Red Dragon Menacing III

On CCP’s All-Out Aggression Against Humanity

Table Of Contents

Why Did These Founders Abandon CCP?

How the CCP Has Brainwashed the Chinese People

Chinese Missile Threat

Coming Soon: China’s Space Station Hegemony

CCP a Transnational Criminal Organization

A Chinese Doctor’s Suicide

The Xinjiang Genocide

CCP’s Cyber Army

The Reality Behind China’s Strong Economy (Part 1): Sacrifice of the Chinese People

Tombstone Redemption

The Reality Behind China’s Strong Economy (Part 2): The CCP’s Unrestricted Warfare Against the World

Chinese Regime Expands Surveillance and Information Gathering of the Public

The 5 Things the Chinese Regime Fears Most

A Glimpse of China’s Ownership in US

China’s ‘Wolf Warrior’ Diplomats Fighting Political Warfare Against the West

Pharmaceutical Ingredients, a Strategic Weapon of China’s Communist Regime

Chinese Communist Party Keeps Rewriting History, But History Cannot Be Changed

The Imprisoned Chinese Billionaires

After Misleading the Public to Please the CCP, These Artists Faced Consequences

From Honest to Corrupt: An Examination of China’s State Bureaucracy Over Time

The CCP’s Agenda: Destroying Family Values

Global Community Should Beware of Beijing Weaponizing Water Resources

The CCP Turned China Into the World’s Enemy, Not Competitor

The West Is Strategically Reorganizing to Fight Communist China

Why Is Beijing Punishing Hong Kong’s Apple Daily?

Vancouver: Epicentre of China’s Massive Flow of Fentanyl Into North America

The Morning After the CCP’s Party

Torture Cannot Shake Falun Gong Practitioners’ Faith

China’s Sprint to Nuclear Parity, or Superiority?

China’s One-Two Punch

Law of the Sea Court Ruling Continues to Challenge Chinese Aggression

Xi Jinping’s Seven Misjudgments

The Chinese Regime’s Biggest Export? Tyranny

Can Taiwan Deter China?

Forced Organ Harvesting in China Is Medical Genocide for Profit

Beijing Silences Global Media on China’s Forced Organ Harvesting

Sanction the CCP for Forced Organ Harvesting

Ban Scientific and Medical Cooperation With China’s Unethical Gene Harvesting

Why Did These Chinese Communist Founders Abandon the Party?

Aug. 13, 2020 | By Xing Min (Minghui.org)

In China, the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in July 1921 was considered a key event in the CCP’s establishment. Writings about it often include the names of its 15 participants and sometimes their pictures.

What the public doesn’t know is that, out of those 15 people, only two were able to continue their belief in communism with no major setbacks. The rest either abandoned the communist ideas early on or became victims of political struggles within communism.

Here we will review the experiences of three top leaders of the CCP.

The First Party General Secretary

Following the system of the Soviet Union, the highest position in the CCP is the General Secretary. As the first general secretary, Chen Duxiu was considered the founder of the CCP.

Working as a dean at the renowned Peking University, Chen and others were looking for a new path for China. With support from the Soviet Union, Chen became the first general secretary and launched the CCP under the direction of the Soviet Communist Party (SCP).

Influenced by traditional Chinese culture, however, Chen was often at odds with the Party’s direction. As SCP instructed CCP leaders to join the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) for its survival and growth, Chen opposed it, citing ideological differences between the two. Later on he gave in and became a Kuomintang member just like other CCP leaders. Nonetheless, tension grew and led to his demotion by the SCP in July 1927.

During a conflict between China and the Soviet Union regarding the railroad in northeast China in 1929, CCP leaders proposed to support the SCP at the price of sacrificing Chinese people’s interests. Chen opposed the idea and was expelled from the CCP in November 1929.

After being arrested by Kuomintang in October 1932, Chen studied traditional Chinese culture in prison and chose to abandon communism. In a letter in March 1938, he said the CCP had done whatever it took to advance its own agenda. “Those who listen to you are soldiers, while those who have different opinions are considered traitors. Have you ever considered moral values?”

In 1940, Chen wrote, “The dictatorship of the proletariat does not exist, since it only leads to dictatorship of the party or the party leader. Any dictatorship will cause brutality, cover-up, deceit, bribery, and corruption.”

A CCP Leader Who Always Wore a “Mask”

Qu Qiubai, another attendee of the first national congress, replaced Chen as the top leader after Chen’s demotion in 1927. Between 1928 and 1930, he also represented the CCP in the Communist International. Due to political struggles, however, he was demoted in 1931 and arrested by the Kuomintang in February 1935.

One month before his execution in June 1935, Qu wrote a long article titled “Superfluous Words.” He said it was a mistake for him to be a CCP leader because he was just a plain intellectual. Although only 36 years old, he was already very tired with no ambition or interest in politics or even entertainment.

Throughout his life, Qu rarely read books on Marxism. During meetings, he learned to be politically savvy and did not make his own decisions. Still, he was criticized, and all the criticism further confused him. Therefore, he was happy for others to play dominant roles. He said he could use his little knowledge of Marxism to analyze issues, but the methodology itself could be anti-Marxist, since he did not know other ideas.

In addition, Qu said he lacked confidence and always relied on others. His personality did not qualify him to be a communist, and it was painful for him to play the roles he did. That was why he was happy his comrades called him a traitor; his heart had left them long before that.

Qu described his roles in the CCP as performing on a stage, which was different from his true self. He was not frank with others, including even his wife. “Through the years, I always wore a mask and I am so happy to get rid of it,” he said.

A Statement of Quitting the CCP

Zhang Guotao was also a senior official in the CCP organization. He was the chairperson of the first national congress in 1921. In addition, he was the only Chinese leader who had met Vladimir Lenin in person.

Zhang once had unparalleled power in the Party. For example, as the Red Army troops met in 1935 after the Long March, Zhang’s Fourth Front Army had nearly 80,000 soldiers, while the First Front Army of Mao Zedong and other top leaders only had less than 30,000. During the internal conflicts that followed, however, he was stripped of his leadership role in 1936. A large portion of his troops was also nearly all destroyed. Mao and other top leaders then launched numerous attacks on him.

As the situation deteriorated, Zhang fled in April 1938 and turned to the Kuomintang on April 2, 1930. Three days later, he made an announcement of quitting the CCP. He said he had been wrong to join the CCP. In fact, the CCP’s actions were already against the interests of Chinese people, and it had become an organization of constant plotting and riots.

In 1948, Zhang launched the Chuangjin magazine in Shanghai. He wrote numerous articles stating the CCP “focused on power struggles,” “did not care about moral values or the country at all,” and “treated citizens like dirt.” He also predicted, “If the CCP succeeds, the military rule would inevitably lead to totalitarian politics.” His prediction became reality within several years.

Zhang was fortunate not only because he followed his conscience and stopped following the CCP; by doing so, he also avoided becoming a victim of the Party’s countless internal political struggles. Top leaders such as Liu Shaoqi (former chairperson of China) and Peng Dehuai (the most accomplished general) all died miserably after humiliation and countless other types of mistreatment.

Lessons from the Soviet Union

The establishment of the CCP occurred largely because of assistance from the Soviet Union. Nearly 30 years have passed since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, but the tyranny of communism still continues in China.

The CCP has grown significantly in the past few decades. With the end of cold war, the West invested heavily in China, hoping the economic improvement would lead to democracy and political openness. With the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, however, the CCP proved that it would continue to dominate China with violence and lies.

Since then, continued support from Western countries, including the admission of China into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, boosted China’s economy, giving the CCP more leverage to intensify its censorship, manipulate public opinion, and suppress human rights. One example is the persecution of Falun Gong, a meditation discipline based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, that has been going on since July 1999.

Boris Yeltsin, former top leader of the Soviet Union, announced his resignation from the SCP during the 28th Communist Party Congress on July 12, 1990. “As the highest elected figure in the republic, I can only subordinate myself to the will of the people and its elected representatives. I therefore announce my resignation from the Communist Party of Soviet Union,” he announced in front of the Party members.

With the dissolution of Soviet Union, people also reflected on history and tragedies such as those described in The Gulag Archipelago. Mikhail Gorbachev, who ended the SCP in 1991, recalled this dissolution process during an interview with The Guardian in 2011.

When asked to name the things he most regretted, he replied without hesitation, “The fact that I went on too long in trying to reform the Communist party.” He said the Party had become a roadblock for all the necessary changes needed in the country. The article is titled “Mikhail Gorbachev: I should have abandoned the Communist party earlier.”

After the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party was published in 2004, over 361 million people have renounced their current and past memberships in CCP organizations. How long will it be until the Chinese people regain their freedom? Only time will tell.

http://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2020/8/13/186322.html

How the CCP Has Brainwashed the Chinese People to Control Them Better

Commentary By Yuan Bin

September 29, 2020 Updated: September 30, 2020

The arrogant and domineering Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cannot tolerate differences of opinion. In its eyes, independent thought is a threat to its rule. For the convenience of ruling the country, the CCP deprives the Chinese people of their rights to a free economy, participation in politics, and independent thinking. Instead, the CCP has people think, speak, and act as it instructs them to; and keeps total control over people’s thoughts and actions.

‘Party Culture’ and Violence

The two main weapons the CCP uses to exercise mind control over the Chinese people are “Party culture” and violence.

The purpose of mind control is to completely remove all divergent or independent thinking so people can be turned into slaves and obedient tools.

To this end, the CCP spares no effort to block and monopolize information and prohibits people from contacting different ideologies or accessing historical facts. At the same time, starting in kindergarten, the CCP instills its own deviant “Party culture” ideology into the Chinese people, so that from childhood to adulthood, life is filled with “Party voices.”

And even more terrifying, this abhorrent brainwashing is completely enforced by violence. If you obey the CCP, you will be safe and sound and promoted into the “red noble class.” Keeping mistresses and accepting bribes are then no problem, because you are “politically correct.” But if you dare to resist the CCP and stick to your own views and beliefs, you will be in serious trouble: it will cost you your life, and even your entire family’s. Under such violent coercion, the vast majority of Chinese people can do nothing but obey the CCP’s orders and willingly allow themselves to be fooled.

When not engaged in violent political campaigns against the Chinese people—such as the Cultural Revolution or the persecution of Falun Gong—the CCP steadily carries out brainwashing and mind control of the people in a step-by-step fashion. But once a political campaign is launched, brainwashing and mind control will be ratcheted up and turned into a massive storm to support the content and goals of the campaign.

It can be said that every political campaign since the CCP’s takeover of China has been a frenzied effort of brainwashing the Chinese people and an unprecedented strengthening of its mind control.

This absurd and brutal brainwashing and mind control of the population has continued from the day the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949 to the present. Across the country, people’s thinking has been imprisoned and confined within the limits allowed by the CCP. One step beyond the line is considered a sin.

Moral and Spiritual Degradation

The inevitable outcome of this violent mind control has been the moral and spiritual degradation of the entire Chinese nation.

The CCP has not only changed the definition of values and moral standards and rewritten China’s code of conduct and lifestyle, it also turned its absurd “Party culture” ideology into the collective thinking mode of the mainland Chinese people.

Many Chinese have completely lost the ability to pursue the search for truth, think independently, distinguish right from wrong. They have become spiritual slaves who can only understand things according to the CCP’s “Party culture.” There is no longer a need for the CCP’s propaganda mouthpieces to blatantly clamor all the time. People have formed a conditioned reflex and will actively follow the CCP’s logic when thinking about a problem, and they will look at things from the CCP’s perspective to determine what’s right or wrong. As the saying goes, “As soon as the CCP blows air, it rains among the people.”

The CCP has constantly told the Chinese that living conditions in the West are miserable. So when a newspaper published a picture of homeless people below a skyscraper in the United States, the Chinese automatically identified it as “the death struggle of capitalism and its reactionary nature.”

Another claim the CCP has repeatedly made is that democracy and freedom are not suitable for China. Therefore, when there is an argument during an election in a democratic country, as long as the CCP reports it as a joke, Chinese people will secretly rejoice about how happy they are living under a dictatorship.

The CCP also tries to make the Chinese people believe that the United States has serious human rights issues. For example, state-run media would report on police violence in America and take it out of context.

Former CCP leader Jiang Zemin, who started the persecution campaign against the Falun Gong spiritual practice, spent several years fabricating lies and slandering its adherents. In May 2005, state broadcaster CCTV aired a program about Zhang Hai, the owner of a sports drink company. The report alleged that Zhang had used Tibetan qigong to defraud people of money. There was no mention of Falun Gong in the program, and it had nothing to do with Falun Gong. But since qigong was defamed, some viewers associated Zhang with Falun Gong and then openly attacked the practice. Slandering a spiritual practice or a religion is a common tactic the CCP uses to incite hatred against a group it has targeted.

Many Chinese have lost the ability to think independently but still believe that they are thinking on their own. When they were the club the CCP relied on to strike at others, they thanked the Party for its “trust.” When they themselves were hit by the CCP, they sincerely thanked the Party for its “lesson.”

How much longer can the CCP brainwash and fool the Chinese people?

Yuan Bin is a freelance writer and independent scholar on contemporary China issues.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/how-the-ccp-has-brainwashed-the-chinese-people-to-control-them-better_3519187.html

Chinese Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile Threat Requires Navy, Space Force Cooperation

American naval forces face an unprecedented threat from Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles

John Rossomando

February 6, 2021

Commentary

The U.S. Navy views China’s anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) capabilities with great concern. The United States has been able to project power all over the world with carrier strike groups (CSG)—an aircraft carrier with layered defenses. CSGs are more secure than land bases—it’s harder to destroy something that moves—and would allow aircraft to hit hundreds of targets daily for months.

China’s military considers its ASBMs “trump cards” against the U.S. Navy’s ability to deploy its ships off the Chinese coast, according to Andrew S. Erickson, a scholar of Chinese military strategy who taught at the U.S. Naval War College.

“I’m not going to get [into] much more detail of what we know and don’t know about it. But they’re pouring a lot of money into the ability to basically rim their coast in the South China Sea with anti-ship missile capability. It’s a destabilizing effort in the South China Sea, in the East China Sea, all those areas. When their claims of some of these contested islands—they’re militarizing those areas,” Vice Adm. Jeffrey Trussler, deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare, said at a virtual event hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.

“It’s something that confuses the international order and concerns the allies in the region. It’s one reason we work to keep the global commons open and the free flow of traffic.”

ASBMs are a greater threat compared to conventional anti-ship missiles and can be launched from well outside the 100 nautical mile maximum range of the SPY-1 Aegis radars. These radars are mounted on fleet escorts such as the Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. The Chinese DF-21D missile has a range of 1,300 miles while the DF-26 has a range of 2,400 miles. This gives them the ability to launch a surprise attack that could make it harder to defend the fleet against.

These weapons can be fired from mobile launchers. Experience from the 1991 Persian Gulf War showed that finding mobile missile launchers to destroy them can be among the most challenging things to do in a combat situation, because they can move and can be a bit like finding a needle in a haystack.

The U.S. Navy currently has 48 Aegis-equipped vessels capable of fielding the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system (pdf) that could intercept missiles and protect U.S. carriers and other warships. That number is projected to increase to 65 by 2025, and seven Japanese destroyers also have the BMD system. This system proved its worth during a November test. A Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) on the destroyer USS John Finn successfully intercepted an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that had been launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific. However, serious upgrades of their capability to negate China’s ASBM advantages are needed.

Vice Adm. Jon A. Hill, director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, noted that “You can’t shoot what you don’t see.” Space Force-controlled ballistic-missile launch detection satellites provide the fastest and most accurate missile defense. Hill stressed the need for cooperation between space assets and the Aegis system last August. Space assets are crucial because they can see targets beyond the range of the ship’s radar.

A year ago, the infant Space Force played an integral role in alerting American forces in Iraq that Iranian ballistic missiles were inbound. This warning saved lives and kept casualties to a minimum. Space Force must do the same to support the Navy’s fleet activities in the Chinese theater of operations in the Western Pacific, Taiwan Strait, South China Sea, and the East China Sea.

Last August, China proved its “carrier killers” could hit moving ships when it test-fired its DF-21D and DF-26 ASBMs at targets located between Hainan Island and the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fired the DF-26 from a base in northwestern China’s Qinghai province and the DF-21D from a base in the country’s Zhejiang province, located north of Taiwan.

The DF-26 can carry a nuclear warhead and can conduct precision strikes in the Western Pacific, Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea while remaining safely deep inside Chinese territory, the Pentagon’s 2020 report (pdf) on Chinese military power states.

Intelligence analysis suggests that the DF-21D’s warhead can maneuver like an aircraft through the atmosphere upon re-entry, which makes it harder for defenders to kill. China is believed to have approximately 94 launchers capable of firing the DF-21D missile. This necessitates the development of improved abilities to track and shoot down the hypersonic glide vehicles, capable of traveling at between Mach 5 and 10, or between 3,806 and 7,680 miles per hour, that are deployed by the DF-21D. By comparison, jetliners travel at 0.785 Mach or 583 miles per hour.

The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) awarded a contract to Aerojet Rocketdyne a year ago to develop an interceptor to negate the advantage of hypersonic weapons under its Glide Breaker program. A sea-based component of this program that can counter theater-based weapons systems like the DF-21D is a must. These improvements are crucial due to the short time between when the PLA would launch its ASBMs and when they would be in range for the Aegis system to intercept before they disable American carriers or other warships. A change in thinking is required such that the BMD can counter ICBM threats to the U.S. homeland and to the fleet.

U.S. missile defense almost exclusively focuses on strategic threats from Russian and other nuclear missiles. The way the BMD system is deployed must be entirely re-evaluated, and neutralizing China’s ASBM advantage must be the top priority. If aircraft carriers are vulnerable, America’s ability to protect itself is, and ensuring freedom of navigation for the rest of the world will be in jeopardy.

John Rossomando is a senior analyst for defense policy at the Center for Security Policy and served as senior analyst for counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinese-anti-ship-ballistic-missile-threat-requires-navy-space-force-cooperation_3686357.html

Coming Soon: China’s Space Station Hegemony

Commentary by Rick Fisher

February 25, 2021

By late April or early May, it’s expected that China will have started construction of its first large space station. Given its importance to China’s larger ambitions, it should be called Space Station Hegemony.

On Jan. 14, 2021, the Global Times reported that “China’s space station construction has come close to the implementation stage,” according to the China Manned Space Engineering Office.

Global Times also stated that “China will carry out 11 launches, including four manned spaceships and four cargo spaceship flights in the next two years, as it aims to complete the building of the country’s first space station by around 2022.”

The other three launches will orbit the three main modules of the early version of the space station. While the Chinese name for the space station is Tiangong (Heavenly Palace), the first habitation module will be called Tianhe (Heavenly River). It will weigh about 22 tons and have an internal area of about 50 square meters.

This will be followed by two experimental modules that will also deploy the space station’s two main solar power arrays. These modules are called Wentian (Quest for Heavens) and Mengtian (Dream of Heavens). The station will be supplied and probably powered by regular 8-ton Tianzhou (Heavenly Vessel) supply ships.

China’s space station reportedly will have a regular crew of three, and the whole station will have a lifespan of about 10 years. In its early stages, this space station could weigh up to 100 tons, but subsequent additions could see its weight increase to 140 to 160 tons. Larger size likely means accommodations for additional crew.

The size of the crew modules is limited by the 25-ton to low Earth orbit (LEO) lifting capacity of the 5-meter diameter Long March-5 space launch vehicle (SLV), currently China’s largest SLV.

At the 2014 International Astronautical Congress in Toronto, a Chinese space official told this analyst that China has plans for a next-generation space station after Tiangong. This could be a much larger space station. After 2030, China will likely have its Long March-9, capable of lofting space station modules of 100 tons or more.

China has been working toward the Tiangong space station since at least 1992, when China began its three-part 921 Program of early manned operations—its Shenzhou manned spaceships, then its Tiangong early manned space station, and then its early unmanned Moon probes.

While the Shenzhou was based on purchased Russian Soyuz spacecraft plans and technology, in 2009 Russian sources told this analyst that China basically stole Russian technology to develop its early space station. This explains why the Tianhe module looks like a slightly longer Russian Energia Company MIR space station module. It also serves as a cautionary tale ahead of allowing Chinese astronauts to board the International Space Station (ISS).

