history, when the CCP struggled to overthrow the Kuomintang government, it pretended to be fighting for democracy for the nation. The CCP’s villainous nature is such that any promise by the CCP is not reliable.

V. Aspects of the CCP’s Unscrupulous Nature

Selling Out the Nation’s Land Out of Vanity

“Liberate Taiwan” and “Unify Taiwan” have been the CCP’s propaganda slogans over the past few decades. By means of this propaganda, the CCP has acted like a nationalist and a patriot. Does the CCP truly care about the integrity of the nation’s territory? Not at all. Taiwan is merely a historic problem caused by the struggle between the CCP and the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang), and it is a means that the CCP uses to strike at its opponents and win people’s support.

In the early days when the CCP set up the “Chinese Soviet” during the Kuomintang era, Article 14 of its constitution stated that “any ethnic groups or any provinces inside China can claim independence.” In order to comply with the Soviet Union, the CCP’s slogan back then was “Protect the Soviet.” During the war against Japan, the primary goal of the CCP was to seize the opportunity to increase itself rather than to fight against Japanese intruders. In 1945, the Soviet Red Army entered northeast China and committed robbery, murder, and rape, but the CCP did not utter a word of disapproval. Similarly, when the Soviet Union supported Outer Mongolia to become independent from China, the CCP was once again silent.

At the end of 1999, the CCP and Russia signed the China–Russia Border Survey Agreement, in which the CCP accepted all the unequal agreements between the Qing Dynasty and Russia made more than one hundred years ago, and gave up over one million square kilometers of land to Russia, an area as large as several dozen Taiwans. In 2004, the CCP and Russia signed a China–Russia Eastern Border Supplemental Agreement, and the CCP reportedly lost sovereignty of half of the Heixiazi Island in Heilongjiang Province to Russia again.

Regarding other border issues such as the Nansha Islands (Spratly Islands) and Diaoyu Islands (Senkaku Islands), the CCP does not care at all since these issues do not impact the CCP’s control of power. The CCP has made a fanfare of “unifying Taiwan,” which is merely a smokescreen and a devious means for inciting blind patriotism and keeping public attention off domestic conflict.

No Moral Restraints

A government should always be monitored. In democratic countries, the separation of powers plus the freedoms of speech and press are good mechanisms for oversight. Religious beliefs provide additional moral self-restraint.

The CCP promotes atheism; hence there is no divine nature to restrain its behavior according to morality. The CCP is a dictatorship; hence there is no law to restrain it politically. As a result, the CCP is totally reckless and unrestrained when it acts out of its tyrannical and villainous nature. According to the CCP, who monitors it? “The CCP monitors itself!” This is the slogan the CCP has used to deceive the people for decades. In earlier times it was called “self-criticism,” then “self-surveillance” and “self-perfecting the Party’s leadership,” and recently “self-enhancing the Party’s governing capacity.” The CCP emphasizes the extraordinary ability it has for so-called “self-improvement.” The CCP does not just say it, but actually takes action, such as establishing “The Central Disciplinary Inspection Committee” and “The Office for Appeals” and the like. These organizations are merely pretty yet useless “flower vases” that confuse and mislead the people.

Without moral and legal restraint, the CCP’s “self-improvement” amounts to the traditional Chinese saying of “demons emerging from one’s own heart.” “Self-improvement” is only the excuse the CCP uses to avoid external surveillance and to refuse to lift the ban on a free press and free political parties. Political scoundrels use this trick to fool the people and to protect the CCP’s power and the interests of the ruling group.

The CCP is expert at political scheming. “The People’s Democratic Dictatorship,” “Democratic Centralism,” “Political Consultation,” and so on are all fraudulent schemes. Except for the dictatorship part, they are lies.

Playing Tricks

The CCP has always claimed to have led the Chinese people in defeating the Japanese invaders. However, abundant historical archives show that the CCP intentionally avoided battles in the war against Japan. The CCP reduced its effort against Japan so as to take the opportunity of the Kuomintang’s involvement in the war to increase the CCP’s own power.

The only major battles the CCP fought were the Battle of Pingxingguan and the Hundred Regiments Offensive. In the Battle of Pingxingguan, the CCP was not at all the leader or predominant force that participated and commanded this battle. Instead, the CCP troops merely ambushed the Japanese supply units. As for the Hundred Regiments Offensive, it is believed inside the CCP that participating in this battle violated the strategic policies of the Central Party. After these two battles, Mao and his CCP armies did not engage in any serious battles, nor did they produce any heroes of the war against Japan like Dong Cunrui during the 1948 war with the Kuomintang and Huang Jiguang during the Korean War. Only a small number of high-level military commanders of the CCP died on the battlegrounds of the war against Japan. Until today, the CCP still cannot even publish a figure for its casualties during the war against Japan, nor can one find many monuments in China’s vast land for CCP heroes in the war against Japan.

At the time, the CCP established a Border Region government in Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia provinces away from the battlefront. Using today’s nomenclature, the CCP was conducting a “one country, two systems,” or “two China” policy inside China. Although the CCP’s commanders did not lack passion for resisting the Japanese, the CCP’s high-level officials were not sincere in fighting the war against Japan. Instead, they took measures to protect their resources and used the war as an opportunity to strengthen themselves. When China and Japan resumed diplomatic relations in 1972, Mao let slip the truth to the Japanese prime minister, Kakuei Tanaka, that the CCP had to thank Japan: Without the war against Japan, the CCP would not have gained power in China.

The above is the truth concerning the CCP’s deceitful claim that it led the Chinese people to persist in the eight-year war against the Japanese and ultimately to win.

More than half a century later, with the September 11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, a counter-terrorist effort has become a global focus. The CCP has again used deceptive strategies, similar to what it deployed during the war against Japan. Using counter-terrorism as the pretext, the CCP has labeled as terrorists many religious practitioners, dissidents, and groups engaged in ethnic or territorial conflicts. Under the guise of the international counter-terrorist effort, the CCP has launched violent repression.

On September 27, 2004, the Xi njing newspaper reported that Beijing might establish the first counter-terrorist bureau among all the provinces and cities in China. Some overseas pro-CCP media even reported it in the headline “The ‘610 Office’ Joins Counter-Terrorism Efforts,” claiming that the counter-terrorism bureau would focus on attacking “terrorist organizations,” of which Falun Gong was said to be one. The 610 Office is an extra-constitutional office set up by former paramount ruler Jiang to eradicate Falun Gong.

The CCP slaps the label “terrorists” on people who hold no weapons in their hands, do not fight back when beaten or slandered, and peacefully appeal for the right to their beliefs. Taking advantage of the climate of counter-terrorism, the CCP has mobilized its “special counter-terrorist force,” which is armed to the teeth, to conduct swift repression on this defenseless group of peaceful people. Furthermore, the CCP has used the pretense of counter-terrorism to evade international attention on and condemnation of its persecution of Falun Gong. The kinds of deception used today are no different from those used by the CCP during the war against Japan and are a shameful way to treat such a serious matter as the international efforts opposing terrorism.

Feigning Sincerity

The CCP does not believe in its own doctrines but forces others to believe in them. This is one of the most insidious methods used by the CCP cult. The CCP knows that its doctrines are false and that the idea of socialism, which has already gone bankrupt, is untrue. The CCP doesn’t believe in these doctrines itself but forces people to believe in them. It persecutes people who do not believe in them. The CCP has shamelessly written such a deceitful ideology into the constitution as the foundation of the Chinese state.

In real life, there is an interesting phenomenon. Many high-level officials lose their positions in power struggles in China’s political arena because of corruption. But these are the very people who promote honesty and selflessness in public meetings, while engaging in bribery, corruption, and other decadent activities behind the scenes. Many so-called “people’s servants” have fallen this way, including Li Jiating, the former governor of Yunnan Province; Liu Fangren, the Party secretary of Guizhou Province; Cheng Weigao, the Party secretary of Hebei Province; Tian Fengshan, minister of land and resources; and Wang Huaizhong, the lieutenant governor of Anhui Province. However, if you examine their speeches, you will find that, without exception, they have supported anti-corruption campaigns and repeatedly urged their subordinates to conduct themselves honestly, even as they themselves were embezzling funds and taking bribes.

Although the CCP has promoted many exemplary cadres and has often attracted some idealistic and diligent people to join the Party in order to enhance the Party’s image, the terrible plight of China’s ever-declining moral standard is obvious to all. Why hasn’t the CCP’s propaganda of a “spiritual civilization” worked to correct this?

As a matter of fact, the Communist Party leaders transmitted empty words when they promulgated the “communist moral quality” or the slogan “serve the people.” The inconsistency between communist leaders’ actions and words can be traced all the way back to their founding father, Karl Marx. Marx fathered an illegitimate son. Vladimir Lenin contracted syphilis from prostitutes. Joseph Stalin was accused of forcing a sexual relationship on a singer. Mao indulged himself in lust. Jiang is promiscuous. The Romanian communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu made his entire family extravagantly rich. The Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro hoarded hundreds of millions of dollars in overseas banks. North Korea’s murderous ruler Kim Il Song and his children led decadent and wasteful lives.

In daily life, ordinary people in China loathe the empty political study sessions. Increasingly, they equivocate in political matters since everyone knows them to be deceptive games. But no one, neither the speakers nor the listeners at these political meetings, speak openly about such deception. This is an open secret. People call this phenomenon “sincere pretense.” The CCP’s high-sounding notions, either the “Three Represents” of several years ago, “improving the capacity to govern” later, or today’s “three hearts” — “warming, stabilizing, and gaining people’s hearts” — are all nonsense. Which ruling party would not represent the people’s interests? Which ruling party would not care about the capacity to govern? Which ruling party is not about gaining people’s hearts? Any parties that do not concern themselves with these issues would soon be removed from the political stage. But the CCP treats such superfluous slogans as intricate, profound theories and requires the whole country to study them.

When pretending has been gradually molded into a billion-plus people’s thinking and habits and has become the Party’s culture, the society itself becomes false, pretentious, and inane. Lacking honesty and trust, the society is in crisis.

Why has the CCP created these conditions? In the past, this was done for ideology; now it is done for benefits. The CCP members know they are pretending, but they pretend anyway. If the CCP did not promote such slogans and formalities, it couldn’t bully people. It couldn’t make people follow and fear it.

Abandoning Conscience

In On  the Communist Party’s Moral Development , Liu Shaoqi expounded especially on the need “for Party members to subsume their individual interests to the Party’s interest.” Among the CCP members, there has never been a lack of righteous people who are concerned about the country and its people, nor has there been a shortage of honest and upright officials who have truly served the people. But in the CCP’s machinery of self-interest, these officials cannot survive. Under constant pressure to “submit humanity to Party nature,” they often find it impossible to continue, risk being removed from positions, or worse, become corrupt.

Chinese people have personally experienced and deeply felt the CCP’s brutal regime and have developed a profound fear of the CCP’s violence. Therefore, people dare not uphold justice and no longer believe in the heavenly laws. First they submit themselves to the CCP’s power. Gradually they become unfeeling and unconcerned about matters not affecting themselves. Even the logic of their thinking has been consciously molded to succumb to the CCP. This is the result of the CCP’s mafia-like nature.

Manipulating Patriotism

The CCP uses slogans related to patriotism and nationalism to incite people. They are not only the CCP’s main rallying cries, but also its frequently issued orders and time-tested strategies. Upon reading the nationalistic propaganda in the overseas edition of the Pe ople’s Daily  newspaper, some overseas Chinese, who for decades have not dared to return to China to live, may become more nationalistic than the Chinese living inside China. Manipulated by the CCP, Chinese people, who dare not say “no” to any CCP policy, became bold enough to storm the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in China, throwing eggs and rocks and burning cars and U.S. flags, all under the banner of “patriotism.”

Whenever the Communist Party encounters an important issue that demands obedience from the populace, it uses “patriotism” and “nationalism” to mobilize people on short notice. In all cases, including matters related to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Falun Gong, the collision between a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet, the CCP has used the combined method of high-pressure terror and collective brainwashing, thus bringing people to a war-like state of mind. This method is similar to that used by the German fascists.

By blocking all other information, the CCP’s brainwashing has been incredibly successful. Even though the Chinese people do not like the CCP, they think in the twisted mode instilled by the CCP. During the U.S.-led Iraq war, for example, many people were stirred up when watching the daily analysis on CCTV. [7] They felt a strong sense of hatred, vengeance, and desire to fight, while at the same time cursing another war.

Putting the Party before the Country

One of the phrases the CCP often uses to intimidate people is “the extinction of the Party and the country,” thus placing the Party before the country. The founding principle of China is “There would be no new China without the CCP.” From childhood on, people are educated to listen to the Party and “behave like good children of the Party.” From the 1960s through the early ’70s, the people sang songs such as “I Consider the Party As My Mother;” “Oh, Party, My Dear Mother;” “The Saving Grace of the Party Is Deeper Than the Ocean;” and “Love for My Father and Mother Cannot Surpass Love for the Party.” [8] The people would “go and fight wherever the Party points.” When the government offered disaster relief, people would “thank the Party and the government” — first the Party and then the government. A military slogan holds “the Party commands the gun.” Even when the Chinese experts tried to design the uniform for court judges, they put four golden buttons on the neckband of the uniform. Those buttons are lined up from top to bottom to symbolize the Party, the people, the law, and the country. The order indicates that even if you are a judge, the Party will forever be positioned above the law, the country, and the people.

The Party has become supreme in China, and the country has conversely become the Party’s subordinate. The country exists for the Party, and the Party is said to be the embodiment of the people and the symbol of the country. Love for the Party, Party leaders, and the country have been mixed together, which is the fundamental reason why patriotism in China has become twisted.

Under the subtle but persistent influence of the CCP’s education and propaganda, many people, Party members or not, began to confuse the Party with the country, whether they were aware of it or not. They have come to accept that “the Party’s interest” is superior to all and to agree that “the Party’s interests equal the interests of the people and the country.” This result of the CCP’s indoctrination has created the climate for the Party to betray the national interests.

Playing the ‘Redress’ Game

The CCP has made many blunders in history, but it has always put the blame on certain individuals or groups through “redress and rehabilitation.” This has not only made the victims deeply grateful to the CCP, but also allowed the CCP to completely shirk any responsibility for its criminal deeds. The CCP claims itself to be “not only unafraid of making mistakes, but also good at correcting them.” [9] This has become the CCP’s magic potion with which it has repeatedly escaped culpability. Thus, the CCP remains forever “great, glorious, and correct.”

Perhaps one day the CCP will decide to redress the Tiananmen Square massacre and restore the reputation of Falun Gong. But these are simply the Machiavellian tactics that the CCP uses in a desperate attempt to prolong its dying life. The CCP will never have the courage to reflect on itself, to expose its own crimes, or to pay for its own sins.

VI. Eliminating Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance

The fraudulent “Tiananmen self-immolation” staged by the CCP cult may be considered the CCP’s lie of the century. In order to suppress Falun Gong, the regime was so perverse as to seduce five people to pretend to be Falun Gong practitioners. It then choreographed their fake self-immolation on Tiananmen Square. By colluding in the scam, the five participants unwittingly signed their own death warrants and were either beaten to death on the scene or killed afterwards. The slow-motion playing of the self-immolation video published by the CCTV unmistakably shows that Liu Chunling, one of the self-immolators, died after being forcefully struck down at the scene by a police officer. Other flaws in the footage include the sitting posture of Wang Jindong, the plastic bottle (allegedly filled with gasoline) that remained intact between his knees after the fire was extinguished, the conversation between a doctor and the youngest victim Liu Siying — who was said to have just had a tracheotomy — and the presence of cameramen ready to videotape the scene. These facts and more are sufficient evidence to prove that the self-immolation incident was a deception maliciously designed by the iniquitous Jiang Zemin regime in order to frame Falun Gong. [10]

The CCP used despicable and cruel methods in its declared campaign to eradicate Falun Gong. It usurped the nation’s financial resources accumulated in the past twenty years of reform and opening up. It mobilized the Party, the government, the military, the police, spies, foreign diplomats, and various other governmental and non-governmental organizations. It manipulated the system of global media coverage, implementing a strict information blockade with individual and high-tech monitoring. It did all this to persecute a peaceful group of people who adhere to Falun Gong, a traditional Chinese qigong practice for refining the body, mind, and moral character in accordance with the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Such brutal persecution of innocent people for their beliefs reveals the degenerate nature of the CCP.

No evildoers in history have lied so insidiously and pervasively as Jiang and the CCP. They use a variety of lies, each designed to target and manipulate different notions and ideas that people hold so that people can easily be duped into believing the lies, and the Party can incite hatred toward Falun Gong. Do you believe in science? The CCP says that Falun Gong is superstitious. Do you find politics distasteful? The CCP says that Falun Gong engages in politics. Do you envy people who get rich whether in China or abroad? The CCP says that Falun Gong gathers wealth. Do you object to organizations? The CCP says that Falun Gong has a tight organization. Are you tired of the Cult of Personality that lasted in China for several decades? The CCP says that Falun Gong exercises mental control. Are you passionately patriotic? The CCP says that Falun Gong is anti-China. Are you afraid of turmoil? The CCP says Falun Gong disrupts stability. Do you wonder if Falun Gong really upholds “truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance”? The CCP says Falun Gong is not truthful, not compassionate, and not tolerant. It has even twisted logic, claiming that compassion can generate the desire to kill.

Do you trust that the government would not make up such lies? The CCP makes up lies that are bigger and more shocking, from suicides to self-immolation, from murdering relatives to serial killing — so many lies that you find it hard not to believe them. Do you sympathize with Falun Gong? The CCP connects your political evaluation with the persecution of Falun Gong and demotes you, fires you, or takes away your bonus if Falun Gong practitioners from your area of responsibility appeal in Beijing. Thus, you are forced to become an enemy of Falun Gong.

The CCP has kidnapped countless Falun Gong practitioners and taken them to brainwashing sessions in an effort to force them to give up their righteous beliefs, denounce Falun Gong, and promise to stop their practice. The CCP has used various evil ways to persuade them, including using their relatives, employment, and education to pressure them, inflicting on them various cruel tortures and even punishing their family members and colleagues. Falun Gong practitioners who have been successfully brainwashed are in turn used to torment and brainwash others. The vicious CCP insists on turning good people into demons and forcing them to walk on a dark path to the end of their lives.

VII. Socialism With ‘Chinese Characteristics’

The term “Chinese characteristics” is used to cover up the CCP’s crimes. The CCP claimed all along that it owes its success in China’s revolution to “the integration of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete reality of Chinese revolution.” The CCP has frequently abused the term “characteristic” as an ideological support for its capricious and villainous policies.

Capricious and Deceptive Means

Under the deceptive façade of “Chinese characteristics,” what the CCP has accomplished is nothing but absurdity.

The goal of the CCP’s revolution was to realize public ownership of the means of production, and it has deceived many young people into joining the Party organization for the ideals of communism and unity. Many of them even betrayed their property-owning families. But many decades after the Party’s founding, capitalism has returned, only now becoming a part of the CCP itself, which was originally upholding the banner of egalitarianism.

Today, among CCP leaders’ children and relatives, many are new capitalists with fortunes, and many Party members have endeavored to join this group of nouveau riche. The CCP eliminated the landlords and capitalists in the name of revolution and stole their property. Now, the CCP’s new “royalty” has become even richer as capitalists who employ embezzlement and corruption. Those who followed the Party in the early revolutions now sigh, “If I knew the situation today, I would not have followed it then.” After several decades of sweat and struggle, they find themselves to have simply devoted their brothers’ and fathers’ properties as well as their own lives to the CCP cult.

The CCP speaks of the economic base determining the superstructure; in reality, it is the CCP’s corrupt officials’ bureaucratic economic base that decides the “high-pressure superstructure” — a superstructure that relies on high pressure to be maintained. Suppressing the people has therefore become the CCP’s basic policy.

Another iniquitous characteristic of the CCP is manifest in its changing the definition of cultural concepts and then using these revised definitions to criticize and control people. The concept of “party” is one such example. Since the beginning of time, parties have been established both at home and abroad. Only the Communist Party exercises power beyond the domain of a party collective. If you join the Party, it will control all aspects of your life, including your conscience, subsistence, and private life. When given political authority, the CCP controls the society, government, and the state apparatus. It dictates all matters, from ones as important as who should be the chairman of the country or the minister of defense or what regulations and rules will be made, to as small as where one should live, with whom one can marry, and how many children one can have. The CCP has mustered all imaginable methods of control.

In the name of dialectics, the CCP has completely destroyed holistic thinking, reasoning faculties, and the inquiring spirit of philosophy. While the CCP talks about “distribution according to contribution,” the process of “allowing some people to get rich first” has been accomplished along with “distribution according to power.”

The CCP uses the disguise of “serving the people whole-heartedly” to deceive those who hold these ideals, then completely brainwashes and controls them, gradually changing them into docile tools who “serve the Party wholeheartedly” and who dare not speak up for the people.

A Machiavellian Party With ‘Chinese Characteristics’

Using a principle that values the Party’s interests beyond all other considerations, the CCP has distorted Chinese society with the means of an evil cult, creating a really grotesque being for all humanity. This being is different from any other state, government, or organization. Its principle is to have no principle; there is no sincerity behind its smiles. However, kindhearted people cannot understand the CCP. Based on universal moral standards, they cannot imagine that such an evil entity would be representing a country. Using the excuse of the “Chinese characteristics,” the CCP established itself among the nations of the world. The “Chinese characteristics” have become the euphemism for the “CCP’s villainous characteristics.”

With the “Chinese characteristics,” China’s crippled capitalism was transformed into “socialism;” “unemployment” became “waiting for employment;” “being laid off” from work became “off duty;” “poverty” became the “initial stage of socialism;” and human rights and freedom of speech and belief were reduced to the mere right to survive.

The Chinese Nation Faces an Unprecedented Moral Crisis

In the beginning of the 1990s, there was a popular saying in China: “I’m a ruffian and I am afraid of no one.” This is the pitiful consequence of several decades of the CCP’s iniquitous rule, of its imposing corruption on the nation. Accompanying the fake prosperity of China’s economy is the rapidly declining morality in all areas of society.

The congressional representatives of China often talk about the issue of “honesty and trust” during the Chinese People’s Congress. In college entrance exams, students are required to write about honesty and trust. This signifies that lack of honesty and trust and decline in morality have become an invisible but ubiquitous crisis in Chinese society. Corruption, embezzlement, fake products, deception, malice, and degenerating social norms are commonplace. There is no longer any basic trust among people.

For those who claim to be satisfied with an improved standard of living, isn’t stability in their lives their primary concern? What is the most important factor in social stability? It is morality. A society with degraded morality cannot possibly provide security.

To date, the CCP has cracked down on almost all traditional religions and dismantled the traditional value system. The unscrupulous way by which the CCP seizes wealth and deceives people has had a trickle-down effect on the entire society, corrupting the entire society and leading its people toward villainy. The CCP, which rules by devious means, also essentially needs a corrupt society as an environment in which to survive. That is why the CCP tries everything it can to drag the people down to its level, attempting to turn the Chinese people into schemers to various degrees. This is how the CCP’s deceitful nature is eradicating the moral foundation that has long sustained the Chinese people.

Conclusion

“It is easier to alter rivers and mountains than to change one’s nature.” [11] History has proven that every time the CCP loosens its bondage and chains, it does so without intending to abandon them. After the Great Famine of the early 1960s, the CCP adopted the “Three-Freedom and One-Contract” (San Zi Yi Bao) program [12] aimed at restoring agricultural production, but without the intent to change the “slave” status of Chinese peasants. The “economic reform” and “liberalization” in the 1980s had no constraint on the CCP’s raising a butcher’s knife to its own people in 1989. In the future, the CCP will continue to alter its facade but will not change its iniquitous nature.

Some people may think that the past belongs to the past, the situation has changed, and the CCP now is not the CCP of an earlier era. Some may be satisfied with false appearances and even mistakenly believe that the CCP has improved, is in the process of reforming, or intends to make amends. They may constantly push away troublesome memories of the past. All these can only give the CCP’s band of villains the opportunity to continue to survive and threaten humankind.

All the efforts by the CCP are designed to make people forget the past. All of the people’s struggles are a reminder of the injustices they have suffered at the hands of the CCP.

In fact, the history of the CCP is one that has severed people’s memories, one in which children do not know the true experiences of their parents, one in which hundreds of millions of citizens endure the enormous conflict between despising the CCP’s bloody past and holding out hope for the CCP’s future.

When the evil specter of communism fell upon the human world, the Communist Party unleashed the scum of society and utilized the rebellion of hoodlums to seize and establish political power. What it has done, by means of carnage and tyranny, is to establish and maintain despotism in the form of a “Party possession.” By using the so-called ideology of “struggle” that opposes nature, heaven’s laws, human nature, and the universe, it destroys human conscience and benevolence, and further destroys traditional civilization and morality. It has used bloody slaughter and forced brainwashing to establish an evil communist cult, creating a nation of warped minds in order to rule the country.

Throughout the history of the CCP, there have been violent periods when the “Red Terror” reached its peak and awkward periods when the CCP narrowly escaped its demise. Each time, the CCP resorted to the full use of its cunning means to extricate itself from crises, but only to head for the next round of violence, continuing to deceive the Chinese people.

When people recognize the CCP’s villainous nature and resist being deceived by its false images, the end will arrive for the CCP and its unscrupulous nature.

********

In comparison with China’s five-thousand-year history, the several decades of CCP rule are but the blink of an eye. Before the CCP came into existence, China had created the most magnificent civilization in the history of humankind. The CCP seized the opportunity of China’s domestic troubles and foreign invasion to wreak havoc on the Chinese nation. It has taken away tens of millions of lives, destroyed countless families, and sacrificed the ecological resources upon which China’s survival depends. What is even more devastating is the near destruction of China’s moral foundation and rich cultural traditions.