Like all other aspects of China’s space program, its space station will be controlled by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). This means that beyond the expected scientific and commercial activities, China’s space station will have two more important missions.

First, China’s space station will likely perform military surveillance, and even potential combat missions. This is made easier by its modular construction; additional armed modules can be launched under a deceptive guise, again copying the Energia concept that would have also produced an armed MIR station had the Soviet Communist Party survived into the 1990s.

In the early moments of a conflict with China, the United States and other countries may hesitate to attack a manned Chinese space station, possibly giving the PLA sufficient time to attack U.S. and other satellites, or to attack targets on Earth with kinetic or energy weapons.

China, however, may have little hesitation to attack the manned 15-nation coalition, 417-ton ISS. In September 2008, China’s Shenzhou-7 very likely conducted a simulated interception-attack against the ISS.

Beyond its potential use in wartime, China’s space station will perform a critical political-military mission by serving as the focal point for Chinese recruitment of a space partnership coalition. China will then use such a coalition to normalize its presence on the Moon, that in turn advances its quest for hegemony on Earth.

In 2022, Pakistan expects to launch its first astronaut to the Chinese space station. This will gift Pakistan’s military authoritarian government with a hero who may beat into space India’s first astronauts on their Gaganyaan spacecraft, not expected until the end of 2022 or early 2023. The prospect of such a propaganda “coup” may help Pakistan agree to station Chinese military ships and aircraft at the Chinese-built port of Gwadar, assisting the PLA’s projection into the Indian Ocean, to the Persian Gulf, and to Africa.

Possible future Chinese space station visitors from Nigeria, Algeria, Venezuela, and Argentina, countries with either arms sales or space program relationships with China, might then welcome Chinese military access to their strategically located ports.

Countries welcomed aboard its space station become likely candidates for selection to work on China’s future Moon bases. In the 2030s, China may have the intention to rapidly build up to 10 such Moon bases. Having an international crew cohort may be helpful in building political support for any Chinese actions on the Moon that may undermine, or run counter to, American and allied lunar objectives or international treaties and agreements.

Success on its LEO space station and then on the Moon could enable China to build a network of larger space-based solar-power satellites to help achieve energy independence, which could greatly assist China’s quest for hegemony on Earth.

China’s first-generation space station, and the possibility it will build a much larger second-generation station, puts pressure on Washington to try to sustain the ISS for as long as possible. Since the mid-2000s, Russia has been mulling plans for divorcing some of its modules from the ISS to build a new but smaller Russian space station. India may also have a small space station by the early 2030s.

There has been some enthusiasm for increasingly turning the ISS over to private sector companies and, indeed, they could also build independent small space stations should the ISS not survive the decade. But to sustain its international space coalition it may be more “profitable” for the United States to continue the Artemis Program to build a large human presence on the Moon that involves many allies, partners, and friends.

Richard D. Fisher, Jr. is a senior fellow and policy analyst with the International Assessment and Strategy Center.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/coming-soon-chinas-space-station-hegemony_3709966.html

Rep. Perry: Designate CCP a Transnational Criminal Organization

By Isabel van Brugen and Joshua Philipp

March 1, 2021

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) said Sunday that the Biden administration must designate the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) a “transnational criminal organization,” to allow Americans to understand the regime’s vision for not only China, but also the United States.

“We’re making a differentiation between the people of China and the Communist Party of China,” the lawmaker told The Epoch Times at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida. “We need to designate them as that which recognizes who and what they are.”

Perry in October 2020 introduced a bill to designate the CCP as such, and to eliminate sovereign immunity for Chinese officials—which would allow them to be tried in U.S. court for criminal prosecution.

“Now, they claim they have sovereignty, because they are a government of a country, but I think that’s very specious. I mean, they’re a criminal organization involved in criminal acts, it’s not a matter of conjecture,” Perry said. “It’s easily proven fact, whether it’s the distribution or the allowance of the distribution of fentanyl across our borders, and right into the United States, or whether it’s the human rights violations.”

“So we’re somehow giving them a pass, because they say we have sovereign immunity as a government,” he continued. “Sovereign immunity as a government doesn’t allow you to commit horrific acts of violence against your own citizenry, or anybody else, whether it’s in your borders or not—the world has not allowed that.”

Perry introduced the legislation with Reps. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.) last year that would add the CCP to the Department of Justice’s Top International Criminal Organizations Target (TICOT) list, that seeks to identify and eliminate international criminal organizations that pose the gravest threat to U.S. national interests.

He said Sunday that the designation would allow the Department of Justice to deal with the Chinese regime and “prosecute those responsible,” on issues ranging from intellectual property theft, to the regime’s crimes against humanity.

“That will get the American people fully understanding who the Communist Party of China is and what their vision is for not only for China, for the United States of America,” Perry said.

Transnational organized crime is defined by the FBI as self-perpetuating associations of individuals who operate transnationally for the purpose of obtaining power, influence, and monetary and/or commercial gains, wholly or in part by illegal means, while protecting their activities through a pattern of corruption and/or violence, or while protecting their illegal activities through a transnational organizational structure and the exploitation of transnational commerce or communication mechanisms.

“These are all crimes and they’re not being dealt with,” Perry said, referring in part to the human rights abuses being committed against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region, forced organ harvesting, the Chinese regime’s social credit program, the intellectual property theft on American soil, the distribution of narcotics, and proliferation through China into the United States through Mexico.

“So I think that it sets everybody’s frame of mind and especially businesses, because I don’t think most businesses want to be dealing with a criminal organization, and most businesses certainly don’t want to deal with some of this with an organization that is involved in the concentration camps and the oppression of the Uyghurs.”

A day before leaving office, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo designated the Chinese regime’s persecution of Uyghurs as genocide and “crimes against humanity.” The Biden administration has agreed with the designation.

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, however, has said the new administration has some reservations about former President Donald Trump’s approach to China.

“Let me just say that I also believe that President Trump was right in taking a tougher approach to China,” Blinken told the Senate foreign relations panel during his confirmation hearing. “I disagree very much with the way that he went about it in a number of areas, but the basic principle was the right one, and I think that’s actually helpful to our foreign policy.”

President Joe Biden has indicated he would focus on “extreme competition” with the Chinese regime, although the administration has shed little light on concrete plans pending a review of Trump-era China policies. The administration also faces pressure from Congress to continue a hardline stance toward the regime, an area that enjoys bipartisan support.

Cathy He contributed to this report.

Follow Joshua on Twitter: @JoshJPhilipp

https://www.theepochtimes.com/rep-perry-designate-ccp-a-transnational-criminal-organization_3715367.html

A Chinese Doctor’s Suicide Casts Light on Forced Organ Harvesting in China

The Epoch Times Commentary by Wang Youqun,

March 11, 2021

In the early hours of Feb. 26, Dr. Zang Yunjin, a liver transplant specialist, committed suicide. His death may have been connected to his alleged involvement with the mass harvesting of organs from Falun Gong adherents.

Sources say that Zang had jumped off a building, according to an article published by Chinese media Medical Community on Feb. 27. He was 57 years old.

Zang was the director of the Institute of Organ Donation and Transplantation of Qingdao University Medical School, and the director of the Organ Transplantation Center of Qingdao University Hospital.

According to a report in MedSci, a medical platform in China, Zang was “a distinguished organ transplant expert,” who had done “over 2,600 cases of liver transplants.” He was among the top ten (Chinese doctors) doing liver organ transplants for four consecutive years, and in 2019, he was awarded the title “The Nation’s Distinguished Doctor.”

Zang was a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He was a chief physician, professor, and a returned scholar from the United States. He had a long list of titles, including “Taishan Scholar” and “Distinguished Expert,” the report said.

After returning to China in December 2000, Zang established the liver transplant department of Shandong Provincial Qianfoshan Hospital, and later became chief physician of the Organ Transplantation Center of Tianjin First Central Hospital and director of the Shandong Branch of the Orient Organ Transplantation Center.

In January 2005, Zang was transferred to the Liver Transplantation Institute of Beijing Armed Police General Hospital, where he served as deputy director of the institute and director of the liver transplant department of the hospital, as well as professor and chief physician of Beijing Youan Hospital, Capital Medical University Beijing Institute of Hepatology.

In 2014, Zang was appointed as the deputy superintendent of Qingdao University Medical Group, the director of surgery of The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, the director of the university’s Organ Transplant Center, and the director of the Institute of Transplant Medicine, Qingdao University.

Zang was one of the CCP’s famous liver transplant experts, with a long list of awards, honors, and titles. So, why did he commit suicide?

Zang’s Involvement in CCP-Sanctioned Forced Organ Harvesting

I believe the main reason that Zang took his own life is because of his alleged involvement in the mass harvesting of organs from Falun Gong adherents. Every hospital in which Zang worked appears in reports from the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG).

WOIPFG was established in 2003 with a mission “to investigate the criminal conduct of all institutions, organizations and individuals involved in the persecution of Falun Gong; to bring such investigations, no matter how long it takes, no matter how far and deep we have to search, to full closure; to exercise fundamental principles of humanity; and to restore and uphold justice in society,” as stated on its website.

According to investigative reports published by WOIPFG, from 2004 to 2008, Zang participated in “1,600 cases of liver extractions” at Tianjin First Central Hospital.

At the Armed Police General Hospital, Zang completed at least 1,570 liver transplants

The General Surgery (Liver Transplantation) Center at Beijing Youan Hospital, where Zang worked part-time, had completed 1,001 liver transplants by Aug. 10, 2017.

Since Zang joined The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, it has “ranked among the top organ transplant centers in China in terms of the number and quality of liver transplants performed during the same period,” according to WOIPFG.

On July 20, 1999, the CCP began persecuting Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline also known as Falun Dafa. He Xiaoshun, the deputy superintendent of The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangdong Province, revealed that the year 2000 was a watershed for China’s organ transplants that changed from donor shortages to explosive growth, and that “the number of liver transplants nationwide in 2000 was 10 times higher than in 1999.”

There is only one liver in a human being. Extracting a person’s liver for transplantation means he will die.

What is the source of such huge numbers of organs? Numerous investigations have shown that the organs of Falun Gong practitioners were extracted on a large scale.

Zang has repeatedly been on the WOIPFG tracking list. The thousands of liver transplants he performed may have involved a significant number of Falun Gong adherents being killed in the process.

Four More ‘Suicide’ Cases of Chinese Transplants Specialists

Several other Chinese organ transplant experts are reported to have committed suicide.

On March 24, 2014, Zhang Shilin, 44, deputy director of the Department of Urology at Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, jumped from the window of his office on the 8th floor of the hospital.

On Oct. 13, 2013, Jiang Xusheng, 50, a professor of general surgery and the director of liver transplantation at Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, committed suicide by cutting his neck and abdomen in his apartment at the west side of the hospital.

On March 16, 2010, Li Leishi, 84, an internationally renowned kidney specialist, jumped from the 14-story building where he lived in Nanjing. He was the former deputy superintendent of the Nanjing General Hospital of Nanjing Military Command and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

On May 4, 2007, Li Baochun, 44, a renowned kidney transplant specialist at The Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, jumped to his death from the 12th floor of the hospital’s kidney transplant building.

All four doctors have been listed in WOIPFG’s investigative reports for their alleged involvement in the harvesting of organs of Falun Gong practitioners.

Did the doctors actually commit suicide or were they murdered? It is difficult to ascertain.

For example, Li Leishi was categorized as “an anti-revolutionary” during the so-called Cultural Revolution and was brutally persecuted and forced to separate from his wife and children. In an interview, he was asked if he would ever commit suicide. He said, “No, I don’t think I’m an anti-revolutionary. I’m not guilty.” Why, then, did he commit suicide at the age of 84 when he had achieved fame and fortune?

Independent Investigations and Evidence of Organ Harvesting

One of the first whistleblowers who exposed the organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners was a former employee at Sujiatun Hospital in Shenyang city, Liaoning Province. Annie (pseudonym) made a public statement about the atrocity in March 2006. She now lives in the United States.

Since then, human rights lawyers outside China, experts and scholars, WOIPFG, and China Tribunal of the United Kingdom have conducted numerous independent investigations into the issue, and concluded that large-scale live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners by the CCP has existed for many years and is ongoing.

On Feb. 24, 117 organizations, including Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China, co-hosted a seminar on live organ harvesting by the CCP regime. Experts, lawmakers, officials, and representatives from 25 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the European Union, and Australia participated in the event.

Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, a prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Slobodan Milošević, also chaired China Tribunal, a people’s tribunal into organ harvesting in China.

He said in his speech that his team started “with a blank sheet of paper” before investigating the issue of live organ harvesting by the CCP, “putting on it nothing but evidence.” He said the panel members “had no preconceptions” and that they were not activists nor had they any particular sympathy for the victims. They just dealt with the evidence presented to them and ended the question “in the form of the judgement.”

“It’s very difficult for anyone to challenge that,” Nice said, and for the two years since the judgement was first announced, “it has not been de-constructed or challenged in detail by anyone.”

The China Tribunal held open public hearings from Dec. 8 to 10, 2018, and April 6 and 7, 2019. On June 17, 2019, the seven-member panel concluded that it was “beyond doubt” that forced organ harvesting from prisoners had taken place “on a substantial scale by state-supported or approved organizations and individuals,” constituting “crimes against humanity.”

The tribunal has also ruled that adherents of Falun Gong have been the targets of persecution by the CCP since July 1999.

Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas said the large-scale live organ harvesting of Falun Gong adherents is one of the world’s worst crimes against humanity and that it is more bloody, more atrocious, and more brutal than the holocaust that occurred during World War II.

Human rights activists, experts, and lawmakers have called on the international community to unite and take action to hold the CCP regime accountable for its state-sanctioned practice of harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners.

This year marks 22 years since the CCP began persecuting Falun Gong, and 15 years since the revelation of organ harvesting of its adherents. The time has come to settle the score for this atrocity.

Wang Youqun graduated with a Ph.D. in law from the Renmin University of China. He once worked as a copywriter for Wei Jianxing (1931–2015), a member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee from 1997 to 2002.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/a-chinese-doctors-suicide-draws-attention-to-forced-organ-harvesting-in-china_3725206.html

The Xinjiang Genocide

The Epoch Times Commentary by Callista L. Gingrich

March 21, 2021

In Xinjiang, located in western China, the Chinese Communist Party is aggressively working to eradicate the faith and culture of the Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minority communities.

On March 10, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio provided a written statement for a U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom hearing entitled, “A Religious Minority Enslaved: Addressing the Complicity of U.S. Companies in Uyghur Forced Labor.” He wrote, “When a regime deprives a people of their right to practice their faith freely, they are depriving those people of their full humanity. They are cutting them off from the traditions that sustained their ancestors and defined who they are as a people. This is precisely why Beijing has targeted the Uyghurs.”

The religious and cultural practices of the Uyghurs pose significant threats to the absolute power and authority that the Chinese Communist Party seeks to maintain over Xinjiang—a critical geographic component to the CCP’s $1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative.

The Uyghurs have been living in East Turkestan, what is now officially known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, since the 6th century. Xinjiang was formally incorporated into the Chinese Empire by the Qing Dynasty in 1884. After the Qing dynasty collapsed and China was engulfed in political instability, there were attempts to establish independent Muslim states in the region. Ultimately, after the Chinese Communist Party seized control of China in 1949, Xinjiang was reclaimed and “peacefully liberated.”

There have always been hostilities between the Chinese Communist Party and the Uyghurs. After a stabbing attack at a railway station in 2014 by Uyghur separatists, tensions escalated. The Xinjiang regional government responded to the incident by launching a campaign entitled, “Strike Hard Against Violent Extremism.”

Since 2016, when the former top Communist Party official in Tibet became the Party chief in Xinjiang, evidence has shown that the CCP is using “counterterrorism” as a meritless excuse for committing mass genocide to ensure its control over western China.

The Chinese Communist Party is systematically eradicating Islam in Xinjiang. As a consequence of government policies, 16,000 mosques have been destroyed or damaged, according to a 2020 Australian Strategic Policy Institute report. This equates to 65 percent of the total number of mosques in Xinjiang.

Additionally, the Chinese Communist Party has established mass internment camps where as many as 1.8 million –3 million Uyghurs have been incarcerated since 2018. It is within these “re-education” camps where the Chinese Communist Party forcibly rids prisoners of their faith, their culture, and their human dignity. These victims must reject Islam, declare loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party, and learn Mandarin. Prisoners are subject to torture, abuse, and in some cases, death. There have also been testimonies from women survivors that describe tragic instances of sexual abuse and organized rape. Women—including those outside of the camps—have been required to submit to pregnancy checks, intrauterine devices, forced abortions, and sterilization procedures.

The Chinese Communist Party has also turned the homes of the Uyghurs into prisons, through an initiative called “Pair Up and Become Family.” By 2018, this homestay program had placed more than 1 million Chinese government officials in the homes of Uyghurs to monitor their behavior and impose secularism upon these families.

Furthermore, according to Dr. Adrian Zenz, senior fellow in China studies for the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, Beijing is currently shifting its focus toward “longer-term … coercive assimilation” through the institution of various work programs.

Dr. Zenz testified to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom during the March 10 hearing that one of China’s work programs moves agricultural rural laborers into secondary or tertiary sector work. In another program, those who have been released from the internment camps are transitioned into forced labor.

Heritage Foundation senior policy analyst Olivia Enos further testified that under U.S. and international law, the Chinese Communist Party’s forced labor practices are a form of human trafficking. Her testimony referenced reports which indicated Uyghurs are forced to work in factories in the internment camps and partake in work transfer programs. According to Ms. Enos’s testimony, the legal definition of human trafficking requires the presence of “force, fraud, or coercion.”

As a consequence of these programs, mothers and fathers are separated from their families, while their children and the elderly are placed in state-run boarding and care facilities. Children, even those as young as infants or toddlers, are placed into educational settings that promote the Chinese Communist Party’s political ideology while prohibiting religious practices.

The atrocities that the Chinese Communist Party is committing against Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minority populations in Xinjiang have been found to be in violation of every provision in the United Nations’ Genocide Convention. The religious and cultural practices and traditions of these communities are being systematically destroyed by the Chinese Communist Party.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a declaration in January 2021 that the Chinese Communist Party is committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, a designation with which the Biden administration and Secretary of State Antony Blinken agree.

The Chinese Communist Party’s genocide against the Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities is a devastating tragedy. The United States must continue to stand against these gruesome attacks on religious freedom and human dignity and invite our partners and allies to join in opposition to end the CCP’s violence and oppression in Xinjiang.

From Gingrich360.com.

Callista Louise Gingrich is a businesswoman, author, documentary film producer, and diplomat who served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See from 2017 to 2021.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-xinjiang-genocide_3742985.html

The Chinese Communist Party’s Internet Trolls Are the World’s Largest Cyber Army

The Epoch Times Commentary by Gu Feng

March 25, 2021

In the online world, a group of people endangers the safety and health of the internet, and Chinese netizens call them the “cyber triad.” Among the groups are the Chinese regime’s internet trolls, known as “wumao dang” in Chinese or “50 cent army.”

These internet trolls pose a threat to personal data and national security. They carried out the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s disinformation campaigns with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic, Hong Kong’s anti-extradition bill protests, Taiwan’s 2020 election, and the U.S. 2020 election, and other major international events.

The History of the CCP’s Internet Trolls

The CCP’s internet trolls, described in a study (pdf) as “for-hire astroturfers working for and advancing the interests of companies and other actors willing to pay their fees,” are one of the largest criminal organizations. Based on the historical data of major search engines, commercial trolls have been emerging on the internet since 2004.

Through an analysis of online data, the CCP’s internet trolls can be divided into three stages of development.

The first stage was from 2004 to 2009, during which the CCP’s trolls mainly focused on the deletion of posts, sales and promotion, and advocacy of rights on behalf of others.

The second stage was from 2010 to 2013, which was the business development stage of the CCP’s trolls. In this stage, its business scope began to expand. Major internet troll companies began to act as public relations agents for individuals, enterprises, local CCP parties, government agencies, and the CCP’s non-governmental institutions to deal with online crises. During this stage, the 50 cent army, civilian internet trolls hired by the CCP, started to appear on the internet to participate in public events.

The third stage was from 2014 to 2021, when the business transformed for the CCP’s trolls. In February 2014, the CCP officially established the Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs, under which is the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), or Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission.

Five business sectors were established to work under the CAC: the Internet Commentary Work Bureau, the Internet Social Work Bureau, the Mobile Network Administration Bureau, the Internet Security Coordination Bureau, and the International Cooperation Bureau. Their responsibilities include internet opinion monitoring, management, control of the CCP’s internet trolls, public relations related with internet issues, overseas propaganda, and the CCP’s United Front Work Department.

After the establishment of the CAC, it launched a cyber campaign to consolidate various independent civilian hackers and troll companies under its control. At the same time, the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) recruited tens of millions of university students to work as part-time internet trolls in major universities across China, and the Central Committee of Political and Legal Affairs recruited millions of detainees in major prisons as full-time cyber trolls. In this way, cyber hackers and trolls have changed from a “guerrilla army” into a “regular army” controlled by the CCP.

The Organizational Structure of the CCP’s Internet Trolls

According to CCP insiders, the CCP attaches great importance to the formation and management of its internet trolls. The CCP has set up special organizations of cyber army governance at all levels of government. Personnel recruitment, training, task assignment, payment, and meetings are all conducted online.

The CCP’s internet trolls are composed of the following six categories of personnel: cadres of CYLC, social media influencers, university students, employees of internet companies, prison inmates, and the unemployed. Their payment is based on different job categories and is calculated on the number of posts they have submitted. There are many types of job roles, and the major roles include conveners, technical staff (hackers), writers, online commentators, and public opinion supervisors. The trolls themselves are divided into two major categories: domestic and overseas.

The CCP’s Internet Trolls Are Anathema to Chinese Netizens

The Chinese people dare not voice their anger at the CCP for spending huge sums of public money to pay tens of millions of 50 cent army members every year.

In China, major internet portals, at the behest of the CCP, allow the 50 cent army to suppress criticism and stigmatize CCP dissidents, create false public opinion, cover up various crimes committed by the CCP, undermine social order and morality, create the illusion of national prosperity, incite racial and ethnic hatred, maliciously create rumors about other countries, falsify historical truths, and spread messages to fool the public.

Whenever articles by major CCP leaders appear on the internet, the comments are almost always filled with adulation written by the internet trolls. The Chinese netizens despise the 50 cent army, but the Chinese regime regards their comments as public opinion.

The CCP’s Cyber Army Has Become a Malignant Tumor to the Whole World

Today, with the globalization of the internet, the CCP’s cyber army has long been endangering the social security of countries around the world. In the cyber world, the CCP’s online trolls are like an infectious disease, attacking countries all over the world. For example, online hackers attack the websites of key government departments, scientific research institutions, large enterprises, and universities to steal their information. The 50 cent army maliciously attacks and abuses government leaders and anti-communists in other countries. The Chinese regime’s social media influencers implement cultural aggression on the internet. In short, the CCP’s cyber army is taking advantage of the freedom of speech in democratic countries to attack other countries.

As early as a decade ago, the United States had included the CCP’s cyber attacks as an important issue in U.S.-China diplomacy, but the situation is getting worse.

On March 18, the Biden administration held its first high-level dialogue with the Chinese regime in Alaska, where Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met with Yang Jiechi, a senior CCP foreign policy diplomat, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Blinken said that the United States would “discuss our deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, economic coercion of our allies.”

Instead of including the South China Sea and U.S.-China trade issues on the agenda, the United States made cyberattacks an important topic of the talks, which shows the extent of harm the CCP’s cyber army has done to the United States.

The CCP’s cyber army has also launched fierce attacks on U.S. social media.

Twitter announced on June 12, 2020, the “disclosure” of the Chinese regime’s “23,750 accounts” that Twitter said as being involved “in a range of manipulative and coordinated activities,” and that they tweeted “predominantly in Chinese languages” to spread “geopolitical narratives favorable to the Communist Party of China (CCP) while continuing to push deceptive narratives about the political dynamics in Hong Kong.”

On Sept. 22, 2020, Facebook also removed a network of fake accounts from China that “coordinated inauthentic behavior” in political discussions through “155 accounts, 11 Pages, 9 Groups, and 6 Instagram accounts.” According to Facebook, their activities “originated in China and focused primarily on the Philippines and Southeast Asia more broadly, and also on the United States.”

Gu Feng is a former media veteran from mainland China now living in the United States.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-chinese-communist-partys-internet-trolls-are-the-worlds-largest-cyber-army_3748483.html

The Reality Behind China’s Strong Economy (Part 1): Sacrifice of the Chinese People

March 29, 2021 | By Xi Yuan (Minghui.org)

China has been the world’s second-largest economy for a decade. Some people credit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for making it happen. As analyzed below, the growing clout of China came at the expense of Western countries, including the U.S., as well as China’s own people.

Wishful Thinking That Went Astray

The CCP had been implementing a planned economy in its early years ruling China. This suppressed China’s potential and isolated China’s economy from the rest of the world. The situation changed in the 1970s when Western countries, especially the United States, began to help China.

It started during the cold war when the U.S.-led capitalist countries faced the military mighty power of the Soviet Union-led communism bloc. At that time, Beijing, though in the communist camp, broke away from the Soviet Union. U.S. academics came up with an idea to pull China into the capitalist side to isolate the Soviet Union.

The U.S. plan was called the “Peaceful Revolution”: to do business with China and gradually absorb it into the world’s capitalist economic system; this would eventually transform China into capitalism economically, and in the meantime push it into a democratic free country politically.

The U.S. President Nixon visited Beijing in 1972. At that time, the CCP’s Cultural Revolution (1966 – 1976) had almost brought China’s economy to the brink of collapse. The U.S.’ peaceful revolution came at the right time to save the CCP. The CCP then announced the start of its economic reform in 1978.

The U.S. provided China with many free technologies and poured in hundreds of billions of dollars. It opened the market of the U.S. and the Western world to China. It also helped Beijing join the World Trade Organization (WTO) even after the Soviet Union collapsed and the CCP launched the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

However, there was a loophole in this plan of “Peaceful Revolution” concept: If Beijing wanted to become a qualified player in the capitalist economic system, it must abandon its communist ideology and more importantly, give up its privilege to enslave the over one billion Chinese people.

The CCP would not accept it. So it played its old trick – cheating. It promised changes, which were to happen at a later time, but most of which never happened. In the meantime, the CCP raked in the benefits from collaborating with the West right away.

The CCP adopted the capitalist economy as it had no other way to survive. But in its propaganda, it told the Chinese people that this market economy is the primary stage of socialism, or the “Socialist Market Economy with Chinese characteristics.”

Once the CCP loosened its reign on the economy, the Chinese people worked diligently to create an economic boom, with their heritage of traditional Chinese values: hardworking, wisdom, and saving.

Therefore, China’s economic achievement was due to the U.S.’ offering the opportunity and support, as well as Chinese people working hard to create wealth. In the meantime, the wishful thinking of Western countries driving China’s political reform through economic development did not happen. Instead of joining the free world ideologically, Beijing gradually grew to gain more resources to suppress people domestically and push its communist agenda globally.

In the Name of Communism: The Birth of a New Elite Class

From Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto to the Soviet Union and communist China, the communist propaganda has always been serving the poor to achieve egalitarianism. Almost without exception, however, this sugar-coated lie ended up with brutality, totalitarianism, and an elite group that suppresses people politically while amassing fortune economically.

Where did the money go in China? A few numbers from different researchers may offer a glimpse: China Merchants Bank reported in 2019 that 2% of the people in China controls 80% of the wealth, and Beijing University reported that China’s Gini Coefficient was 0.73 in 2014 (a country is considered as having big income gaps if the number is greater than 0.4 and severe income gap if greater than 0.5).

The CCP officials use the power they have to grab wealth from the Chinese people. The benefit of China’s economy opening up was snatched away by the top 500 officials and their families. They transferred the amounts of money outside of China, including to Hong Kong, the U.S., and Switzerland. It was reported in 2020 that 100 Chinese have deposited over 7.8 trillion yuan (US $1.2 trillion) in the Swiss Bank UBS alone.

Those officials’ spouses and children reside outside of China. According to the U.S. government statistics, for CCP officials with ministerial rank or higher, including those retired, 74.5% of their children have American green card or citizenship and 91% of their grandchildren do.

The government spending also showed this economic benefit distribution. The government spending in the U.S. is 3.4% of its national GDP, 2.8% in Japan, but 25.6% in China.

The average personal income in the U.S. is 11 times that in China, while the housing price in China is 5 times that in the U.S. China’s Premier Li Keqiang said in 2020 that there were 600 million Chinese whose monthly income was less than 1,000 yuan (US $153).

The CCP deprives people of their freedoms of religion, speech, publication, and others. This then enables it to deprive people of economic wealth.

Expensive Education, Residency, and Healthcare

China’s government spending on education is far below a normal country. The free education in democratic countries is more affordable: people do not pay for tuition, textbooks, or other fees. The governments even provide lunches to poor families.

In contrast, China’s nine-year free education is accompanied by hefty fees charged in various categories. Still, the government claims it does not have money to build enough schools, and does not allow the 60 million children of migrant workers (farmers who go to the city to work) to attend schools in cities where their parents work

The CCP ties people to the locale where they were born via the Residency Card system. Though the government wants migrant workers to go to cities to work, they only want the labor force, but nothing else. Those migrant workers do not have city residency status and cannot enjoy the same benefits as the city dwellers, including rights to buy apartments, contribute to the pension system, and purchase health insurance through their employers.

Their children cannot attend city schools, either. Those children have to stay at their home villages, separated from their parents. There’s a story of a girl who skipped breakfast for four years only to save money to buy a train ticket so that she could go to see her mother in the city.

Medical expense is another money draining hole in China. A severe illness can make a middle class family lose everything and get into deep debt, not to mention people who live paycheck to paycheck and farmers.

On the other hand, Chinese officials have moved over 100 trillion yuan (US $15.1 trillion) outside of China as their own assets. That amount alone could pay for the entire nation’s free healthcare insurance for 625 years!

In fact, looking at government healthcare spending, 80 percent was for the treatment and convalescence of high-ranking officials – only 20 percent was left for the general public. The CCP even kills healthy people to get their organs for these senior cadres or their family members. Jiang Mianheng, former CCP head Jiang Zemin’s son, had three kidney transplants and killed five people to make that happen.

A Threat to All of Us

Many Chinese people may feel that if they just live a normal life and do not break any law, they will be fine and have a good enough life. However, in a country where human rights are ignored or even trampled on, that dream may only be a dream – anyone could be snatched by the CCP if it wants.

Even the live organ harvesting might come to you. The CCP has invented a unique technology called “brain stem injury impact machine.” Its function is to tie a person to this machine and make the person brain-dead instantly. In the meantime, the person’s blood is still circulating, keeping his organs live and fresh, so that the CCP can take them out for transplant profit.

The People’s Court in London made the verdict on June 17, 2019 that the CCP had committed crimes against humanity, genocide, and murder, for its live organ harvesting practice.

The current main victims of the CCP’s live organ harvesting are Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, and other minority groups. But any Chinese can be subject to it. China’s third-generation identification card has collected the DNA of the cardholder, which means the CCP can make anyone a victim.

In October 2020, China’s former Health Minister Huang Jiefu said that China will be the number one organ transplant country. Where did those organs come from? Traditional Chinese culture believes in burying the whole body and few Chinese would like to donate their organs or bodies.

Even the people around the world are not immune from the CCP’s threat. The CCP has polluted China’s environment so badly that it is systematically destroying it and the impact is spreading to the world; the CCP has produced poisonous products and sold them all over the world; the CCP has hid and lied about the COVID-19 infections in China and spread the virus to the world, causing 2.7 million deaths globally so far; and the CCP has destroyed the value system of humanity and ruined people’s spiritual connection to the divine.

The Nobel Prize winning economist Friedrich Hayek argued in his famous book “The Road to Serfdom,” that communism will for sure oppress human rights and eventually, individuals have nothing left but becoming slaves.

In fact, communism’s ultimate agenda is to destroy humanity.

https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2021/3/29/191636.html

92-Year-Old Man’s Confession Is a Testimony of the Brutality of the Chinese Communist Party

April 3, 2021 | By Sun Qiang(Minghui.org)

There was an article circulating online in 2012 about a 92-year-old man who requested his family include six accounts of guilt on his tombstone. His family was hesitant since people usually record their merits and achievements on their tombstones, not wrongdoings.

But the man was insistent. Reflecting on his journey of life, he was always regretting over these sins, leaving his soul tortured. Again and again, he had pleaded to Buddha for forgiveness. Buddha smiled at him, but did not say a word. That is why he decided to record his sins and begged for forgiveness, so that his soul would rest in peace.

This man’s surname is Xu and he was born in 1920. It is unclear whether he is still alive today. He life journey has been a testimony of the brutality of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). “This is repentance from a 92-year-old citizen. But how many more people need to repent over their sins?” wrote this article.

Below is the testimony of the man.

* * *

First Account: Taking Watches from Dead American Pilots

In March 1942, one aircraft from Flying Tigers (The First American Volunteer Group, AVG) crashed into the woods behind my village. Two pilots parachuted out and landed at the hill of Erlang Mountain.

At that time I was cutting firewood in the area. After rushing there, I saw the parachutes hung on trees and the two pilots lying on the piles of rocks with blood all over. I got close and found both of them had died. I stood there for a while and somehow had the weird thought of checking if they had any valuables. In the end, I took both of their watches.

The next day, township government (Republic of China) sent someone to move the bodies to Chongqing. When people carried them past the village, I stayed in my home and dared not go out looking. I was ashamed of myself: gosh! These Americans came here to help us fight the invading Japanese. We should be very thankful, but I instead took their watches. Was I a human being?

I felt bad since then. In 1948 I could not hold it any more. I borrowed some money as travel expense and went to Chongqing. I then threw both watches into the Jialing River as a way of returning them to the pilots. I then felt a little better.

I am an ordinary person. When the Republic of China government called for people to enlist to fight the Japanese, I joined the army. When the troop arrived in Fuling, however, I fled as a deserter. After the CCP took power in 1949, there were many political campaigns condemning the Kumintang (KMT, ruling party of the Republic of China), I even publicly criticized it for conscription.

I felt so bad, because I have let down my forefathers and ancestors. Millions of fellow Chinese had joined the army and sacrificed for our country. Who still remembers them after the CCP took power in 1949? We have erected merit monuments for them and for the Flying Tigers, because they are true heroes. For me, I only deserve a tombstone of guilt.

Second Account: Killing a Landlord in Land Reform

Representatives from the land reform task force came to my village in 1951 to push forward this campaign and kill landlords. In fact, several landlords in the village were nice and generous, and they got along well with villagers. Although the task force officials held meetings every day, instigating villagers to attack the landlords, there was little progress after two weeks.

Supervisor Hu was impatient. He came to me and another two young men in the village, saying there was a quota from the county that one out of three landlords in our village needed to be killed. Since the class struggle meeting did not go well as he had planned, he hoped we could help call out slogans. This way, at least the meeting would continue.

Somehow I was muddleheaded and agreed. During the meeting that evening, I was the first one to call out, “Down the local tyrants and evil gentry!” “We support land reform!” “Eliminate the landlord class!” Several other young men also joined me.

Seeing the meeting warmed up, Hu loudly reprimanded a landlord named Zhao Renhou and listed his “crimes” of exploiting farmers.

“Don’t you agree Zhao has exploited us?” he raised his voice and asked the crowd.

“Yes, he is!” replied several of us who had the pre-meeting the day before.

“Should we execute him?” he continued.

“Yes!” we answered loudly.

“Now several of you push him out,” he ordered.

We then took Zhao from the meeting out to the yard.

As soon as we got there, Hu asked us to stand by the side. Then there was a gun shot, followed by another one. Zhao collapsed to the ground. All the villagers were shocked. We did not know to “execute” him would mean to kill him. We thought it was driving him out of the meeting place. This way, we lost our conscience and caused Zhao’s death. What an enormous sin!

Third Account: Not Saving a Rightist in Time

Several years later, the Anti-Rightist Campaign started. One intellectual came to the village in 1957 and his last name was also Hu. We heard that his crime was attacking socialism and communism. Hu was thin and weak, as if wind could strike him down. He joined labor work in the people’s commune during the day and kept coughing. At night, he slept at a deserted temple on the edge of the village. The village head treated him badly. We also stayed away from him to avoid trouble.

On the 10th day after Hu came, I went to the pond near the village in the morning to water the land. Suddenly I saw him struggling in the water, and I knew it was a suicide attempt out of despair. I was then debating myself: If I save him, it could bring me trouble; If I do not save him, it is a human life after all. After a while, I jumped in the pond to save him in the end. But it was too late and he had drowned already. Later on, several militiamen came and buried him by covering him with some hay.

In the past few decades, I felt remorse whenever passing there. Although he was hopeless and was killing himself, and saving him might mean more suffering, he was nonetheless a human being.

Four Account: Resorting to Eating the Flesh of a Corpse During the Great Famine

Then there was the notorious Great Leap Forward in 1958. Everyone was bragging, claiming tens of kilos of grains per mu (hundreds of times higher than the actual yield). It was also reported that all barns in the villages were filled to the top.

All these were lies. The harvest was normal, but no one harvested the crops, as all the strong villagers were busy “producing” steel in the backyard furnaces. People’s commune officials led us to fill hay in the barns. We also put some grain on the top for inspection by higher officials.

All these led to the Great Chinese Famine between 1959 and 1961. Lots of people in the villages died, including my parents, wife, and some relatives. My two children and I miraculously survived. When there was no food and in such desperate state, I cooked the flesh of my cousin’s corpse… It’s too gruesome to describe further, but this is an additional sin.

Fifth Account: Disobeying Tradition and Burning Buddha Statues

During the Cultural Revolution, officials forced villagers to pledge loyalty to Mao Zedong, then CCP leader. After removing portraits of forefathers and ancestors, we replaced them with Mao and his right-hand man Lin Biao. Before every meal, we had to pledge our loyalty to Mao, send out best wishes, and sing songs.

During those 10 years of the Cultural Revolution, we did not dare to commemorate our forefathers and ancestors. This was wrong. Furthermore, the militiamen and I had also burned Buddha statues. This is another sin.

Six Account: Grandson Became a Corrupt Officer

My grandson graduated from college in 1990 and had two job options. One option was becoming a high school teacher and another was become secretary for the county officials. I was stubborn, thinking being a teacher had no future. So I insisted my grandson go work for the officials.

Now, my grandson has become a county-level official himself and good at corruption, bribery, gambling, and visiting prostitutes. That is, he became a scourge in the region. It is all my fault!

* * *

In the end, the author of the online article said these wrongdoings were not just this old man’s fault. Instead, it was the tragedy of Chinese people.

Through various political campaigns, the CCP had caused about 80 million deaths, which exceeded the death tolls of the two World Wars. “There are 800 million people in China, how could it be without internal fighting?” Mao once said. He also planned to have political movements like the cultural revolution once every 7 or 8 years.

Three Types of Disgrace

All these were rooted in the CCP, whose core values are class struggle, hatred, brutality and lies.

“Every Chinese person needs reflection like this,” commented a netizen.

“This old man’s repentance is a testimony of the Chinese history and all can be attributed to the CCP,” another one wrote.

“No matter voluntarily or passively, we all committed sins,” someone wrote, “As long as the CCP exists, our nation will be in a state of disaster.”

Renowned Chinese scholar Qian Zhongshu said there were types of disgrace in the era of the Cultural Revolution: the humiliation of the victims, the shame of those persecutors, and the blame of those bystanders. If so, aren’t we responsible for the absurdity to some degree?

One woman said her mother was born in 1918, two years older than the 92-year-old man. Her mother always told her not to do bad things, so she and her siblings had always followed their conscience. Nonetheless, one of her classmates attacked her during a political movement so badly that she lost hope. She attempted suicide – fortunately she was saved.

“I could not understand why so many Chinese went insane and blindly listened to Mao’s incitement to do bad deeds?” she wrote. Therefore, when her employer suggested she join the Party in later years, she said no. She explained that being a CCP member was not an honor. To her surprise, people laughed at her because of this.

The classmate who attacked her later found her, but this woman refused to forgive her. “I am a Christian and my mother told me to pardon others,” she wrote, “But I could not understand why she was so bad and I am unable to forgive her.”

Quitting the CCP

On March 3, 2021, a group of 15 renounced membership in the CCP organizations through the website of The Epoch Times. These organizations also include the CCP’s junior associations of the Communist Youth League and the Communist Young Pioneers.