What will China’s future be? What direction will China take? Such serious questions are too complicated to discuss in a few words. However, one thing is for certain — if there is no renewal of the nation’s morality, no restoration of a harmonious relationship between humans and nature and between humans, heaven, and earth, if there is no faith or culture for a peaceful coexistence among humans, it will be impossible for the Chinese nation to have a bright future.

After several decades of brainwashing and suppression, the CCP has instilled its way of thinking and its standards for good and bad into the Chinese people’s lives. This has led people to accept and rationalize the CCP’s perversion and fraudulence, to become part of its falsehood, thereby providing the ideological basis for the CCP’s existence.

To eliminate from our lives the iniquitous doctrines instilled by the CCP, to discern the CCP’s utterly unscrupulous nature, and to restore our human nature and conscience — this is the first and essential step on the path toward a smooth transition to a society free from the Communist Party.

Whether this path can be walked steadily and peacefully will depend on the changes made in the hearts of every Chinese citizen. Even though the CCP appears to possess all the resources and violent apparatus in the country, if every citizen believes in the power of the truth and safeguards morality, the evil specter of the CCP will lose the foundation for its existence. All resources may instantly return to the hands of the just. That is when the rebirth of China will take place.

Only without the Chinese Communist Party, will there be a new China.

Only without the Chinese Communist Party, does China have hope.

Without the Chinese Communist Party, the upright and kindhearted Chinese people will rebuild China’s historical magnificence.

Notes:

[1] According to traditional Confucian thought, emperors or kings rule according to a mandate from Heaven, and to be given such an authority, their moral achievements have to match that supreme responsibility. A similar thought can also be found in the Me ncius . In the verse “Who Grants the Monarchical Power?” when asked who granted the land and the governing authority to Emperor Shun, Mencius said, “It was from heaven.” The idea of the divine origin of power can also be found in Western Christian tradition. In Romans 13:1 (King James version), for example, one finds: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.”

[2] The one center refers to economic development, while the two basic points are 1) maintain the four basic principles (socialist path, dictatorship of the proletariat, the CCP’s leadership, and Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought), and 2) continue with the policies of reform and openness.

[3] Xi nhua News Agency report (March 4, 2004).

[4] Xi nhua News Agency report (February 29, 2004).

[5] The “Three No’s Principle” has occurred in the past. In 1979, Deng Xiaoping proposed a “Three Noes Principle” to encourage people to speak their minds: “No labeling, no attacking, and no picking on mistakes.” This should remind people of Mao Zedong similarly encouraging intellectuals in the 1950s to speak out, which was followed by brutal persecution of those who did speak up. Now, the newly proposed “Three Noes” refers to “Development with no debates, advancement with no struggles, and progress with no contentment in lagging behind.”

[6] Hong Kong Basic Law Article 23 was proposed in 2002 by the Hong Kong government under pressure from Beijing. The article represented a serious erosion of freedom and human rights in Hong Kong, undermining the “one country, two systems” policy promised by the CCP. Article 23 was opposed globally and was finally withdrawn in 2003.

[7] CCTV (China Central Television) is owned and directly operated by the central government. It is the major broadcast network in mainland China.

[8] These quoted phrases are all titles of songs written and sung during the Mao era in the 1960s and early 1970s.

[9] Mao Zedong once said, “We are not afraid of making mistakes, but we are concerned about correcting them.”

[10] For detailed analysis of the self-immolation video, see faluninfo.net/video/lies-that-kill

[11] This is a Chinese proverb that confirms the permanence of one’s nature. The proverb has also been translated as “The fox may change his skin but not his habits.”

[12] The economic reform policies known as the “Three-Freedom and One-Contract” program (San Zi Yi Bao) proposed by Liu Shaoqi, then president of China. The program stipulated plots of land for private use, free markets, enterprises having sole responsibility for their own profits and losses, and the fixing of output quotas on a household basis.

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© Copyright 2003-2018 Epoch Times

The Chinese Communist Party’s Global Ambitions (Part I)

By the Epoch Times

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. The Chinese Communist Party’s Ambition to Replace the United States and Dominate the World

a. The CCP Has Always Aimed for World Domination

b. World Domination Requires Defeating the United States

c. The CCP Has a Multi-Pronged Strategy to Subvert and Contain the United States

d. The CCP Incites Anti-US Hatred to Prepare for War With America

e. The CCP No Longer Conceals Its Intentions in the Sino-US Relationship

2. Communist China’s Strategies for World Domination

a. One Belt, One Road Initiative Is Territorial Expansion Masked as Globalization

b. The CCP’s Great Periphery Strategy Aims to Exclude the US From the Asia-Pacific Region

c. Divide and Conquer in Europe Serves to Create a Split With the United States

d. The CCP Exports the ‘Chinese Model’ to Colonize Africa

e. Advancing Into Latin America Encroaches on America’s Backyard

f. Communist China Flaunts Its Military Ambitions

References

Introduction

The beginning of the twentieth century saw the Soviet communists seize power in Russia through violent force. The success of this revolution, in turn, paved the way for the communist specter’s primary actor — the Chinese Communist Party.

The CCP was established in 1921 by agents of the Far Eastern branch of the Communist International. Over the several decades that followed, the Soviet Union played a major role on the world stage, confronting the Western democratic camp in the Cold War. Westerners took the Soviet Union and its satellite communist regimes in Eastern Europe to be the archetypical communist adversary. Meanwhile, the CCP regime had ample time for its establishment and maturation.

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, leaving the CCP regime alone on the world stage. Communist China took a new, non-confrontational approach, enticing the rest of the world to engage with its capitalist market economy while retaining a totalitarian political system. Therefore, many Western scholars, entrepreneurs, and politicians did not regard the CCP as a communist party, but rather considered it a variant at most .

This could not be further from the truth. The CCP has brought the defining characteristics of communist ideology — deceit, malice, and struggle — to the apex, creating a regime that employs the most pernicious and insidious methods of political intrigue developed over thousands of years of human history. The CCP seduces people with profits, controls them with power, and deceives them with lies. It has cultivated its demonic technique to the point of mastery.

China is home to five thousand years of history and a splendid traditional heritage, which have earned that ancient land and its people respect and admiration from people around the world. The CCP has capitalized on these positive sentiments. After seizing power and taking the Chinese people captive, it muddled the concepts of the Chinese nation and the CCP regime. It presented its ambitions under the camouflage of China’s “peaceful rise,” making it difficult for the international community to understand its true motives.

But the essential nature of the CCP has never changed. The Party’s strategy of economic engagement is simply to use the “nutrition of the capitalist body” [1] to strengthen its own socialist body, to stabilize its rule, and realize its ambitions, rather than to enable China to see true prosperity and strength. In practice, its methods disregard basic moral ethics and universal values.

The countries that mankind has founded exist on the basis of their founders’ wisdom and faith in the Divine. Human society must follow the standards of conduct laid down by the Creator: to maintain high moral character, protect the right to private property, and adhere to universal values. The economic development of a normal society needs to be supported by corresponding moral standards.

But the CCP’s Party-state has followed a diametrically opposite path, creating a fast-rising economic abomination that has encouraged severe moral degeneracy. The evil specter’s motivation for arranging China’s “economic miracle” is simple: Without economic strength, the CCP regime would have no persuasive influence with which to dictate its terms to the world. These arrangements are not to benefit China or the Chinese, but to play on people’s worship of money and wealth so that the world will align with the CCP in economic cooperation and international affairs.

Internally, the Communist Party rules through tyranny and the most ruthless aspects of the capitalist system. It rewards evil and and punishes good, making the worst individuals into society’s most successful. Its policies magnify the evil side of human nature, using atheism to create a state of utter degeneracy in which people have no moral qualms.

When operating abroad, the CCP regime advocates the ideology of “Chinese characteristics,” meaning communism, and offers powerful economic incentives as a lure to have the people of the free world let down their guard, abandon moral principle, and turn a blind eye to the CCP’s vast abuses of human rights and its persecution of religion. Many politicians and corporations in Western countries have betrayed their values and compromised themselves in the face of profit, aligning themselves with the CCP’s practices.

Western countries hope they can help the CCP make a peaceful transformation, but while China has indeed undergone a degree of superficial modernization and westernization, the Party never changed its underlying nature. Over the past few decades, the practical result of engagement has seen the CCP successfully and peacefully undermine the moral obligations of the United States and corrupt the public will.

The CCP is the main arm of communism and thus the greatest threat worldwide. The communist specter’s aim in strengthening the global power of the CCP is to spread its poison to all corners of the earth and ultimately to have people betray tradition and the Divine. Even if the Party’s schemes for world domination are not directly successful, it will still have achieved the underlying purpose: to part people from their moral values. It does this by tempting people with economic interests, manipulating them with financial traps, infiltrating their political systems, intimidating them with military force, and confusing them with its propaganda.

Faced with such great danger, we must carefully examine the CCP regime’s ambition, strategy, tactics, and goals.

1. The Chinese Communist Party’s Ambition to Replace the US and Dominate the World

a. The CCP Has Always Aimed for World Domination

The CCP is not satisfied with being a regional power. It wants to control the world. This is determined by the Party’s inbuilt characteristic of tyranny. By its very nature, the Communist Party opposes heaven, earth, and tradition; it resorts to violence to smash the “old world” and aims to destroy all states, nations, and classes with the feigned goal of “liberating all humanity.” Its unchanging mission is one of constant expansion until the world is united under communist ideology. Its doctrines and practice are by definition globalist.

But because traditional culture was once quite powerful, communism has at times had to adopt a gradual and roundabout approach. In the Soviet Union, Stalin claimed the need for “socialism in one country;” more recently, the CCP has adopted “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

Unlike the political parties that share power or hold power by rotation in Western democracies, the CCP has uncontested authority. It sets its strategic goals in the scope of decades or centuries. A few years after the Party established itself in 1949, it rolled out the slogan “surpass Britain and catch up to America” that prefaced the Great Leap Forward. Later, owing to unfavorable domestic and international situations, the CCP assumed a low profile for decades.

After the Tiananmen Massacre, the international community boycotted the Chinese regime. In response, the Party evaluated the situation and concluded that it was still unable to compete directly with the United States. Therefore, it took the path of hiding its strengths and biding its time, rather than attempting to take the lead on the international stage. This was not because the CCP had changed its goals, but because it adopts different strategies according to the circumstances in its struggle to ultimately establish world hegemony.

It can be said that the communist specter used the ancient Chinese strategic feint of “openly repairing the plank roads while secretly advancing via the hidden route of Chencang.” The first communist superpower was the Soviet Union, but its ultimate role ended up being to aid the rise and maturation of the Chinese communist regime.

b. World Domination Requires Defeating the United States

Since World War I, the United States has been the most powerful country on earth and serves to maintain international order. Any country that wants to overturn this order must bring down the United States, so in terms of overall strategic considerations, America is the CCP’s main enemy. This has been the case for decades, and the Party has never stopped preparing for an all-out offensive against the United States.

In his book The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower, Michael Pillsbury wrote that China has a long-term strategy to subvert the U.S.-led world economic and political order and to replace it with communism by 2049, the one-hundredth anniversary of the Communist Party’s rise to power in China. Pillsbury notes that in the TV series Silent Contest, produced by the National Defense University of China, the ambition to compete with the United States is laid out clearly: The CCP’s process of realizing its “great cause” of dominating the world “will inevitably run into constant wear-and-tear and struggle with the U.S. hegemonic system.” “It is a centennial contest, not to be shifted by the human will.” [2]

The CCP’s global strategy is centered on countering the United States. Arthur Waldron, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a China expert, stated at a Senate hearing in 2004 that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army is the only army in the world that is dedicated for anti-U.S. operations. [3] In fact, apart from the PLA, most of the CCP’s diplomatic relations and international activities have the United States as their direct or indirect target.

c. The CCP Has a Multi-Pronged Strategy to Subvert and Contain the United States

The CCP has taken a comprehensive approach toward succeeding in its attempt to dominate the world. In ideology, it competes with the United States and other countries where there is freedom and democracy. It uses forced technology transfers and intellectual-property theft to close the tech gap and boost its economic confidence. Militarily, it engages in a silent rivalry against the United States by means of asymmetrical and “unrestricted warfare” in places like the South China Sea. It backs North Korea, Iran, and other rogue regimes to impede the United States and NATO.

In diplomacy, the CCP regime has promoted its “great peripheral strategy” and the One Belt, One Road plan. It has very quickly expanded its international influence, including neighboring countries as well as countries in Europe, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America, in an attempt to build an international coalition, develop a Chinese-led sphere, and isolate the United States.

The CCP has multiple methods to accomplish these goals. It established the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in 1996, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2015, and the “16+1” cooperation with Central and Eastern European countries in 2012. It cooperates keenly as part of the five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), and vigorously promotes internationalization of its currency. It seeks to control the formulation of industrial standards (such as those used for the proposed 5G cellular networks) and to dominate public discourse.

The CCP regime has taken advantage of the democracy and freedom of the press that exist in the United States and other Western countries to carry out united front operations, spread propaganda, and engage in espionage. This is its attempt to manipulate the United States as much as possible and impose bloodless change from within.

Using these tactics, CCP agents bribe U.S. government officials, congressmen, diplomats, and retired military officers. The Party uses economic interests to guide American capitalists to lobby for the Chinese communists and to influence U.S. policy on China. It forces high-tech companies to cooperate with the CCP’s internet censorship and Great Firewall, coerces and incentivizes many in the overseas Chinese communities to serve as fifth columnists, and infiltrates Western think tanks and academic departments. It manipulates these institutions into exercising self-censorship on sensitive topics, effectively adopting the stand of the Communist Party. Chinese companies, which are controlled or influenced by the CCP, have been investing heavily in Hollywood.

While developing its influence in various countries to envelop and contain the United States on one hand, on the other, it establishes hidden strongholds on American soil so that it can undermine the United States from within. It has built an extensive network of agents and has fostered splits in U.S. society, posing a serious internal threat.

d. The CCP Incites Anti-U.S. Hatred to Prepare for War With America

The CCP’s ideology runs on hatred. The patriotism it promotes entails hating Japan, hating Taiwan, hating Tibetans, hating the ethnic minorities of Xinjiang, hating religious believers, hating dissidents, and most importantly, hating the United States. There is a saying among Chinese netizens: “For small problems, blame Japan, and for big ones, blame the United States.” This means that by inciting hatred against foreign foes, the Party helps smooth over public outrage during a crisis.

Before the Chinese communists seized power, they repeatedly praised the United States for its friendship with China and for the American democratic system. However, after the CCP set up its regime, it immediately took advantage of the suffering China had undergone in modern history, as well as the eagerness of the people to have a strong nation. The CCP painted itself as China’s savior by stoking hatred against America and other foreign countries.

In fact, the CCP does not care about the lives and deaths of the Chinese people, nor does it care about China’s territorial integrity or the sustainable long-term development of the Chinese nation. It is impossible to describe the evilness of how the CCP has persecuted the Chinese people, betrayed China’s sovereignty, destroyed Chinese morality and traditional culture, and squandered China’s future.

By inciting hatred of foreign countries, the CCP’s aims are first to paint itself as a savior so as to legitimize its brutal rule; second, to use nationalist sentiment to divert public attention in times of crisis; third, to build support for the CCP’s expansionist ambitions and base schemes as a means of supposedly rectifying the humiliations of modern times; and fourth, to use hatred to create the psychological preparedness needed for future wars and to desensitize the public to acts of barbarity.

The CCP has indoctrinated the younger generation with hatred of the United States in order to use them as its tools in the effort to supercede America and dominate the world. When the time comes, the CCP intends to use China’s youth to infiltrate the United States and its allied democratic states in various fashions, participate in all-out armed conflict, wage unrestricted warfare, and should the need arise, sacrifice themselves in a nuclear holocaust.

The jubilant Chinese public reactions following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, indicated that the CCP was making good progress with its propaganda. On major Chinese political and military forums, one sees common sentiments like “China and the United States must have a war” — another indication of the CCP’s success in educating people to hate the United States. This is a long-term, gradual mobilization for war, deliberately planned and systematically carried out by the CCP.

The CCP’s hate propaganda is not limited to within China. Internationally, it explicitly or overtly supports rogue regimes and terrorist organizations to fight against the United States, providing them with financial assistance, weapons and equipment, theoretical contributions, tactical training, and public support. The CCP has become the head of an axis of anti-American states and arrogantly steers the global forces of anti-Americanism.

e. The CCP No Longer Conceals Its Intentions in the Sino-U.S. Relationship

In 2008, while the United States was struggling with an economic crisis, China hosted in Beijing the most expensive Olympics Games in history. Dressed in a costume of prosperity, the regime pushed itself onto the international stage. As a result of globalization, the U.S. manufacturing industry declined. In the face of economic difficulties, the United States asked China for help. “America is surviving by borrowing money from us Chinese” became a hot topic in the CCP’s propaganda. “America is going downhill, China is in position to replace it.” Virtually all the Party-controlled media in China touted such headlines, and the ideas even became popular opinion among Western media and scholars.

Since 2008, America has showed signs of decline in areas such as economic standing, military strength, and political stability. On the economic front, the United States was pushing universal health care, expanding social benefits, placing climate issues at the center of policy, strengthening environmental monitoring, and placing restrictions on traditional manufacturing business. Still, the green energy industry was defeated by made-in-China products, and U.S. manufacturing continued to be hollowed out. There was no way to counter and guard against China’s attacks in trade and intellectual-property theft.

In the face of these trends, many simply accepted as fact the narrative that China was in ascendance and America was in decline. U.S. military spending decreased, and the United States adopted a weak diplomatic stand. On the U.S. political front, socialist ideology was on the rise, social divisions widened, democratic politics became a showground for partisan squabbling, and government functions were often handicapped as a result. The CCP compared this chaos unfavorably with the focused totalitarianism of its own system, depicting America’s democracy as a laughingstock.

In 2010, China surpassed Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy in the world. In 2014, according to the World Bank’s statistics, if calculated based on purchasing power parity, China’s GDP might have surpassed that of the United States.[4] The CCP saw that the contrast in power between China and the United States was shifting, and thinking that America’s decline was irreversible, it ended its old strategy of hiding its strength and biding its time. Instead, the CCP openly and directly took aim at the international order led by the United States. The official stance of the CCP, the media, and the experts gradually started to speak unabashedly of an expansionist “China dream.”

In 2012, during its 18th National Congress, the CCP introduced the notion of building a “community of shared future for mankind.” In 2017, the CCP held its Grand Gathering of World Political Parties in order to falsely evoke the ancient imagery of the myriad kingdoms coming to pay their respects at the Chinese imperial court. The CCP went public with its desire to export the communist “China model” to the rest of the world.

In the name of spreading what the CCP calls the China model, the Chinese plan, or Chinese wisdom, the CCP’s ambition is to lead the world and to establish a new world order in accordance with the Party’s rules. The CCP has been preparing for this in all respects for decades. If this new world order is indeed established, it would present a formidable new axis of evil, an adversary even more threatening to the free world than the Axis alliance during World War II.

2. Communist China’s Strategies for World Domination

a. One Belt, One Road Initiative Is Territorial Expansion Under the Guise of Globalization

One Belt, One Road Takes Center Stage

In 2013, the CCP officially introduced the plan for its Silk Road Economic Belt and Twenty-First-Century Maritime Silk Road, or One Belt, One Road (OBOR) for short. The plan is for the Chinese regime to invest billions and trillions of dollars to build critical infrastructure, such as bridges, railroads, ports, and energy generation in dozens of countries. OBOR is the biggest planned investment project in history.

One Belt refers to the Silk Road Economic Belt, which consists of three land-based components: from China through Central Asia and Russia to Europe and the Baltic Sea; from northwestern China through Central Asia and West Asia to the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean; and from southwestern China through the Indochina peninsula to the Indian Ocean.

One Road refers to the Twenty-First-Century Maritime Silk Road, which is a two-pronged effort: The first route goes from the ports in China to the South China Sea, through the Strait of Malacca and on to Europe via the Indian Ocean; the second heads to the southern Pacific Ocean.

The One Belt on land consists of six economic corridors: the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor (CMREC), the New Eurasian Land Bridge (NELB), the China-Central and West Asia Economic Corridor (CCWAEC), the China-Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor (CICPEC), the China Pakistan-Economic Corridor (CPEC), and the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor (BCIMEC).

The New Eurasian Land Bridge will be based on rail links between China and Europe, called China Railway Express. Transportation from China to Europe by sea takes over thirty days, compared with just over ten days by rail. The China Railway Express began operation in 2011 and has been an important component in OBOR.

The China Pakistan-Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a joint plan by the two governments. It includes a highway connecting Kashgar in Xinjiang Province with the Gwadar Port in Pakistan, on the Indian Ocean. China gained the right to operate the port in 2013. Being Pakistan’s gateway to the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea, the Gwadar Port occupies a critical strategic location. It connects to the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world’s crude oil passes to reach the Arabian Sea.

The general framework of the One Road by sea is to build a number of strategic ports and gain control over the sea transportation. In financially robust countries, Chinese companies enter into equity participation or joint ventures. With financially weaker countries, China invests large amounts of money locally and attempts to obtain the rights to operate the ports.

In 2013 alone, Chinese enterprises received the rights to operate at least seventeen ports or terminals. China Merchants Port Holdings Company Limited bought 49 percent equity from Terminal Link SAS in France. With this purchase, it obtained the operating rights to fifteen terminals in eight countries on four continents.[5]

These ports and terminals include the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge in Belgium; the Suez Canal Terminal in Egypt; Kumport in Istanbul, Turkey; the Port of Piraeus in Greece; Pasir Panjang Port in Singapore; the largest port in the Netherlands (Euromax Terminal Rotterdam, which is called “the gate of Europe”); the second-phase terminal at Khalifa Port in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; the Port of Vado in Italy’s Liguria region; Kuantan Port in the Strait of Malacca, Malaysia; the Port of Djibouti in eastern Africa; and the Panama Canal.

In addition to investment, the Communist Party also uses the debt traps created by OBOR to obtain control of strategic locations. Sri Lanka could not pay its debt to Chinese companies, so in 2017, it signed a ninety-nine-year lease with Chinese company for use of the Hambantota Port.

The CCP launched its Digital Silk Road in 2018 with the intention of reshaping the future development of internet infrastructure. The Digital Silk Road is considered an advanced stage in the OBOR project and is its newest development. It mainly includes building fiber optic infrastructure, digital information services, international telecommunications, and e-commerce.

Many countries involved in OBOR do not have a complete credit system. The CCP aims to introduce its systems of e-commerce and electronic payment services, such as Alipay, to these countries, while totally shutting out Western competition. The Great Firewall, which filters internet traffic in China, is being exported to the countries of the Belt and Road, as are the systems of mass surveillance already adopted by the CCP for use within China.

The extent of the CCP’s strategic reach can be seen from its investment in global infrastructure. According to a November 2018 report by The New York Times, the CCP has constructed or is constructing over forty pipelines and other oil and gas infrastructure, over two hundred bridges, roads and railways, almost two hundred power plants for nuclear power, natural gas, coal, and renewables, and a series of major dams. It has invested in 112 countries, most of which belong to the OBOR initiative. The CCP has spread its tendrils around the globe.[6]

As OBOR took shape, the CCP’s efforts to supplant the United States on the world stage swelled. It aggressively promoted the yuan as an international currency, as well as its own credit system. Chinese-made telecommunications networks (including 5G) are being pushed as the future in many countries, as are Chinese-built high-speed rail lines. The aim is to eventually establish a set of standards controlled by the CCP and independent of the current Western standards.

One Belt, One Road Has a Global Reach

In the early stage of the One Belt, One Road initiative, the CCP focused on countries neighboring China, reaching as far as Europe. Very quickly, the CCP expanded its reach to Africa, Latin America, and even the Arctic Ocean, covering the entire world. The Maritime Silk Road originally consisted of just two routes. A third route, the Silk Road on Ice, or the Polar Silk Road, was added to connect to Europe via the Arctic Ocean. Prior to OBOR, the CCP had already invested heavily in Africa and Latin America. These countries are now part of the major structure of OBOR, which has enabled the CCP to more rapidly expand its financial and military reach in Africa and Latin America.

The primary goal of OBOR is to export China’s excess capacity by building up basic infrastructure such as railways and highways in other countries. These countries are rich in resources and energy. By helping them build infrastructure, the CCP accomplishes two secondary goals. One is to open routes to ship domestic products to Europe at low cost; the other is to secure the strategic resources of countries that participate in OBOR. The CCP’s intention is to increase its own exports, not to help the countries along the Belt and Road to establish their own manufacturing industries — the CCP would not relinquish Chinese manufacturing.

The real ambition behind OBOR is to use economic means as a vanguard to establish control over the financial and political lifelines of other countries and turn them into the CCP’s colonies in its globalist strategy. Byproducts of participation in OBOR schemes include importation of all the pernicious aspects of communism: corruption, debt, and totalitarian repression. The project is a deceptive trap that will not bring lasting economic prosperity to its participants.

Many countries have become alarmed and are either stopping or re-evaluating the OBOR project. The CCP has conceded that it should be more transparent and make adjustments to the heavily criticized debt traps. Nevertheless, the CCP’s plans can’t be underestimated. While Western enterprises operate on profit-seeking principles and won’t tough it out in turbulent host countries for more than a few years, the CCP’s calculus extends into the next century. It can tolerate operations in turbulent international environments for the long term without regard for immediate losses.

What the CCP wants are pro-communist governments that will support it in the United Nations. The CCP wants to become the leader of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, to struggle with the free world, and to replace America as the world’s number one power. The CCP is willing to foot any human costs necessary to achieve this goal. For instance, the Party can force the Chinese people to pay for costs that privately owned Western enterprises could never handle. In this war to conquer the world, it is not about how powerful the CCP is on paper, but that the CCP has at its disposal the resources of hundreds of millions of Chinese people irrespective of their lives or their deaths. They are its sacrificial pawns.