One of these people was Long Yan. Like other Chinese people, Long was told since childhood that the CCP is good and serves the people. “Gradually we found these were all lies,” she wrote. After overcoming the internet blockade and accessing overseas information, she found that history is different from what she was told. “The CCP has hardly done anything other than harming Chinese people,” she continued.

Long said her parents had worked hard, hoping she and others would succeed and become good people. But at school, what she learned was fake history, fake politics, and fake culture. “How can you become a good person given such an education?” she asked.

Fortunately, she has now learned traditional culture, the real story of Falun Gong, and its principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. It is important to come back to the traditional values, embrace goodness, and reject the CCP, she explained.

https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2021/4/3/191706.html

The Reality Behind China’s Strong Economy (Part 2): The CCP’s Unrestricted Warfare Against the World

April 12, 2021 | By Xi Yuan(Minghui.org)

Part 1 of this series explains how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has enslaved Chinese people and stolen the wealth they created. Although China is the world’s second-largest economy, it is the CCP officials who have really reaped the benefits.

In addition to exploiting the Chinese, the CCP has also advanced communist ideology around the world, threatening universal values and morality.

Unrestricted Warfare

The CCP military first raised the concept of “unrestricted warfare” in 1999 as a long-term strategy against the U.S. and, more broadly, the West.

Unlike traditional warfare, which focuses on military actions and minimizes civilian casualties, the concept of unrestricted warfare encompasses all possible means. They include traditional warfare, trade wars, terrorist attacks, ecological damage, network interference, resource depletion, media intrusion, financial manipulation, and cultural infiltration.

In other words, the CCP sees every part of society as a war zone.

How the CCP Uses Western Companies for Its Own Gain

First, the CCP entices Western companies by creating the illusion that it is easier to make money in China than in their home countries, where governments and the private sector are separated and competition is key. Western governments regulate industries but do not intervene in business operations of the private sector. There is also the independent media that help monitor improper behavior.

In China, however, the CCP is both a player and the referee, with the government owning and controlling many enterprises that make up the majority of the Chinese economy. Private enterprises are only allowed to operate in non-critical areas of the economy. Moreover, all media outlets are owned or controlled by the CCP, and they say whatever the CCP wants people to hear.

Foreign companies are also forced to give up their principles. They bribe CCP officials in the name of “following the local culture,” ignore the CCP’s human rights violations, and benefit from the CCP’s enslaving Chinese people while destroying the country’s environment. From time to time, they also have to speak out on behalf of the CCP in their own countries.

Many of these foreign companies find their honeymoon with the CCP short-lived. The CCP does not want to give them money forever; its true goal is to dominate the world and enrich itself. This can better be done through Chinese companies, over which it has full control.

One way the CCP gives Chinese companies an edge in global competition is facilitating intellectual property theft. In exchange for helping Western companies generate profits, the CCP forces these companies to turn over intellectual property, manufacturing processes, and other proprietary knowledge to their Chinese partners. These Chinese companies then begin to produce the same products at a lower cost and take over the market–all with minimal investment in research and development.

Thirty years ago, the CCP used this technique to bring in Japanese and Korean washer, dryer, and television manufacturers. After learning their technologies, the Chinese brands kicked them out of China and began to compete against them in the global market.

Shifting the Financial Burden to Chinese People

To help its companies win in the international market, the CCP shifts the cost to the Chinese people.

For example, Huawei undersells Western companies by 40 percent on network base stations and 5G networking equipment. When Huawei signs a contract with an international client, the state-owned China Development Bank offers a loan to the buyer and transfers the money to Huawei immediately. If the client can’t pay back the loan, Huawei does not suffer the loss. Rather, China Development Bank eats the loss, which is then borne by the Chinese people.

Huawei recorded a net profit of 47.5 billion yuan ($7.2 billion US) in 2016, but China Development Bank had a loss of 82.8 billion yuan ($12.6 billion US). The bank lost 257.3 billion yuan ($39.2 billion US) between 2013 and 2017 while Huawei’s profit kept rising. This type of backing by a state-owned bank is an advantage Western companies will never have.

The CCP pushes Huawei into the international market because it needs the company to spy on telecommunications as part of its unrestricted network warfare and information warfare against the world. Huawei helps the CCP to monitor and steal information from people both inside China and around the world.

The CCP’s Allies

To win in unrestricted warfare, the CCP recruits global elites as part of its united front strategy. It lures leaders in political, economic, cultural, education, and media fields with money, stocks, and sexual favors that can be used for blackmail.

In return, some political and business leaders praise the CCP and encourage their governments to collaborate with the communist regime in the name of globalization. They also turn a blind eye to the CCP’s human rights violations, intimidation of Western companies, infiltration into Western countries, and persecution of religious and ethnic minorities. The list also includes the most evil crime against humanity–organ harvesting from living prisoners of conscience, mostly Falun Gong practitioners but also Uyghurs and other minority groups.

Trump’s Fight Against the CCP

The U.S. didn’t wake up until Donald Trump Jr. became the president in 2016.

Like other U.S. presidents, Trump initially had the hope that the CCP would honor its promises to the world, such as opening the China market as it promised when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2000. He had hoped to use negotiation to change the CCP’s behavior and initiate a structural change in China, so that China would follow the rules of the capitalist market and be a fair player. That would bring great benefit to the Chinese people and to the world.

But that structural change would require the CCP to give up its special privilege, lessen its ability to enslave the Chinese, and, more importantly, possibly lose its power.

No matter how many promises the CCP makes to the world, it does not honor them. In the U.S.-China trade war, the CCP played many rogue tactics. It agreed to the trade terms but completely threw them away later. Eventually Trump forced the CCP to sign the trade agreement on January 15, 2020.

However, what Trump didn’t know was that the CCP covered up the COVID-19 outbreak in China when they signed the deal. Then the pandemic spread and dragged down the world’s economy and trade, making the U.S.-China trade agreement impractical to implement.

The Trump administration started to realize the CCP’s true nature and its threat to the world. It then took a much harder stance against the CCP. Trump’s fight negatively impacted the CCP’s allies in the U.S. who were raking in money from China, and in turn these allies favored a “moderate” candidate for president in the 2020 election.

How the World Can Win Against the CCP

The U.S. elites who have been supporting the CCP should realize that the CCP does not plan to be their friends forever, as history has shown.

During China’s civil war from 1946 to 1949, the CCP formed a united front with business owners, scholars, and other political parties. After the CCP took power, however, it soon turned against those groups: it eliminated (including physically) the capitalist class, muzzled the scholars and political parties, and put many intellectuals in labor camps.

Top businessmen in China usually do not last long. Every few years, the government takes down a group of them under corruption charges and confiscates their assets.

The CCP has never respected human rights. Its goal is to conquer the world and destroy all of humankind through unrestricted warfare, including the war to destroy our morality.

In contrast, Western countries respect human rights and private property, which the U.S. Constitution defines as “unalienable rights.” Giving up our principles to help the CCP will destroy our universal values and make everyone, including ourselves, vulnerable to the CCP’s persecution. Everyone outside China, on both the left and the right, should realize the danger of the CCP and the danger of making deals with the biggest perpetrator of crimes against humanity.

In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx referred to communism as a specter that was haunting Europe. Now as the communist specter has spread its ideology and control in the world, every human being faces tough questions: How can we discern the righteous from the evil? And how can we uphold the righteous and resist the evil?

The answer lies in our returning to traditional values, upholding our morality, and starting a soul search. Our purpose in this world is not just to seek material gains and material enjoyment; more important is the need for spiritual enrichment and enlightenment. Only then will we prove to the Creator that America and the rest of the world are worth being blessed by the divine. Only then we will have the power to win against the CCP.

https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2021/4/12/191846p.html

Chinese Regime Expands Surveillance and Information Gathering of the Public

April 19, 2021 | By Li Min

(Minghui.org) According to an article published on the OneZero website in early March 2021 titled “China’s ‘Sharp Eyes’ Program Aims to Surveil 100% of Public Space,” the project allows local residents to watch surveillance videos through TVs and smartphones, and then press a button to report any suspicious people to the police.

“The program turns neighbors into agents of the surveillance state,” the article said. As part of the communist government’s five-year plan announced in 2015, the “Sharp Eye” surveillance project was likely expected to reach 100% surveillance of public spaces by 2020.

The Chinese government has been gradually expanding surveillance on its citizens, starting from the “Great Firewall” in the late ‘90s to the latest facial and gait recognition technologies. Beijing continues to closely monitor, control and gather information on people with what many consider digital authoritarianism.

The article said that China’s modern surveillance started in 2003 with the Golden Shield Project, which was run by the Ministry of Public Security. It set up databases that included 96% of Chinese citizens and information on their household registration, travel records, and criminal history.

“Following Golden Shield, China launched two other surveillance projects focused on the installation of cameras. Safe Cities, launched in 2003, focused on disaster warnings, traffic management, and public security. SkyNet focused on installing cameras connected to facial recognition algorithms,” stated the article. There are an estimated 200 million surveillance cameras installed in China in public and private spaces.

Although the Chinese government faces stern criticism abroad for its complete disregard for human rights and privacy, people in China have little choice. Such surveillance systems have been deployed in cities big and small around the country. It is reported that the cost of these systems has become a significant portion of central and local government budgets. For example, in the city of Zhoukou, Henan Province, the city spends as much money on surveillance as it does on education and twice as much as on environmental protection programs in 2018.

The demand for surveillance systems also spawned many companies selling camera hardware and video management software. Several Chinese companies like Sensetime, Megvii, Hikvision, and Dahua have been sanctioned by the U.S. Government for their involvement in the persecution of the Uighur ethnic minority in Xinjiang.

In December 2020, Australia’s Lowy Institute published a report titled “Digital Authoritarianism, China and COVID,” in which it revealed that the pandemic had emboldened the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to expand its use of digital technologies in the name of public health and safety. “With the CCP’s digital authoritarianism flourishing at home, Chinese-engineered digital surveillance and tracking systems are now being exported around the globe in line with China’s Cyber Superpower Strategy,” the report said.

The report identified China as one of the main practitioners of digital authoritarianism. “Digital authoritarianism involves much more than censorship in the online space. It includes individual and mass surveillance through the use of cameras, facial recognition, drones, GPS tracking, and other digital technologies in support of authoritarian governance,” it said. The report also stated that China has stepped up its so-called “wolf warrior diplomacy” and disinformation campaigns.

The CCP is providing $17 billion USD in loans and investments in telecom networks, mobile payment systems, and projects such as smart cities, e-government, smart education, digital health, and other big data initiatives throughout the developing world. “At least 80 countries from Latin America, Africa, and Asia have adopted Huawei’s Safe City solutions or other Chinese surveillance and security technology platforms.” according to the report.

Threat to the Free World

The CCP is increasingly being recognized as a threat to the free world. Freedom House noted in its annual report “Freedom on the Net” on October 14, 2020, that “For the sixth consecutive year, China was found to have the worst conditions for internet freedom.” The report said, “With the onset of COVID-19, every component of the regime’s internet control apparatus—including automated censorship, high-tech surveillance, and large-scale arrests—was activated to stanch the spread of not just the virus but also unofficial information and criticism of the government.”

In a speech given on October 23, 2020, former Deputy National Security Advisor Mattew Pottinger said of the Chinese communist regime, “Assembling dossiers has always been a feature of Leninist regimes. The material is used now, as before, to influence and intimidate, reward and blackmail, flatter and humiliate, divide and conquer,” referring to a leaked Chinese database of at least 2.4 million people around the world, including politicians, members of royal families, celebrities, and military figures in various countries.

In July 2020, Taichung City of Taiwan replaced surveillance cameras in underground passageways after some residents noticed that the cameras were made in China. The cameras that had been installed in Taichung were manufactured by Hikvision, a state-owned Chinese company that supplies video surveillance equipment for civilian and military purposes. It was reported that the South Korean military stopped the installation of 215 security cameras manufactured by a Chinese company after malicious code was found in its device management software.

Not only has the CCP used scientific and technological means to strengthen the authoritarian system and restrain the freedom of its own people, but it is also now using the UN’s geospatial center and big data research center to extend its censorship and surveillance of the public overseas. Many feared that the CCP will censor and monitor people from all countries, not just China.

In an article published in the Wall Street Journal  on October 7, 2020, titled “China Uses the U.N. To Expand Its Surveillance Reach,” author Claudia Rosett wrote, “Mr. Xi’s promised U.N.-China geospatial and big-data advanced would enable for detailed mapping of everything from topography and infrastructure to human conduct, throughout time and across the globe. China beneath its personal steam is already accumulating and in some instances pilfering troves of information worldwide. However, the U.N. badge of legitimacy would make it simpler for Beijing to save flows of information from member states, affect U.N. requirements and norms for such information assortment, form the outcomes, feed them into the U.N. system—and project the Chinese language Communist Occasion’s techno-tyranny worldwide.”

To counter China’s global ambitions, the U.S. government is leading the effort to address the threat of the CCP in cyberspace. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on November 10, 2020, that almost 50 countries (including 27 NATO allies and representing nearly two-thirds of the world’s GDP) and 170 telecom companies had joined the Clean Network, a group that has pledged to use only trusted vendors in their 5G networks.

In December 2020, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officially initiated proceedings to revoke and terminate China Telecom (Americas) Corporation’s prior authorization to operate in the United States. More recently, the FCC began taking measures to revoke the authority of three more Chinese telecom companies to operate in the U.S., citing national security concerns. James Andrew Lewis, senior vice president and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the U.S. does not trust China because the CCP is a surveillance state that conducts espionage using high-tech methods and does not abide by the law.

While governments strengthen information security to prevent the CCP’s infiltration, it is suggested that the general public increase their vigilance and awareness of information security as well. People should guard themselves against the CCP’s effort to gather personal data to avoid exposing themselves to potential violations of privacy.

https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2021/4/19/191948.html

The 5 Things the Chinese Regime Fears Most

Alexander Liao

April 21, 2021 Updated: April 22, 2021

Commentary

On April 16, the Hong Kong court officially sentenced key pro-democracy activists who were convicted last month. Most of their sentences are around a year to 18 months in prison. The “crime” for which the people were found guilty was illegal assembly without permission for a large-scale protest in August 2019 that was attended by hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers.

The crime appears to have no connection with the Hong Kong National Security Law, but many have linked the trial and conviction of the Hong Kong court with the National Security Law imposed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

As fear is the motivation for much of the CCP’s domestic and foreign aggression, the Chinese regime’s recent behavior in Hong Kong reveals some of its major fears.

Economic Decoupling

On the world stage, the legitimacy of the communist regime in the past three decades has mainly centered on its economic growth and economic potential of its large population. It uses this as bait to manipulate foreign governments and corporations that want a slice of the Chinese market.

The three major driving forces of economic growth are investment, consumption, and exports. China’s mainland’s domestic consumption contributes the least to its own GDP, accounting for only a little more than 40 percent of GDP—far less than the usual 70 percent for most other countries. Foreign trade through exports are massive levers for China’s GDP.

The CCP system is an administrative-led authoritarian system. The regime controls society in many ways, but in the past two decades, this control has been reflected through China’s economic operations. The more money the authorities have, the stronger their control over society.

The economic development of mainland China relies on the East Asian model, which is export-oriented. The East Asian model relies on consumption in foreign markets to promote economic growth. This is precisely why former U.S. President Donald Trump’s launch of a U.S.-China trade war was terrifying for the CCP.

This is not simply due to the possibility of restraining the American market’s dependence on Chinese products—this action has forced officials in China to reconsider the continuation of the East Asian model in the mainland, which in turn poses a challenge to the structure of the country’s economic growth model.

In light of Trump’s trade war and the pandemic’s effect on the world economy, the CCP has had to take precautions for its future economic development. This is the biggest reason why the CCP has begun to promote self-reliance and internal circulation of Chinese capital. Once the economy contracts, the CCP’s government revenue will be under pressure, and its administrative stability maintenance budget will be affected. Without enough money for propaganda and enough incentive to legitimize their authoritarian leadership of China, the regime will be on shaky ground.

Disruption to Technological Exchange With the West

This fear is primarily related to the economy, because the China’s export-oriented economy has reached its limit, you can only export so many goods. With the development of the world economy at a threshold, the export of simple and cheap goods cannot increase at the pace it has in the past few decades. Therefore, China needs to upgrade the quality of its products to continue increasing its market share. This will require China to seriously upgrade its technology and design innovation.

Technological advancement is also an important factor in the CCP’s control over society and maintenance of its military. China is infamous for its draconian use of artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor and track its citizens.

If scientific and technological exchanges with the West are interrupted, it will severely impact the CCP, especially with regard to its losing the ability to steal intellectual property from foreign countries.

A large number of overseas students from mainland China study and engage in scientific and technological research in European and American universities. In 2020, there were over 370,000 Chinese students studying in the United States. For the CCP, this is an invaluable channel and method of “exchange” with American science and technology. Now, the United States has not only cut off various high-level academic exchanges but is also considering how to reduce the number of Chinese science and engineering students.

Although China has many outstanding scientific and technological professionals, the current culture inhibits true creativity and innovation, because innovation and creation are inherently incompatible with autocratic and totalitarian systems. If it is impossible to continue to “exchange” science and technology with foreign countries, then the progress of science and technology under the rule of the CCP will be greatly affected.

Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang Independence

The CCP started with Marxism and communism and has always used this as the basic core value for ruling mainland China.

But in reality, since the Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong, pure communist ideology has disappeared in the mainland. Only a few senior Party leaders truly believe in Marxist and communist ideology, which has brought an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy to the CCP.

To deal with this crisis, the CCP has since adopted aggressive nationalism to assert its control. This is why Chinese nationalism has continued to rise in the past two decades.

For example, in previous generations of propaganda, the CCP deliberately talked about its victory against the Chinese nationalists to legitimize the CCP’s seizure of power. But recently, the CCP has begun to emphasize China’s historical wars against Japan, boldly claiming that the CCP led China’s victories over Japan. It is widespread knowledge that it was the Chinese Nationalists who led the war against Japan at the time. To obscure this fact, the CCP changed the historically recorded length of China’s war against Japan from 8 years to 14 years to include the Pacification of Manchukuo, an insurgency against Japan from Manchu, which was jointly led by the Soviet Communist Party and the CCP in the mid-1930s.

The fervor for mainland Chinese nationalism continuously promoted by the CCP has continued unabated. The Chinese people have begun to view the CCP from the perspective of nationalism and Chinese identity rather than communist ideology.

In 2016, Xi Jinping boldly claimed in a public speech that they “will never allow any person, any group, any political party, at any time, in any way, to split from China any part of its territory.”

This tough statement is a perfect example of fuel for the rising tide of aggressive nationalism in mainland China.

As a result, in the face of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang affairs, the CCP cannot compromise or show any weakness via concessions. Through its evolution, the CCP has involuntarily taken on the cause of ultra-Chinese nationalism in order to justify its rule, devoid of any of its original communist ideals.

Religious Freedom

In the past decade or so, the CCP has stepped up its suppression of all religions and spiritual beliefs, with a very clear goal: to eliminate any ideological authority other than the CCP. To remain in power, it places controls on what Chinese people can see, do, and believe.

The pillar of a demolished Catholic church is seen in Puyang, in China’s central Henan Province, on Aug. 13, 2018. The church was demolished to make way for a commercial development. (GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images)

The pillar of a demolished Catholic church is seen in Puyang, in China’s central Henan Province, on Aug. 13, 2018. The church was demolished to make way for a commercial development. (Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images)

The CCP has demolished churches, arrested underground church leaders, and forced Catholic leaders to follow CCP directives that violate Christian principles.

In Tibet, the CCP’s main strategy for destroying the Tibetan independence movement was to target Tibetan Buddhism. Police stations were set up inside Tibetan monasteries. Tibetan lamas were forced to study atheism, materialism, and “Xi Jinping thought.” Those who dissented were arrested and imprisoned without trial.

In Xinjiang, more than one million Uyghurs and other Islamic minorities were arrested and placed in concentration camps for collective brainwashing. The key focus here is still religious ideology. A large number of Muslim imams have been arrested, and various religious books have been destroyed. Any online speech about faith and religion is treated as “religious extremism” and censored.

The core of the suppression of both Xinjiang and Tibet is religion. In Xinjiang, communist authorities tried to eliminate all religious cultures. These efforts included forcing its adherents to drink alcohol, eat pork, marry Muslim women to Han Chinese men, and carry out forced abortions and sterilizations, all of which violate the basic teachings of Islam. But in the eyes of the CCP, these traditional Muslim practices are manifestations of religious extremism.

For practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual discipline, a special extrajudicial body, much like Nazi Germany’s Gestapo, was created called the 610 Office. For the past two decades, Falun Gong practitioners have been arbitrarily arrested and subjected to all manner of physical and mental torture. Those who give in are forced to renounce their faith and declare loyalty to only the CCP and the doctrine of atheism. Those who resist face continued torture and even their organs being harvested and sold on the illicit transplant market to locals and foreigners desperate for an organ replacement.

Religion and personal belief often hold moral authority beyond national and political ideology, posing a serious threat to any totalitarian regime.

Detaching the CCP Label From the Chinese Identity

What the CCP fears most is the truth that the CCP is not China, and the CCP does not represent the Chinese people.

On Sept. 4, 2020, Xi Jinping delivered a speech to commemorate the 55th anniversary of the victory of China’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. The opening of the speech proudly introduced the five “no promises” of the Chinese regime. According to state-run media Xinhua, they are as follows:

“The Chinese people will never allow any individual or any force to distort the history of the [CCP] or smear the Party’s nature and mission.

The Chinese people will never allow any individual or any force to distort and alter the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, or deny and vilify the great achievements the Chinese people have made in building socialism.

The Chinese people will never allow any individual or any force to separate the [CCP] from the Chinese people or counterpose the Party to the Chinese people.

The Chinese people will never allow any individual or any force to impose their will on China through bullying, change China’s direction of progress, or obstruct the Chinese people’s efforts to create a better life.

The Chinese people will never allow any individual or any force to jeopardize their peaceful life and right to development, obstruct their exchanges and cooperation with other peoples, or undermine the noble cause of peace and development for humanity.”

The fifth promise highlights the unwillingness of the CCP to decouple from international economies.

Political parties are not equal to the government, and the government is not absolutely representative of the people of any country.

The CCP is not equal to China, and the communist regime is not equal to the Chinese people.

In The Epoch Times editorial series, “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party,” the CCP’s behavior is described as being like that of a possessing spirit.

The non-separation of the Party and the country, the Party and the people, and the Party and the government are the prerequisites and foundations for the CCP to exist in China.

Internally, the Party and its members are very clear. Civil servants must be Party members, and promotions must be given only to Party members. Many jobs are given priority to CCP members. The Chinese are very clear that members of the CCP are the elite.

The day that everyone understands that the CCP does not represent the Chinese people will be the day its end has come. The CCP is not China, and the CCP does not represent the Chinese people.

This understanding was first put forward in official terms by former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a speech. The CCP has since had a deep hatred of Pompeo. His statement struck the CCP’s Achilles heel and has the power to completely delegitimize the Chinese communist regime.

Alexander Liao is a columnist and journalist in research on international affairs in the United States, China, and Southeast Asia. He has published a large number of reports, commentaries, and video programs in newspapers and Chinese financial magazines in the United States and Hong Kong.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-5-things-the-chinese-regime-fears-most_3780429.html

A Glimpse at China’s Ownership in the US

Yi Song

April 23, 2021

Commentary

China is more involved in your life than you might think. Sure, who doesn’t like fried rice? Who doesn’t own a thing “Made in China?” However, the kind of involvement I am talking about runs deeper than that.

Precisely speaking, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is becoming increasingly involved in the everyday lives of Americans.

Take my friend Bill for example. He and his wife have three school-aged children. Bill enjoys cooking in his kitchen equipped with GE Profile appliances. The family loves Smithfield ham and bacon. Every now and then, they watch a movie at the nearby AMC theater or go on a road trip in their Volvo XC90. The kids have been doing remote learning via Zoom, which is also how they stay connected with families and friends. Bill’s boys like to play video games, such as League of Legends by Riot Games. Bill is training for his second Ironman race that will take place in July in New York. The family will then take a week-long vacation staying at the famed Waldorf Astoria.

Sounds familiar? Do you know someone like Bill? Do you use any of the iconic products Bill enjoys?

Do you know these products are owned by CCP-controlled Chinese companies or individuals who have pledged allegiance to the CCP?

More Complicated Than Business Decisions

Over the past two decades, China’s state-controlled enterprises embarked on a buying spree for all-things-western. The above-mentioned brands, which are only a small sampling, all became Chinese-owned between 2010 and 2016. Volvo was purchased by Geely for $1.5 billion in 2010. GE Appliances was acquired by Haier in 2016 for $5.6 billion.

The reasons behind the Chinese takeovers are more complicated than pure business decisions. Fan Yu, an expert on finance and economics, sees a few recurring themes behind the purchases:

Moving assets abroad, i.e., money laundering. Some Chinese companies were very active in buying up assets abroad, such as Anbang Insurance (who purchased AMC), HNA Group/Hainan Airlines, etc. They were suspected of moving assets abroad for high-level CCP cadres.

Securing valuable resources, like food, land, oil, etc. Shuanghui’s take-over of Smithfield Foods was to secure pork supplies.

Projecting CCP soft power. The CCP was buying up Hollywood studios to inject some subtle propaganda into American films and TV shows. U.S. films, TV shows, and even video games are very influential and over time, these influences will help project a positive view of the CCP. China’s internet and entertainment giant Tencent has fully owned Riot Games since 2015. With over 300 investments in its gaming portfolio, Tencent is also the world’s largest games publisher, in addition to owning QQ and WeChat.

Buy for-profit businesses and often this is acquiring a famous Western brand so they can market these products back to the Chinese domestic market to make money. GE’s takeover by Haier belongs to this category. In addition, Shandong Ruyi is a fashion conglomerate (aka “China’s LVMH”) that bought a bunch of high fashion brands like LANVIN, St. John, and Bally. Similarly, when China Fosun bought the Club Med vacation resort chain a few years ago, it was also to profit from Chinese travelers who go on vacation at these resorts.

Let’s take a closer look at some of these acquisitions.

Smithfield Takeover: $4 Billion Loan Approved in 24 Hours

Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, was purchased by China’s Shuanghui (later renamed to WH Group) for $4.7 billion (30 percent above Smithfield’s market value) in 2013. The deal also included 146,000 acres of American farmland. At the time, it was the largest takeover of an American consumer brand by China.

A documentary produced by PBS in 2014 revealed the CCP’s involvement in the deal. The Bank of China, owned by the CCP, approved Shuanghui’s $4 billion loan to buy Smithfield in a single day. In its annual report, the Bank of China highlights the Smithfield takeover as “social responsibility” and that it “spares no effort to support Chinese enterprises in their international competition.”

Then-president of Shuanghui told PBS: “The Chinese government has been supporting us with preferential policy, as well as investment. For instance, the Bank of China has shown great support both financially and politically.”

Smithfield CEO Larry Pope, who originally denied the knowledge of any Chinese government involvement, was shocked when PBS presented him with the above findings. “I don’t think I could go out today and get the U.S. government to support making a $4 billion loan as a social responsibility for Smithfield to move forward on a foreign—on a foreign country’s territory. No, I don’t think that’s doable in any industry that I can think of,” Pope said in the video.

Why would the CCP support such a takeover? Its “five-year plan” dated 2011 directs food companies such as Shuanghui to obtain more meat for their production lines by purchasing overseas businesses.

According to this Reuters report, Smithfield Foods renovated its Virginia plant to supply carcasses to China. A person with direct knowledge of operations said, “There were departments that were completely eliminated, or erased, or remodeled.” Workers in the Smithfield, Virginia plant have been boxing up pig carcasses to ship to China. Arnold Silver, Smithfield’s director of raw materials procurement, said at an industry conference that sales to China could eventually create bacon and ham shortages for American consumers.

The Smithfield purchase was a prime example of the CCP’s goal to secure valuable resources. China is the world’s biggest pork consumer. Swine flu, injecting pigs with hormones and drugs, etc. are rampant in China. They cause scandals and social unrest. So they need to look outside for good quality pork.

Along these lines, the CCP also signed oil supply deals with Brazil and Venezuela to secure valuable crude oil at bargain prices.

Caught in the Crossfire

The Waldorf Astoria was acquired by an obscure Shanghai-based Anbang Insurance Group for nearly $2 billion in 2014. The Waldorf has hosted every U.S. president since 1933. Since the purchase, the U.S. State Department prefers putting U.S. diplomats up in a different hotel.

In Feb. 2018, the Chinese government took over control of Anbang Insurance and its assets, including Waldorf Astoria. Its chairman was charged with alleged economic crimes. Sources close to the inner circle of the CCP said that Anbang, one of China’s most politically connected companies, used financial transactions to funnel and launder funds abroad on behalf of the Jiang faction, while at the same time parlaying their roles as business tycoons to spy on and influence foreign dignitaries.

The Jiang faction is a faction within the CCP that is fighting for control of the Party. It is named after the former CCP head Jiang Zemin. It is concentrated in Shanghai, and it opposes the current head Xi Jinping.

Who would have imagined that only four years after the change of ownership, the historic American icon Waldorf Astoria would be stuck in the middle of factional in-fighting of the CCP.

Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda bought Kansas-based AMC theaters for $2.6 billion in 2012. Wanda bought Ironman in 2015. In 2016, Wanda spent $3.5 billion to acquire Legendary Entertainment, whose portfolio includes “Jurassic Park,” “Warcraft,” “Godzilla,” and “Pacific Rim.”

Wanda’s global buying spree also included luxury hotels, sports clubs, landmark architecture, yacht clubs, and even artwork by Picasso and Monet. By 2017, Wanda and its Chairman Wang Jianlin owned over 80 five-star hotels, over 1,300 movie theaters, 2 movie studios, sports teams, and hundreds of commercial real estate developments around the world.

How did Wanda’s chairman build up a $32.2 billion fortune in just 12 years?

Similar to Anbang Insurance, Wanda and its chairman fell out of favor in Beijing in 2018, as its backbone inside the Party was weakening due to CCP infighting. According to a commentary by economist He Qinglian, Xi could no longer tolerate the “white gloves” money laundering and wanted to prevent too much wealth from flowing out of China. Wanda’s buying spree ended. It began to struggle with huge debt and was forced to offload some of its purchases, including AMC and Ironman.

Zoom: Software Made in China

Unlike other businesses that were purchased by Chinese entities, Zoom remains American, but the Chinese government has no problem exerting control over it.

According to Zoom’s 2019 IPO prospectus, its product development engineering team is largely based in China. In addition, some servers of Zoom are based in China.

Zoom’s founder and CEO, Eric Yuan, came to the United States as an engineering student in the 1990s. He worked for Webex, and then Cisco. Yuan left Cisco in 2011 to start Zoom. In a short 9 years, Zoom went IPO and Yuan became a billionaire.

A highly technical investigation about Zoom’s encryption by Citizen Lab revealed that “Zoom app uses non-industry-standard cryptographic techniques with identifiable weaknesses. In addition, during multiple test calls in North America, we observed keys for encrypting and decrypting meetings transmitted to servers in Beijing, China.”

With the bulk of its R&D done inside China, Zoom has to obey Chinese rules. Chinese tech companies are legally obligated to “provide technical support and assistance to public security organs and national security organs that are safeguarding national security and investigating criminal activities in accordance with the law.”

In 2020, a Zoom executive (in China) was charged with disrupting video meetings commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre at the request of Chinese authorities and providing information about meeting participants in the United States.

Several U.S. lawmakers have asked Eric Yuan to clarify the company’s data practices, whether any data was shared with Beijing and whether it encrypted users’ communications. One Republican senator wrote to Yuan asking him to “pick a side” between the United States and China.

Because of Zoom’s questionable security implementation and illicit connection to the CCP, many companies and governments around the world have banned the use of Zoom. Those include Google, SpaceX, NASA, Taiwan, the German Foreign Ministry, the U.S. Senate, the Australian Defense Force, the NYC Dept. of Education, etc.

The Buying of US Land

China is among the many buyers of U.S. land. The Smithfield takeover included 146,000 acres of farmland. There has been a tenfold expansion of Chinese ownership of farmland in the United States in less than a decade. Massive Chinese investment in American farmland is troubling for it puts the food security of the nation in the hands of a hostile foreign power. There is another type of land that also is very valuable to the Chinese government.

A strategic plot of land in Texas is owned by a Chinese billionaire with strong ties to the CCP. Sun Guangxin wants to build a wind farm on his 130,000-acre parcel of land in southern Texas, just a stone’s throw away from the Air Force’s largest pilot training base and several dozen miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.

Sun’s Guanghui Energy Co. purchased the land in 2018.

Sun is a former Chinese military officer who had “no money but was bursting with ambition” when he left the army in 1989. Today Sun, with a $1.9 billion net worth, is the chairman of Guanghui Industry Investment and dubbed as “Xinjiang’s richest man.” The land Sun purchased at bargain prices throughout Xinjiang is now being used to house Uyghur Muslims and other political prisoners in concentration camps.

Awareness and Vigilance

CCP-controlled entities continue to expand control globally. No matter what their motivations are behind the acquisitions, one thing is for sure: the CCP wants control.

U.S. businesses and consumers need to be aware of what companies are owned by China, what risks are posed, and make informed decisions on what brands or products to support. Regardless of whether the risks are high or low, awareness is still very important.

Thomas Jefferson once said: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

To safeguard our liberty, we need more awareness and vigilance when dealing with the Chinese communist regime.

Yi Song has been a China scholar since 2010. Having lived many years in both the United States and China, she writes about the connections between the two countries.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/a-glimpse-of-chinas-ownership-in-us_3786909.html

China’s ‘Wolf Warrior’ Diplomats Fighting Political Warfare Against the West

BY FRANK FANG  AND CATHY HE

April 27, 2021

News Analysis

From France to Venezuela to the United States, the Chinese communist regime’s diplomats have been busy this past year blustering, threatening, and denigrating their host countries as part of an all-out effort to advance Beijing’s agenda on the world stage.

This aggressive style, dubbed “ wolf warrior ” diplomacy, was on full display in March during the first face-to-face meeting between Biden administration officials and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) diplomats in Alaska. In a widely publicized blow-up, Chinese diplomats responded to U.S. criticism of the CCP’s aggressions domestically and abroad by launching into an extended tirade accusing the United States of similar infractions.

Yang Jiechi, the top CCP official in charge of foreign affairs, broke protocol by taking up more than 15 minutes for opening remarks (the agreed-upon time was two minutes), during which he lambasted the United States over what he described as its struggling democracy, poor human rights record, and unfair foreign and trade policies.

After both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan responded in defense of the United States, Yang retorted: “Well, it was my bad. When I entered this room, I should have reminded the U.S. side of paying attention to its tone in our respective opening remarks, but I didn’t.”

He then accused the U.S. side of speaking in a “condescending way,” and breaking diplomatic protocols. “So let me say here that, in front of the Chinese side, the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength,” Yang added.

Chinese state media  made hay of the clash, spinning the event as a win for the Chinese diplomats, who exuded “confident body language” in contrast with the “closed off” gestures of their U.S. counterparts.

But the display was not only for domestic consumption. Emboldened by the regime’s purported success in weathering the pandemic compared to other nations, the CCP has recently been pushing the narrative of “the East is rising while the West is declining”—and its diplomats’ behavior is embodying that message on the international stage.

“The wolf warriors personify the desire to present the PRC [People’s Republic of China] as a powerful country that can set the rules for world order,” June Teufel Dreyer, professor of political science at the University of Miami told The Epoch Times in an email.

Dreyer described the confrontational approach as an intensification of a trend that could be observed as early as 2010, when Yang had a similar outburst at an ASEAN regional security meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam. Fuming at 12 countries who raised their concerns over Beijing’s growing assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea, Yang fired back, “China is a big country and other countries are small countries and that is just a fact,” while staring at the foreign minister of tiny Singapore.

Rise of the ‘Wolf Warrior’

The CCP’s wolf warrior diplomacy came into full force during the pandemic last year, as Beijing moved to aggressively fend off international criticism of its cover-up of the CCP virus  outbreak. Since then, foreign criticism of the CCP’s actions, from its human rights abuses in Xinjiang to its military aggression in the South China Sea, has routinely drawn fiery responses from officials on Twitter and other forums.

The descriptor is named after two hit jingoistic Chinese movies of the “Wolf Warrior” franchise, released in 2015 and 2017. The movies centered around a Chinese special forces soldier fighting foreign mercenaries at China’s southern border and Africa.

Examples of the regime’s wolf warrior diplomacy abound.

In a now-infamous tweet, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian last March accused the U.S. Army of bringing the virus to Wuhan when participating in a military sports event in October 2019, prompting a firestorm of criticism from the United States and Western democracies. The baseless accusation marked the start of Beijing’s ongoing campaign  to spread virus origin disinformation to deflect attention away from its mishandling of the outbreak and shun scrutiny on the possibility that it leaked from a Wuhan lab.

Also in March, the Chinese Embassy in Caracas slammed unnamed Venezuelan officials for calling the virus the “China” or “Wuhan” virus by telling them to “put on masks and shut up.”

Zhao struck again in November, drawing fury from Australia for tweeting  a photoshopped image of an Australian soldier holding a bloodied knife to the throat of a young child. The image was a reference to a report that found some Australian special forces soldiers unlawfully killed civilians in Afghanistan during a mission there. The tweet came amid heightened tensions between the two countries after Australia called for an independent investigation into the origins of the virus. Beijing responded with economic coercion—by slapping import restrictions on a range of Australian goods including beef, coal, barley, and wine.

The brawly style is a direction set straight from CCP leader Xi Jinping, Anders Corr, publisher of the Journal of Political Risk and founder of Corr Analytics, told The Epoch Times.

“[Xi] wants an aggressive diplomacy to try and scare the U.S., Japan, Taiwan, and their allies into territorial and trade concessions,” Corr said in an email. “He believes that might makes right, and therefore a strong China should be duly accommodated.”

When countries push back against Beijing’s assertiveness, Xi doubles down by “direct[ing] his diplomats to increase the volume, intensity, and even anger of their diplomacy,” Corr said.

‘Wolf Nature’ as ‘Party Nature’

It was unclear when the term “wolf warrior” was first used to describe CCP diplomats or diplomatic tactics, but two Taiwanese media used it around October 2018 to describe the regime’s diplomatic responses  after Chinese tourists were removed from a hotel in Sweden by local police and a subsequent satirical talk show in the country criticized Chinese tourists in general.

In response to these incidents, the Chinese Embassy in Sweden issued a statement claiming that Sweden was not safe for Chinese tourists to travel to. Diba Central Army , a popular Chinese social media platform known for allegiance to the CCP, also called on its users to “bombard the Facebook pages of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs” and the talk show’s host, according to China’s hawkish state-run outlet Global Times.

Following the 2018 incident, BBC Chinese  used the term to describe a July 2019 heated Twitter exchange between Chinese foreign ministry’s spokesperson Zhao Lijian and former U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice, in which Zhao made racist comments about black and white populations in Washington. The term was later picked up by the Global Times and gained traction during the pandemic as a way to describe the CCP’s bare-knuckled responses to rising global criticism over a range of issues.

The concept underlying “wolf warrior,” however, finds its roots in Maoist thought, going to the heart of the CCP’s ideology. Then-CCP leader Mao Zedong, Chinese media reported, told the regime’s first diplomats, “Diplomatic work is a political struggle. You don’t fight using weapons, you fight with your pen and mouth,” in a statement chiming with the Party’s expansive doctrine of political warfare . The strategy calls for using all tactics short of full-on military assaults to defeat an enemy.

Having “wolf nature” is equivalent to having a “Party nature,” that is, the quality possessed by people who have absolute loyalty to the CCP, the municipal government in Nantong, a city in coastal China’s Jiangsu Province, said on its website, reposting a 2020 article from a local newspaper.

Outside of people, the concept has also been used to describe institutional cultures. A 2006 social science paper analyzed how corporate “wolf culture” existed at China’s telecom giant Huawei  and computer maker Lenovo. Former employees at Huawei previously told  The Epoch Times that the company zealously promoted “wolf culture,” a philosophy advocated by founder Ren Zhengfei, who drew from his background with the Chinese military.

Official Endorsement

CP officials have publicly endorsed this style. Last May, Liu Xiaoming, who was the Chinese ambassador to the UK at the time, told China’s state-run broadcaster CCTV that Chinese diplomats should act like “wolf warriors.”