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon offered a unique interpretation of the OBOR project. He credits the Chinese Belt and Road initiative as having successfully integrated the Mackinder-Mahan-Spykman theses of how to dominate the world.

Andrew Sheng, of the Asia Global Institute, summed up Bannon’s views:

Sir Halford Mackinder was an influential British geographer/historian who argued in 1904 that ‘Whoever rules the Heartland (central Asia) commands the World-Island (Eurasia); whoever rules the World-Island commands the World.’ His American contemporary, Alfred Mahan was a naval historian who shaped the U.S. strategy to dominate sea power, extending the British maritime empire logic of controlling the sea lanes, choke points and canals by policing global trade. In contrast, Nicholas John Spykman argued that the Rimland (the coastal lands encircling Asia) is more important tha[n] the Heartland, thus: ‘Who controls the Rimland rules EuroAsia; who rules EuroAsia controls the destinies of the world.’ [7]

Bannon’s assessments reflect the Western world’s growing vigilance against the CCP’s ambitions contained in the OBOR project.

In fact, the CCP’s ambition is not limited to the scope of OBOR. The initiative is not merely focused on obtaining the rights to land routes, sea lanes, and major ports. The CCP wants to take advantage of loopholes, wherever they may be around the world. Many countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America are newly independent states created by decolonization. These regions experienced a power vacuum, inviting the CCP to gain footholds. The newly independent countries that once comprised the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites had weak sovereign control and were also easy pickings for the CCP regime. Other turbulent countries, which Western investors tend to stay away from, naturally fell into the CCP’s trap. Small countries, island countries, and underdeveloped countries occupying strategic locations are all in the CCP’s crosshairs.

Even some states once firmly in the Western democratic camp have drifted into the CCP’s orbit after suffering from weak economies and high debt. Geopolitically, the CCP is gradually surrounding the United States by controlling the economy of other countries. The aim is to have American influence marginalized and eventually removed from those countries, by which time the CCP will have established a separate world order centered on communist tyranny. This is not a new approach. It has its roots in the old CCP strategy of occupying the countryside to surround the cities, which led it to victory in the Chinese Civil War.

b. The CCP’s Great-Periphery Strategy Aims to Exclude the US From the Asia-Pacific Region

What is the CCP’s so-called Great Periphery Diplomacy? Party think tanks define it like this: “China neighbors fourteen countries along a lengthy land border, and looks across the sea at six other neighboring countries. Beyond that, to the east is the Asia-Pacific region, and to the west is Eurasia. That is, the radial extent of China’s extended neighborhood covers two-thirds of international politics, economy, and security. Thus, the framework of periphery diplomacy is more than mere regional strategy. … It is a true grand strategy.” [8]

Australia Is the Weak Link of the Western World

In June 2017, Fairfax Media Limited and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation released the results of their five-month investigation, the documentary Power and Influence: The Hard Edge of China’s Soft Power. The documentary raised concerns around the world by describing the CCP’s widespread infiltration and control over Australian society. [9] Six months later, Sam Dastyari, a member of the Australian Labor Party, announced his resignation from the Senate. Dastyari’s resignation followed accusations that he had accepted money from CCP-linked Chinese merchants for making statements in support of Beijing regarding South China Sea territorial disputes. His statements on this critical issue clashed with the views of his own party. [10]

In September 2016, Australia’s SBS News published a news report revealing political donations by a Chinese businessman intended to influence Australia-China trade policies. [11] Furthermore, in recent years, Chinese state-run media outlets have signed contracts with Australian media, allowing them to broadcast content provided by Chinese media to Australian audiences. [12]

In fact, as early as 2015, Australia allowed a Chinese company with close ties to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to secure a ninety-nine-year lease over the Port of Darwin. The seaport occupies an important military location for guarding against attack from the north. Richard Armitage, a former U.S. deputy secretary of state, said he was stunned by the deal, and that the United States was concerned about the development. [13]

In 2017, a book called Silent Invasion: China’s Influence in Australia, by author Clive Hamilton was rejected three times by Australian publishers due to fear of Chinese repercussions. Finally, following much consideration, the third publisher agreed to publish it. The censorship elicited widespread concern among Australians about China’s influence in their country. [14]

Many more wonder why China has directed so much effort to Australia. What is the military strategic value of the CCP infiltrating Australia and exerting control there?

In December 2017, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) stated in its report Sharp Power: Rising Authoritarian Influence that the Chinese Communist Party is influencing and changing Australian politics and academia by means of bribery and infiltration for the main purpose of weakening the U.S.-Australia alliance. [15]

In its 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, the Australian government said: “The United States has been the dominant power in our region throughout Australia’s post-Second World War history. Today, China is challenging America’s position.” [16] Dr. Malcolm Davis, senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said Beijing was trying to gain a strategic advantage in the Australian region to achieve its final goal of ending Australia’s alliance with the United States. [17]

Australia is the CCP regime’s testing ground for soft-power operations in its strategy of periphery diplomacy. [18] The CCP’s infiltration of Australia dates back to 2005, when Zhou Wenzhong, then deputy head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, arrived in Canberra and informed senior officials at the Chinese Embassy of the CCP’s new diplomatic approach. He said that the first goal of including Australia in China’s greater periphery is to ensure that Australia will serve as a trustworthy and stable supply base for China’s economic growth in the next twenty years. The long-term goal is to pry apart the U.S.-Australia alliance. The mission of those present at the meeting was to understand how the CCP could broadly exert influence over Australia in the spheres of economics, politics, and culture. [19]

The CCP regime uses its economic strength to force Australia to make concessions on a series of military issues and human rights affairs. The standard approach adopted by the CCP to coerce others into cooperation is to cultivate personal relationships via economic interests and simultaneously create the implicit threat of blackmail. [20]

After years of investigation, Clive Hamilton found that “Australia’s major institutions — from our schools, colleges and professional associations to our media; from professions of mining, farming and tourism to military assets of ports and electrical networks; from our local parliaments and state governments to our Canberra parties — are being infiltrated and transformed by a complicated control system under the supervision of CCP.” [21]

After the 2008 economic crisis, in practice, Australia has proven willing to serve as the CCP’s supply base due to the common belief that the CCP rescued Australia from the recession. Hamilton says that the reason the CCP’s infiltration and influence can be so effective in Australia is that Australians “have allowed it to happen right under our noses, because we are blinded by the belief that only China can guarantee our economic prosperity, and because we dare not stand up against Beijing’s bullying.” [22]

Despite awareness of the CCP’s infiltration and influence on Western society, and particularly the CCP’s infiltration and control of overseas Chinese communities, most well-meaning Westerners naively imagined initially that the main purpose of the Party’s strategies was “negative” — that is, to silence the voices of critics and those with different political opinions. However, Hamilton says that behind the “negative” operations are the CCP’s “positive” ambitions: to use ethnic Chinese immigrants to change the frame of Australian society, and to have Westerners sympathize with the CCP so as to allow Beijing to build up influence. In this way, Australia would be transformed into the CCP’s helper in becoming an Asian, then global superpower. [23]

Similarly, the CCP is extending its infiltration and control from Australia to New Zealand. Anne-Marie Brady, an expert in Chinese politics at the University of Canterbury, released a report titled Magic Weapons, which takes New Zealand as an example to illustrate how the CCP extends its infiltration and political influence overseas. The report reveals that several Chinese-born members of New Zealand’s Parliament have close links with the CCP, and that many politicians have been bribed by massive political donations from rich Chinese merchants and CCP united-front organizations such as Chinese trade associations in New Zealand. [24] Shortly after her report was published, Dr. Brady’s college office was broken into. Before the break-in, she also received an anonymous letter threatening her with the words “You are the next one.” [25]

China is actively roping in New Zealand’s local politicians. For example, members of New Zealand political parties are lavished cordial treatment on trips to China. Retired politicians are offered high-paying positions in Chinese enterprises, as well as other benefits to have them follow the Party’s directives. [26]

The CCP Targets Pacific Island Nations for Their Strategic Value

Despite their size, Pacific island nations have the critical strategic value of being able to serve as maritime bases. Their total land area is just 53,000 square kilometers (20,463 square miles) compared with their exclusive economic zones (EEZ) over ocean, which measure 19,000,000 square kilometers (7,335,941 square miles) — an area over six times the size of China’s EEZs. Developing greater ties with Pacific island nations is a publicly acknowledged component of the CCP’s military strategy.

Currently, spheres of influence in the Pacific area are divided between the United States, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and France. To develop its maritime capabilities in the Pacific Ocean, the CCP must first build good relations with the island nations, then slowly push out the U.S. presence. [27]

John Henderson, a New Zealand professor, and Benjamin Reilly, a professor in Australia, said that the CCP’s long-term goal in the South Pacific area is to take the place of America as the superpower there. [28] The CCP has invested immense amounts of money in Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia to assist these island nations in constructing infrastructure. It has promoted local tourism, and made e-business platforms available. It is outstripping American activity in the area. Ben Bohane, an Australian author, warned that America is losing influence over the Pacific Ocean to China. [29]

Following the CCP’s large-scale financial assistance and investment, the arrogant behavior of its officials reflects the real mentality of the CCP when it is strong and thinks highly of its abilities. It tries to treat the people of other nations the way it treats the Chinese people under its totalitarian control. The CCP’s goal is to demand obedience from countries of inferior strength. Naturally, the CCP cannot be expected to respect international regulations and protocol.

At the APEC summit held in late 2018 in Papua New Guinea, the rude and uncivilized behavior of Chinese officials shocked the locals and those in attendance. Chinese officials bluntly stopped journalists (including those of Papua New Guinea) from interviewing attendees at a forum held between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and leaders of the Pacific island nations. Instead, they demanded that all journalists refer to the Xinhua news release.

To prevent statements condemning the CCP regime’s unfair trade behavior from being written into a joint communique, Chinese officials demanded to meet the Papua New Guinea foreign minister. Since a private meeting with Chinese officials would affect his impartial stance, he turned down the request. Third, Chinese officials resorted to yelling and shouting at the summit when they accused other countries of plotting a scheme against China. One high-ranking U.S. official described the CCP officials’ behavior at APEC as “tantrum diplomacy.” [30]

Debt Traps Enable the CCP to Seize Control Over Central Asia’s Resources

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the CCP has taken great efforts to develop and cement its relationship with Central Asian countries, like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The goal of the CCP’s strategy in Central Asia can be viewed from several angles: For one, Central Asia is an unavoidable land route in China’s westward expansion. Further, when China constructs infrastructure to transport goods in and out of China, it can also expand its commercial interests in Central Asia. Secondly, China aims to seize the natural resources, including coal, oil, gas, and precious metals that are abundantly found in these countries. Thirdly, by controlling Central Asian countries that are geographically and culturally close to Xinjiang, China can tighten its control over ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.

Though the CCP has not announced its desire to dominate Central Asia, it has effectively taken up the most influential role in this region. The International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, released a report in 2013 saying that China has been rapidly growing into an economically dominant power in this region by taking advantage of social unrest in Central Asia. Beijing sees Central Asia as a supply base of raw materials and resources and as a market for its low-priced, low-quality products. Meanwhile, the CCP has also poured millions of U.S. dollars into investment and aid in Central Asia in the name of maintaining stability in Xinjiang. [31]

A huge network of highways, railways, airways, communication, and oil pipelines has closely connected China with Central Asia. The China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) and its contractors have been responsible for the construction of highways, railways, and electricity transmission lines in Central Asia. They pave roads on some of the most dangerous and complex terrain and construct new roads to transport China’s goods to Europe and the Middle East, as well as to ports in Pakistan and Iran. In the two decades between 1992 and 2012, of diplomatic relations between China and the five Central Asian countries, the total volume of trade between China and Central Asia grew one-hundredfold. [32]

In Central Asia, the CCP has promoted investments in large state-run, credit-financed infrastructure projects. Some scholars have realized that such investments would form the basis of a new international order in which China would play a dominant role. Seen from this perspective, Central Asia, like Australia, is another testing ground for the CCP’s conceptual revolution in diplomatic strategy. [33]

Beijing tends to support the corrupt authoritarian leaders of the Central Asian countries, and its opaque investment projects are considered beneficial primarily for the local social elites. The International Crisis Group’s report noted that each of the Central Asian governments is weak, corrupt, and fraught with social and economic unrest. [34] The large infrastructure projects promoted by Beijing are not only linked to massive loans, but also involve official approvals and permits, which are based on vested interests. This gives rise to and worsens the corruption in these regimes.

In Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, the former first secretary of the Communist Party of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic in the USSR, served as the country’s president from the time of independence in 1991 to his death in 2016. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan was under Karimov’s authoritarian rule for another quarter century. In 2005, government forces clashed with protesters in the eastern city of Andijan, resulting in hundreds of deaths. The CCP placed itself as a firm supporter of Karimov, rendering firm support as usual to Uzbekistan and other countries in this region in their efforts to safeguard the status quo. [35]

The fragile economic structures of Central Asian countries, in combination with massive infrastructure loans from China, leave these countries especially prone to falling into China’s debt trap. Turkmenistan is suffering from a severe economic crisis, with an annual inflation rate of over 300 percent, unemployment estimated at over 50 percent, severe food shortages, and rampant corruption. Now China is the only customer of Turkmen gas, [36] and also the largest creditor of its foreign debt, which stands at US$9 billion (estimated at 30 percent of GDP in 2018). [37] It’s possible that Turkmenistan had no choice but to give its natural gas fields to China to pay off its debt. [38] This country has put its economic arteries in Beijing’s hands.

Tajikistan borrowed more than US$300 million from China to build a power plant. Unable to pay its debt, the country transferred ownership of a gold mine to China in order to pay off the liabilities. [39]

The Kyrgyz economy is also in danger, as large-scale infrastructure projects carried out by the CCP there also caused it to fall into the debt trap. The country is likely to give part of its natural resources to pay debt. Kyrgyzstan also cooperated with Chinese communications companies Huawei and ZTE to build digital communication tools in order to tighten governmental control over people, while also leaving China a backdoor to extend its surveillance into these countries. [40]

Beijing took advantage of the power vacuum in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union to enter the Kazakh energy sector. The Kazakh economy depends on production of crude oil, and oil revenue in U.S. dollars is used to buy cheap Chinese products. Apart from oil drilling, this nation’s industrial foundation is fragile. With the flow of cheap Chinese products into its market, the Kazakh manufacturing industry collapsed. [41]

Another motive for the CCP’s expansion in Central Asia is to crack down on Uyghur dissidents living in Central Asia. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Charter signed by the China-led SCO allows suspects to be extradited to member countries. A member country can even send their own officials to another member country to conduct an investigation. In this way, the CCP extends its suppression of Uyghurs abroad and arrests Uyghur dissents who have taken refuge in other countries. [42]

The CCP Uses Pivotal States to Secure Strategic Resources

Implementation of the Communist Party’s peripheral strategy involved first creating pivotal states, which are then used as a base for achieving strategic goals in the entire region. According to the Party’s think tanks, pivotal states are countries that have considerable regional power that Beijing has the capability and resources to guide; they have no direct conflicts with the CCP in terms of strategic interests, and don’t share close interests with the United States. [43] In addition to the aforementioned Australia, Kazakhstan, and others, examples of pivotal countries for the Chinese regime include Iran in the Middle East and Myanmar.

In the Middle East, Iran receives the greatest Chinese investment. Iran is an important oil producer in the region and has been in ideological opposition to the West since the late 1970s, making it a natural economic and military partner for the CCP. Beijing has maintained close economic and military relations with Iran since the 1980s.

In 1991, the International Atomic Energy Agency discovered that the CCP had exported uranium to Iran and that China and Iran had signed a secret nuclear agreement in 1990. [44] In 2002, when Iran’s uranium enrichment project was revealed, Western oil companies withdrew from the country, giving the CCP an opportunity to capitalize on the situation and cultivate closer relations with Iran. [45]

Bilateral trade volume between the CCP and Iran grew exponentially between 1992 and 2011, increasing by more than one hundred times in seventeen years, although there was significant slowdown due to pressure caused by international sanctions on the Iranian regime. [46] Due to the CCP’s assistance, Iran was able to weather the international isolation imposed on it and develop a broad arsenal of short- to medium-range ballistic missiles, as well as anti-ship cruise missiles. The Chinese also provided it with sea mines and fast attack craft, and helped Iran establish a covert chemical weapons project. [47]

Another pivotal state favored by the CCP regime is Myanmar, its neighboring country in South Asia. Myanmar has a long coastline, which provides strategic access to the Indian Ocean. The CCP regards the opening of a China-Myanmar channel as a strategic step to minimizing reliance on the Strait of Malacca. [48] The Burmese military government’s poor human rights record has caused it to be isolated by the international community. The 1988 democracy movement in Myanmar was ultimately crushed with military force. The following year, in Beijing, PLA tanks opened fire on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.

The two authoritarian governments, both condemned by the international community, found a degree of solace in their diplomatic company and have since enjoyed close relations. In October 1989, Myanmar’s Than Shwe visited China, and the two sides signed a US$1.4 billion arms deal. [49] In the 1990s, there were again many arms deals between the two sides. Equipment the CCP has sold to Myanmar include fighter planes, patrol ships, tanks and armored personnel carriers, anti-aircraft guns, and rockets. [50] The CCP’s military, political, and economic support thus became the Burmese military junta’s lifeline in its struggle for continued survival. [51]

In 2013, the Chinese invested US$5 billion into the China-Myanmar crude oil and gas pipeline, said to be China’s fourth-largest strategic oil-and-gas import conduit. Although it met with strong popular opposition, in 2017, it went into operation with the backing of the CCP. [52] Similar investments include the Myitsone Dam (currently placed on hold due to local opposition) and the Letpadaung Copper Mine. In 2017, bilateral trade between China and Myanmar totaled $US13.54 billion. The CCP is currently planning to create a China-Myanmar economic corridor with 70 percent of the share held by the Chinese side. This includes a deep-water port for trade access to the Indian Ocean, [53] and the Kyaukpyu Special Economic Zone industrial park. [54]

c. Divide and Conquer in Europe Serves to Create a Split With the United States

In the Cold War, Europe was at the center of the confrontation between the free world and the communist camp. America and Western European nations maintained a close alliance via the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. After the end of the Cold War, Europe began to decline in terms of economic and political importance.

In order to drive a wedge between Europe and United States, the CCP adopted a strategy of dividing and conquering the European countries by adapting to local conditions to gradually penetrate and develop influence in Europe. In recent years, the differences between Europe and the United States on many major issues have become increasingly apparent. The CCP’s activities have had a hand in this.

After the 2008 financial crisis, the CCP exploited the fact that weaker European economies were in urgent need of foreign investment. The CCP injected large sums of money into these countries in exchange for compromises on issues such as international law and human rights. The CCP used this method to create and expand the cracks between European countries, and reaped the benefits. Countries targeted by the CCP include Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Hungary.

After the sovereign debt crisis in Greece, the CCP invested heavily there, exchanging money for political influence, and using Greece as an opening for building more influence in Europe. Within a few years, the CCP obtained a thirty-five-year concession for the second and third container terminals of Piraeus Port, Greece’s largest port, and took over the main transshipment hub at the port.

In May 2017, China and Greece signed a three-year action plan covering railways, ports, airport network construction, power-energy networks, and power-plant investments. [55] The CCP’s investment has already seen political returns. After 2016, Greece, a member of the European Union, has repeatedly opposed EU proposals that would criticize the Chinese regime’s policies and human rights record. Many potential EU statements to this effect did not materialize. In August 2017, commentary by The New York Times said, “Greece has embraced the advances of China, its most ardent and geopolitically ambitious suitor.” [56]

In 2012, the CCP regime launched a cooperation framework with sixteen countries in Central and Eastern Europe called “16+1.” Hungary was the first country to join the 16+1 initiative and the first European country to sign a One Belt, One Road agreement with China. In 2017, bilateral trade volume between China and Hungary exceeded US$10 billion. Like Greece, Hungary has repeatedly opposed EU criticism of the CCP’s human rights abuses. [57] The president of the Czech Republic hired a wealthy Chinese businessman to be his personal adviser and has kept his distance from the Dalai Lama. [58]

Among the sixteen countries included in the framework, eleven are EU countries, and five are non-EU countries. The CCP has ulteriorly proposed a new model of regional cooperation, with the intent to divide the European Union being obvious. Additionally, among the sixteen countries, many are former socialist countries. These countries all have a history of communist rule, and have preserved many ideological and organizational traces of those regimes. To some extent, conforming to the CCP’s demands comes naturally to them.

There are many small countries in Europe, and it is difficult for any one country to compete with the CCP. The CCP has used this to handle each government individually, intimidating them into staying silent on China’s human rights abuses and pernicious foreign policy. The most typical example is Norway. In 2010, the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee awarded the Peace Prize to an incarcerated Chinese dissident. The CCP quickly took revenge by setting up various obstacles to prevent Norway from exporting salmon to China, as well as causing other difficulties. Six years later, relations between the two countries were “normalized,” but Norway has remained silent on human rights issues in China. [59]

The traditional Western European powers have also felt the growing influence of the CCP. The CCP’s direct investment in Germany has grown substantially since 2010. In 2016 and 2017, China was Germany’s largest trading partner. In 2016, fifty-six German companies were acquired by mainland Chinese and Hong Kong investors, with investment reaching a high of 11 billion euros. These mergers and acquisitions allowed Chinese companies to quickly enter the market and acquire advanced Western technology, brands, and other assets. [60] The Hoover Institution of the United States, in a 2018 report, has labeled this the CCP’s “weaponization” investment. [61]

The industrial city of Duisburg in western Germany has become the European transit point for OBOR. Every week, thirty trains filled with Chinese goods come to the city, where they are then transported separately to other countries. The mayor of Duisburg has said that Duisburg is Germany’s “China City.” [62]

In dealing with France, the CCP has long used a strategy of “transaction diplomacy.” For example, when Jiang Zemin, then-CCP regime head, visited France in 1999, he provided a large sale worth 15 billion francs by purchasing nearly thirty Airbus aircraft, leading to the French government’s support for China’s admission into the WTO. Following the Tiananmen Square massacre, France became the first Western country to establish a comprehensive strategic partnership with China. The French president at the time was the first in the West to oppose criticism of China at the Geneva Human Rights Conference, the first to advocate strongly for the lifting of the EU arms embargo on China, and the first head of a Western government who praised the CCP. [63] In addition, the CCP established large-scale Chinese Culture Weeks in France at an early stage of its expansionary activity as a means of promoting communist ideology under the guise of culture. [64]

The United Kingdom, a traditional European power for much of history and an important ally of the United States, is also one of the CCP’s most prized targets. On September 15, 2016, the British government officially approved the start of the Hinkley Point C unit nuclear power project, a joint venture between China and a French consortium. Hinkley Point C nuclear power station is a nuclear power plant in Somerset, in southwest England, with an installed capacity of 3,200 megawatts.

The project was severely criticized by experts, including engineers, physicists, environmentalists, China experts, and business analysts, who especially referred to the huge hidden dangers to British national security. Nick Timothy, the ex-chief of staff to Theresa May, pointed out that security experts — reportedly inside as well as outside government — “are worried that Chinese people can use their role to build weaknesses in the computer system, which will enable them to shut down British energy production at will.” [65] The British Guardian calls this “the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant.” [66]

As in other parts of the world, the methods the Chinese regime uses to expand its influence in Europe are pervasive and legion. They include acquiring European high-tech companies, controlling the shares of important ports, bribing retired politicians to praise the CCP’s platform, coaxing sinologists to sing the praises of the CCP, penetrating universities, think tanks, and research institutes, and so on. [67] The English-language edition of the CCP-controlled China Daily has a monthly page insert in the long-established British newspaper The Daily Telegraph; the inserts carry articles beautifying the Chinese regime. Beijing pays The Daily Telegraph up to 750,000 pounds a year for the inserts. [68]

The CCP’s activities in Europe have caused great misgivings among researchers. The European Institute of Public Policy (GPPI), a leading think tank in Europe, published a research report in 2018 exposing the CCP’s infiltration activities in Europe:

China commands a comprehensive and flexible influencing toolset, ranging from the overt to the covert, primarily deployed across three arenas: political and economic elites, media and public opinion, and civil society and academia. In expanding its political influence, China takes advantage of the one-sided openness of Europe. Europe’s gates are wide open whereas China seeks to tightly restrict access of foreign ideas, actors and capital.

The effects of this asymmetric political relationship are beginning to show within Europe. European states increasingly tend to adjust their policies in fits of ‘preemptive obedience’ to curry favor with the Chinese side. Political elites within the European Union (EU) and in the European neighborhood have started to embrace Chinese rhetoric and interests, including where they contradict national and/or European interests. EU unity has suffered from Chinese divide and rule tactics, especially where the protection and projection of liberal values and human rights are concerned. Beijing also benefits from the ‘services’ of willing enablers among European political and professional classes who are happy to promote Chinese values and interests. Rather than only China trying to actively build up political capital, there is also much influence courting on the part of those political elites in EU member states who seek to attract Chinese money or to attain greater recognition on the global plane. [69]

In addition to political, economic, and cultural infiltration in Europe, the CCP has also engaged in various forms of espionage. On October 22, 2018, the French Le Figaro carried the headline “The revelations of Le Figaro on the Chinese spy program that targets France.” Through an exclusive series of special reports, Le Figaro revealed the CCP’s various espionage activities in France. This included how business social-networking websites, especially LinkedIn, were used to recruit French people to provide information to the CCP for the purpose of infiltrating France’s political, economic, and strategic realms, and for gaining extensive insider understanding in specific situations. The report also said that such cases are only the tip of the iceberg of the CCP’s espionage operations in France. [70] The CCP’s purpose is the large-scale plunder of sensitive information regarding the French state and its economic assets. Similar espionage activities have also taken place in Germany. [71]

d. The CCP Exports the ‘Chinese Model’ to Colonize Africa

After World War II, Africa underwent decolonization, and many African countries gained independence. As technology and capital were transferred from the West to China, Africa gradually lost the attention of the West. Strengthened by the West, the Chinese Communist Party steadily encroached on Africa. The forces of the CCP started replacing what the Western sovereign powers had set up in Africa and infiltrated its politics, economy, and society. On one hand, the CCP has wooed African states under the banner of aiding those countries’ development, creating a united front against the United States and other free countries in the United Nations. On the other hand, through economic bribery and military aid, the CCP has relentlessly manipulated African governments and opposition groups, controlling the affairs of African countries while imposing the Chinese model and its values on them.

From 2001 to 2010, the CCP-controlled Export-Import Bank of China supplied US$62.7 billion dollars in loans to African countries. The interest rates on these loans were relatively low and superficially do not appear to come with political conditions, but because these loans use natural resources as collateral, the CCP has obtained the effective rights to extract massive amounts of resources.

In 2003, the loan provided by the Export-Import Bank of China to Angola used crude oil as collateral in what is called the “Angola Model.” The following situation developed: “There are Chinese to drill the oil and then pump it into the Chinese pipeline guarded by Chinese strongmen on its way to a port built by the Chinese, where it is loaded onto Chinese tankers headed for China. Chinese to arm a government committing crimes against humanity; and Chinese to protect that government and stick up for it in the UN security council.” [72]

In 2016, China became Africa’s biggest trading partner and foreign direct investor. [73] In Africa, the CCP’s management model has been roundly criticized for its many ills: low wages, poor working conditions, shoddy products, “tofu-dreg engineering,” environmental pollution, bribery of government officials, and other corrupt practices. China’s mining operations in Africa also frequently met with protests from the local people.

Michael Sata, former president of Zambia, said during his presidential campaign in 2007: “We want the Chinese to leave and the old colonial rulers to return. They exploited our natural resources too, but at least they took good care of us. They built schools, taught us their language and brought us the British civilisation. At least Western capitalism has a human face; the Chinese are only out to exploit us.” [74] In Zambia, Chinese influence can be seen everywhere. Sata was faced with no choice but to make deals with the CCP. Once he gained power, he immediately met with China’s ambassador, and in 2013 visited China.

Sudan was one of the earliest bases that the CCP established in Africa, and over the past twenty years, the CCP’s investment in Sudan has grown exponentially. Apart from its abundant oil reserves, Sudan’s strategic location at the Red Sea was also vital to the CCP’s plans. [75] In the 1990s, when Sudan was isolated by the international community because of its support for terrorism and radical Islam, the CCP took advantage and rapidly became Sudan’s largest trading partner, purchasing most of the oil exported by Sudan. [76] The investment by the CCP helped Bashir’s totalitarian regime survive and develop despite being contained by the West. The CCP’s military even exported weapons to Sudan during this period, indirectly facilitating the Darfur genocide in Sudan at the beginning of this century.

In the international community, the CCP played a two-faced role: While China sent out a peacekeeping team to the U.N. to mediate the conflict in Sudan, Beijing also openly invited the Sudanese president, a criminal wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, to visit China, and declared that no matter how the world changed, no matter what the situation was in Sudan, that China would always be Sudan’s friend. [77]

The CCP spares few efforts in wooing developing nations. The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was established in 2000 and first held in Beijing. In the subsequent forums that were held during key years, the leaders of the CCP threw money at Africa. In 2000, during the inaugural meeting, Jiang Zemin announced debt relief of 10 billion yuan for the poor countries in Africa. In 2006, when Beijing was again the host country of the summit, the CCP not only announced the relief of debt as of the end of 2005 for poor African countries it had diplomatic relations with [78], but also sent over US$10 billion in funding, credit, scholarships, and various aid projects.

In 2015, during the summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, the CCP announced that it would provide capital of US$60 billion to work with African countries to carry out the ten major cooperation plans. [79] On August 28, 2018, the CCP’s vice minister of Commerce noted that “97 percent of products from thirty-three of the least-developed African countries have zero tariffs.” [80] On Sept. 3, 2018, during the China-Africa Cooperation Forum held in Beijing, the CCP again pledged that it would provide Africa with US$60 billion of no-strings-attached aid, interest-free loans, and project-specific capital and investment. At the same time, the CCP promised that for African countries with diplomatic relations with the CCP, it would cancel their inter-government debts that matured at the end of 2018. [81]

After several decades of painstaking effort, through commerce and trade, the CCP gained control over Africa’s economy. By using economic incentives, it has bought off many African governments, such that they follow Beijing’s every instruction. The outside world has noticed how the CCP regime is attempting to conquer Africa, and how it is using Africa as the stage for promoting and advocating the Party’s model. A scholar in the Chinese regime establishment declared: “China’s progress over the past forty years has proven that it doesn’t need to do what the West did to achieve success. History has not ended yet. The impact of this on Africa is beyond what you can imagine.” [82]

Following China, the former prime minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zanawi, established a Five-Year Plan for Ethiopia. The organization and structure of the ruling party, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), also bore a striking resemblance to the CCP regime. An anonymous source within the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that many high-level officials in the EPRDP had gone to China to study and undergo training, and that the children of many important officials also went to China for their education. It was even more apparent at the ministerial level, where virtually every official was reading The Selected Writings of Mao Zedong. [83]

In March 2013, at the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit, the Ethiopian prime minister stated that China was both a trading partner and a development model for Ethiopia. Today, Ethiopia is called Africa’s “New China.” Its internet monitoring and censorship, the totalitarian nature of its government, its media control, and the like are all cast in the same mold as China’s. [84]

Ethiopia is not the only example. In 2018, the International Department of the Central Committee of the CCP held the fourth China-Africa Young Leaders Forum and the second China-Latin America Political Parties Forum in Shenzhen, Guangdong. The training was targeted at leaders and government officials.

Yun Sun, co-director of the China Program at the Washington-based Stimson Center, said that this kind of political training was to export the Chinese model to developing countries. She said:

They organized this kind of political training with three objectives in mind. First, that the CCP’s regime is legitimate — it is attempting to tell the world how the CCP has successfully managed China and how this success could be replicated for developing countries. Second, the CCP seeks to promote the experience China had in its development, during the so-called “exchange of ideas on how to govern the country.” Although the CCP is not explicitly “exporting revolution,” it is certainly exporting its ideological approach. The third objective is to strengthen exchanges between China and Africa. [85]

e. Advancing Into Latin America Encroaches on America’s Backyard

Being geographically close to the United States, Latin America has historically been within America’s sphere of influence. Although there were a number of socialist regimes that appeared in Latin America when the tide of communism swept over the world during the mid-twentieth century, external influences never posed a threat to America.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the CCP began to target Latin America. Under the banner of “South to South cooperation,” it started engaging in an all-of-society infiltration of the region, penetrating into areas like economy, trade, military, diplomacy, culture, and the like. The governments of many Latin American countries, like Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, and Bolivia, were already hostile toward America, and the CCP made full use of this when it extended its tentacles across the ocean, further aggravating the tensions these nations had with America and heightening their anti-American stance.

On one hand, this would weaken the advantage the United States had in the region. On the other hand, the CCP could freely operate in America’s backyard, support the socialist regimes in Latin America, and thus lay the groundwork for long-term confrontation with the United States. It is no exaggeration to say that the CCP’s infiltration and influence in Latin America have far exceeded what the Soviet Union had achieved in the past.

First, the CCP used foreign trade and investment to expand its influence in Latin America. According to a report from the Brookings Institution, a U.S.-based think tank, in 2000, China’s trade with Latin America was only US$12 billion, but by 2013, it had ballooned to US$260 billion, an increase of more than twenty times. Prior to 2008, China’s loan commitments didn’t exceed US$1 billion, but in 2010, it had increased to US$37 billion. [86] From 2005 to 2016, China pledged to loan US$141 billion to Latin American countries. Today, the loans from China have exceeded those from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank combined. The CCP has also promised that it would provide Latin America with US$250 billion of direct investment by 2025 and that bilateral trade between China and Latin America would reach US$500 billion. Latin America is currently China’s second-largest investment target, directly after Asia.

For many South American countries, China has dominated foreign trade. The three biggest economies in Latin America — Brazil, Chile, and Peru — have China as their top trading partner. China is the second-largest for Argentina, Costa Rica, and Cuba. With highway construction in Ecuador, port projects in Panama, and a planned fiber-optic cable running from Chile to China, China’s influence throughout Latin America is evident. [87]

All the while, the CCP has deployed its state companies to turn Latin America into its resource base, with examples being Baosteel’s vast investment in Brazil, and the control Shougang has over the iron mines in Peru. The CCP has also shown great interest in Ecuador’s oil and Venezuela’s fuel oil and gold mines.

The CCP also invests heavily in Latin American infrastructure. In Argentina, the CCP has promised to invest US$25 million in ports that transport food, and to invest US$250 million in highways linking Argentina to Chile. [88]

In the military domain, the CCP has been stepping up its infiltration of Latin America in both scope and depth. A researcher from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Jordan Wilson, found that the CCP has progressed from low-level military sales before 2000 to high-end military sales, reaching US$100 million in exports by 2010. Especially after 2004, military exports from the CCP to Latin America have been increasing substantially. The recipients of these arms sales were all anti-U.S. regimes, such as Venezuela. At the same time, there has also been an increase in military engagement such as education and training exchanges and joint military exercises. [89]

At the China-Argentina bilateral summit held in Beijing in 2015, if the agreements between both countries were finalized, they would mark a new phase of military cooperation between the two countries. This included the joint production of advanced, high-end products, including the establishment of the CCP’s first space-tracking and control station in the southern hemisphere within the borders of Argentina. It also included the sale of Chinese-made fighter aircraft to Argentina, with the total value amounting to between US$500 million and US$1 billion, exceeding the CCP’s total arms exports of US$130 million in 2014 across the Latin American region.

The CCP is rapidly developing ties with Latin America across diplomatic, economic, cultural, and military dimensions. In 2015, new requirements outlined in a defense white paper by the CCP “specifically assign the PLA [the People’s Liberation Army, the CCP’s military] to ‘actively participate in both regional and international security cooperation and effectively secure China’s overseas interests.’” [90]

On the diplomatic front, due to the CCP’s incentives and threats, Panama, Dominica, and El Salvador have chosen to sever diplomatic ties with the Republic of China (Taiwan) and instead embrace the communist People’s Republic of China. In June 2017, Panama announced that it had established relations with the PRC and ceased diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which had lasted over a century. Three years ago, the CCP started actively planning to invest in Panama’s infrastructure, such as ports, railways, and highways, with the total amount of investment reaching TWD$760 billion (about US$24 billion). [91] China has already acquired control over both ends of the Panama Canal, which is of great international strategic importance.

The CCP has also invested close to US$30 billion in El Salvador’s La Union port. In July 2018, the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, Jean Manes, warned in El Salvador’s El Diario De Hoy (Newspaper of Today) that Chinese investment in La Union had a military objective and deserved close attention. [92]

On the cultural front, the CCP has established thirty-nine Confucius Institutes and eleven Confucius Classrooms in Latin America and the Caribbean, with total enrollment exceeding 50,000. [93] Confucius Institutes have been identified as institutions used by the CCP for spying, as well as transmitting Party culture and the ideology of the CCP under the guise of traditional Chinese culture.

The expansion and infiltration of the CCP regime in Latin America is a serious threat to the United States. By using access to the Chinese market, dependence on economic investment and military aid to sway the policies of Latin American governments, China is able to pull them into its own sphere of influence and pit them against the United States. The canals, ports, railways, and communications facilities the CCP builds are all important tools that will be used in the future for expanding and establishing its global hegemony.

f. Communist China Flaunts Its Military Ambitions

At the 2018 Zhuhai Airshow in China, the debut of the CH-7 Rainbow drone caught the attention of military experts. The Rainbow series signifies that China has caught up in the technology for developing armed drones. A large number of CH-4 Rainbows have taken over the military markets of Jordan, Iraq, Turkmenistan, and Pakistan, countries that were restricted from purchasing armed drones from the United States. [94] The latest CH-7 Rainbow, in some ways, is as well-equipped as X-47B, the best the United States has to offer. An observer noticed that the latest CH-7 was revealed at the 2018 Airshow in China before it was tested by the PLA. [95] The video played at the airshow simulated the drones combating the enemy, which was clearly the U.S. military. [96] All of these moves clearly show China’s ambition to challenge the U.S. hegemony.

In recent years, as China’s military power became more developed, its ambition couldn’t stay unnoticed. Chinese vessels followed and harassed a U.S. surveillance ship (USNS Impeccable) in the South China Sea while it was conducting routine operations in international waters [97].

A similar incident took place later in Yellow Sea international waters. The Chinese vessels repeatedly came close to the USNS Victorious. They came within 30 yards of the U.S. ship, forcing it to make a dangerous sudden stop. [98] The most recent incident happened in September 2018, when a Chinese warship conducted aggressive maneuvers warning the USS Decatur to depart the area. The Chinese ship approached within 45 yards of the bow of the American vessel, forcing the Decatur to maneuver to prevent a collision. [99]

The CCP regime revealed its military ambitions long ago. Its strategy is to move from being a land power to being a maritime superpower and eventually establishing hegemony on both land and sea. In 1980, Beijing’s strategy was to perform active defense, and its focus was mainly on defending its own borders. At the time, its main adversary was the Soviet Army. In 2013, Beijing’s frontline defense turned into active offense for the purpose of expanding its frontline. It proposed “strategic offense as an important type of active defense.” [100]

In 2015, a Chinese military theorist and author of Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America made the following statements: “One Belt, One Road policy requires the army to have expeditionary ability.” “The Chinese land forces must take a flying leap and revolutionize itself.” “The national interests that come with One Belt, One Road are an enormous incentive for the Chinese army to reform.” [101] All this fuels Beijing’s aim to become a land-based superpower.

The U.S. Department of Defense said in its Annual Report to Congress in 2018:

China’s maritime emphasis and attention to missions guarding its overseas interests have increasingly propelled the PLA beyond China’s borders and its immediate periphery. The PLAN’s [the Chinese navy] evolving focus — from “offshore waters defense” to a mix of “offshore waters defense” and “open seas protection” — reflects the high command’s expanding interest in a wider operational reach. China’s military strategy and ongoing PLA reform reflect the abandonment of its historically land-centric mentality. Similarly, doctrinal references to “forward edge defense” that would move potential conflicts far from China’s territory suggest PLA strategists envision an increasingly global role. [102]

China’s goal is to first break through the boundaries of the first island chain and head to the open waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans. The first island chain stretches from the Kuril Islands in the north to the islands of Taiwan and Borneo in the south. The chain surrounds the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the western Pacific Ocean.

The purpose of China’s expansion in the South China Sea was to break through the first island chain. China built islands and militarized reef islets in the South China Sea. It equipped them with airports, shore-based aircraft, and missiles. Currently three strategically important islets in the South China Sea, namely Fiery Cross Reef, Subi Reef, and Mischief Reef, have been fortified with anti-ship cruise missiles, surface-to-air missiles, and airfields. The islands have essentially formed stationary aircraft carriers that can be used in the event of military conflict. At the strategic level, the Chinese navy is capable of breaking through the boundaries of the first island chain and has the capability to fight in the open ocean.

Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist, said on several occasions that the United States is headed for military conflict with China. “We’re going to war in the South China Sea in five to ten years,” he said in March 2016. “There’s no doubt about that.” [103]

Lawrence Sellin, former American colonel and military commentator, believes that “China is now attempting to extend its international influence beyond the South China Sea by linking to a similar framework for dominance in the northern Indian Ocean. If permitted to complete the link, China could be in an unassailable position to exert authority over roughly one-half of the global GDP.” [104]

The dominance of the South China Sea isn’t an issue of territory, but of global strategy. Each year, close to US$5 trillion in merchandise moves through the South China Sea. [105] For China, its Maritime Silk Road begins with the South China Sea, and an estimated 80 percent of its oil imports are projected to travel via the region. [106] Peacekeeping in the South China Sea following World War II fell to the United States and its allies. This poses a big threat to the Chinese regime, which is preparing to go to war with the United States and deems the South China Sea a key area for its economic growth and military expansion.

Taylor Fravel, the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), pointed out an interesting fact after figuring out how China has solved it territorial disputes in history. Since 1949, China has engaged in twenty-three territorial disputes with its neighbors. It settled seventeen of these disputes. In fifteen of these settlements, Beijing offered substantial compromises on the allocation of disputed territory. But when it comes to issues in the South China Sea, since the 1950s, even when the Chinese navy was militarily insignificant, it has taken an uncompromising approach and has claimed indisputable sovereignty over the region. China has never used such absolute language to other land disputes. [107]

Apparently, “fighting every inch” isn’t how China solves its border conflicts. Professor M. Taylor Fravel listed several reasons for China’s strong stand on South China Sea (SCS) issues. “China views offshore islands such as the Spratlys as strategic. From these islands, China can claim jurisdiction over adjacent waters that might contain significant natural resources and even jurisdiction over some activities of foreign naval vessels,” he said. “South China Sea outcrops can also be developed into forward outposts for projecting military power.” “They might also aid China’s submarine force by preventing other states from tracking Chinese submarines that seek to enter the Western Pacific from the South China Sea.” [108]

The Chinese regime’s aggressive and expansionary actions in the South China Sea, especially the steps it has taken in recent years to change the status quo, have heightened military tensions in the greater region. Japan has reversed a decade of declining military expenditures, while India has revived its stalled plans for naval modernization. [109]

Masking its efforts with the excuse of safe passage for energy and freight, China’s active expansion in the South China Sea has tipped the balance of power in the region and increases the possibility of military conflict. One expert pointed out that “Chinese perception of the SCS as a security concern has led to an erosion of security in the region.” [110] This standpoint echoes that of Bannon.

In 2017, the Chinese military established its first overseas military base in Djibouti. Western scholars believe that Chinese military officials are looking beyond the Western Pacific Region and considering how to project power ever farther abroad. [111] For example, the CCP has recently been active in the Pacific Island countries, regardless of costly investments. Its long-term goal is that in the future, these island countries serve as supply stations for the PLAN’s blue-water fleet. [112] The military expansion of the CCP is not limited to the traditional divisions of land, sea, and air; it is also making advances into the realms of space and electromagnetic warfare.

The CCP’s military ambitions are backed by vast reserves of manpower, equipment, and funding.

The CCP regime maintains the largest regular army in the world, with two million active military personnel. The People’s Liberation Army also has the largest ground force in the world, the largest number of warships, the third-most naval tonnage, and a massive air force. It has a trinity nuclear strike capability consisting of intercontinental ballistic missiles, ballistic-missile submarines, and strategic bombers.

The Chinese regime also has 1.7 million armed police personnel, which are under the unified leadership of the CCP Central Military Commission, and a large number of reserve and militia units. The Party’s military doctrine has always stressed the importance of “people’s war.” Under the CCP’s totalitarian system, it can quickly impress all available resources to military use. This means that the CCP has a pool of over a billion people (including overseas Chinese) from which it can draft huge numbers of people into militia service.

China’s GDP increased rapidly between 1997 and 2007. The CCP relies on economic power to rapidly expand armaments production and upgrade its arsenal. It is estimated that by 2020, the PLA ground forces will have five thousand modern main battle tanks. The PLAN will have at least two aircraft carriers in its fleet. Ninety percent of PLA Air Force fighters are of the fourth generation, and China has begun to introduce fifth-generation fighters.

In early 2017, China announced a 6.5 percent inflation-adjusted increase in its annual military budget to US$154.3 billion. Analysis of data from 2008 through 2017 indicates China’s official military budget grew at an annual average of 8 percent in inflation-adjusted terms over that period. [113] Observers estimate that the actual military spending of the CCP is twice as much as what is officially acknowledged. Aside from this, the military strength of the regime is not fully reflected in military spending because its actual military expenditure is higher than the public figures, and the CCP can requisition many civilian resources and manpower at its discretion. The entire industrial system can serve the needs of war, which means its true military capabilities far exceed official data and the usual estimates.

The CCP will build a global system consisting of more than thirty Beidou (Big Dipper) navigation satellites by the end of 2020, with global GPS military positioning capabilities. The mass production of the Rainbow series of military drones serves more tactical considerations for the CCP. For example, in the Taiwan Strait layout, the CCP may gain advantages through its unmanned aircraft machine-sea tactics. [114] A large number of aerial drones can form clusters under the control of satellites and artificial intelligence, making them useful in regional and asymmetrical conflicts.

The stealth fighter Chinese J-20, which was unveiled at the Zhuhai Air Show, resembles the American F-22, while the Chinese J-31 appears modeled on the F-35. The PLA is closing the gap with the United States in the development of modern jet fighters.

In addition, the CCP uses a broad range of espionage to catch up with the United States in technology. According to some recent estimates, more than 90 percent of espionage against the United States conducted via hacking comes from China, and the CCP’s networks infiltrate large American companies and the military, stealing technology and knowledge that the Chinese cannot develop independently. [115] China’s drone technology was stolen from the United States.

In terms of tactics, the PLA is keen on asymmetric capabilities: asymmetric warfare, asymmetric strategy, and asymmetric weapons. [116] Adm. Philip S. Davidson, the new commander of the Indo-Pacific Command, described China as a “peer competitor.” He said that China is not trying to match America’s firepower at a one-to-one ratio; rather, it is trying catch up with the United States by building critical asymmetric capabilities, including the use of anti-ship missiles and capabilities in submarine warfare. He warned that “there is no guarantee that the United States would win a future conflict with China.” [117]

The CCP relied on its research and development of Dongfeng 21D missiles (anti-ship ballistic missiles for use against U.S. aircraft carriers) to conduct similar sniper-mode confrontation. In 2018, the CCP publicly exhibited the land-based Eagle-Attack-12B supersonic anti-ship missile, known as the “aircraft carrier killer.” It has drawn a 550-kilometer “death zone” in the western Pacific, in which American carrier battle groups will be susceptible to ultra low-altitude saturation strikes. These missiles become an important military means of the PLA’s regional denial operations aimed at preventing U.S. military intervention.

Following the rapid expansion of its military power, the CCP regime has become a huge weapons exporter to the world’s authoritarian regimes, such as North Korea and the rogue regimes of the Middle East. On the one hand, the goal is to expand its military alliances, and on the other hand, to disperse and counter U.S. military power. The CCP regime spreads and encourages anti-American sentiment and hatred. It is easy for the CCP to unite with other anti-American regimes to further its hegemonic ambitions.

At the same time, the CCP leadership advocates terrorist military theories such as the aforementioned unrestricted warfare. It advocates the necessity of war by saying that “war is not far from us, it is the birthplace of the Chinese century.” It legitimizes violence and terror with words such as “The dead are the driving force for the advancement of history.” It justifies aggression: “There is no right to development without the right to war,” and “the development of one country poses a threat to another — this is the general rule of world history.” [118]

Zhu Chenghu, dean of the Defense College of the National Defense University of the People’s Republic of China, publicly stated that if the United States intervenes in a war in the Taiwan Strait, China will preemptively use nuclear weapons to raze hundreds of cities in the United States, even if all of China to the east of Xi’an (a city located at the western edge of China’s traditional boundaries) were destroyed as a consequence. [119] Zhu’s statements were a public display of the CCP’s ambitions and a means of probing reactions by the international community.

It is important to be aware of the fact that the CCP’s military strategies are always subordinate to its political needs, and that the regime’s military ambitions are only a small part of its overall schemes. The Party’s approach is to rely on both economic and military means to impose its communist ideology on the rest of the world. [120]

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[10] “Sam Dastyari Resignation: How We Got Here,” Australian Broadcasting Corporation, December 11, 2017, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-12/sam-dastyari-resignation-how-did-we-get-here/9249380.

[11] “In Depth: How Much Influence Do China’s Donations Have on Australia? Should Political Donations Be Banned?,” SBS News, September 12, 2016, https://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/mandarin/zh-hant/article/2016/09/12/shen-du-zhong-guo-juan-zeng-dui-ao-zhou-ying-xiang-you-duo-da-wai-guo-zheng-zhi?language=zh-hant. [深度：中國捐贈對澳洲影響有多大？外國政治獻金是否該禁？] [In Chinese]

[12] Mareike Ohlberg and Bertram Lang, “How to Counter China’s Global Propaganda Offensive,” The New York Times, September 21, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/opinion/how-to-counter-chinas-global-propaganda-offensive.html?_ga=2.63090735.1831033231.1544154630-97544283.1541907311.

[13] Jonathan Pearlman, “US Alarm over Aussie Port Deal With China Firm,” The Strait Times, November 19, 2015, https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/australianz/us-alarm-over-aussie-port-deal-with-china-firm.

[14] Tara Francis Chan, “Rejected Three Times Due to Fear of Beijing, Controversial Book on China’s Secret Influence Will Finally Be Published,” Business Insider, February 5, 2018, https://www.businessinsider.com/australian-book-on-chinas-influence-gets-publisher-2018-2.

[15] Christopher Walker and Jessica Ludwig, “From ‘Soft Power’ to ‘Sharp Power’: Rising Authoritarian Influence in the Democratic World,” in Sharp Power: Rising Authoritarian Influence (Washington, D.C.: National Endowment for Democracy, 2017), 20, https://www.ned.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Sharp-Power-Rising-Authoritarian-Influence-Full-Report.pdf.

[16] 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, Australian Government, 2017, https://www.fpwhitepaper.gov.au/foreign-policy-white-paper/overview.