“Some people say that there are many ‘wolf warriors’ in China. I believe there are ‘wolf warriors’ because there are ‘wolves’ in this world. Thus comes the necessity of ‘wolf warriors’ to fight these ‘wolves,’” Liu said.

“So I encourage diplomats at all levels of the [Chinese] embassies to take on the fight proactively” whenever they see a “wolf.”

Months later, in a daily briefing in December, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said she didn’t “see any problem in living with that ‘wolf-warrior’ title.”

Hua also quoted Mao, who said, “We will not attack unless we are attacked. If we are attacked, we will certainly counterattack.”

Beijing also claims it has the support of the people to engage in such a form of diplomacy. In December, Global Times reported that 71.2 percent said Beijing should adopt “wolf warrior” diplomacy, in a recent survey of 1,945 people in 16 Chinese cities.

Ultimately, however, the CCP’s methods have been backfiring, according to Corr.

“Other countries quickly recognize it for what it is, are repulsed by its crudeness, and respond through closer economic and military coordination and alliance-building,” he said.

For Dreyer, the United States and other countries should send a clear message that the regime’s behavior is not acceptable.

“Countries must counter Chinese aggression by refusing to accept its territorial claims, by being vigilant against its united front tactics, by calling out its soft power and sharp power tactics,” she said.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinas-wolf-warrior-diplomats-fighting-political-warfare-against-the-west_3793100.html

Pharmaceutical Ingredients, a Strategic Weapon of China’s Communist Regime

BY WILLIAM FANG , May 4, 2021

On April 22, senators Elizabeth Warren, Tina Smith, and Marco Rubio reintroduced two pieces of legislation that would reduce reliance on foreign nations, especially China, to supply ingredients needed to make various drugs. The Communist regime’s control of pharmaceutical resources in the manufacturing chain is mounting and is putting the free world at risk. This, in the wake of how the regime manipulated the pandemic to suit its political agenda.

Rosemary Gibson, senior advisor at The Hastings Center, said at a 2019 hearing  of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on July 31, “If China shut the door on exports of medicines and their key ingredients and raw materials, U.S. hospitals and military hospitals and clinics would cease to function within months, if not days.”

The Communist leadership surely knows the power it holds. A commentary from the regime-owned Xinhua News on March 4, 2020 stated: “If now China retaliates with a travel ban on the United States, a strategic control of medical products and a ban on exports will trap the United States in the vast ocean of COVID-19.”

Global reliance on China

According to the 2019 hearing on China’s role in global health, and the national security, economic, and public health concerns stemming from the American dependence on Chinese health products, 80 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients used by commercial sources to produce finished products come from China and India. However, the hearing also revealed that India relies on China for an estimated 80 percent of its active pharmaceutical ingredients.

Yanzhong Huang,  senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, once wrote, “APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients) and chemical intermediates from China are 35 to 40 percent cheaper than Indian ones.”

It was also revealed that China’s generic drugs industry is thriving as exports to the U.S. rapidly grow. Examples of generic drugs made in China by domestic companies and sold in the United States include: antibiotics, anti-depressants, birth control pills, chemotherapy for cancer treatment for children and adults, medicine for Alzheimer’s, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, Parkinson’s, and epilepsy, to name a few.

For example, the U.S. can no longer make generic antibiotics; and now, China is the leading manufacturer of antibiotics.

Quality issues

Li Daokui, an conomist at Tsinghua University in Beijing touted at Beijing’s National Political Consultative Conference in March 2019, “Even though the sanction on chips has indeed restricted China, but some developed countries’ medical systems will suffer from reduced exports from China, the world’s largest exporter of ingredients for vitamins and antibiotics.”

The 2019 hearing also revealed that there are 5,000 to 7,000 companies registered in China’s pharmaceutical sector. China is the biggest global source of generic drugs, pharmaceutical ingredients, and other health products, including dietary supplements, biologics, and medical devices. In her testimony, Gibson stressed that in 5 to 10 years, the U.S. will have virtually no manufacturing capacity left for generic drugs, which account for 90 percent of U.S. medicines. “We are losing control over the supply of our medicines and when we lose control over supply, we lose control over quality.” A shocking point she made was, “That’s why we have blood pressure medicines with carcinogens in them.”

Perhaps the facts sound a warning. At the hearing, Gibson said, “In 2018, more than 31,000 active duty military personnel, veterans, and their family members were notified that they may have been given blood pressure medicines containing a cancer-causing ingredient.” Also the fact that the Department of Defense procures medicines based on price, not quality, puts Americans at risk at the national level.

“More than 10 percent of generic drugs tested do not meet quality standards.” Gibson said.

A market too large to ignore

Huang, on the other hand, explained that under the cut-throat, winner-takes-all bidding process, multinational pharmas lose their market share in China even with assurances of the high quality of their products.

In fact, because “none of China’s vaccine scandals have involved foreign manufacturers,” as Huang stated, Chinese consumers prefer high-end, imported pharmaceutical products.

China has emerged as the second largest pharmaceutical market in the world by revenue behind only the United States. However, U.S. health and biotech firms continue to face regulatory and other market barriers that limit their ability to sell in China and compete with Chinese firms, as stated by hearing co-chair Michael Wessel.

In the policy recommendation, Huang indicated, “We should deliver an explicit message to the Chinese side that healthcare products should not be used as a weapon in the U.S.-China trade war.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/pharmaceutical-ingredients-a-strategic-weapon-of-chinas-communist-regime_3801520.html

Chinese Communist Party Keeps Rewriting History, But History Cannot Be Changed

May 4, 2021 | By Yi Ran

History as a fait accompli is something we can only learn from, but not alter. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), however, has been altering history to its own advantage since it took power in 1949. The Chinese civilization dates back at least 5,000 years, so the history of China is not the same as the brief history of the CCP, which is a fact that the CCP is unable to change.

The CCP, though, has never stopped attempting to rewrite history in order to brainwash the Chinese people, especially the younger generations, with the communism ideology, to strike fear in their minds and strengthen its totalitarian rule. The latest revision to the CCP’s history, including removing political movement tragedies and whitewashing the Cultural Revolution from its history books, is one such example.

According to Sing Tao Daily  and other news media, the most recent version of the History of the Chinese Communist Party released this February has eliminated contents such as zhengfeng (or “rectification” targeting people with different opinions than the CCP), fanyou  (Anti-Rightist), Great Leap Forward, and people’s commune. The damage of the Cultural Revolution was also brushed off, and the resulting havoc was claimed as an initiative to oppose corruption and elite groups.

In this article, we will look into this topic and explain why such a narrative is misleading. In fact, the Cultural Revolution was a catastrophe, both culturally and politically. It fostered corruption and the CCP’s elite class, which continues to exploit Chinese people to this day.

Unprecedented Cultural Catastrophe

China has a long history of about 5,000 years, and Beijing was the capital of several dynasties. But an initiative known the “Destroy the Four Olds” (Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Customs) was launched in Beijing at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Led by extreme students known as Red Guards, it was essentially a mess of destroying heritage sites, objects, beating people, and ransacking homes. It soon spread to the entirety of China and caused immeasurable losses.

Over 114,000 households in Beijing were ransacked at the time, including 1,061 in Fusuijing Residential District alone. Robbed books, artworks, and archaeological objects were burned for eight days. More than 2.35 million ancient books, along with nearly 4 million calligraphy and artworks, and antique furniture were confiscated in Beijing alone. Many artworks in the Summer Palace, an invaluable imperial garden of the Qing Dynasty, were also destroyed.

Similar things happened in Shanghai and other cities. A 7-foot tall Buddha statue along with about 1,000 small statues in renowned Longhua Temple were smashed into pieces. A statue even had its head chopped off. But the CCP officials simply shrugged it off. “Households of 100,000 capitalists were ransacked [in Shanghai],” commented then premier Zhou Enlai, implying that these enemies-of-the-state deserved such treatment.

Across China, about ten million such households were ransacked. Countless tragedies happened to historical sites throughout China, and numerous scholars, celebrities, and ordinary citizens were targeted, and some even killed.

A well-known writer named Qin Mu once said, “This is an unprecedented catastrophe. Millions of people were targeted and died, numerous families were broken apart with youths turning into hooligans, countless books were burned, and historical sites were ruined. Even graves of ancestors were dug up and so many crimes had been carried out in the name of revolution.”

But such killings, arsons, looting, robberies, and damage to history and culture is now labeled by the CCP as an anti-corruption campaign.

Officials Embezzling Cultural Relics

As usual, in the name of “Destroy the Four Olds,” the Cultural Revolution became a venue for top CCP officials to amass wealth for themselves. They included Chen Boda, Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng, and others. This was not a secret among CCP high-ranking officials, but very few ordinary citizens, especially from the younger generations, are aware of this.

Jiang Qing, the last wife of Mao Zedong, and Kang Sheng, then Vice Chairman of the CCP’s Central Committee, went “shopping” at Beijing Cultural Relics Management Office in 1970. Jiang picked an 18K French pocket watch decorated with nearly 100 pearls and gems, along with four gold chains. Jiang paid only 7 yuan for the watch.

After Kang died in 1975 and the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, an internal “exhibition” was held in the Summer Palace in the 1990s to display about 1,000 relics taken by Kang. They included 3,000-year-old bronze items, a 2,000-year-old seal of Han Dynasty general Han Xin, the earliest manuscript of Hong Long Meng ( Dream of the Red Chamber ), and the seal of great ancient Zheng Baiqiao. Kang also stamped his own seal on some relics from the Tang Dynasty to show their “ownership.”

After the Cultural Revolution ended, the Ministry of Culture decided to return some items confiscated from painter Ye Qianyu. But some of them were “irretrievable” because they had been taken away by top CCP officials. The ministry only provided the following list to Ye: Chen Boda (9 items), Lin Biao (11 items), the couple of Kang Sheng (8 items), Jiang Qing (3 items), and others.

The Red Guards also collected fortunes during the cultural revolution. Writer Feng Jicai once interviewed a Red Guard member who once had an audience with Mao Zedong at Tiananmen Square in autumn 1966. After the event, there were many pieces of gold bars scattered on the ground. According to the Red Guard member, he and others often took valuables such as gold bars or pieces of gold when ransacking the wealthy. As the frantic crowds jumped wildly in Mao’s presence, some of these “trophies” they collected simply slipped out of their pockets…

Mao: The Root of Corruption

Once upon a time in China, almost everyone owned a copy of Mao’s works, plus the Little Red Book. Few people know that Mao was paid royalties for the book. An article showed that Mao was paid about 5.7 million yuan of royalties in 1967, enough to make him the richest person in China at the time.

When overseas Chinese economist Mao Yushi wrote articles in 2011 to condemn Mao Zedong’s dictatorship and corrupt life, some argued that there was no corruption during Mao’s era. But for people who know the history, this is simply not true.

Journalist writer Wang Shiwei noticed Mao Zedong’s taste for beautiful women and privilege of CCP officials while still in Yan’an (a prefecture-level city in the Shanbei region of Shaanxi province, where the CCP was based before it took power in 1949). “There are three levels of clothing and five levels of food,” he wrote in “Wild Lilies” in 1942. In the same article, he also wrote about how the CCP officials indulged themselves in singing, dancing, and women. Within several months, he was criticized and later executed.

Jung Chang, a Chinese-born British writer, also documented this in Mao: The Unknown Story . Even back in Yan’an, Mao asked Ding Ling, a female imperial literati, to compile a list of the beautiful young women in the area so that he could assign them titles as imperial concubines. Even during the Great Chinese Famine between 1959 and 1961, Mao built many luxury palaces across China. Peng Dehuai, one of the most accomplished CCP generals and first Minister of National Defense, was taken down for criticizing Mao’s corrupt lifestyle and later died in prison.

Zhang Yaoci, an officer in charge of Mao’s body guards, also explained Mao’s special life. Even when mending a shirt button, he would get it done by the Jinjiang Hotel in Shanghai. That meant a designated person would transport it using a special plane, and it was also picked up later by a special plane… Furthermore, Mao preferred to eat fish from Wuchang in Hubei Province, Qiantangjiang from Zhejiang Province, and Taihu from Zhejiang Province. These were delivered to him using special planes.

The corruption started from the top and the core, and became more rampant over time. Similarly, other officials also had enjoyed a luxurious life using public funds.

Some news media in Hong Kong had reported on the mansion owned by Kang Sheng and his wife Cao Yi’ou. It has exquisite structures, and a total of 39 rooms. Other high officials of the CCP also had special privileges including secret service, office apartments, devices, furniture, cars, special brand cigarettes and wine, daily articles, and childrens’ education. All these were special services provided at no cost since 1950 to central CCP officials and their families. The Bayi School, National Day School, Jingshan School, 101 Middle School, and some others all belong to this category with special staff and top-tier resources. These were all specified by the CCP policies. It was corruption in broad daylight.

During those days, ordinary citizens had to study Mao’s writings and treat them as scripture; otherwise, they would be targeted as anti-CCP. In the meantime, the central CCP officials enjoyed corrupt lifestyles that they had vowed to “eradicate.” For example, Mao recommended Jin Ping Mei , a top obscene book in Chinese history, to all province-level officials in the name of “studying” how women were “mistreated” in the past.

Large-Scale Corruption During the Cultural Revolution

Renowned scholar Yi Zhongtian said that the large scale corruption started during the Cultural Revolution. “At that time, people in the city had to give a cigarette to buy ribs (controlled merchandise) for cooking, and peasants had to give eggs to enter the city,” he wrote, “Those youths sent to the remote regions were even worse – a man had to offer bribery and a woman had to offer her body.”

Liu Binyan, author and journalist, had exposed major bribery in his 1978 article “People or Monsters.” One example given was Wang Shouxin, director and a Party secretary of a county utility company in Heilongjiang Province, who had embezzled over 500,000 yuan between November 1971 and June 1978. The purchase power of that money at the time probably equates to over 10 million yuan (or $1.5 million) today.

After the Cultural Revolution, the CCP started a planned economy until the early 1990s. During that time, the resources were centralized and ordinary citizens had to offer a bribe for almost everything. For example, with hardly any certified doctors, they had to seek medical services from unofficial barefoot doctors. Although free on the surface, one needed to prepare good food and probably a gift for the service. Youth sent down to the countryside had to bribe the village Party secretary for a temporary teaching position or give more to return to the city.

Zhouhoumen (get in through the back door) has been a norm since the Cultural Revolution. With CCP officials holding the power, ordinary citizens had to offer bribery for joining the army, entering college, finding a job, retiring earlier due to poor health, or returning to the city. Even watching a movie, buying a bike, or obtaining rationed goods could require using a back door. Officials and their families had all the privileges, but ordinary people did not.

As usual, such a situation was ignored by the CCP. “There are good people getting in through the back door, and there are bad people getting in through the front door,” Mao wrote in this order for a green light on this situation.

Such a chaotic era created all kinds of strange situations and people. Li Qinglin, a teacher in Fujian Province, wrote to Mao in 1972 complaining that some youth needed to get things done through the back door. Somehow, Mao replied and sent him 300 yuan.

Flattered by such an “imperial” honor, Li became famous overnight, and even top CCP officials began to please him because of his connection with Mao. This later led to his imprisonment in 1977 as a result of infighting within the CCP when Deng Xiaoping came to power.

A Sinking Ship

Bao Tong, secretary of former premier Zhao Ziyang, once commented that the CCP was a completely privileged class.

This was ironic because from Karl Marx to the CCP, communists had always advocated class struggle to liberate the poor by destroying the top class. Once in power, however, it grasped the power tightly and did not allow differing voices.

Chen Yun, the second most powerful CCP official in the 1980s and 1990s after Deng Xiaoping, proposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre that each red family would have at least two children, one involved in politics (to control power) and another doing business (to accumulate fortune). Deng endorsed this and it became a policy since then.

According to news from Forbes  in April 2021, Beijing has become a top city with the highest number of billionaires, 100 in total. But there are many more members of the elite class who have accumulated immeasurable fortunes, yet they are excluded from the list.

Some information has leaked from scandals from time to time. Lai Xiaomin, Party secretary and chairman of the board for Huarong Asset Management, was found to be keeping 270 million yuan (or $42 million) in cash gained from bribery at home. Ren Shifeng, a village official in Beijing owned 31 kilos of gold bars. Xu Changyuan, a district Party secretary from Dalian City, Liaoning Province, had 2,714 apartments in his name.

According to the Hurun wealth report, among representatives of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the richest 83 individuals have an average asset value of $335 million. In contrast, the Centre for Responsive Politics shows the wealthiest U.S. Congress members have an average asset value of only $5.64 million. While 600 million Chinese citizens have monthly incomes of less than 1,000 yuan (about $154), China’s wealthiest legislators have 60 times more assets than their counterparts in the U.S.

Another interesting situation is that CCP officials know that maintaining their privileged class in China –at the price of harsh suppression, resource depletion, and moral degeneration – is not sustainable. That is why many officials and their families have emigrated overseas, planning to jump off the “sinking ship” at any time.

CCP Core Doctrine: From Violence Before Taking Power to Cultural Revolution Tragedy

About the nature of the Cultural Revolution, Chinese-Australian economist Yang Xiaokai said it was consistent with the CCP’s track record of brutality. “The tragedies during the Cultural Revolution – such a rioting of the Red Guards, Dao County Massacre, and the Guangxi Massacre – are essentially the same as atrocities during the land reformations in the early 1950s,” he wrote.

“The CCP’s Party history is always a mixture of facts and lies, dominated by the latter,” he continued, “If you want to know the real history, you have to start with books banned by the CCP or climb over the firewall for overseas information.”

This is part of a big picture of the CCP’s core ideology of class struggle, hatred, and destruction of traditional values. If this continues, it will fundamentally undermine Chinese people and their futures.

The CCP is currently focusing on covering up its bloody history to tighten its control and deceive the people. Since early 2019, the CCP has also mandated that CCP officials install Xuexi Qiangguo, an app that keeps track of CCP officials’ study of the current CCP lecture speeches.

Despite all these attempts, the collapse of the CCP is merely a matter of time. As Karl Marx described in the Communist Manifesto , “A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism.” Now the specter has harmed the Soviet Union and the Eastern European communist bloc, caused damage to China, and threatened the world.

The CCP does not equate to China. Being truly patriotic to China requires us to stop pledging loyalty to the CCP. As more people realize the CCP’s nature, they will reject the regime, and the CCP’s brutality will come to an end.

https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2021/5/4/192177.html

The Imprisoned Chinese Billionaires

Wang youqun, May 15, 2021

Commentary

On April 15, 2021, in testimony ( pdf ) before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing  on “An Assessment of the CCP’s (Chinese Communist Party) Economic Ambitions, Plans, and Metrics of Success,” Miles Yu, the former China policy adviser to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, spoke about the Chinese economy and the CCP’s strict control over financial resources, which ultimately endangers successful entrepreneurs.

“In the past 15 years alone, no fewer than 27 Chinese billionaires have been arrested—the charges range from the bizarre to the absurd,” Yu said.

Indeed, Sun Dawu, a well-known private entrepreneur in Hebei Province, is the latest billionaire to be arrested by the CCP.

Sun Dawu May Be Guilty of Words

On April 21, Sun was formally arrested and charged with eight crimes including illegally taking public deposits, gathering crowds to attack state agencies, and illegally occupying agricultural land.

In the early morning of Nov. 11, 2020, the police arrested a total of 28 executives of Dawu Group and its subsidiaries. Nearly all of Sun’s family members—his wife, two sons, and two daughters-in-law—were arrested. The group’s 28 subsidiaries were officially taken over, and almost all of the company’s assets were frozen.

Sun, 66, founded Dawu Group in 1985. The company started with 1,000 chickens and 50 pigs, and by 1995 had become one of the 500 largest private enterprises in China. Dawu Group has more than 9,000 employees, $312 million (2 billion yuan) in fixed assets, and an annual output valued at more than $467 million (3 billion yuan).

Prior to his arrest this year, Sun was sentenced by a CCP court in 2003 to three years in prison, four years of probation, and fined $15,500 (100,000 yuan) for illegally taking public deposits. Dawu Group was fined $46,500 (300,000 yuan).