[17] Caitlyn Gribbin, “Malcolm Turnbull Declares He Will ‘Stand Up’ for Australia in Response to China’s Criticism,” Australian Broadcasting Corporation, December 8, 2017, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-09/malcolm-turnbull-says-he-will-stand-up-for-australia/9243274.

[18] Chen Yonglin, [陳用林] “Chen Yonglin: Australia Is Becoming China’s Backyard?,” The Epoch Times, September 2, 2016, http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/16/9/2/n8261061.htm. [陳用林：〈陳用林：澳大利亞正在淪為中國的後院〉，《大紀元新聞網》] [In Chinese]

[19] Clive Hamilton. Silent Invasion: China’s influence in Australia (Melbourne: Hardie Grant, 2018), Chapter 1.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Clive Hamilton, Silent Invasion: China’s influence in Australia, Chapter 3.

[24] Lin Ping, “Disclosing China’s Sharp Power: Part X, New Zealand,” Radio Free Asia, September 25, 2018, https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/zhuanlan/zhuantixilie/zhongguochujiaoshenxiangshijie/jm-09252018162912.html. [林坪：〈揭祕中國銳實力（十）紐西蘭〉，自由亞洲電台] [In Chinese]

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Lin Tinghui, “The Dragon in Strange Waters: China’s Diplomatic Quagmire in the Pacific Islands,” Journal on International Relations Issue #30, July 2010, p. 58, https://diplomacy.nccu.edu.tw/download.php?filename=451_b9915791.pdf&dir=archive&title=File. [林廷輝：〈龍在陌生海域：中國對太平洋島國外交之困境〉，《國際關係學報》，第三十期（2010年7月）] [In Chinese]

[28] John Henderson and Benjamin Reilly, “Dragon in Paradise: China’s Rising Star in Oceania,” The National Interest, no. 72 (Summer 2003): 94–105.

[29] Ben Bohane, “The U.S. Is Losing the Pacific to China,” The Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-is-losing-the-pacific-to-china-1496853380.

[30] Josh Rogin, “Inside China’s ‘Tantrum Diplomacy’ at APEC,” The Washington Post, November 20, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2018/11/20/inside-chinas-tantrum-diplomacy-at-apec/.

[31] China’s Central Asia Problem, Report No. 244, International Crisis Group (February 27, 2013), https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/central-asia/china-s-central-asia-problem.

[32] Wu Jiao and Zhang Yunbi, “Xi Proposes a ‘New Silk Road’ With Central Asia,” China Daily, September 8, 2013, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/sunday/2013-09/08/content_16952160.htm.

[33] Raffaello Pantucci and Sarah Lain, “China’s Eurasian Pivot: The Silk Road Economic Belt,” Whitehall Papers 88, no. 1 (May 16, 2017), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02681307.2016.1274603.

[34] “China’s Central Asia Problem,” International Crisis Group.

[35] “Kong Quan: China Supports Uzbekistan’s Efforts for National Security,” People.cn, http://world.people.com.cn/GB/8212/14450/46162/3395401.htm. [〈孔泉：中國支持烏茲別克斯坦為國家安全所做努力〉，人民網] [In Chinese]

[36] Benno Zogg, “Turkmenistan Reaches Its Limits with Economic and Security Challenges,” IPI Global Observatory, July 31, 2018, https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/07/turkmenistan-limits-economic-security-challenges/.

[37] Jakub Jakóbowski and Mariusz Marszewski, “Crisis in Turkmenistan: A test for China’s Policy in the Region,” Center for Eastern Studies (OSW), August 31, 2018, https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-commentary/2018-08-31/crisis-turkmenistan-a-test-chinas-policy-region-0.

[38] Eiji Furukawa, “Belt and Road Debt Trap Spreads to Central Asia,” Nikkei Asian Review, August 29, 2018, https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Belt-and-Road/Belt-and-Road-debt-trap-spreads-to-Central-Asia.

[39] “Tajikistan: Chinese Company Gets Gold Mine in Return for Power Plant,” Eurasianet, April 11, 2018, https://eurasianet.org/tajikistan-chinese-company-gets-gold-mine-in-return-for-power-plant.

[40] Danny Anderson, “Risky Business: A Case Study of PRC Investment in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan,” The Jamestown Foundation, China Brief 18, no. 14 (August 10, 2018), https://jamestown.org/program/risky-business-a-case-study-of-prc-investment-in-tajikistan-and-kyrgyzstan/.

[41] Juan Pablo Cardenal and Heriberto Araújo, China’s Silent Army: The Pioneers, Traders, Fixers and Workers Who Are Remaking the World in Beijing’s Image (New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2013), Chapter 2.

[42] Lindsey Kennedy and Nathan Paul Southern, “China Created a New Terrorist Threat by Repressing Secessionist Fervor in Its Western Frontier,” Quartz, May 31, 2017, https://qz.com/993601/china-uyghur-terrorism/.

[43] Xu Jin et al., [徐進等] “Making ‘Strategic Pivots’ for China’s Border Security,” World Affairs 2014 Issue #15, pp. 14–23, http://cssn.cn/jjx/xk/jjx_lljjx/sjjjygjjjx/201411/W020141128513034121053.pdf. [徐進等：〈打造中國周邊安全的「戰略支點」國家〉，《世界知識》，2014年15期，頁14-23][In Chinese]

[44] Therese Delpech, Iran and the Bomb: The Abdication of International Responsibility (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 49.

[45] Cardena and Araújo, China’s Silent Army, Epilogue.

[46] Seyed Reza Miraskari et al., “An Analysis of International Outsourcing in Iran-China Trade Relations,” Journal of Money and Economy 8, No 1 (Winter 2013): 110–139, http://jme.mbri.ac.ir/article-1-86-en.pdf.

[47] Scott Harold and Alireza Nader, China and Iran: Economic, Political, and Military Relations (Washington, D.C.: RAND Corporation, 2012), 7, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/occasional_papers/2012/RAND_OP351.pdf.

[48] “The Commercial Foundation to Bypass the ‘Malacca Dilemma’: How to Ensure the Effective Operation of the China-Myanmar Oil and Gas Pipelines,” The First Finance Daily, July 22, 2013, https://www.yicai.com/news/2877768.html. [〈繞過「馬六甲困局」的商業基礎——如何保證中緬油氣管道有效運營〉，《第一財經日報》] [In Chinese]

[49] Li Chenyang, “China-Myanmar Relations since 1988,” in Harmony and Development: Asean-China Relations, eds. Lim Tin Seng and Lai Hongyi (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2007), 54.

[50] Ibid.

[51] “China’s Myanmar Dilema,” Asia Report No.177 (Brussels: International Crisis Group , 2009), 1, https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/177-china-s-myanmar-dilemma.pdf.

[52] “After Two Years of Inactivity, the China-Myanmar Crude Oil Pipeline Is Finally Opened,” BBC Chinese, April 10, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-39559135. [〈閒置兩年後 中緬原油管道終於開通〉，《BBC中文網》] [In Chinese]

[53] Zhuang Beining and Che Hongliang, “China-Myanmar Signs the Framework Agreement for the Kyaukpyu Deep-water Port Project,” xinhuanet.com, November 8, 2018, http://www.xinhuanet.com/2018-11/08/c_1123686146.htm. [莊北甯，車宏亮：〈中緬簽署皎漂深水港專案框架協定〉，《新華網》] [In Chinese]

[54] Lu Cheng, “China-Myanmar Economic Corridor: An Emerging Approach to Myanmar’s Development,” Guangming Net, September 17, 2018, http://news.gmw.cn/2018-09/17/content_31210352.htm. [鹿鋮：〈中緬經濟走廊：緬甸發展的新興途徑〉，《光明網》] [In Chinese]

[55] Lin Ping, “Disclosing China’s Sharp Power,” Part XI, European Politics,” Radio Free Asia, https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/zhuanlan/zhuantixilie/zhongguochujiaoshenxiangshijie/yl-11052018102634.html. [林坪：〈揭祕中國銳實力（十一）歐洲政界〉，《自由亞洲電台》] [In Chinese]

[56] Jason Horowitz and Liz Alderman, “Chastised by E.U., a Resentful Greece Embraces China’s Cash and Interests,” The New York Times, August 26, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/26/world/europe/greece-china-piraeus-alexis-tsipras.html.

[57] Ibid.

[58] Jan Velinger, “President’s Spokesman Lashes Out at Culture Minister for Meeting with Dalai Lama,” Radio Praha, October 18, 2016, https://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/presidents-spokesman-lashes-out-at-culture-minister-for-meeting-with-dalai-lama.

[59] Lin Ping, “Disclosing China’s Sharp Power (Part XI), European Politics,” Radio Free Asia, November 5, 2018, https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/zhuanlan/zhuantixilie/zhongguochujiaoshenxiangshijie/yl-11052018102634.html. [林坪：〈揭祕中國銳實力（十一）歐洲政界〉，《自由亞洲電台》] [In Chinese]

[60] “German Blue Book: China’s Non-Financial Direct Investment in Germany Has Grown Substantially,” sina.com.cn, July 9, 2017, http://mil.news.sina.com.cn/dgby/2018-07-09/doc-ihezpzwt8827910.shtml. [〈德國藍皮書：中國在德國非金融直接投資大幅增長〉，《觀察者網》] [In Chinese]

[61] Chinese Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 2018), https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/chineseinfluence_americaninterests_fullreport_web.pdf, 163.

[62] Philip Oltermann, “Germany’s ‘China City’: How Duisburg Became Xi Jinping’s Gateway to Europe,” The Guardian, August 1, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/aug/01/germanys-china-city-duisburg-became-xi-jinping-gateway-europe.

[63] “Chirac: A Man Who Loved China,” China Net, March 20, 2007, http://www.china.com.cn/international/txt/2007-03/20/content_18421202.htm. [〈希拉克：熱愛中國的人〉，《中國網》] [In Chinese]

[64] The True Jiang Zemin, Chapter 9, “The War of Greed (Part I),” The Epoch Times, http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/12/6/18/n3615092.htm. [聯合寫作組：《真實的江澤民》，〈第九章 貪戰（上）〉，《大紀元新聞網》] [In Chinese]

[65] Nick Timothy, “The Government Is Selling Our National Security to China,” Conservative Home, October 20, 2015, http://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2015/10/nick-timothy-the-government-is-selling-our-national-security-to-china.html.

[66] Holly Watt, “Hinkley Point: The ‘Dreadful Deal’ behind the World’s Most Expensive Power Plant,” The Guardian, December 21, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c-dreadful-deal-behind-worlds-most-expensive-power-plant.

[67] Lin Ping [林坪] “Disclosing China’s Sharp Power (Part XII) Economic Infiltration in Europe,” Radio Free Asia, November 12, 2018, https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/zhuanlan/zhuantixilie/zhongguochujiaoshenxiangshijie/yl-11082018122750.html; “Disclosing China’s Sharp Power (Part XIII) The Encroachment of Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech in Europe,” Radio Free Asia, November 12, 2018, https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/zhuanlan/zhuantixilie/zhongguochujiaoshenxiangshijie/MCIEU-11122018165706.html. [林坪：〈揭祕中國銳實力（十二）在歐洲的經濟滲透〉，《自由亞洲電台》] [〈揭祕中國銳實力（十三）歐洲學術、言論自由〉，《自由亞洲電台》] [In Chinese]

[68] Jack Hazlewood, “China Spends Big on Propaganda in Britain … but Returns Are Low,” Hong Kong Free Press, April 3, 2016, https://www.hongkongfp.com/2016/04/03/china-spends-big-on-propaganda-in-britain-but-returns-are-low/.

[69] Thorsten Benner et al., “Authoritarian Advance: Responding to China’s Growing Political Influence in Europe,” Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI), February 2018, https://www.gppi.net/media/Benner_MERICS_2018_Authoritarian_Advance.pdf.

[70] Christophe Cornevin and Jean Chichizola, “The Revelations of Le Figaro on the Chinese Spy Program That Targets France” [“Les révélations du Figaro sur le programme d’espionnage chinois qui vise la France”], Le Figaro, October 22, 2018, http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2018/10/22/01016-20181022ARTFIG00246-les-revelations-du-figaro-sur-le-programme-d-espionnage-chinois-qui-vise-la-france.php. [In French]

[71] “German Spy Agency Warns of Chinese LinkedIn Espionage,” BBC News, December 10, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42304297.

[72] Serge Michel and Michel Beuret, China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion in Africa (New York: Nation Books, 2010), 162.

[73] Reuben Brigety, “A Post-American Africa,” Foreign Affairs, August 28, 2018, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/africa/2018-08-28/post-american-africa.

[74] “Not as Bad as They Say” The Economist, October 1, 2011, https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2011/10/01/not-as-bad-as-they-say.

[75] Joseph Hammond, “Sudan: China’s Original Foothold in Africa,” The Diplomat, June 14, 2017, https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/sudan-chinas-original-foothold-in-africa/.

[76] Zeng Yong, “A Strategic Analysis of China’s Dealing with the Darfur Crisis,” Arab World Studies, November 2012 Issue #6, http://mideast.shisu.edu.cn/_upload/article/23/47/8ee05ca2405488f615e514184f73/077159aa-8c97-41b8-bcc3-95c22c3ba732.pdf. [曾勇，〈中國處理達爾富爾危機的戰略分析〉，《阿拉伯世界研究》] [In Chinese]

[77] “Beijing Shows Hospitality to the Wanted Sudanese President Bashir,” Radio France Internationale (RFI), June 29, 2011, http://cn.rfi.fr/中國/20110629-北京盛情款待遭通緝的蘇丹總統巴希爾. [〈北京盛情款待遭通緝的蘇丹總統巴希爾〉，《法廣》] [In Chinese]

[78] According to “China’s Path of Peaceful Development” by the Information Office of the State Council, as of 2005, China had waived the debts of forty-four developing countries, totalling about 16.6 billion yuan. http://www.scio.gov.cn/zfbps/ndhf/2005/Document/307900/307900.htm. [In Chinese]

[79] Pan Xiaotao, “Chinese, Get Ready to Give Out More Money,” Apple Daily, August 31, 2018, https://hk.news.appledaily.com/local/daily/article/20180831/20488504. [潘小濤：〈中國人，請準備再大撒幣〉，《蘋果日報》] [In Chinese]

[80] “Ministry of Commerce: 97 Percent of Products in 33 Least-Developed Countries in Africa Enjoy Zero Tariffs,” China News, August 28, 2018, http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2018/08-28/8612256.shtml. [〈商務部：非洲33個最不發達國家97%的產品享受零關稅〉，《中新網》] [In Chinese]

[81] Jia Ao, “China Gives Africa Big Bucks Again and America Gets Alert,” Radio Free Asia, September 3, 2018, https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/junshiwaijiao/hc-09032018110327.html. [家傲：〈中國再向非洲大撒幣 美國警覺〉，《自由亞洲電台》] [In Chinese]

[82] Quan Ye, “A Dialogue With Wang Wen: From the Theory of Spending Money to the Real Problem Behind the Misconstrued New Colonialism,” Duowei News, September 2, 2018, http://news.dwnews.com/china/news/2018-09-02/60081911_all.html. [泉野：〈對話王文：從撒錢論到「新殖民主義」誤區背後的真問題〉，《多維》] [In Chinese]

[83] Cai Linzhe, “Ethiopia Is Learning the ‘Chinese Model,’” Phoenix Weekly, May 15, 2013, http://www.ifengweekly.com/detil.php?id=403. [蔡臨哲：〈埃塞俄比亞學習「中國模式」〉，《鳳凰週刊》] [In Chinese]

[84] Andrew Harding, “Correspondence from Our Reporters: ‘A New China’ in Africa,” BBC Chinese, July 27, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/ukchina/simp/fooc/2015/07/150727_fooc_ethiopia_development. [安德魯‧哈丁：〈記者來鴻：非洲出了個「新中國」〉，《BBC中文網》] [In Chinese]

[85] Si Yang, “To Win the Right to Speak and Export the ‘Chinese Model,’ China Resorts to Different Means in Europe-America and Asia-Africa,” Voice of America, December 7, 2018, https://www.voachinese.com/a/4420434.html. [斯洋：〈爭奪話語權，輸出中國模式，中國影響歐美和亞非方式大不同〉，《美國之音》] [In Chinese]

[86] Ted Piccone, “The Geopolitics of China’s Rise in Latin America,” Order From Chaos: Foreign Policy in a Troubled World, November 2016, 4 and 9, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/the-geopolitics-of-chinas-rise-in-latin-america_ted-piccone.pdf.

[87] Alfonso Serrano, “China Fills Trump’s Empty Seat at Latin America Summit,” The New York Times, April 17, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/opinion/china-trump-pence-summit-lima-latin-america.html.

[88] Translated from Chinese version of the paper by Jorge Blázquez-Lidoy, Javier Rodríguez, Javier Santiso, “Angel o demonio? Los efectos del comercio chino en los países de América Latina” [Angel or Demon? The Effects of Chinese Trade in Latin American Countries], https://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/11135/090017043_es.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y [in Spanish].

[89] Jordan Wilson, China’s Military Agreements with Argentina: A Potential New Phase in China-Latin America Defense Relations, U.S-China Economic and Security Review Commission Staff Research Report, November 5, 2015, https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/China%27s%20Military%20Agreements%20with%20Argentina.pdf.

[90] Jin Yusen, “The CCP’s Dollar Diplomacy May Be the Last Straw,” watchinese.com, July 5, 2017, https://www.watchinese.com/article/2017/23053. [金雨森：〈中共金錢外交恐成為最後一根稻草〉，《看雜誌》] [In Chinese]

[91] Ibid.

[92] “The CCP’s Huge Amount of Financial Aid to El Salvador Causes Anxiety for America,” NTD Television, August 22, 2018, http://www.ntdtv.com/xtr/gb/2018/08/23/a1388573.html. [〈中共巨額金援搶薩爾瓦多 引美國憂慮〉，新唐人電視台] [In Chinese]

[93] Huang Xiaoxiao, “Number of Confucius Institutes in Latin America and the Caribbeans Increases to 39,” People.cn, January 26, 2018, http://world.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0126/c1002-29788625.htm. [ 黃瀟瀟：〈拉美和加勒比地區孔子學院達39所〉，《人民網》] [In Chinese]

[94] Sharon Weinberger, “China Has Already Won the Drone Wars,” Foreign Policy, May 10, 2018, https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/10/china-trump-middle-east-drone-wars/.

[95] Rick Joe, “China’s Air Force on the Rise: Zhuhai Airshow 2018,” The Diplomat, November 13, 2018, https://thediplomat.com/2018/11/chinas-air-force-on-the-rise-zhuhai-airshow-2018/.

[96] Huang Yuxiang 黃宇翔： “Chinese Drones, Whose Target Is America, Stun the Audience at Zhuhai Air Show,” Asia Weekly, November 25, 2018, Issue #46, Vol. 32, https://www.yzzk.com/cfm/blogger3.cfm?id=1542252826622&author=%E9%BB%83%E5%AE%87%E7%BF%94. [黃宇翔：〈中國無人戰機驚豔珠海航展亮相假想敵是美國〉，《亞洲週刊》] [In Chinese]

[97] “Pentagon Says Chinese Vessels Harassed U.S. Ship,” CNN, March 9, 2009, http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/09/us.navy.china/index.html.

[98] Barbara Starr, “Chinese Boats Harassed U.S. Ship, Officials Say,” CNN, May 5, 2009, http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/05/china.maritime.harassment/index.html.

[99] Barbara Starr, Ryan Browne and Brad Lendon, “Chinese Warship in ‘Unsafe’ Encounter With US Destroyer, Amid Rising US-China Tensions,” CNN, October 1, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/01/politics/china-us-warship-unsafe-encounter/index.html.

[100] Military Strategy Research Department of the Academy of Military Science: Strategic Studies, Beijing: Military Science Publishing House, 2013, p. 47. [軍事科學院軍事戰略研究部：《戰略學》（北京：軍事科學出版社，2013）] [In Chinese]

[101] Qiao Liang, “The ‘Belt and Road’ Strategy Must Take Into Consideration the ‘Going Out’ of Military Power,” 81.cn, April 15, 2015, http://www.81.cn/jmywyl/2015-04/15/content_6443998_5.ht. [喬良：〈「一帶一路」戰略要考慮軍事力量走出去問題〉，《中國軍網》] [In Chinese]

[102] Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2018, U.S. Department of Defense, May 16, 2018, https://media.defense.gov/2018/Aug/16/2001955282/-1/-1/1/2018-CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT.PDF, 46, 47.

[103] Benjamin Haas, “Steve Bannon: ‘We’re Going to War in the South China Sea … No Doubt,’” The Guardian, February 1, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/02/steve-bannon-donald-trump-war-south-china-sea-no-doubt.

[104] Lawrence Sellin, “The US Needs a New Plan to Address Chinese Power in Southern Asia,” The Daily Caller, June 5, 2018, https://dailycaller.com/2018/06/05/afghanistan-pakistan-america-china/.

[105] Panos Mourdoukoutas, “China Will Lose The South China Sea Game,” Forbes, July 1, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2018/07/01/china-will-lose-the-south-china-sea-game/#5783cad73575.

[106] Michael Lelyveld, “China’s Oil Import Dependence Climbs as Output Falls,” Radio Free Asia, December 4, 2017, https://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/energy_watch/chinas-oil-import-dependence-climbs-as-output-falls-12042017102429.html.

[107] M. Taylor Fravel, “Why Does China Care So Much about the South China Sea? Here Are 5 Reasons,” The Washington Post, July 13, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/07/13/why-does-china-care-so-much-about-the-south-china-sea-here-are-5-reasons/?utm_term=.4a7b1de04dbd.

[108] Ibid.

[109] Brahma Chellaney, “Why the South China Sea Is Critical to Security,” The Japan Times, March 26, 2018, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2018/03/26/commentary/world-commentary/south-china-sea-critical-security/#.XAnOBBNKiF1.

[110] Scott L. Montgomery, “Oil, History, and the South China Sea: A Dangerous Mix,” Global Policy, August 7, 2018, https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/07/08/2018/oil-history-and-south-china-sea-dangerous-mix.

[111] Hal Brands, “China’s Master Plan: a Global Military Threat,” The Japan Times, June 12, 2018, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2018/06/12/commentary/world-commentary/chinas-master-plan-global-military-threat/#.W9JPPBNKj5V.

[112] Lin Tinghui, “The Dragon in Strange Waters: China’s Diplomatic Quagmire in the Pacific Islands,” Journal on International Relations, July 2010, Issue #30, p. 58, https://diplomacy.nccu.edu.tw/download.php?filename=451_b9915791.pdf&dir=archive&title=File. [林廷輝，〈龍在陌生海域：中國對太平洋島國外交之困境〉，《國際關係學報》第三十期（2010年7月）] [In Chinese]

[113] Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2018, U.S. Department of Defense, May 16, 2018, https://media.defense.gov/2018/Aug/16/2001955282/-1/-1/1/2018-CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT.PDF.

[114] Huang Yuxiang, “Chinese Drones, Whose Target Is America, Stun the Audience at Zhuhai Air Show,” Asia Weekly, November 25, 2018, 第32卷 46期，, https://www.yzzk.com/cfm/blogger3.cfm?id=1542252826622&author=%E9%BB%83%E5%AE%87%E7%BF%94. [黃宇翔：〈中國無人戰機驚艷珠海航展亮相假想敵是美國〉，《亞洲週刊》，2018年11月25日， 第32卷 46期] [In Chinese]

[115] David E. Sanger, “U.S. Blames China’s Military Directly for Cyberattacks,” The New York Times, May 6, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/world/asia/us-accuses-chinas-military-in-cyberattacks.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&.

[116] See in-depth analysis of this issue by Peter Navarro, director of the White House National Trade Council, in Crouching Tiger: What China’s Militarism Means for the World (New York: Prometheus Books, 2015).

[117] Steven Lee Myers, “With Ships and Missiles, China Is Ready to Challenge U.S. Navy in Pacific,” The New York Times, August 29, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/world/asia/china-navy-aircraft-carrier-pacific.html.

[118] See San Renxing, “On the Bloody Company’s (CCP’s) Doomsday Mad Gambling,” The Epoch Times, http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/5/8/1/n1003911.htm [三人行：〈評血腥公司的末日瘋狂賭〉，《大紀元新聞網》] [In Chinese] and http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/5/8/2/n1004823.htm; and Li Tianxiao, “If God Wants the CCP to Die, He Will Make It Mad First,” The Epoch Times, http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/5/8/17/n1021109.htm. [李天笑：〈神要中共亡 必先使其狂〉，《大紀元新聞網》] [In Chinese]

The two speeches allegedly made by the CCP general Chi Haotian (Minister of Defense, 1993-2003), “The War Is Coming to Us” and “The War Is Not Far from Us; It Is the Midwife of the Chinese Century,” appeared on the internet in 2003 and 2005 respectively. While it is difficult to verify their authenticity, critics generally believe that the speeches represent the true mentality of the Chinese Communist Party, and that they were deliberately released to gauge external reactions and intimidate enemies.

[119] Jonathan Watts, “Chinese General Warns of Nuclear Risk to US,” The Guardian, July 15 2005, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jul/16/china.jonathanwatts.

[120] Michael Pillsbury was surprised to find that, when Chinese scholars assess the country’s power, military strength accounted for less than 10 percent. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the CCP changed its criteria for evaluating strength and incorporated factors such as economy, overseas investment, technological innovation, and natural resources. Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower, Chapter 2.

The Chinese Communist Party’s Global Ambitions (Part II)

By the Epoch Times

Table of Contents

3. ‘Unrestricted Warfare’ With Chinese Communist Characteristics

a. The CCP Promotes Party Culture Worldwide

b. United Front Work Aims to Disintegrate the Free World From Within

c. Unrestricted Economic Warfare Is the CCP’s Heavy Weaponry

d. The CCP Uses the Masses for Espionage

e. Unrestricted Warfare Takes Many Forms

4. The ‘China Model’ and Its Destructive Impact

5. Lessons Learned and the Way Out

a. The Policy of Appeasement Was a Grave Mistake

b. Why Did the West Get China Wrong?

c. What Is the Way Out?