The real reason for Sun’s arrest this time may be that he made some comments that were offensive to the CCP. For example, in May last year, Sun expressed his admiration online for rights-defense lawyers such as Xu Zhiyong. Sun posted on social media in May 2020, that these lawyers had “shown the victims a little bright light, let them maintain a little faith in the law, and lit up their hope of survival,” according to Voice of America’s Chinese edition.

Xu Zhiyong, one of the founders of Gongmeng, or Open Constitution Initiative, and a Chinese civil rights activist and lawyer, had been arrested in February 2020 for publishing a letter urging Xi Jinping to abdicate and was accused of “subversion of state power.”

Secret Execution of Zeng Chengjie

Zeng Chengjie, a Hunan Province entrepreneur, was the founder of Hunan Sanguan Property Development Company. He was arrested on Nov. 11, 2008, for allegedly “illegally taking public deposits,” and was secretly executed on July 12, 2013. Neither his lawyer nor his family were notified about the execution.

On May 27, 2013, Zeng’s lawyer Wang Shaoguang met with him at the detention center. This would become their last meeting. Zeng said, “Lawyer Wang, I feel my case will not possibly win, because there are very powerful forces behind the scenes that are controlling the ruling of the case. Even if you can get me a reprieve, they will want me dead anyway.”

Zeng was executed on July 12, 2013. The next day, Wang issued an urgent statement and declared that he would take legal responsibility for any falsehood in his statement.

According to Wang’s  statement , private financing in western Hunan was supported by the local governments, and 90 percent of local families had participated in the financing. He said that Zeng’s financing agreements were actually notarized by the notary office.

Wang also said that Zeng’s assets, before his arrest, were worth $367 million (2.4 billion yuan), while the unreturned financing was only $31 million (202 million yuan). However, the local government forcibly sold Zeng’s assets for only $58 million (380 million yuan) to Caixin, an asset management company wholly owned by the local government.

Wang said that Zhou Qiang, President of the CCP’s Supreme Court, was governor of Hunan at the time of the case. Zhou was also Party Secretary of the provincial party committee when the Hunan High Court sentenced Zeng to death. The Hunan High Court issued its second instance verdict on Feb. 19, 2012, but it was not approved by the Supreme Court until after Zhou was promoted to president of the court in March 2013, and then the verdict was approved in less than three months.

Based on Wang’s statement, it’s fair to say Zeng’s case was a big injustice. Zhou is the principal person who should be held accountable for Zeng’s murder.

Chongqing Entrepreneur Li Jun Forced to Flee China

Li Jun was the chairman of a large property company, Junfeng Group, with net assets of over $617 million (4 billion yuan) until the company was taken by CCP cadres.

Zhou Yongkang (L), Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Political and Legislative Committee, in 2007, and Bo Xilai in March 2011. (Left to Right: Teh Eng Koon/AFP/Getty Images, Feng Li/Getty Images)

From 2007 to 2012, Bo Xilai, then-secretary of the CCP’s party committee of Chongqing, a major metropolitan city in southwestern China, was launching a campaign in the city called “singing red songs and striking the black society.” During this massive Mao-style campaign, Bo arrested a number of private entrepreneurs and confiscated hundreds of billions of assets from them. Li Jun was one of the entrepreneurs who was arrested.

On Dec. 9, 2011, 20 people in the Junfeng Group received guilty verdicts. Li’s older brother was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment and a fine of over $30 million (200 million yuan) for five crimes including organizing and leading organizations like the black society. The other 19 people were sentenced to terms of imprisonment from 14 months up to 13 years.

The overall verdict says in part: “The property and its proceeds amassed by the triad-like organization as well as the tools used to commit the crimes shall be recovered, confiscated, and handed over to the state treasury.” This means that the Junfeng Group, which Li had worked hard to build for more than 20 years, had been taken away under the guise of cracking down on criminal organizations.

Li himself had been arrested in 2009 and was acquitted. On Oct. 23, 2010, one day before he was to be arrested for the second time, he fled to Hong Kong.

Jiang Weiping, a veteran Chinese media professional now living in Canada, wrote on his own webpage on Feb. 13, 2013, that Li contacted him and sent him copies of his evidence. After Jiang and his friend, a Canadian lawyer, studied and assessed the materials, Jiang believed that this was an unjust case set up by Bo Xilai , then-party chief of Chongqing, and Wang Lijun , then head of Chongqing Public Security Bureau and chief commander of the striking the black society campaign.

A Group of Imprisoned Billionaires

Some say that billionaires in China are either imprisoned or headed for jail. Overstated though it might sound, it does reflect an objective fact that Chinese billionaires are in a perilous situation. There have been cases with ample proof.

In January 2008, Gu Chujun, former chairman of Guangdong Kelon Electrical Holdings, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment based on three charges, including falsifying corporate reports. Gu was deprived of tens of billions of dollars in assets and several listed companies.

Lan Shili, former China East Star Group chairman, was ranked by Forbes magazine in 2005 as the 70th richest man in China. On April 8, 2010, Lan was sentenced to 4 years in prison for tax evasion. Lan’s company, worth $311 million, was forcibly purchased by the CCP at the extremely low price of $13 million.

Peng Zhimin, the former richest man in Chongqing, Sichuan Province, and the former chairman of Qinglong Property Development, was sentenced to life imprisonment for organizing a mafia-style gang and many other offenses. According to Chongqing Public Security Bureau official Wang Zhi, Peng’s property value reached $726 million and the actual market value was over $1.5 billion due to land value appreciation.

Yang Zongyi , the former richest man in the megacity of Nanjing and the major shareholder of Fuxin Company, was detained on Nov. 17, 2020, for illegally taking public funds. Yang had made it to the Hurun Rich List (a ranking of the wealthiest individuals in China) from 2015 to 2018 with a net worth of about $622 million.

Reasons for Chinese Billionaires’ Imprisonments

First: The CCP’s plunder of private property.

Karl Marx, the CCP’s primogenitor, strongly advocated for common ownership and opposed private ownership. Marx’s theory is seen as the ideology of the proletariat (the propertyless class). When the proletariat attempts to seize power and hold the authority without capital, the stratagem that they resort to, judging from the CCP’s history, can be described in a word—plunder.

The initial stage of the CCP’s Peasant Movement  was under the banner of an “attack on the despotic landowners and the distribution of their land to the poor peasants.” Frankly speaking, it was the looting of landowners’ property. After the CCP came into power, it first implemented an initiative of public-private partnership—collaborating with capitalists—and then instituted the “ socialist transformation of capitalist industry and commerce .” Put simply, it deprived capitalists of their assets, which eventually left China with state ownership of the economy and collective economy  but not the private ownership economy. By the end of the 10-year-long Cultural Revolution in 1976, China’s economy was on the brink of collapse.

Jack Ma, founder and executive chairman of China’s Alibaba Group, speaks during a news conference in Chiba, Japan, on June 18, 2015. (Yuya Shino/Reuters)

In December 1978, the CCP launched the policy of Reform and Openness to tackle the crisis of political authority. It ramped up private economy development, not only in cities but also in rural areas, allowing privately-owned companies to survive the dominance of the state ownership economy and collective economy.

The private ownership economy has thrived for thousands of years, proving itself a dynamic economy. The CCP limits the expansion of the private economy, with fewer restrictions in some sectors, yet the private economy has shown significant short-term growth and generated a positive influence. As reported by the South China Morning Post, “China’s private economy can be recapitulated by “56789”—contributing 50 percent of tax revenue, 60 percent of gross domestic product, 70 percent of industrial upgrades and innovation, 80 percent of total employment, and 90 percent of the total number of enterprises.”

Nevertheless, the ideology of the CCP under the guidance of Marxism remains. It ostensibly promotes the idea of safeguarding private ownership, but the actual action is otherwise. When necessary, it pockets private property arbitrarily, switching the ownership from private to state for the sake of capital shortage and political concern.

Second: The CCP’s supremacy in the economy.

The bedrock of the CCP’s economic development was built by control over a gun (military) and a knife (politics and law). Private entrepreneurs in China, despite their great wealth, become vulnerable and powerless when faced with the military-backed CCP that is wielding a gun and a knife.

In countries with market economies, a consumer market (which acts as an invisible force) plays the dominant role. Whereas in China, there is no market economy, but rather a visible force—the CCP’s power to rule. The Party leader Xi Jinping has publicly stressed, “The Party exercises overall leadership over all areas of endeavor in every part of the country.” The Party exercises its supremacy in the economy by monopolizing financial sectors, including banking, the stock market, and currency market; resources such as land, minerals, water, taxes, fees, and many others. Private entrepreneurs have to observe the Party’s rules. If they don’t play by the book, they are subject to a great loss of bank loans, land ownership, mining rights, power and water supplies, and tremendous stress from sundry taxes and increased fees imposed by the CCP.

If private entrepreneurs do not meet the CCP’s requirements, it will find any excuse to rob them.

Third: The exacerbation of the CCP’s robberies.

Since 1989, the CCP dictator Jiang Zemin held power in Zhongnanhai, the central headquarters for the CCP, and abused his power. For one thing, Jiang indulged his son, Jiang Mianheng, to take official posts and engage in business. For another thing, he promoted a number of seriously corrupt individuals. The convergence of these two turbulent events led to the malignant development of the CCP’s corruption, turning officialdom into a platform for trading power and money.

To this day, the unspoken rule for promotion and making a fortune in the CCP’s official system is to bribe superior officials. Where does the money come from? Plundering private entrepreneurs is the best solution.

Tong Zhiwei, a professor at the East China University of Political Science and Law, wrote a report on Chongqing’s crackdown on gangs. Tong pointed out that the major targets of the crackdown campaign are private entrepreneurs. Beijing-based defense lawyer Li Zhuang stated that the judgments of the anti-gang crackdowns in Chongqing that he had scrutinized had identical verdicts—confiscation of property.

Fourth: The CCP’s fear of private entrepreneurs’ rebellion.

Did the CCP subvert China’s sovereignty over the Republic of China by fair means or foul? For 72 years, the CCP has never held an election and gained the mandate of the people. It has been practicing strong-arm and deceptive tactics for fear that its illegitimate political power will be overthrown. Accordingly, private entrepreneurs are most likely seen as a potential force to instigate a “subversion of state power” because of their strong financial standing.

Wang Youqun graduated with a Ph.D. in Law from the Renmin University of China. He once worked as an aide and copywriter for Wei Jianxing (1931–2015), a member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee from 1997 to 2002.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-imprisoned-chinese-billionaires_3810635.html

After Misleading the Public to Please the CCP, These Chinese Artists Faced Consequences

June 6, 2021 | By Li Yuan

(Minghui.org) After winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012, Chinese novelist Mo Yan told a story from his childhood at the awards ceremony. During the Great Famine (1959–1961), his family, like countless other families at the time, ran out of food. When his mother went to the field where the grain had been harvested hoping to find a few remaining ears of wheat, a commune member slapped her in the face. The land belonged to the people’s commune, she was reminded.

Mo was a preschooler at the time and this became the most painful experience in his life. Meeting his mother’s assailant again many years later and thinking to seek revenge, however, his mother stopped him. Forgiveness from his mother, Mo said, was what he learned from the experience and it benefited him his entire life.

Although Mo did not directly criticize the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), his speech nonetheless was condemned by “little pinkies,” brainwashed youth who openly defend the CCP on the internet. Without discussing what caused the tragedy, they criticized Mo for his political incorrectness.

Although nearly 60 years have passed since the Great Famine, that man-made disaster is still a taboo for the CCP. Hardly any scholars, let alone officials, crossed the red line. Chinese agronomist Yuan Longping (1930-May 2021) was one exception. In April 2009, he said in an interview that about 40 million died in that disaster. Many officials intentionally over-reported what the land produced to please the higher-ups and almost all the grain was turned in, he added.

Very few have the courage, though. Under the totalitarian rule of the CCP, hardly anyone dares to risk their lives to speak facts. With the CCP’s constantly covering up its crimes and distorting history to fit its narratives, the younger generations, including the “little pinkies,” are often ill-informed of the truth, causing similar tragedies to happen and then be repeatedly “forgotten.”

The damage is not limited to the public. Many artists who chose to ignore facts and please the CCP not only misled the public but also faced consequences of their own.

A Misleading Painting

One example is “The Land Is So Beautiful.” It hung in the Great Hall of the People, the official venue of the National People’s Congress. Finished in April 1959 by painters Fu Baoshi and Guan Shanyue during the Great Famine, it was an exquisite political cover-up during a time of massive deaths from starvation.

The subject of the painting came from a poem composed by Mao Zedong about a snowy scene in northern China. After exhausting their wits trying to interpret Mao’s thoughts expressed in the poem, the two painters decided to focus on the beautiful scenery in southern China with a view of northern China in the background. Then-premier Zhou Enlai asked them to include a red sun to represent Mao, while general Chen Yi suggesting highlighting the beauty of the countryside.

The finished piece was 9 meters wide and 5.65 meters tall, and it took four months to paint. Thirty large pieces of antique rice paper from the Qianlong Period in the Qing Dynasty that had been stored in the Forbidden City were used. The paper alone cost 1,800 yuan, when the average monthly income was only a few yuan at the time. Brush pens, ink, and dyes came from the prestigious shop of Rong Bao Zhai. The back of the painting was coated with silk for sturdiness and it took over 10 strong men to frame it using a three-layer rack.

Nowhere in the painting was there a hint of nationwide starvation and death. By the time the painting was completed in April 1959, about 16 provinces—half of China—had reported shortages of food and a hungry population of 25 million. These figures came only from officials who dared to speak out against the political correctness. As the lies continued, more than one million people starved to death between the winter of 1959 and the spring of 1960 in Xinyang City, Henan Province, alone.

Compared to deaths from starvation, the brutality exhibited by CCP officials against their own people was equally astonishing. One document from 1961 from Shangcheng County, Xinyang City, documented 45 cases of such violence. In order to squeeze any remaining food from its inhabitants, officials hammered people’s brains with hoes, cut off their fingers, ruptured their eardrums with wires, carved letters on their faces, sewed up their mouths, burnt anuses with hot metal rods, stuffed pine branches into vaginas, burned people with kerosene, burnt babies, and buried people alive.

Mao was aware of the situation but acquiesced to the brutality, according to Ding Shu, a Chinese historian who currently lives in the U.S. Bi Kedan, a county Party secretary in Henan Province, was a strong advocate of the Party line. After figuring out problems and only then asking higher officials for grain, however, he was denied and reprimanded repeatedly, and his family of five eventually committed suicide.

Truth vs. Imagination

Fu and Guan were not alone. Many other artists also followed suit. Li Keran, another Chinese painter, exhibited in major cities such as Guangzhou and Shanghai. Li openly supported the idea that the arts should be used to promote socialism and communism. Besides vision and perception, he encouraged deduction and imagination.

While Chinese citizens were starving to death, Li visited Guangxi Province and other places in 1959. He then painted “Guilin Scenery,” which depicts a scene of peace and prosperity. During that time, he also produced many works to praise the CCP, including “Mounts Liupan,” “Long March,” “Red Over Ten Thousand Mountains,” and others.

In 1960, Li painted “Cowherd in the Spring,” Considered one of his best works, he skillfully portrayed a happy shepherd boy in an idyllic rural setting. The only problem was its disconnect from real life.

Compared to that bucolic scene, writer Sha Qing described a case of cannibalism in his documentary “Memoir on Da Di Wan.”

The situation in Tongwei County, Gansu Province, was desperate. When all the food was gone, people ate almost anything they could find, including tree bark, wheat husks, and even cotton from their quilts, but that was still not enough.

In one family, only the father, son, and daughter were left. One day the father, who had been waiting for death, got out of bed and told his daughter to go outside. When she came back in, her younger brother, who had been in bed, was nowhere to be found. But she saw oily stuff in the boiling water and white bones next to the wok. Frightened, the girl went out and dared not to return.

Several days later, her father waving to her and said in a voice she had never heard before, “Come, come…”

Terrified, the girl cowered outside the door. As the father continued to call her, the girl wept. “Daddy, please do not eat me. I can collect firewood and cook for you,” she said. “If you eat me, there will be no one will help you.”

According to Chinese journalist Yang Jisheng, about 931,000 people died in the Great Famine, about 4.6% of the total population of Guangxi Province, he wrote in the documentary Tombstone .

During the Second Meeting of the Eighth National Congress in May 1958, Mao said wars were about death and he had seen lots of them. “There were many times in history that the population was wiped out by half. We do not have experience with atomic wars—who knows how many could survive? Probably one half would survive or one-third. There are over two billion people in the world. If even more than half of them died, the number would be restored in a few decades.”

When imperial artists produced elegant works to promote the CCP, they might never have realized the endless tears, blood, and sorrow in the background.

An Elite Group

In The Communist Manifesto , Karl Marx wrote, “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 Communistic revolution.” Ironically, once in power, the new elite group would fiercely suppress ordinary citizens and is not bothered by painful cries.

When Fu and Guan were working on “The Land Is So Beautiful” in 1959, they asked Zhou for wine. Zhou gave them cases of Maotai, a premier wine exclusively reserved for high-ranking officials at the time. Hotel staff later said they found 120 empty Moutai bottles in Fu’s room during those four months he was working on the painting.

Also during the Great Famine, Fu, then vice president of the Chinese Artists Association, led 12 artists in September 1960 on a three-month Long March of Art to find more ideas to promote the CCP.

On the road, the artists traveled first class, stayed in the best hotels, and enjoyed the best food and entertainment. The standard was the same as that for representatives of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

When these artists visited Sichuan Province, the Propaganda Department director treated them to all kinds of great food, including over 20 types of cuisines. “We all liked everything and gorged ourselves initially,” one artist wrote. “Later on we rubbed our stomachs, saying we couldn’t eat anymore. But the dishes continued to come…”

Well-fed and living lives of luxury, these artists wasted no time producing many works that praised the “prosperity” of the CCP, such as “Free Food in the People’s Commune,” “People’s Dining Hall on Mount Emei,” and others.

It was not that these artists had no clue about what was going on in the country, they just chose to ignore it. “At Mount Lingyun in Leshan City (also in Sichuan Province), we saw an old woman’s body by the side of the road. She was dressed in rags and her face was pale, apparently dead due to long-time starvation and malnutrition,” one artist wrote. “We just lowered our heads and walked by.”

While these artists enjoyed their wonderful three months on the Long March of Art, in Sichuan Province where they passed, its inhabitants were starving from the winter of 1958 to the winter of 1962. About 7.97 million people died of hunger in Sichuan Province alone, wrote Yang.

Victims of the Red Terror

Although these artists had devoted their talents—and consciences—to the communist regime, they could not escape the dire consequences afterwards.

Guan was attacked soon after the Cultural Revolution started in 1966. Because some of the plum branches he’d painted pointed downward (dao mei , which has the same pronunciation as “bad luck”), he was targeted for “cursing socialism.” He was forced to painting and sent to forced labor camps. After being allowed to work again when the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, he made certain all the plum branches he painted pointed upward to avoid further attacks.

Fu died of a stroke right before the Cultural Revolution. Nonetheless, he was attacked: his tomb was destroyed, his home ransacked, and his children targeted. His peers believed that, if he hadn’t died, he would have suffered the same fate.

Right after the Cultural Revolution started, Li was also detained, personal belongings confiscated, and house occupied. His artworks—including those that praised the CCP—were attacked as counter-revolutionary. Some called him “timid like a frightened sparrow.”

Other artists met similar fates. Ye Qianyu, Luo Gongliu, and Huang Yongyu from the Central Academy of Fine Arts were all attacked. “The Great Unity of the Chinese People” that Ye had painted in 1953 and that praised the CCP was targeted. Red Guards referred to the painting as “a group of monsters surrounding Chairman Mao.” They whipped him with belts with metal ends until he ended up on the floor, bleeding.

In his memoir, Ye wrote that he and three other artists (Li Keran, Li Kuchan, and Guo Weiqu) were assigned to clean bathrooms. Huang Zhou, a military artist famous for drawing a donkey, painted “Lotus Flower Dance” during the Great Famine. Although it glossed over that tragic era, he was one of the first artists targeted after the Cultural Revolution started when Red Guards referred to him as a “counter-revolutionary dark artist.”

Shi Lu became famous because of his piece titled “Moving to Northern Shaanxi,” which highlighted Mao and the Long March. However, his movie, titled “Liu Zhidan,” was denounced in 1964 as was “Moving to Northern Shaanxi” in 1966. Later on, he was almost executed but survived because of his mental disorder.