References

3. ‘Unrestricted Warfare’ With Chinese Communist Characteristics

In the process of realizing its global ambitions, the CCP recognizes no moral limitations and obeys no laws. As discussed in the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, the history of the CCP’s founding is a process of gradually perfecting the evilness found through history, both in China and around the world, including the Party’s nine inherited traits: “evil, deceit, incitement, unleashing the scum of society, espionage, robbery, fighting, elimination, and control.”[1] These traits are seen everywhere through the CCP’s process of global expansion, and the Party has continually enhanced and strengthened its techniques and their malignancy. The CCP’s “unrestricted warfare” is a concentrated expression of these evil traits and an important part of its success.

The idea of unrestricted warfare has always run through the CCP’s military practices. In 1999, two Chinese colonels officially used the term “unrestricted warfare” in their theoretical military work. As the name implies, unrestricted warfare has these characteristics: “a war beyond all boundaries and limits,” “forcing the enemy to accept one’s own interests by all means, including methods of force and non-force, military and non-military, killing and non-killing.” “The means are all-inclusive, information is omnipresent, the battlefield is everywhere” — “beyond all political, historical, cultural, and moral restraints.”[2]

Unrestricted warfare means that “all weapons and technologies can be used at will; it means that all the boundaries between the worlds of war and non-war, military and non-military are broken.” It utilizes methods that span nations and any particular sphere of activity. Finance, trade, the media, international law, outer space, and more are all potential battlefields. Weapons include hacking, terrorism, biochemical warfare, ecological warfare, atomic warfare, electronic warfare, drugs, intelligence, smuggling, psychological warfare, ideology, sanctions, and so on.[3]

The authors of Unrestricted Warfare believe that “the generalization of war” is the inevitable direction of the future and that every field must be militarized. They believe that a large number of nonmilitary personnel who do not wear military uniforms are the key to unrestricted warfare. The government must quickly prepare for combat in all invisible fields of war.[4]

Many people refer to various professional or social environments as “battlefields” by way of metaphor, but for the CCP, it means war in a very real sense. All fields are battlefields because the CCP is in a state of war at all times, and everyone is a combatant. All conflicts are regarded as struggles of life and death. Slight problems are magnified to be questions of principle or ideology, and the whole country is mobilized as if in war to meet the CCP’s goals.

In the 1940s, during the Chinese Civil War, the CCP used economic warfare to harm the economy of the Nationalist government (Kuomintang) of the Republic of China and make it collapse. The Party used espionage to obtain the Kuomintang’s military plans even before the KMT’s own troops received them, and used numerous conspiracies while communist armies fought on the battlefield. The CCP still uses these unrestricted means today, yet on an even larger and broader scale. Unrestricted warfare means breaking all conventional rules and moral restraints. This leaves most Westerners, Western governments, and companies unable to understand how the CCP acts, much less compete with it.

The CCP implements unrestricted warfare in numerous fields, using many seemingly mundane means to achieve its goals:

Exporting Party culture and lies to the world through foreign propaganda

Controlling global media and carrying out ideological unrestricted warfare

Using fame, honey traps, human relationships, bribery, and despotic power to unite the leaders of the United Nations, important political figures of various countries, experts in think tanks and academic circles, tycoons, and influential people from all walks of life to cultivate friendships to support the CCP and help it through crises

Supporting, inciting, and allying with rogue regimes to distract the United States and Western governments

Using trade diplomacy to make free countries compete against one another, with the market of more than one billion Chinese as bait

Deepening economic integration and interdependency to tie up other countries

Violating WTO trade rules

Making false reform commitments to accumulate trade surplus and foreign exchange reserves

Using the fruits of capitalism to fatten the body of socialism

Using the market, foreign exchange, and financial resources as weapons to suppress human rights through economic unrestricted warfare and to force other countries to abandon moral responsibility and universal values

Forcing Chinese working abroad in private enterprises to steal information from developed countries

Making hostages of China’s citizens and those of other countries

a. The CCP Promotes Party Culture Worldwide

When a branch of China’s state-run broadcaster was established in London, nearly six thousand people applied for ninety positions that required reporting news from China’s perspective. The CCP encountered an enviable problem: too many applicants.[5] People’s eagerness to work for the CCP’s mouthpiece reflects the decline of the Western media industry and the threat that the CCP’s foreign propaganda poses to the world.

The World’s Largest Propaganda Machine

Mao Zedong once demanded that Xinhua News Agency “control the earth and let the whole world hear our voices.”[6] The CCP is now able to achieve what it could not achieve in the past.

After the 2008 financial crisis, Western media faced their own financial and business crises. The CCP seized the opportunity to deploy its “great external propaganda” campaign. The People’s Daily, China Daily, Xinhua News Agency, China Central Television (CCTV), China Radio International (CRI), and other CCP mouthpieces set up newspaper boxes, radio stations, and television stations around the world.

Chang Ping, former news director of the major Chinese newspaper Southern Weekend, said that since 2009, the Chinese regime allocated 45 billion yuan (US$6.52 billion) to the “national strategy for external propaganda in public relations and publicity.” According to Chinese media sources, the 45 billion yuan was only a small part of the total expenditure that had been publicized.[7] BBC estimated in 2016 that the CCP spends $10 billion a year on propaganda.[8] In March 2018, the CCP integrated CCTV, CRI, and China National Radio to establish the China Media Group, also called Voice of China, led by the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. It has become the largest propaganda machine in the world.

Xinhua rented a giant billboard in Times Square in New York City to advertise the Communist Party. In 2016, the CCP changed the name of CCTV overseas to CGTN (China Global Television Network).

The CCP’s foreign propaganda attempts to advance with the times. Overseas stations implement a localization strategy, recruiting mainly local reporters and presenters. A photo of Xi Jinping’s video interview with CCTV stationed in the United States shows that 90 percent of the journalists are not Chinese.[9] The content of the programs is transferred from China to foreign countries, and the reporters are hired locally. China’s state-run media thus produces local packaging in the target country — using local faces and voices, but spouting the Communist Party’s thinking and conflating the CCP with China. It uses locals abroad to spread the CCP’s stories and the CCP’s voice — not China’s true stories and not the voice of the Chinese people.

This is the character of the CCP’s external propaganda push. The CCP also provides scholarships to younger generations of international journalists, including in the areas of food and education, so they can get trained or study in China, and at the same time be instilled with the CCP’s view of journalism.

Along with the economic colonization of Africa, CCP media has also reached all corners of Africa. The China-based television and media group StarTimes Media Group is now operating in thirty countries on the African continent and claims to be “the fastest growing and most influential digital TV operator in Africa.” A taxi driver in Uganda said, “More and more Africans understand Chinese society by watching contemporary Chinese TV dramas.”[10]

CCP propaganda has largely been unsuccessful due to a lack of credibility. However, making foreign media the spokesperson of the CCP’s media, ruthlessly attacking the media and individuals who criticize the CCP, and forcing everyone to support the CCP are all part of the recipe of the CCP’s external propaganda campaign.

Turning Media All Over the World Into Xinhua News Agency

In 2015, the foreign ministers of ten countries condemned the CCP for building artificial islands in the controversial South China Sea. At this time, a radio station in the Western suburbs of Washington, D.C., sounded a different note. Not only did it not mention the CCP’s reclamation activities, but it claimed that external forces had attempted to fabricate the facts and aggravate tensions in the South China Sea.[11] This station, called WCRW, voices a great deal of content expressing the position of the CCP — and curiously, it runs no advertising. Its only customer is a Los Angeles company, G&E Studio Inc., itself 60 percent controlled by China Radio International (CRI) in Beijing. G&E has at least fifteen similar stations running in the United States, covering not only Washington, D.C., but also Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Houston, Honolulu, Portland, and Vancouver, among others.

The Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece, China Radio International (CRI), relies on a local company registered under the name of a Chinese-American. With controlling shares, it uses local U.S. radio stations to promote CCP propaganda. The biggest benefit of this operation, and the apparent reason for it, is to conceal the role of the CCP. In order to maximally mislead the audience, listeners are made to feel that Americans themselves are expressing their support for the CCP.

In 2015, CRI ran thirty-three such stations in at least fourteen countries. By 2018, CRI had fifty-eight stations in thirty-five countries.[12] Because the control and operations are carried out through the use of local Chinese companies, it seems that democratic countries are helpless to do anything about the situation legally, although many people are unhappy with the Party’s hidden propaganda. The CCP’s external propaganda push has taken advantage of the loopholes in democratic societies. In the name of democracy, the CCP advocates for dictatorship and attempts to manipulate the audience into adopting its views by exploiting loopholes in the laws of free societies. Thus, in the name of democracy, it aims at destroying democracy.

The China Daily‘s inserts, which in Chinese are summed up with the phrase “making a voyage on a borrowed ship,” are another important part of the CCP’s external propaganda campaign. China Daily publishes a Chinese news insert in The Washington Post and uses a layout style that can give readers the impression that it’s The Washington Post’s content.[13] In addition to The Washington Post, the CCP has struck similar deals with over thirty newspapers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Telegraph, and Le Figaro. The word “advertising” on the insert is placed in an inconspicuous location, and readers can easily mistake the material for the newspapers’ own content.

On September 23, 2018, the China Daily also inserted four pages of advertisements that looked like ordinary news and commentary in the local Iowa newspaper Des Moines Register. The material attacked the U.S. president, and some called it an attempt to influence the midterm elections.[14]

The Communist Party excels in controlling overseas Chinese media. Through coercion and enticement, the CCP has recruited a large number of Chinese-language media, including some founded by Taiwanese with a previously strong tradition of anti-communism. The CCP-sponsored World Chinese Media Forum is used as a platform to communicate the party’s instructions to Chinese media around the world. On September 10, 2017, the Ninth World Chinese Media Forum was held in Fuzhou. More than 460 overseas Chinese media executives from over sixty countries and regions on five continents attended the meeting.

An example of the impact of this media-control work can be found in the reporting of a California-based Chinese-language media outlet that amplifies CCP propaganda in the Western press. During the CCP’s Nineteenth National Congress, this media outlet’s lengthy reports were almost identical to those published by official Party media.[15]

During the Umbrella Movement protests in Hong Kong in 2014, the Overseas Chinese Media Association controlled by the CCP, with more than 160 media members, urgently organized 142 pro-China media outlets in Asia, Europe, Africa, the United States, and Australia to publish the “Safeguarding Hong Kong Declaration” supporting the CCP’s perspective. The extent and efficacy of the regime’s media penetration overseas has surprised the outside world.[16]

Suppressing opposing voices is another aspect of CCP overseas propaganda operations. The Party threatens journalists who expose them with visa denials and other forms of harassment, leading them to self-censor. The result is that there are few global media corporations that take a completely independent stance on the CCP without regard to consequences imposed by the regime.

There are several ways a scoundrel might make others view him in a more positive light. One way would be to start from within, abandon evil, become good, and stop being a scoundrel. Other people would then over time naturally come to recognize the transformation. The second way would be to begin exerting pressure on others, trying to brainwash them into not recognizing the scoundrel for what he is. Finally, a scoundrel might even mount the most audacious plan, and attempt to use manipulation, lies, gaslighting, and brainwashing to turn everyone else into scoundrels too. This would offer the greatest protection.

The CCP has used both the second and third methods simultaneously over decades. It employs a variety of large-scale propaganda activities to target foreigners, changing the minds of people to make them think that the CCP is no scoundrel at all. In some cases it’s even able to pull them into the mire, turning them into scoundrels along with the Party. Through extensive investments and shrewd operations, the Party has now established a worldwide system for creating alliances, isolating enemies, and turning neutrals into sympathizers or scoundrels.

Brainwashing Through Culture, Literature, and Art

Cultural brainwashing is an important tool for the CCP’s destruction of traditional Chinese culture. In recent years, the Party has advertised its commitment to restoring traditional culture, but as discussed in previous chapters of this book, this wave of supposed restoration of traditional culture has in fact left out the soul of tradition, replacing it with a fake version infused with deviant Party culture. This has not only deceived the world, but has also further devastated traditional culture.

On top of that, in order to further influence the world, one of the key elements of the Party’s external propaganda is to export so-called traditional Chinese culture as defined by the CCP, and to use traditional Chinese customs and practices to whitewash the CCP. This is another form of perception manipulation, or brainwashing. A typical example of this project is the Confucius Institute.

According to incomplete statistics, as of the end of 2017, the CCP had established 525 Confucius Institutes (targeting colleges and universities) in 146 countries and opened 1,113 Confucius Classrooms (targeting elementary and secondary schools).[17] The Confucius Institute’s funds come from Hanban, which is affiliated with the CCP’s United Front Work Department. The use of funds is supervised by personnel from the CCP’s embassies and consulates. Confucius Institutes subvert important academic principles of autonomy and freedom of inquiry, aim to promote the CCP’s version of events, distort the history of China, and omit the CCP’s appalling human rights record. In some Confucius Institute classrooms, quotations of Mao Zedong are hung on the wall. On the surface, Confucius Institutes claim to teach Chinese culture, but in fact they promote communist doctrine and transmit Party culture.

In addition to offering cultural and language courses, Confucius Institutes also distort history and even organize protests against activities the CCP believes threaten its rule. For example, speakers have been invited who repeated CCP lies about Tibet. Others claimed the Korean War was triggered because the U.S.military bombed Chinese villages, and that the Party was forced to send troops.[18

The U.S. Government’s National Defense Authorization Act of 2019, adopted in 2018, includes a strongly worded condemnation of the CCP’s attempts to influence U.S. public opinion, especially “media, cultural institutions, businesses, and academic and political groups.” The Act explicitly prohibits any National Defense funds from being given to Chinese-language departments in U.S. universities where there is a Confucius Institute.[19]

From September to October 2011, Chinese authorities dispatched a song-and-dance troupe of three hundred performers to the Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C., where the CCP staged its violent communist dance-drama Red Detachment of Women. In September 2016, in Los Angeles, a high-profile concert was held to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the victory of the Red Army’s Long March. At the same time, in Australia, the performance Red Songs Concert to Commemorate the 40th Anniversary of Mao Zedong’s Death was held at the Sydney and Melbourne city halls. Local Chinese organizations in Australia protested and were finally able to stop the show. In 2017, the CCP sent the Red Detachment of Women performance to Australia, and in 2018, staged another violent communist dance-drama, Red Guards on Honghu Lake, in Sydney and Melbourne.

When it comes to information warfare, the CCP’s totalitarian regime occupies the high ground compared to democratic regimes: The Party blocks media from all democratic countries, but is able to insert its state-run media in democratic societies. The CCP prevents media from democratic countries from adding inserts to its media, but the CCP can insert its own content into the media from democratic societies, or it simply acquires them when convenient. CCP media serve the Party first and foremost, and Western journalists will never have executive roles. The CCP can, however, send its own undercover people into Western media or train foreigners into being mouthpiece reporters for the Party’s media. As long as the West still regards the CCP media as legitimate, the West will continue to lose in the information war. In 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice ordered Xinhua News Agency and China Global TV Network to register as foreign agents in the United States. It was a correct step, but is still far from sufficient — the problem is the lack of reciprocity in the first place.

The CCP’s foreign propaganda campaign is a major project aimed at globally reshaping the public’s views on the regime, and has met with some results. The CCP spreads its noxious ideology through this propaganda work, and has severely mislead people about the regime, its mode of operations, China’s human rights situation, and views on communism in general.

b. United Front Work Aims to Disintegrate the Free World From Within

On December 18, 2018, the CCP celebrated the fortieth anniversary of so-called reform and opening-up. It awarded the China Reform Friendship Medal to ten foreigners in an attempt to “thank the international community for supporting China’s reform.” These ten foreigners included Juan Antonio Samaranch, former president of the IOC, which granted China the right to host the 2008 Summer Olympics; and Robert Lawrence Kuhn, an American businessman who lent his name as author of a fawning biography of the former head of the CCP, Jiang Zemin. In fact, over the past few decades, countless politicians and celebrities have helped the CCP by playing different roles, depending on their motivations. Unfortunately, all have become victims of the CCP’s united-front tactics and thus accomplices.

In order to advance its goal of ultimately dominating the world, the CCP adopts any means necessary. This is a key part of the “united front” concept. Mao labeled the united front as one of the CCP’s “three magic treasures.” The civil war-era Kuomintang government was deceived by these tactics and suffered great losses as a result.. Today’s Western governments have also been deceived and suffered losses. The good news is that Western society is beginning to wake up, and a number of investigative reports about the united front have recently been published.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), a Congressional commission, issued a report titled China’s Overseas United Front Work on Aug. 24, 2018, outlining the CCP’s overseas united front work structure and operations, including how the CCP uses various types of governmental and non-governmental organizations for its united-front work and what the implications have been to the United States and other Western countries. In recent years, the CCP has emphasized the importance of its united front work. The report states, “This elevation of the importance of United Front work has resulted in an increased number of UFWD officials assigned to top CCP and government posts, adding roughly 40,000 new UFWD cadres.”[20]

Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI), a think tank in Europe, published a report in 2018 detailing the activities of CCP’s united front in Europe.[21] On Nov. 29, 2018, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University also released a detailed report on the same topic. The report states: “China’s influence activities have moved beyond their traditional United Front focus on diaspora communities to target a far broader range of sectors in Western societies, ranging from think tanks, universities, and media to state, local, and national government institutions. China seeks to promote views sympathetic to the Chinese Government, policies, society, and culture; suppress alternative views; and co-opt key American players to support China’s foreign policy goals and economic interests.”[22]

The CCP’s united front primarily targets the following actors in the West:

Bribing Politicians and Businesspeople

The USCC report says the CCP regards its united front work as an important tool to strengthen domestic and international support for the Party. This includes buying off Western politicians. Through persuasion, temptation, and relationship-building, the CCP maintains close ties with many high-level officials in Western governments. These politicians are treated as the PRC’s “state treasures,” given lavish gifts, and conferred titles such as “old friends of China.” Among them are current and former United Nations secretary generals, heads of states, high-ranking government officials, members of Congress, senior government advisers, heads of international organizations, famous academics and think-tank scholars, and media consortium tycoons. All these people in the united front network are expected to voice their support for the CCP at crucial moments.

Patrick Ho Chi-ping, a former Hong Kong secretary for Home Affairs, was indicted in the United States for bribery in December 2018. Ho had close ties to the CCP, and bribed high-ranking officials in two African nations on behalf of Chinese energy corporations in order to obtain mining rights. Ho also bribed two U.N. secretary generals, through whom the CCP was able to establish close ties to high-ranking officials in other nations.[23]

U.S. court papers also document the corruption and espionage carried out by Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE. Two high-ranking telecom officials in Liberia testified that between 2005 and 2007, ZTE heavily bribed numerous officials in that country, including the president, government officials, and judges.

The CCP uses money and women to entrap political leaders and then use them as pawns for the regime’s ends. In a memorandum following the November 2014 midterm U.S. elections, CEFC, a CCP-linked company, outlined a plan to establish relationships and friendships with politicians. Ye Jianming, the now-disgraced chairman of CEFC China Energy Company Limited, has strong ties with European political leaders. He once asked a security advisor for a U.S. president whether he could persuade the U.S. army not to bomb Syria because he wanted to buy up oil fields there. Ye also boasted connections to senior officials at the Federal Reserve and the United Nations, as well as family members of U.S. government officials.[24]

When deemed necessary, the CCP can form various temporary united fronts to isolate its enemies. For instance, the CCP has used the votes of developing nations whose officials it previously suborned to pass or block motions at the United Nations. Via proxies, it has disrupted U.S. efforts to stabilize the Middle East. In the meantime, it has been able to forge new economic alliances. In the recent U.S.-China trade war, the CCP sought to sow conflict between the United States and Europe with the aim of using the latter as part of another united front against the United States

Local politicians are also targets of the CCP’s united front work. These include community leaders, city council members, mayors, state senators, and others. The usual approach is to donate to local politicians through Chinese organizations or merchants, who are invited to visit China where they receive bribes. Their family businesses gets special treatment in China, and even their assistants are bribed. Cases of sexual entrapment, often involving blackmail, are known as “honey traps,” and the CCP is thought to use this tactic often.

Chen Yonglin, former officer at the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, who defected in 2005 to Australia, told The Epoch Times that the CCP’s United Front Work Department had infiltrated the Australian government and corrupted officials. Chen said: “The amount of private bribery for the officials far surpassed political donations. Especially those higher-ranking officials; the bribes were huge. … Another aspect of bribery is the all-expenses paid trips to China, where officials are treated as kings. This includes prostitution paid for by Chinese companies. Many officials changed their stances after returning from China.”[25]

With its strong financial backing, the CCP has paid communist and leftist politicians around the world to become its agents in those nations in order to further spread communist ideology.

The CCP uses the same tactics on those in the financial sector and a number of industries. Business people and entrepreneurs are treated as kings and given business incentives. In return, they become the CCP’s voice for lobbying the government and influencing the country’s financial and economic policies. In the U.S.-China trade war, the CCP has had frequent contact with Wall Street tycoons. Many top financial companies and international corporations do business in China. In order to expand their business there, they hired numerous children of high-ranking Chinese officials, called “princelings,” and the latter are the Party’s eyes, ears, and voice in such companies.

Infiltrating Academic Circles and Think Tanks

Many think tanks in the West directly shape the country’s policy and strategy toward China; therefore, the CCP pays special attention to them. The report by the Hoover Institute states that the CCP pays attention to perspectives of both political parties in the United States and creates topics that are beneficial to the CCP. The CCP exerts control over think tanks via financial sponsorship. It has bribed, controlled, or influenced almost all think tanks related to China.[26]

The Washington Post reports that some Chinese companies control American think tanks. For example, the Chinese tech giant Huawei not only poses a security threat to the United States, but also tries to influence think tanks in Washington, D.C., by providing them with financial support.[27]

Huawei also sponsors over twenty universities in the U.K., including Cambridge University and Oxford University. Professor Anthony Glees, a British expert in national security, said: “This is about the electronic agenda being driven by the injection of Chinese money into British universities. That is a national security issue.”[28] Huawei, through the Seeds for the Future program, attracted a large number of young talented engineers — a classic communist subversion tactic.

The CCP buys overseas scholars, especially China scholars, with money, status, and fame. Some such scholars then closely follow the CCP’s rhetoric, publishing books and articles to explain the CCP’s “peaceful rise,” the concepts of the “China dream” or the “China model.” The viewpoints of these scholars then indirectly influence the China policies of Western governments — precisely the CCP’s goal.

To make things worse, over the past several decades, Western humanities scholars and sociologists have been heavily influenced by strains of communist ideology. With a small amount of CCP influence, they can go from merely supporting leftist ideology to actually embracing communism.

Coercing and Using Overseas Chinese Leaders, Businessmen, and Students

The CCP has successfully exploited the patriotism of overseas Chinese students to create sympathy for CCP policies and ideology. To gain the support of overseas Chinese, the CCP provides them with financial support. It frequently uses the phrase “the love for one’s homeland, the friendship of kin” as part of its deliberate conflation of China and the CCP in order to deceive overseas Chinese. The Party also uses an extensive overseas network of organizations, supporters, and spies to marginalize and attack its opponents.

The CCP uses various pretexts to invite overseas Chinese to do business and invest in China. It gives overseas Chinese leaders special treatment when visiting the country, arranges overseas pro-CCP figures to meet with high-ranking officials, and has them all attend PRC national-day celebrations.

Zach Dorfman, senior fellow at Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, published a long investigative report in Politico revealing Chinese and Russian espionage activities in Silicon Valley, with particular focus on Chinese actors.[29] The report examined Rose Pak, the San Francisco Chinese powerbroker, as an example. It noted that the CCP used Pak to have the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco marginalize Falun Gong, Tibetan, pro-Taiwanese, and Uyghur groups, preventing them from participating in the Chinese New Year parade.

The USCC report also exposed how Chinese Student and Scholar Associations (CSSA) are controlled by the CCP. On their own website, some CSSA branches directly state that they were established by the local Chinese consulate or are its subsidiaries,[30] while in other cases, the control is carried out clandestinely. These organizations receive orders from the Chinese consulates, preventing any dissonant voices from being aired. Consulate officials harass, intimidate, and monitor students who dissent from the CCP line.

CSSAs and those affiliated with them sometimes even conduct industrial and economic espionage. In 2005, France’s Le Monde reported that the CSSA at the University of Leuven, Belgium, was the CCP’s front-line spy group in the country. Sometimes such networks consist of several hundred spies working in various companies in Europe.[31]

Infiltrating and Influencing the Movie and Entertainment Industries

In recent years, the CCP has increased efforts at infiltrating the U.S. entertainment industry. In 2012, Wanda Group spent US$2.6 billion to acquire AMC, the second-largest theater chain in the United States. Since then, it has acquired Legendary Entertainment for $3.5 billion, and Carmike, the fourth-largest theater chain in the United States, for $1.1 billion.[32] In 2016, Ali Pictures acquired a stake in Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners, and will place a representative on the Amblin Partners board of directors to participate in major decision-making there.[33]

One of the CCP’s main goals in infiltrating the entertainment industry is to have the world follow the CCP’s script — painting a positive image of the CCP and China’s so-called peaceful rise to conceal the regime’s tyrannical ambitions. At the same time, this image covers up how the exportation of Party culture has corrupted the world. From 1997 to 2013, China invested in only twelve Hollywood films out of the top one hundred highest-grossing movies. But in the ensuing five years, China invested in forty-one of Hollywood’s most popular movies.[34]

Hollywood covets China’s rapidly growing movie market, and executives are well- aware that they’ll be excluded from it if they fail to toe the Party line. Thus, they set about ensuring they are in compliance with Chinese censorship.[35] American movie stars who’ve taken a stand on the CCP are blocked from entering the country, or their films are excluded from the Chinese market. Hollywood star Richard Gere’s clear expression of his position on Tibet, for instance, not only led to his being denied access to China, but also limited his own career even in the United States. In order not to offend or provoke the CCP, film producers have declined to invest in his films.[36] Other movie stars have been blacklisted for other transgressions.

Intimidating Overseas Dissidents

The CCP has used intimidation and incentives to influence Western scholars, especially China experts who are critical of the CCP. This has led many to willingly self-censor. Intimidation includes refusal to issue visas, which has the greatest impact on young scholars. For the sake of professional development, many voluntarily avoid human rights, Tibet issues, and other sensitive topics that might attract the Party’s ire.

Perry Link, a professor of East Asian Studies, was put on the blacklist for his scholarship on the Tiananmen Square massacre, which put the communist regime in an unfavorable light. His treatment subsequently turned into a lesson for young scholars as to what not to do.[37]

In October 2017, Benedict Rogers, deputy chairman of the British Conservative Party’s Human Rights Commission and supporter of the Hong Kong Democratic Movement, went to Hong Kong for personal activities but was refused entry and repatriated at the Hong Kong airport.[38]

The aforementioned report by the USCC also said that Chinese intelligence agents attempt to recruit ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs living abroad, to act as spies. Refusal may lead to persecution of their family in China. Uyghurs who have been threatened state that the purpose of such threats is not only to collect information about the Uyghur diaspora, but also to create discord and prevent them from effectively opposing the CCP.[39]

c. Unrestricted Economic Warfare Is the CCP’s Heavy Weaponry

If external foreign propaganda, perception-management, and united front work are the Party’s forms of soft power, then its high-tech industry must become the Party’s hard power. In the 1950s, the CCP’s slogan was to “surpass the United Kingdom and catch up with the United States” — but it was a farce. Today, however, the same strategy has become a legitimate threat.

Since the 1980s, the CCP has implemented a series of strategic plans in science and technology, including the 863 Program (the National High-Tech R&D Program), Program 973 (National Program on Key Basic Research Projects), and Made in China 2025 (to transform China from a manufacturing country to a manufacturing power by 2025, taking the lead in big data, 5G, and the like). The strategy includes ambitious plans for artificial intelligence, in which China aims to be a world leader by 2030. The purpose is to upgrade China’s status as the world factory to an advanced manufacturing giant, thereby attaining global supremacy.

It’s not wrong for a nation to pursue industrial development. For a country to use state power to allocate resources to research and development in key industries is also legitimate. Why, then, is the CCP’s high-tech development strategy a threat to the West?

The most fundamental reason is that China under the Chinese communist regime is not a normal country. The purpose of the regime’s technological development is not so it can join the ranks of the world’s other high-tech countries or compete on equal footing with them. Its purpose is to use any means to eliminate opponents and take down Western economies — especially that of the United States — and thus be one step closer to dominating the world. The CCP’s development of its scientific and technological strength is for serving its communist ideology, and ultimately for having communism rule the world.

Technological innovation is the fruit of individual liberty in a capitalist society, which is in natural conflict with the totalitarian rule of communism. Researchers in mainland China are deprived of the freedom to use foreign search engines, let alone express their freedom in other ways. Thus it’s indeed difficult to make real breakthroughs in scientific and technological innovation given the CCP’s restrictions on thought and access to information.

To make up for this, the Party has used various underhanded means to steal Western technology and win over cutting-edge talent, and has also used unfair and extraordinary measures to undermine Western industry. The CCP has stolen technologies the West has spent decades and vast sums of money to develop. It assimilates and improves upon the stolen intellectual properties and then simply mass-produces them at little cost and dumps the products on the world, debilitating private Western enterprises and economies. Thus, the regime has been using its techniques of unrestricted warfare in its technological competition with the West.

The Trap of Trading Technology for Market Access

In recent years, China’s high-speed rail network has become almost like a business card for the country’s high-end manufacturing prowess, and the idea of “high-speed rail diplomacy” has developed. Chinese state media has called China’s work in this area legendary, given the short developmental period of only around ten years. But to Western companies, China’s high-speed rail buildup has been a nightmare of technology theft, endless traps, and what ultimately became small gains for huge losses.

Work on China’s high-speed rail project began in the early 1990s. By the end of 2005, the authorities abandoned the idea of developing the technology independently and turned to Western technology. The CCP’s goal was clear from the beginning: It planned to first acquire the technology, then manufacture it, and finally sell the same technology more cheaply on the global market.

The Chinese side requires that foreign manufacturers sign a technology-transfer contract with a Chinese domestic firm before bidding on construction contracts, or else they’re not allowed to enter bids. The Chinese authorities also established formal internal assessments called “technology-transfer-implementation evaluations,” which focus not on how well foreign businesses teach their systems, but on how well domestic companies learn them. If domestic enterprises don’t learn the technology, China doesn’t pay. The authorities also required that by the last batch of orders, local companies must produce 70 percent of the orders.[40]

Because foreign companies felt China’s market was an opportunity not be missed, such terms didn’t prevent them from signing on. Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries, France’s Alstom, Germany’s Siemens, and Canada’s Bombardier all submitted bids. Despite the promise of market access in exchange for technology transfer, no Western company was willing to transfer its core, most-valued technology. However, the CCP continued to play games with several of the companies in the hopes that at least one would relent and give up something of real value for the benefit of short-term interests. Sure enough, when it appeared that one company would get a chunk of the Chinese market in exchange for technology, the others began to fear being left out. Thus, several of them fell into the CCP’s trap, with the result that China was able to extract key technology from the above four high-speed rail companies.

The Chinese government has invested huge sums in the project, acting regardless of cost. China’s high-speed rail network subsequently entered a period of exponential development as Chinese firms built out the world’s most extensive high-speed rail system by mileage. In a few years, China rapidly assimilated Western technology, which was then turned into “independent intellectual property rights.” What really shocked Western companies was when China then began applying for high-speed rail patents abroad, with Chinese firms becoming fierce competitors against their former teachers on the international market. Because Chinese companies have accumulated a great deal of practical experience in this realm, and are afforded all the industrial advantages brought by large-scale production capacity and massive state financial backing, China’s high-speed rail industry possesses a competitive advantage against peers. It has become a key element of the Party’s One Belt, One Road project.

While foreign companies once dreamed of getting their share of the huge market for high-speed rail in China, they found instead that not only were they squeezed out of that market, but they also had created a tough international competitor. Yoshiyuki Kasai, an honorary chairman of the Central Japan Railway Company, said with distress: “The Shinkansen [Japanese bullet train] is the jewel of Japan. The technology transfer to China was a huge mistake.”[41]

The CCP itself acknowledges that China’s success in high-speed rail was achieved by standing on the shoulders of giants. Indeed, its purpose from the beginning was to slay all other giants. The CCP has an explicit dual purpose: Its short-term goal is to use economic achievements to prove the legitimacy of its regime and to make economic and technological progress to maintain and excite nationalist sentiment and propaganda. But its long-term purpose is to prove that its communist system is superior to the capitalist system, so it unscrupulously steals technology and turns the power of the entire country to competing with capitalist free enterprise.

China’s tactics of promising market access in exchange for technology, coercing tech transfers, absorbing and improving foreign technology, having its own firms practice in the domestic market before advancing to the world, and dumping products globally to undercut competitors, have led Western companies to suffer immensely. Now some are beginning to reflect. Others, however, are drawn like a moth to a flame and are still willing to do business with the CCP for their immediate benefits. The CCP’s ambitions to acquire Western technology have never abated, and the Made in China 2025 program is the embodiment of this ambition.

In 2015, the Chinese government proposed the ten-year Made in China 2025 project, envisioning that by 2025, China would have transformed from a big manufacturing country to a manufacturing power, and that by 2035, the country’s manufacturing industry would surpass that of industrially advanced countries like Germany and Japan. By 2049, the CCP hopes it will lead innovation in key manufacturing sectors as global leaders in key technologies and industries. Using lofty words, the CCP regime has raised the status of its manufacturing sector to “the foundation of the nation” and “the instrument for rejuvenating the country.”

A Manufacturing Superpower Built on Theft

How did China boost its manufacturing and innovative potential in such a short period of time? It used the same old tricks: First, it coerced companies to transfer their technologies, as in the case with high-speed rail. Many Western corporations are willing to provide technology in exchange for access to the Chinese market, training their future competitors at the same time. Second, China demands the companies form joint ventures with its own firms, and supports Chinese companies and universities in collaborating with high-tech companies, so they can acquire such technologies. Third, the regime encourages its domestic firms to make acquisitions of overseas high-tech companies, directly investing in startups with key technologies, and establishing overseas research-and-development centers. Fourth, it induces leading foreign tech and scientific research institutes to set up R&D centers in China. Fifth, it uses targeted policies to bring in foreign technology experts.

Many startups in Silicon Valley need capital. China uses taxpayer money to invest in them in order to get its hands on new technologies, including rocket engines, sensors for autonomous navy ships, and 3D printers that manufacture flexible screens that could be used in fighter-plane cockpits.[42] Ken Wilcox, chairman emeritus of Silicon Valley Bank, said in 2017 that within a six-month period, he was approached by three different Chinese state-owned enterprises about acting as their agent to buy technology on their behalf. Though he declined, he said: “In all three cases, they said they had a mandate from Beijing, and they had no idea what they wanted to buy. It was just any and all tech.”[43]

In November 2018, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) published the findings of a Section 301 investigation. The report says that Danhua Capital (currently Digital Horizon Capital) uses China’s venture capital to help the Chinese government gain top technologies and intellectual property in the United States.[44]

The above report by the U.S. government is open for the public to see. The killer weapon that China uses to realize its technological leap forward is the blatant theft of Western technology. China’s aptitude for industrial espionage far exceeds the scope of commercial spies in the past. In order to steal technology and secrets from the West, the regime mobilizes all available personnel and tactics — including espionage, hackers, international students, visiting scholars, Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants working in Western companies, and Westerners lured by monetary interests..

The CCP has always coveted the US F-35 stealth fighter jet. A Canadian permanent citizen, Su Bin from China, was sentenced to five years in prison for stealing F-35 secrets in 2016. Su worked with two hackers from the Chinese military, penetrating the computer systems of Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer, and exfiltrating secrets. The group also stole secrets related to the F-22 stealth fighter. Investigation found that Su’s group had also stolen secrets about Boeing’s C-17 strategic transport aircraft, and 630,000 files from Boeing’s system, totalling some 65 gigabytes of data.[45] The PLA’s own J-20 stealth fighter exhibited in recent years is now very similar to the American F-22, and the smaller Chinese FC-31 is an imitation of Lockheed’s F-35.

Dr. David Smith, a Duke University metamaterials expert, invented a kind of invisibility cloak, an important material for stealth fighters, and the U.S. military invested millions in support of his research. In 2006, Chinese student Liu Ruopeng came to Smith’s lab. In the view of an FBI counterintelligence official, Liu had a specific mission — to obtain the secrets. In 2007, Liu took two former colleagues traveling at Chinese government expense to Smith’s lab, and worked on the invisibility cloak for a period of time. To Smith’s surprise, the same laboratory was later duplicated in China.[46]

On December 20, 2018, the Department of Justice sued two Chinese citizens from the Chinese hacker organization APT 10, which has close ties with the CCP. According to the indictment, from 2006 to 2018, APT 10 carried out extensive hacking attacks, stealing massive amounts of information from more than forty-five organizations, including NASA and the Department of Energy. The information stolen involves medicines, biotechnology, finance, manufacturing, petroleum, and natural gas. The then-FBI Director Christopher Wray remarked: “China’s goal, simply put, is to replace the U.S. as the world’s leading superpower, and they’re using illegal methods to get there. They’re using an expanding set of non-traditional and illegal methods.”[47]

China’s theft of technology and patents is hard to combat and prevent. Kathleen Puckett, a former U.S. counterintelligence officer in San Francisco, said that China puts all its efforts into espionage and gets everything for free.[48]

China moralized, rationalized, normalized, and militarized its stealing spree. It launched a “war against everyone” to loot advanced technology from the West, using patriotism, racial sentiments, money, and prestige. Such appalling conduct is unprecedented historically.

Some have defended China’s activities by arguing that the theft can’t amount to all that much, since by stealing a bit here and there, Chinese firms don’t get the full picture of how technology is deployed and scaled. But it’s very dangerous to look at Chinese industrial espionage this way. Espionage in the electronic age is completely different from that in decades past, in which spies would take a few photos. China steals entire databases of technologies, and in many cases, scoops up not only the technology, but also the experts. With the power of the world factory that China has developed for decades and the R&D potential it has accumulated, the regime is truly able and willing to build a manufacturing superpower based on theft — and it is on course to do so.

The Thousand Talents Program: Espionage and Talent Attraction

From when China opened up in the 1970s until now, millions of Chinese students have studied overseas and have achieved great things. China seeks to recruit and use these talented individuals, invested in and trained by the West, to directly bring back to China the technology and economic information they’ve acquired. This aids the CCP’s ambitions in gaining global supremacy. Since 2008, multiple departments in China have initiated the Thousand Talents Program. On the surface, it’s about recruiting top Chinese talent overseas to return to China for full- or short-term positions. But the real goal behind the program is for state industry to get its hands on new technology and intellectual property from the West.

The FBI released a declassified document about these Chinese talent programs in September 2015. It concludes that recruiting target individuals can allow China to profit in three ways: gaining access to research and expertise in cutting-edge technology, benefiting from years of scientific research conducted in the United States and supported by U.S. government grants and private funding, and severely impacting the U.S. economy.[49]

The National Institute of Health released a report on the Chinese talent programs on December 13, 2018, noting that foreign nationals transferred U.S. intellectual property to their native countries while on the U.S. government payroll. Their actions have unfairly impacted all

U.S. academic institutions.[50] M. Roy Wilson, one of the authors of the report and co-chair of the NIH Advisory Committee, said that a key qualification of becoming part of the Thousand Talents Program is having access to valuable intellectual property. He said that the problem was significant, not random, and that the severity of the intellectual property losses was impossible to ignore.[51]

Peter Harrell, adjunct senior fellow in the energy, economics, and security program at the Center for a New American Security, said: “China is pursuing a whole-of-society approach to its technological capabilities. That includes purchasing innovative companies through overseas investments, requiring Western companies to transfer cutting-edge technologies to China as a condition of market access, providing vast state resources to finance domestic technological development, financing training for top Chinese students and researchers overseas, and paying a hefty premium to attract talent back to China.”[52]

The Thousand Talents Program includes as its targets almost all Chinese students who have come to the United States since the 1980s and who find themselves with access to useful information for the regime’s industrial, technological, and economic development — potentially tens of thousands of individuals. The CCP is mobilizing the capacity of the entire country and population to conduct unrestricted warfare in its recruitment of talent and intellectual properties.

A Sinister, Total National System

In addition to outright stealing, China’s state support and subsidies are also an important means for the CCP to accomplish its ambitions. State support means that the regime can use huge sums of money to support key industries. Effectively, this is about using China’s national power to exert pressure on private businesses in the West. This poses an enormous, unique challenge to countries where leaders are democratically elected and leave business decisions to businesses themselves. It can be said that Western companies have lost before the game has even begun. China’s subsidies — ultimately taken out of the pocket of the unconsenting taxpayer — mean that Chinese manufacturers can ignore the real costs, making them unstoppable predators in international markets.

The solar cell industry is a classic example of the Chinese regime’s subsidies. Ten years ago, there were no Chinese companies among the top ten solar-cell manufacturers, but now there are six from China, including the top two. The green energy industry was heavily promoted during President Obama’s first term, but before long, dozens of solar-panel makers were filing for bankruptcy or had to cut back their businesses in the face of unrelenting competition from China, which undermined the enthusiasm for clean energy at the time.[53] The damage was caused by China’s dumping products on the world market, which was enabled by the regime’s subsidies for its domestic solar industry.

In Western countries, states also fund key projects, including those on the cutting edge of technological development. The prototype of the internet, for instance, was first developed by the U.S. Department of Defense. However, in the West, government participation at the national level is limited. Once a technology is commercialized, private companies are free to act as they will. For example, NASA disseminated its advanced research results to industry through its Technology Transfer Program. Many of its software projects simply put their source code on the Web as open source. In contrast, the CCP directly uses the power of the state to commercialize high-tech, which is equivalent to using a “China Inc.” to compete against individual Western firms.

The Made in China 2025 project is, of course, inseparable from state subsidies and state industrial planning. If the CCP continues on its current track, the story of the solar panels will play out again in other industries, and Chinese products will become global job-killers. Through unrestricted economic and technological warfare, the CCP has successfully led many Western companies, including multinational corporations, into a trap. They handed over capital and advanced technology, but weren’t able to compete fairly in the Chinese market, and instead helped create their own state-backed competitors. The CCP used them as pawns to achieve its ambitions.

d. The CCP Uses the Masses for Espionage

The CCP regards information as simply another weapon in its arsenal. Regardless of the field, whether pertaining to the state, private enterprise, or individual endeavors, all forms of information are seen as fair game for the fulfillment of the regime’s strategic ambitions.

The CCP has also used legislation to force all Chinese people into participating in its unrestricted warfare. The National Intelligence Law of the People’s Republic of China, passed by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, clearly states that “national intelligence agencies may require relevant agencies, organizations,,and citizens to provide necessary support, assistance and cooperation.”[54] This means that any Chinese citizen can be coerced by the CCP to collect intelligence and become a spy. This form of intelligence collection has never been seen before.

On December 12, 2018, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing about the CCP’s “non-traditional espionage activities.” Bill Priestap, deputy director of the FBI counterintelligence department, revealed the characteristics of these activities: They sometimes play by the rules when it’s to their advantage, while at other times, they bend and break the rules to achieve their goals. When capable, they also try to rewrite the rules and reshape the world according to their own requirements.

John Demers, assistant attorney general of the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, testified that the CCP’s Made in China 2025 plan, while on the surface aimed at improving innovation, is essentially a handbook for what to steal. He disclosed that from 2011 to 2018, over 90 percent of the cases of economic espionage allegedly involving or benefiting a country were related to China (that is, the CCP), and that over two-thirds of the trade-secret theft cases are connected to China (again, meaning the CCP).[55]

In the previous section, we discussed the CCP’s hacking companies and inducing personnel to steal Western intellectual property. In fact, the CCP’s espionage is far from limited to intellectual property.

The CCP controls all major private companies in China and uses these nominal “private enterprises” for international intelligence gathering. Ted Cruz, the U.S. senator from Texas, said Huawei was a “Communist Party spy agency thinly veiled as a telecom company.” “Its surveillance networks span the globe and its clients are rogue regimes such as Iran, Syria, North Korea, and Cuba. The arrest of Huawei’s CFO Wanzhou Meng in Canada is both an opportunity and a challenge,” he wrote.[56]

According to a survey released in January 2018 by the French newspaper Le Monde, confidential information from the African Union (AU) headquarters in Ethiopia was sent to Shanghai every night for five years. The CCP was accused of being behind the hack. A report released by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) on July 13 revealed that Huawei is a provider of some network-technology infrastructure at the AU headquarters building.[57]

André Ken Jakobsson, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Military Studies in Copenhagen, said: “What is worrying is that the CCP can get very critical and sensitive information. They can enter a system that controls our entire society. Everything will be connected to the 5G network in the future. We are worried that the country that provides such equipment — China [the CCP] — controls the switch.”[58]

In China, the CCP uses cameras, computer networks, and artificial intelligence equipped with face-recognition technology to create a ubiquitous monitoring network. If it is not stopped, the situation prevailing in China today is likely to spread around the world tomorrow.

At the same time, the CCP has used hackers on a large scale. As early as 1999, the CCP’s hackers disguised themselves as a Falun Gong overseas website and attacked the U.S. Department of Transportation. The Department contacted the Falun Gong website to clarify the facts. Then the relevant personnel traced back and found that the real hacker came from an intelligence agency run by the Party.[59]

In June 2015, the U.S. federal government was invaded by CCP hackers who stole a large amount of confidential information — the information of more than 21.5 million Americans. Affected people included 19.7 million government employees and 1.8 million family members of these government employees.

In November 2018, Marriott International announced that private information, including passports, of up to 500 million guests was attacked by hackers, dating back to 2014. U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo confirmed on December 12 that the hacking was carried out by the CCP. Marriott is the largest hotel supplier to the U.S. government and military.

e. Unrestricted Warfare Takes Many Forms

The CCP also fully utilizes other unrestricted warfare methods. A few major areas are listed below.

Diplomatic Unrestricted Warfare

The CCP’s typical diplomatic method is to divide and conquer. When the world criticizes the CCP for its human rights abuses, the CCP invites each country to discuss human rights separately. While many counties have discussed human rights issues with the CCP in private, doing so has no restraining effect on the Party. It simply delays and argues with the various countries individually, but never makes any substantial changes. Moreover, it has virtually disintegrated the international norms that safeguard human rights. The CCP used this method to escape condemnations and sanctions, and then immediately joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). Right away, it started to use economic means to tempt various countries, and then again used divide-and-conquer to achieve large-scale breakthroughs in various areas.

The CCP also uses rogue tactics of hostage diplomacy to arrest and and threaten both Chinese and non-Chinese until their demands are met. Before the CCP was granted Permanent Normal Trade Relations status with the United States, it arrested dissidents before almost every negotiation session, and then used the release of the dissidents during the negotiations to achieve its goals. The Communist Party disregards the rights and lives of its own people, but it knows that Western society cares about issues like basic human rights. Therefore, it uses its own citizens as hostages, puts a knife to the neck of the Chinese people, and uses them to threaten the enemy — the United States. This truly reflects the CCP’s practice of unrestricted warfare.

With the rapid development of the economy, the CCP has become bolder, and foreign hostages have become diplomatic pawns. The aforementioned Su Bin was accused by the United States of hacking into a U.S. military database in 2014. Subsequently, the Canadian couple Kevin and Julia Garratt were arrested by the CCP and accused of espionage.

After the arrest of Huawei’s vice president and chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver on December 1, 2018, a series of protests were triggered by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The CCP’s consulate in Canada mobilized a large number of pro-communist overseas Chinese to protest. In addition, the CCP arrested three Canadian citizens in retaliation.[60] This was both to put direct pressure on Canada and also to drive a wedge between Canada and the United States.

Lawlessness is the CCP’s modus operandi. Any foreigner in China may become a hostage at any time and be used as a bargaining chip for political, economic, and diplomatic purposes. Moreover, when the CCP threatens overseas Chinese, especially dissidents, it often uses relatives of these dissidents in China as hostages.

Unrestricted Military Warfare

The CCP has developed asymmetric weapons, such as anti-ship missiles and anti-aircraft carrier missiles. In terms of conventional weapons, the CCP has attempted to surpass the technological supremacy of the United States by having a larger quantity of matériel targeting those prize assets. The CCP has grown economically and technically, giving it greater operational space to implement cyber warfare, outer-space warfare, and other unconventional high-tech attack vectors against the United States, as addressed in the last section.

The PLA publicly declares that the conduct of the kind of war it wishes for would “appear in a manner that is cross-national, cross-domain, and utilizes any means necessary.” In the PLA’s ideal war, “tangible national boundaries, intangible cyberspace, international law, national law, codes of conduct, and ethics are not binding on them [PLA forces].” “They don’t take responsibility for anyone, and are not restricted by any rules. Anyone can be a target, and any means can be used.” The authors of Unrestricted Warfare, both Chinese colonels, declare to their readers: “Have [you] considered combining the battlefield with the non-battlefield, war with non-war, military with non-military — specifically, combining stealth aircraft, cruise missiles and network killers, nuclear war, financial warfare, and terrorist attacks? Or, simply put, Schwarzkopf [Commander-in-Chief of the Gulf War Multinational Force] + Soros + Morris [creator of the Morris Worm computer virus] + bin Laden? This is our true card.”[61]

Unrestricted Financial Warfare

The CCP has begun promoting its own financial payment system and use of the renminbi through “economic assistance” and private enterprises, in an attempt to build a global infrastructure. It intends to use the renminbi to replace the U.S. dollar’s dominance in the field of international currency circulation. According to the CCP’s unrestricted financial-warfare strategy, the regime can achieve its goals simply by printing massive amounts of money, thus destroying the financial system when necessary. CCP think tanks have advocated the weaponization of foreign exchange reserves.

Unrestricted Internet Warfare

Through the efforts of Huawei and ZTE to seize the 5G technology market, the CCP is striving to gain a dominant position in 5G standards, and wants to play a leading global role in the new technology. The former head of the Federal Reserve of Dallas said, “If China were to win the race, they would establish the protocols for the internet, just as English replaced German as the language of science and became the language of all crucial activity on a global scale.”[62]

The internet took shape in a world in which information flows were entirely different from those of the traditional world, and the online world can in turn constrain and influence our real world. At present, the internet faces a new round of evolution, with 5G technology at its core. With the combination of 5G and artificial intelligence, the internet is moving toward “the internet of things,” or digitization of the entire world. The internet’s control over the physical world is dramatically expanding, and the rules of the entire world are being rewritten. If the CCP dominates 5G, it will be able to act unimpeded.

In addition, there is a huge amount of information flowing on the internet. Once the CCP’s external propaganda operations are successfully integrated with a China-controlled 5G, its soft-brainwashing efforts will greatly exceed the current scale and impact.

Unrestricted Narcotics Warfare

At a U.S. cabinet meeting held on August 16, 2018, President Trump said that the proliferation of opioids based on fentanyl from China is “almost a war.”[63] In 2017, there were more than seventy thousand cases of drug overdose in the United States, of which more than 40 percent were related to synthetic opioids (mainly fentanyl and its analogues). These drugs are primarily produced in China and then enter the United States through the U.S. postal service or are smuggled into Mexico and then enter the United States through the U.S. Southwest border.[64]

Markos Kounalakis, a senior researcher at the Central European University and a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, in November 2017 wrote of fentanyl: “It is, ultimately, a chemical. And it’s being used as a weapon in China’s 21st Century Opium War against America.” He said that fentanyl has killed thousands of Americans and cited it as an example of CCP strategy: The CCP uses the real value of this chemical as a “profitable opiate export that also destroys American communities and roils the U.S. political landscape.” [65]

Unrestricted Population Warfare

In September 2018, a Chinese family traveling in Sweden made a scene in a Swedish hotel by falsely claiming they were mistreated by the police. After exaggeration by the Chinese Embassy and media, Chinese people began boycotting IKEA and H&M.[66] The Swedish TV station SVT aired a sarcastic program about the incident, which further exacerbated the situation. Tens of thousands of Chinese internet users flooded the websites of the Swedish Embassy, the TV host Jesper Rönndahl, and the TV station’s Facebook page.[67]

After sixty years of destruction of traditional culture and its replacement with Communist Party culture, the CCP is indeed able to coerce billions of Chinese people and turn them into a mass army, merely by waving the flag of nationalism. Before the ninetieth anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army in 2017, the CCP came up with software that can add PLA uniforms to an individual in an uploaded image. In just several days, the app received over one billion visits.

The CCP is able to use nationalism to control the public because people don’t know the Party’s true history. In particular, people don’t understand the CCP’s history of killing. Thus, generations of Chinese people who grew up in the Party culture carry the Party culture with them wherever they go. When they travel abroad to make a living, they export Party culture overseas and become part of the regime’s mass overseas army.

The CCP has already successfully created a generation of people who will obey its orders without the need to be coerced or monitored. This has strengthened the CCP’s ability to control this army in the free world and use it for subversion. If a war broke out, this sort of mass population warfare could have dire consequences.

Unrestricted Cultural Warfare

The CCP has been peddling Party Culture and its values under the banner of Chinese traditional culture and customs for many years. People all over the world have a strong interest in China’s long history and rich culture, yet their understanding is very limited. The CCP knows this well and takes full advantage of it. By adopting some of the superficial forms of traditional culture, the CCP has disguised itself as the guardian and true representative of Chinese culture, making it extremely difficult for people in other countries to see through the deceit.

Other Forms of Unrestricted Warfare

The Chinese communist regime declared Asymmetrical Hybrid Warfare against the United States and its Western allies by launching its nation-state Program 863 in 1986. The ultimate goal of this warfare is to surpass the United States on the economic and military fronts, and thus replace the United States in its role as the world leader. It is a war based on deceit and complete disregard for any rules, and the strategies behind it are part of its unrestricted warfare program.[68]

During the June 4, 1989, movement, the CCP ordered soldiers and police to disguise themselves as Beijing civilians and create riots, so the military could use them as an excuse for its mass killing, which it called “suppressing riots.” In the persecution of Falun Gong, the CCP fabricated the “self-immolation” incident to justify the ensuing escalation of the persecution. During Hong Kong’s Occupy Central With Love and Peace movement, the CCP transported people from Shenzhen to incite violence in Hong Kong, effectively forcing the police to escalate toward violence.

In the eyes of the CCP, murder and assassination are commonplace methods, and in the future, the Party may well use the same methods — poisoning, assassination, explosions, the sabotage of power grids or transportation facilities, and so on — to create chaos and conflict in the West.

The core of unrestricted warfare is about destroying the morality of mankind, and mobilizing evil people to destroy mankind step by step. The CCP is highly skilled at tempting people to go against morality and their own conscience, and those who do so often end up either passive in the face of the CCP’s abuses, or active participants. Therefore, for influential figures in the political, economic, military, media, cultural, technological, educational, and other fields, the CCP attempts all means to discover their human weaknesses — whether vested interests or desires — and uses them to make people willingly collaborate with the Party. When this doesn’t work, the CCP might use threats and intimidation to exploit their fears or mistakes, effectively blackmailing them into assisting the Party. In some cases, the CCP has even provided transplant organs obtained by killing to buy off influential figures in need of a transplant.

The resources the CCP is able to bring to bear to infiltrate other countries defy one’s imagination, and the facts uncovered at present are only the tip of the iceberg. People in all walks of life, especially in politics and business, have become the CCP’s tools in its unrestricted warfare campaign, and more evidence will surface over time showing how many have fallen into this trap. Almost all countries in the world have begun to feel the CCP’s global ambitions and its evil, unrestricted means. They’ve also seen the destructive impact of the CCP’s agents at critical moments.

4. The ‘China Model’ and Its Destructive Impact

In the past decade or so, Communist Party mouthpieces, as well as some Western scholars and journalists, have vigorously touted the concept of a “Chinese model” or similar terms, such as the “Chinese way,” the “China miracle,” or the “Beijing consensus.” The so-called China model generally refers to the CCP’s combination of political totalitarianism and crony capitalism to achieve “social stability” and rapid economic development. In fact, the essence of the “China model” is the “CCP model” — a political abomination that has never been seen before in human history.

Propaganda aimed at supporting the legitimacy of the communist “Chinese path” generally falls into these four categories: economic development, social stability, public opinion (when civilians act as submissive subjects), and international recognition.

However, all four of these arguments are untenable for those who can look at things with clear eyes. High economic growth rates cannot hide the twisted, often evil, form of economic development that the CCP takes.

The regime’s so-called economic miracle is actually the result of the energy released by the Chinese people after decades of suppression, and the partial return to normal market conditions during reform and opening up. Such growth has been achieved by the trampling of human rights, intellectual property theft, the uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources, and destruction of the natural environment. Such growth is neither ethical nor sustainable. There are numerous structural problems in the Chinese economy, none of which can be solved under the existing political system. When these problems get to the critical point, they’ll bring disasters to the Chinese people and the rest of the world.

All the CCP’s arguments are worthless. The Chinese communist regime has control over all armed forces in China and maintains stability with an iron fist and surveillance. The Party can thus indeed achieve social “stability” for a long time. The CCP monopolizes all media inside China and has nipped opposing voices in the bud. In today’s world, when morality in general has fallen down, it is not difficult to find useful idiots in the international community and have them act as friends of China and sing the praises of the CCP. It is obvious that the so-called achievements of the CCP’s China model cannot conceal the heinous crimes committed by the regime.

The CCP’s nature means that it will always set itself against traditional culture, orthodox morality, and universal values. Today’s CCP is the world’s axis of evil and the enemy of mankind. If the world cannot wake up and take action against the regime, the failure will will bring disaster to the world for the following reasons.

China has a vast territory and a large population. It has become the world’s second-largest economy and from 2010, the second-largest military power with nuclear weapons. No tyrannical force historically or today has ever had such a huge economic and military power as the CCP. The CCP absorbed the most sinister and deformed elements of modern totalitarian regimes and ancient Chinese tactics as its ideology for control. Therefore, the CCP never plays by the rules, and its strategy is both deep and ruthless, often beyond the imagination and understanding of leaders and strategists in other countries. By hijacking 1.3 billion Chinese people, the CCP has presented a huge and greatly coveted market to the world, attracting foreign capital, businessmen, and politicians. It has them turn a blind eye to the CCP’s human rights abuses and evil, and in some cases, even gets them to cooperate with the CCP in its crimes.

The CCP has killed eighty million Chinese people. In recent times, it has committed countless crimes against Falun Gong practitioners, underground Christians, Tibetans, Uyghurs, dissidents, and those at the bottom of society. Once the regime collapses, it will be brought to justice and punished for all its crimes. To avoid this fate by any means necessary, the CCP chooses to go down the evil road of totalitarianism and increased persecution, refusing to step off the world stage. Like a repeat offender, the CCP is anxious to escape and will not hesitate to commit more horrific crimes to protect itself.

The Chinese Communist Party is the communist specter’s main agent in the human realm. Fated for elimination, the CCP’s existence has always been accompanied by a strong sense of crisis and fear. Driven by a sense of constant crisis, the CCP resorts to all means necessary at critical moments, taking extreme measures to keep going. Driven by this sense of crisis, the CCP regards the United States, whose role is to maintain international order, as its primary enemy, and has secretly built itself up in an attempt to replace the United States and dominate the world.

At the same time, the CCP has used a range of means to export the CCP’s model and the Communist Party’s ideology, poisoning the world. The Belt and Road (also known as One Belt, One Road) and similar projects have demonstrated the Party’s geopolitical ambitions. What is even more frightening is that the CCP is preparing for the final battle with the United States with dedication, determination, and nonstop effort.

All the CCP’s ambitions — which it pursues through soft power, hard power, and sharp power — are based on a total disregard for morality and are aimed at serving its larger ambition of destroying traditional morality and universal values. The CCP’s goal is to establish itself as an evil empire and world ruler. It aims to bring totalitarian oppression to the world — a global police state characterized by brainwashing, mind control, mass surveillance, the elimination of private ownership, official atheism, the elimination of religion and traditional culture, unrestrained carnal desires, corruption, and moral degeneration. Its aim is to drag the world into poverty and turmoil, turning men into beasts and sending mankind into an abyss of moral degradation. All this is the path arranged by the communist specter in its attempt to destroy mankind.

The CCP is a unique political regime, mechanism, and social phenomenon. Its purpose is to destroy the traditional cultures and universal values that God left for mankind. If the orthodox morality that has helped mankind survive for thousands of years is ever truly destroyed, the result will be the destruction of the entire human race. Therefore, in addition to its military, economic, scientific, and technological endeavors, the CCP is also bent on imposing its ideology of atheism and warped views of good and evil on other countries. The CCP is using a range of methods to corrupt political and media figures around the world in order to instill its Party culture into these countries. Its ultimate goal is to have these individuals influence mainstream society and help drag everyone down with the CCP. This is the true intention of the CCP’s worldwide promotion of its so-called China model.

5. Lessons Learned and the Way Out

a. The Policy of Appeasement Was a Grave Mistake

In March 2018, in an article titled “How the West Got China Wrong,” The Economist reflected on the policy that Western countries have adopted toward China, their gamble that China would head toward democracy and the market economy. It conceded that the West’s gamble has failed, that China under the CCP isn’t a market economy and on its present course, never will be one. On the contrary, the CCP treats business and trade as extensions of state power and controls them as such. It uses its monopoly on power to shape the global economy, uses money to manipulate trading partners, and punishes individuals and groups it does not agree with.[69]

Ambitious and eager to assert its global hegemony, the CCP poses a serious threat to the world. Sadly, to this day, many countries, governments, and political figures still wish to befriend the CCP, oblivious of the danger. The relationship is illustrated by a Chinese saying: “raising the tiger cub to endanger oneself in future.”

Without the aid of the developed Western countries and the support of so many multinational corporations, high-tech giants, and large financial institutions, the CCP could not have developed from a weak economy with a regime on the verge of collapse to an indomitable axis of evil over the short span of just a few decades. It has extended its influence and is now brazenly challenging the United States in regions and domains across the world.

Michael Pillsbury, a national security expert, has argued that the West all along has held unrealistic expectations of the CCP, such as believing that it would inevitably become more democratic, that it longed for an American-style capitalist society, that it would inevitably integrate into the international social order, that US-China exchanges would bring about full cooperation, or that the hawkish elements in the CCP were weak, and so forth. Pillsbury strongly urged the U.S. government to quickly face the reality of the situation and adopt counter-measures against the CCP — or else the CCP would win.[70]

Steve Bannon also warned: “The Chinese leadership had no intention ever of joining the rule-based international post-war liberal order. They had their own plan, and they executed that plan very rigorously.”[71] This plan is for the CCP to use state power to control the key global industries, boldly engage in geopolitical expansion, and achieve global hegemony in technology and finance while totally disregarding the prevailing global rules of conduct.

b. Why Did the West Get China Wrong?

The West got China wrong for many reasons: the communist specter’s complex arrangements mentioned earlier, the duplicity and chameleon-like nature of the CCP, and the difficulty free societies have in differentiating China from the CCP. In addition, the West got China wrong because of pursuing short-term gain, whether by individuals, companies, or entire nations. This provided yet another opportunity for the CCP to exploit.

The morally corrupt CCP targets gaps in the morality of people in free societies, people whose pursuit of paltry short-term profit allows the CCP to infiltrate and corrupt the very foundations of these societies. If we examine in detail the policies adopted by the United States regarding the CCP, to a large extent, policies are based on considerations of short-term gain instead of the most fundamental, long-term interests of America — such as the spirit on which the country was founded.

Mankind’s glory and authority come from God and are determined by man’s moral level. The prosperity and strength bestowed on an ethnic group and nation also depend on their level of morality. Using ordinary means, man is simply incapable of negating the arrangements made by the specter. Following this logic, where the West has gone wrong becomes clear — whatever the human methods applied, ultimately they cannot succeed in rescuing people from the clutches of evil.

Many governments, large companies, and businessmen may, for a period of time, ostensibly obtain benefits from the CCP for the sacrifice of their moral principles. But in the end, they’ll lose more than they gain. Such ill-gained, superficial benefits are all poisonous. Only by not coveting immediate interests will one have a bright future.

The CCP is not a political party or regime in the normal sense. It does not represent the Chinese people. It represents the communist specter. To associate with the CCP is to associate with the devil. To be friendly with the CCP is to appease the devil, aid it, and play a role in pushing humanity toward destruction. Conversely, to push back against the CCP is to engage in the battle between good and evil. This is not a simple matter of countries fighting over national interests. It is a battle for the future of humanity.

c. What Is the Way Out?

Today, China and the world are at a crossroads. For the Chinese people, the Chinese Communist Party, which owes countless debts of blood, cannot be expected to make any real reforms. China will be better off only when free of the Communist Party. By eliminating the Communist Party, which is like a malignant tumor, China will thrive.

For people around the world, China is known as the land of an ancient civilization characterized by courtesy and righteousness. Free of the Communist Party, China will once again be a normal member of the civilized world — a nation whose human and natural resources, diverse ancient traditions, and cultural heritage will be part of the wealth of humanity.

Moving forward during times of great difficulties, more and more Chinese people are coming to realize the evil nature of CCP. With the publication of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party in November 2014, a growing number of people began to regain their moral courage and made the decision to separate themselves from the communist specter. More than 300 million Chinese have renounced the CCP and its affiliated organizations. If the free world can support the trend of renouncing the CCP and sever all ties with the specter, the CCP will not be able to continue to act as it does globally.

The seemingly indomitable Soviet Union dissolved overnight. Though the CCP is baring its fangs globally, its dissolution could occur just as rapidly once the world recognizes its evil nature and makes the righteous choice.

The rise of the CCP results mostly from moral corruption and from people’s eyes being blinded by the pursuit of vested interests. To escape this fate, we need to summon up our moral courage, revive traditional values, and have a firm belief in the Divine.

To defeat a specter like the CCP, it is never enough to simply depend on human power. An evil specter has greater power than man, and this is the underlying cause of the CCP’s continuous expansion. However, a specter can never rival the Divine. As long as humans can stand by the Divine and abide by divine will, humans will be blessed and endowed with great power.

The CCP is the enemy of all of mankind. To resist the CCP’s ambitions is in effect to save human civilization and the future. The CCP is fated for elimination, thus rejecting the CCP means avoiding the fate of being eliminated together with it, and it means helping to save mankind itself.

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3. Ibid., 6 [喬良、王湘穗：《超限戰》（北京：解放軍文藝出版社，1999），頁1，頁6]. [In Chinese]

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19. John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019, House of Representatives, https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20180723/CRPT-115hrpt863.pdf.

20. Bowe, China’s Overseas United Front Work: Background and Implications for the United States, 5–6.

21. Thorsten Benner et al., “Authoritarian Advance: Responding to China’s Growing Political Influence in Europe,” Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI), https://www.gppi.net/media/Benner_MERICS_2018_Authoritarian_Advance.pdf.

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23. Jenni Marsh, “Ex-Hong Kong Politician Faces Jail after Bribery Conviction in US,” CNN, December 5, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/05/asia/patrick-ho-bribery-conviction-intl/index.html.

24. Alexandra Stevenson, David Barboza, Matthew Goldstein and Paul Mozur, “A Chinese Tycoon Sought Power and Influence. Washington Responded,” The New York Times, December 12, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/business/cefc-biden-china-washington-ye-jianming.html.

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28. Margaret Wollensak, “Canadian, UK Universities Warned by Intelligence Agencies to Be Wary of Huawei,” The Epoch Times, December 19, 2018, https://www.theepochtimes.com/universities-warned-to-be-wary-of-research-partnerships-with-huawei_2743679.html

29. Zack Dorfman, “How Silicon Valley Became a Den of Spies,” Politico, July 27, 2018, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/07/27/silicon-valley-spies-china-russia-219071.

30. Bowe, China’s Overseas United Front Work: Background and Implications for the United States, 11–12.

31. Bowe, China’s Overseas United Front Work: Background and Implications for the United States, 10–12.

32. Gao Shan, “China’s Wanda Buys Two US Film Companies for 2 Billion US Dollars,” Radio Free Asia, August 23, 2016 [ 高山：〈中國萬達：20億美元買下美國兩家電影公司〉，自由亞洲電台，2016年8月23日]，https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/jingmao/hc-08232016102649.html. [In Chinese]

33. Cui Peng, “Ali Pictures Invests in Amblin Partners; Ma Yun Makes Investment in Spielberg,” sohu.com, October 9, 2016. [崔鵬：〈阿里影業入股Amblin Partners 馬雲投資斯皮爾伯格〉，《搜狐網》，2016年10月9日]，http://www.sohu.com/a/115703678_115565. [In Chinese]

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35. Ben Fritz and John Horn, “Reel China: Hollywood Tries to Stay on China’s Good Side,” The Los Angeles Times, March 16, 2011, http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/16/entertainment/la-et-china-red-dawn-20110316.

36. Lin Ping, “Disclosing China’s Sharp Power,” “Part Five, American Film and Entertainment Industries,” Radio Free Asia, September 7, 2018 [林坪：〈揭秘中國銳實力（五）美國電影娛樂業〉，自由亞洲電臺，2018年9月7日]，https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/zhuanlan/zhuantixilie/zhongguochujiaoshenxiangshijie/yl5-09072018150445.html. [In Chinese]

37. Lin Ping, “Disclosing China’s Sharp Power,” “Part Three: American Universities and Academia,” Radio Free Asia, September 5, 2018 [林坪：〈揭秘中國銳實力（三）美國學術界、高校〉，自由亞洲電臺，2018年9月5日]，https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/zhuanlan/zhuantixilie/zhongguochujiaoshenxiangshijie/yl3-09052018122139.html, [In Chinese]

38. “British Conservatives Were Refused Entry to Hong Kong; Johnson Expresses Concern” [〈英保守黨人被拒入境香港 約翰遜表關切〉，《BBC中文網》，2017年10月12日]，https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/chinese-news-41591196. [In Chinese]

39. Bowe, China’s Overseas United Front Work: Background and Implications for the United States, 7–8.

40. High-Speed Rail News: A Record of the High-speed Rail Storm (Changsha: Hunan Literature and Art Press, 2015). See chapter 5, “China’s High-Speed Rail Three Kingdom Kills” [高鐵見聞：《高鐵風雲錄》（長沙：湖南文藝出版社，2015），第五章〈中國高鐵三國殺〉]. [In Chinese]

41. Sankei Shimbun, “Japan’s Transfer of Bullet Train Technology a Mistake. China, of Course, Has Copied It,” Japan Forward, August 18, 2017, https://japan-forward.com/japans-transfer-of-bullet-train-technology-a-mistake-china-of-course-has-copied-it/.

42. Paul Mozur and Jane Perlez, “China Bets on Sensitive U.S. Start-Ups, Worrying the Pentagon,” The New York Times, March 22, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/22/technology/china-defense-start-ups.html (last visited February 2, 2019).

43. Ibid.

44. Office of the United States Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President, Update Concerning China’s Acts, Policies and Practices Related to Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property, and Innovation, November 20, 2018, https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/enforcement/301Investigations/301%20Report%20Update.pdf, 46.

45. Justin Ling, “Man Who Sold F-35 Secrets to China Pleads Guilty,” Vice News, March 24, 2016, https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/kz9xgn/man-who-sold-f-35-secrets-to-china-pleads-guilty.

46. Cynthia McFadden, Aliza Nadi and Courtney McGee, “Education or Espionage? A Chinese Student Takes His Homework Home to China,” NBC News, July 24, 2018, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/education-or-espionage-chinese-student-takes-his-homework-home-china-n893881.

47. “Chinese Hackers Indicted,” FBI News, December 20, 2018, https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/chinese-hackers-indicted-122018.

48. Zach Dorfman, “How Silicon Valley Became a Den of Spies,” Politico, July 27, 2018, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/07/27/silicon-valley-spies-china-russia-219071.

49. Counterintelligence Strategic Partnership Intelligence Note (SPIN), SPIN: 15-007, FBI, September 2015, https://info.publicintelligence.net/FBI-ChineseTalentPrograms.pdf

50. Lawrence A. Tabak and M. Roy Wilson, “Foreign Influences on Research Integrity,” Presentation at the 117th Meeting of the Advisory Committee to the Director, NIH, December 13, 2018, https://acd.od.nih.gov/documents/presentations/12132018ForeignInfluences.pdf.

51. Lev Facher, “NIH Report Scrutinizes Role of China in Theft of U.S. Scientific Research,” STAT, December 13, 2018, https://www.statnews.com/2018/12/13/nih-report-scrutinizes-role-of-china-in-theft-of-u-s-scientific-research/.

52. Jennifer Zeng, “Communist China Poses Greatest Threat to US and World, Senators Told,” The Epoch Times, updated December 17, 2018, https://www.theepochtimes.com/senate-told-communist-china-poses-greatest-threat-to-us-and-the-world_2738798.html.

53. Keith Bradsher, “When Solar Panels Became Job Killers,” The New York Times, April 8, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/business/china-trade-solar-panels.html?_ga=2.209817942.255138535.1542571491-142437734.1525387950.

54. “The National Intelligence Law of the People’s Republic of China”, National People’s Congress Net, June 27, 2017 [《中華人民共和國國家情報法》，《中國人大網》 ，2017年6月27日]，http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/xinwen/2017-06/27/content_2024529.htm. [In Chinese]

55. Statement of John C. Demers Before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, for a Hearing on China’s Non-Traditional Espionage Against the United States: The Threat and Potential Policy Responses, U.S. Senate, December 12, 2018, https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/12-12-18%20Demers%20Testimony.pdf.

56. Megan Henney, “US Leaders React to Huawei CFO Arrest: ‘A Threat to Our National Security,’” Fox Business, December 6, 2018, https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/us-leaders-react-to-huawei-cfo-arrest-a-threat-to-our-national-security.

57. Danielle Cave, “The African Union Headquarters Hack and Australia’s 5G Network,” Australian Strategic Policy Institute, July 13, 2018, https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-african-union-headquarters-hack-and-australias-5g-network/.

58. Theis Lange Olsen and Cathrine Lakmann, “Huawei Now on the Danish Mark: ‘The Chinese Can Access Systems That Govern Our Society,’” Danish Broadcasting Corporation, December 7, 2018, https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/huawei-nu-paa-dansk-sigtekorn-kineserne-kan-faa-adgang-til-systemer-der-styrer-vores. [In Danish]

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61. Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America (2002) (Beijing: The PLA’s Literature and Art Press, 1999). [喬良、王湘穗：《超限戰》（北京：解放軍文藝出版社，1999），頁61]. [In Chinese]

62. Eri Sugiura, “China’s 5G a Bigger Threat than Trade War, Says Ex-Dallas Fed Chief,” Nikkei Asian Review, September 24, 2018, https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/China-s-5G-a-bigger-threat-than-trade-war-says-ex-Dallas-Fed-chief.

63. Gregg Re, “Trump Declares Opioids From Mexico, China ‘Almost a Form of Warfare,’ Tells Sessions to Sue Drug Makers, Fox News, August 16, 2018, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-declares-opioids-from-mexico-china-almost-a-form-of-warfare-tells-sessions-to-sue-drug-makers.

64. Kirsten D. Madison, “Stopping the Poison Pills: Combatting the Trafficking of Illegal Fentanyl from China,” Prepared Statement Before the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control,” U.S. Department of State, October 2, 2018, https://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/rm/2018/286384.htm.

65. Markos Kounalakis, “China Is Using Fentanyl in a Chemical War Against America,” Mcclatchy D.C. Bureau, November 2, 2017, https://www.mcclatchydc.com/opinion/article182139386.html.

66. Anna Fifield, “China’s Row With Sweden Over a ‘Racist’ TV Skit Has Citizens Urging Boycotts of Ikea and H&M,” The Washington Post, September 26, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/09/26/chinas-row-with-sweden-over-racist-tv-skit-has-citizens-urging-boycott-ikea-hm/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.15e1b22bc530.

67. Xinmei Shen, “How China’s Army of Online Trolls Turned on Sweden,” Abacus News, September 26, 2018, https://www.abacusnews.com/digital-life/how-chinas-army-online-trolls-turned-sweden/article/2165747.

68. T. Casey Fleming, Eric L. Qualkenbush, and Anthony M. Chapa, “The Secret War Against the United States,” The Cyber Defense Review, Vol. 2, Number 3, Fall 2017, 25–32, https://cyberdefensereview.army.mil/Portals/6/Documents/CDR-FALL2017.pdf.

69. “How the West Got China Wrong,” The Economist, March 1, 2018, https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/03/01/how-the-west-got-china-wrong.

70. Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2015), the Introduction.

71. Steve Bannon, “Speech at the 12th Interethnic, Interfaith Leadership Conference,” November 15, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMp8F2tL66I.