Several decades have passed, but the CCP’s brutality and lies still continue. As the regime advances its communist agenda around the world, many people have misread the CCP, leading them down a path of uncertainty. It is hoped that this article will help us to be clear and to make the right decisions at this crossroads of history.

https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2021/6/6/193560.html

From Honest to Corrupt: An Examination of China’s State Bureaucracy Over Time

June 8, 2021

(Minghui.org) Throughout the dynasties in Chinese history, there were ethical codes that served as guidelines for officials and shielded them from corruption.

In communist China today, however, this has been turned on its head. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has twisted the laws to its advantage, abused power for its officials’ personal gain, and implemented laws to enforce its brutality.

A few anecdotes from ancient China and modern China can shed light on this difference.

An Honest Official from the Song Dynasty

Wine was very popular in the Song Dynasty (960-1270). But officials were not allowed in taverns; otherwise, they could be impeached by the imperial censor. The consequences ranged from censure to demotion or outright removal from office.

Lu Zongdao, a high officer for Emperor Zhenzong in the Song Dynasty, once had a guest at home. He had wanted to offer hospitality to his guest, but he lived simply and didn’t own a set of wine cups fit for company. To entertain his guest, he changed into casual clothing and took his guest to a tavern.

It just so happened that the emperor needed to see him that day for an urgent matter. Lu ended up arriving late after returning from the tavern.

Before announcing Lu, the emperor’s messenger asked Lu what reason he should give the emperor for Lu’s tardiness. Lu instructed the messenger to tell the truth.

“But sir, you’ll have admitted to an act of impropriety,” said the messenger.

“It is only human to drink wine,” replied Lu. “However, to deceive one’s ruler would be an official’s greatest misdeed.”

Upon hearing that Lu had come from a tavern, the emperor grew unhappy and said, “You are an official and could be impeached by the imperial censors.”

After Lu explained the situation, however, the emperor appreciated his honesty and recommended him to high positions.

But not every Chinese official of old was as honest as Lu—and these officials brought about negative consequences for themselves.

For instance, a system of courier stations had existed in China since the Qin Dynasty. Imperial officials, when traveling for business, had access to the courier staff and services for free. By the late Ming Dynasty, however, the system was heavily abused; the majority of the courier station staff were assigned to officials for personal use. This kind of corruption eventually brought about the downfall of the Ming Dynasty.

CCP: A Supersized Bureaucracy

The CCP always tells people to be thankful because their income and benefits come from the Party. The reality is that these monetary rewards come from taxes paid by hardworking citizens and not the CCP. Furthermore, a large portion of these taxes actually go towards supporting a legion of CCP officials.

During the annual National People’s Congress (NPC) and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) sessions in March 2021, one CPPCC representative presented the situation in one county. With a population of 30,200, it has a local fiscal revenue of 36.6 million yuan and a general public budget expenditure of 865 million. There are more than 120 government agencies and organizations with over 6,000 public employees. That means the ratio of officials to the total population is 1:5. The representative suggested that smaller counties should be merged together to reduce administration costs.

According to published data from China’s Third National Population Census in 1982, the ratio of public officials to the total population was 1:7,945 in the Han Dynasty, 1:2,927 in the Tang Dynasty, 1:22,299 in the Ming Dynasty, and 1:911 in the Qing Dynasty.

This imbalance became very serious after the CCP took power. Ren Yuling, former counselor of the State Council, found the ratio of officials to total population had reached 1:26 by 2005. During the CPPCC annual session that year, Ren admitted that the situation was shocking.

Zhang Quanjing, former director of Organization Department (Ministry), said in 2006 that the large number of officials had become a major problem. A province usually has 40 or 50 provincial-level officers and hundreds or thousands of city officials. Even a small county may have dozens of county-level officers.

Furthermore, aside from governors or mayors, each position is accompanied by 8 or 9 deputy officials. All of these officials also have secretaries and aides. Such a gigantic structure not only increased the budget, but also the amount of red tape.

Tip of Iceberg

Needless to say, whether it’s a 1:5 ratio or a 1:26 ratio, these are just the numbers that we can see. There may be hidden costs, indirect expenses, and gray income for these officials that we can’t see. All of these factors contribute to the increasing financial burden on ordinary Chinese citizens.

For example, the CCP does not publicize its expenses used for all of its events and recreation. It doesn’t disclose when and how it uses public funding, government vehicles, or pays for overseas travel. CPPCC representative Liu Guangfu said in March 2006 that the private use of government vehicles cost more than 200 billion yuan (or $30 billion) per year. Liaowang (Outlook), a weekly periodical in Beijing, reported in the same year that the receptions and recreational activities of officials consumed about 370 billion yuan (or $57 billion) in 2004. T he China Statistical Year Book published by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2000 indicated officials spent 300 billion yuan (or $46 billion) in 1999 alone. These three items add up to over 900 billion yuan (or $139 billion), and that was 10 or 15 years ago.

Lu Xinhua, former spokesperson of the CPPCC, stated that China’s state administrative expenditure is 28% of its GDP, while this expenditure is only 4% or 5% of the GDP in Western countries. This highlights the bloated state apparatus in China.

A large portion of the medical system has been allocated to the apparatchiks.

Nanfang People Weekly had reported in early 2020 on a newly opened building for high officials at the First Bethune Hospital of Jilin University. 257 beds were exclusively reserved for provincial-level, sub-provincial level, or department-level officials in the 56,000-square-meter (or 600,000-square-foot) building. Some rooms are furnished even better than five-star hotels, which led to some netizens calling it “an extravagant hotel hospital.”

Yin Dakui, the former Vice Minister of Health, referenced an article from the Chinese Academy of Sciences once. This article said that 80% of China’s healthcare cost serves 8.5 million CCP officials. Not only that, about two million officials have long-term sick leave, including 400,000 who occupy hospital rooms or vacation homes for a long time. This alone costs tens of billions of yuan per year.

A Modern Version of Animal Farm

The corrupt system of the CCP goes back to the Soviet Union. Soviet poet Felix Chuyev once had 140 interviews with Vyacheslav Molotov, Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars (Prime Minister) of the Soviet Union between 1930 and 1941. He said that high officials had decent salaries, plus other incomes. On top of that, the country pays all their expenses.

This situation is similar to that described by British writer George Orwell in his book Animal Farm . After driving the farmer off of the farm, one pig became the animals’ leader under the slogan “All animals are equal.” As time went on, this pig launched waves of campaigns to purge political enemies or anyone associated with these enemies. In the end, the slogan evolved into “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Needless to say, this book was banned in the Soviet Union and many other communist countries. As mentioned above, it showed how the communists violently took power in the name of “liberating the poor”. Once in power, however, they refused to tolerate any opposing forces.

“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,” as quoted in the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party .

“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,” the book continued, “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,” states the book.

History comes and goes, and no regime lasts forever in the end. When more people recognize the CCP’s nature and choose to embrace their own conscience and kindness, the world will change for the better.

https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2021/6/8/193591.html

The CCP’s Agenda: Destroying Family Values

June 13, 2021 |   By Shen Si

(Minghui.org) Family is the foundation of our society. It provides people with support, encouragement, and love. More importantly, it is a place that we can count on and is a shelter when we fall down.

However, due to its anti-humanity, anti-tradition nature, communism wants to destroy family values. Engels, a founder of communism, said that it would eliminate private ownership and family.

The Manifesto of the Communist Party  openly admits, “Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists.”

Communism also labels the relationship between parents and children in the traditional structure as parents exploiting their children. It purports to stop this exploitation to justify its destruction of the family. “Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.”

Throughout history, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has committed countless crimes in trying to destroy the family structure and family values. Below are some stories.

Belgian Missionary’s Account

Raymond J. de Jaegher was a Belgian missionary who preached in China from 1930 to 1949. He wrote the book The Enemy Within: An Eyewitness Account of the Communist Conquest of China .

His book tells a story about Meng Shulan, a 25-year old wife in a village in Hebei Province in northern China. Meng was a vivacious and ambitious lady. The CCP saw her potential and wanted to make her a strong female leader for the party.

So a CCP worker approached her, flattering her for being beautiful and capable. Then he stirred things up between her and her husband, along with his family. “Why do you waste your life and talents on those stubborn people? They have never cared for you. You shouldn’t be like those old-fashioned people in the village. You are not as stupid as they are. You are talented! You can be a woman leader in the new China!”

Gradually, that CCP worker instilled “communist revolutionary sentiments” into Meng’s heart. He criticized the “feudal marriage” and “bourgeois love” and promised to make her an important figure in the world revolution. Meng was lured by it and took that CCP staff member as her ideal communist lover.

She left her family and joined the CCP. She became the President of the Women’s Association of three counties.

“Naturally, she needed to abandon her first husband and his family. She denounced them in front of the CCP authorities and watched them being punished under the charge of ‘counter-revolution’ – this is the best excuse to punish people without any solid charge.”

In Father Jaegher’s account, the CCP published an internal flyer on “Issues regarding Love and Marriage.” It defined the priorities for people to select their spouse: “Communist youth first must pay attention to (the other party’s) correct political viewpoint, then to (his/her) education, character, health, and look.”

The CCP also promoted the equality of man and woman, marriage freedom, and the idea of “revolution superseding all.” It led to many divorces in China, which was quite rare before that time. A coastal town in Jiangsu Province alone had 931 divorces in the first year of the CCP’s rule. The condition for divorce was quite simple: one just had to “prove” the other party was a counter-revolutionary or unable to keep up with the revolutionary ideology.

A high-ranking CCP official’s wife proclaimed, “to a communist member, husband-wife life is secondary. Political life is the most important.”

A Rogue Revolutionary and His Three Wives

Professor Yu Jianrong at the Institute of Rural Development, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, wrote an article about his father.

His father was deep into gambling at the age of 15. He lost all his assets and had to steal things to survive. The village head still married a beggar girl to him, out of his kindness. The couple then had Yu.

Yu’s father kept stealing. He was once tied up after being caught for stealing from the village head’s home. After he was released, he took revenge by burning down the village head’s house. In his memoir, he described this crime as a “heroic” action of “rejecting the landlord’s suppression.”

Yu’s father fled the village. He joined the revolutionary guerrilla forces. After the CCP took power, he became the county police chief. He went back to the village and executed the village head.

Yu’s mother went to the town looking for him, only to find him sitting closely to a beautiful young woman Gao to “study work.” His guards dragged Yu’s mother outside. “You said you are our chief’s wife. How come our chief is so angry when he sees you? Falsely claiming to be our chief’s wife is a crime!” Yu’s mother was scared and left. She thus lost her husband.

Yu’s father married Gao and had two children. Gao was born into a rich family but abandoned her family to join the CCP.

Yu’s father and Gao were later taken down in a CCP power struggle during the Cultural Revolution. Yu’s father confessed quickly to avoid torture. Gao didn’t. She held to her communist dream and believed that the CCP would clear her name later. Then her tormentors showed her her husband’s repentance letter and divorce letter. Gao’s spirit collapsed, and she drowned herself a few days later.

After the Cultural Revolution, Yu’s father became Party Secretary of the city (the party head in charge of the city). He took a girl 26 years younger than him as his third wife.

When he was about to retire, he asked the party to take care of his two children from his marriage with Gao. His elder son became an executive vice mayor, and his younger son became a multi-millionaire.

Revolutionary Mothers

Li Rui was the secretary of former CCP paramount leader Mao Zedong. Li was a rare well-known CCP figure who somehow kept his conscience and honored the truth. He even criticized some of the CCP’s wrongdoings and was punished by the Party.

Li’s daughter, Li Nanyang, wrote in her book about her mother Fan, “Every single thing she said and did revolved around politics. If you had a different opinion from her, she would feel you had Bourgeoisie thinking. She would try to pull you back into the ranks of the proletariat. If you didn’t listen, you would be at odds with her, and she would report you to your work unit’s Party branch and have them help you.”

In Nanyang’s account, during the Party’s political campaign in 1940s, Fan reported to the CCP the “bad things” that her then husband Li Rui said. Li was punished. Fan passed down the punishment to their children at home, scolding them, forcing them to stand, and not allowing them to sleep.

During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, Fan reported Li Rui again to the authorities, to protect herself from being implicated.

Yang Mo was a famous author in China who wrote the red novel Song of Youth . Her son said that she had a severe deficiency: she believed that revolution work was the number one priority and that her children, which she considered as a private affair, was secondary or even a burden.

Her “burden” concept might have developed during wartime. She and many communist soldiers often hid in underground tunnels from Japanese soldiers. To avoid being discovered, the “revolutionary” mothers covered their babies’ faces to prevent them from making any noise; this led to the deaths of many babies. Yang attributed all these tragedies to the CCP and its ideology.

The Wave of Replacing Wives

Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty (5 BC – 57 AD) once asked a high-ranking official Song Hong, “I heard a saying that people will change their friends when they move up in rank and change their wife when they have more money. Is that the norm?”

Song answered, “I heard that the friends who supported us during our hard times should never be forgotten, and the wife who accompanied us through hard times should never be abandoned.”

This view comes from traditional Chinese culture.

However, the CCP orchestrated a movement to “replace wives” after it won the civil war, to award its officials and military officers.

Hundreds of thousands of CCP officials, from the central government to the township level, replaced their wives in order of rank: senior officials found their new wives first; then the junior officials did. It was common for officials in their fifties to marry a twenty-year-old girl. If the bride ran away, they sent their staff to search all over to bring her back.

Then the Supreme Court issued an order to simplify the officials’ divorce process: the divorce did not need the wife’s agreement, and all the official needed to do was to send the divorce letter to his wife.

Conclusion

The CCP has abandoned traditional family values by replacing the relationship between husband and wife with one between “revolutionary comrades,” replacing familial affection with “class bonding,” and replacing human nature with Party nature.

Since the party line is placed above everything, husband and wife are made to report each other’s “bad thoughts” to the party, and parents and children are made to denounce each other.

Meanwhile, it allows and supports its officials–loyal CCP members–to replace their spouses at will.

The communist party’s goal is to destroy our family values and our humanity.

https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2021/6/13/193681p.html

Global Community Should Beware of Beijing Weaponizing Water Resources

Wang He

June 18, 2021

Commentary

Water is replacing oil as the strategic natural resource of the 21st century. China is fortunate that the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, known as the Third Pole of the world and also called the “Water Tower of Asia,” is situated within its borders. However, the Chinese regime has ignored the United Nations’ international water laws and has weaponized water resources to gain control and intimidate other countries.

Mekong River

The Mekong River was once one of the richest water resource on Earth. It originates from the Lasagongma Spring, which is a glacial stream in the Tibetan Plateau, and flows through China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Vietnam, before eventually flowing into the South China Sea. The Upper Mekong Basin is known as the Lancang River in China. Known as the “Danube of the East,” it has now become a political bargaining chip for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to control Southeast Asia.

The 11 dams built by the Chinese regime in the upper Lancang River basin have severely affected the Mekong River, threatening the livelihood of 70 million people. On Feb. 12, the Mekong River Commission (MRC) that is comprised of four countries—Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam—issued a statement saying that the fluctuating river flow has fallen to “worrying levels” and the dams built by China were part of the reason.

However, on June 8, at the sixth Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) Foreign Ministers’ Meeting held in Chongqing, China, five countries, including Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, reached a consensus on publishing the “Initiative on Deepening Cooperation among Local Governments of Lancang-Mekong Countries” with China.

Why are these five countries submissive to the CCP? Because they have been shortchanged. In 2010, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia spoke out against China over the severe drop in water levels of the Mekong River, believing that Chinese dams on the Lancang River caused the downstream drought. However, the CCP denied it and ignored the drought in the Mekong River basin. Yet, in 2016, Vietnam experienced a severe drought from the reduction of river water volume, leading to some coastal areas experiencing seawater intrusion. In an unusual move, the CCP reached out to Vietnam and provided them with water from the Jinghong Hydropower Station in China’s Yunnan Province, to downstream Mekong River from March 15, 2016 to April 10, 2016. These two incidents indicate that the CCP has controlled the Mekong River’s faucet.

On April 11, 2020, a research study published by Eyes on Earth Inc., a U.S. research and consulting company specializing in water resources, confirmed the fact.

The company collected satellite data obtained by the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) to detect upstream rainfall and snowmelt of the Mekong River basin in China from 1992 to the end of 2019. The data was then compared with river-level readings by the MRC at Thailand’s Chiang Saen Hydrological Station, the closest station to China, to create a predictive model of natural levels for the river. The study focused only on waters flowing out of China and did not look further downstream. In the early years of the data, from 1992, the predictive model and the river level measurements matched closely. But starting in 2012, when China’s upper Mekong hydropower dams began operating, the model and the river level readings started to diverge, coinciding with periods when the Chinese dams’ reservoirs filled up during rainy seasons and released water during the dry season. The difference was especially pronounced in 2019. Although China dismissed the findings, arguing that Yunnan Province saw a serious of droughts in 2019, the satellite data says otherwise.

Yarlung Zangbo River

The Yarlung Zangbo River originates from the Chemayungdung Glacier at the northern foot of the Himalayas. The mainstream is over 1,300 miles long, of which the river in Tibet is over 1,270 miles long. It flows from Tibet into India, where it becomes the Brahmaputra, the second largest river in India by discharge, and then into Bangladesh as Jamuna. The Jamuna joins with the Ganga in Bangladesh and flows out into the Bay of Bengal, forming the largest river delta in the world.

As the highest major river on Earth running at an average elevation of more than 13,000 feet, the Yarlung Zangbo River forms an over 6,560-feet drop within a straight line distance of 31 miles in the lower reaches of the Great Bend area. This brings nearly 70 million kilowatts of potential hydroelectricity, an energy scale three times greater than the Three Gorges Dam that has the capacity of hundreds of thousands to one million kilowatts. Moreover, due to the abundant water resources of the Yarlung Zangbo River, there have been voices within the CCP calling for the construction of dams to draw the river into the Yellow River basin. It would serve as an important part of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project to alleviate the water shortage in China’s northwest region. On May 25, 2009, under international pressure, then water minister Wang Shucheng expressed that Beijing had no plans to divert the Yarlung Zangbo River to the Yellow River.

The CCP has long wanted to develop hydroelectricity in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River, where construction is already underway on its middle reaches. In the Gacha Canyon section alone, five dams will be built on the over 23-mile river. Among them, the Zangmu Hydropower Station began operation in 2014. The highest roller-compacted concrete gravity dam in the world, the Dagu Hydropower Station, was said to be producing power on May 24 this year. However, this mammoth dam has caused grave concern for years over the geological volatility of the area, fragile ecosystems, incalculable consequences of the project, and India’s control of the southern Tibet region intertwining with Sino-India territorial disputes.

CCP’s Fallacies for Avoiding Legal Solutions to International Water Disputes

The aforementioned two examples show that the CCP is playing politics and weaponizing water. A few years ago, Professor Brahma Chellaney from Strategic Studies at the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research in India pointed out in his book “Water: Asia’s New Battleground” that the CCP has become more and more accustomed to taking unilateral actions in terms of water resources utilization and dam construction. Beijing deliberately avoids any legally binding commitments on water resources and refuses to resolve neighboring countries’ concerns.

The CCP has its fallacy in this regard, asserting that China has a legitimate right to develop hydroelectricity in Chinese territory and ignores the laws that resolve conflicts. Additionally, it has reservations to arbitration clauses and judicial settlements in most international treaties that have been signed, ratified, or joined.

This is embodied in the CCP’s refusal to join the Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses. The Convention was drafted by the International Law Commission and passed by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA) on May 21, 1997. It is currently the most influential convention on the use and protection of international watercourses. The CCP has been using absurd excuses to sidestep it.

Moreover, the CCP has not signed or joined existing multilateral treaties with other countries, nor has it established or joined the corresponding multilateral river basin management institutions, nor has it joined the integration of the whole river basin development treaties, plans, and institutions. This fully demonstrates that the CCP has not adopted cooperative or legal means on international water resources issues, but has avoided making any substantive commitments.

Countering the CCP’s Water Weaponization Is an Urgent Issue

The form of weaponizing water resources includes not only hydropower development and volume control, but also transnational water pollution prevention, biodiversity protection, emergency response, and maintenance of the river basin’s ecological safety. In particular, the consequences may be devastating if the CCP weaponizes water from a political or even military perspective.

Therefore, countering the CCP’s water weaponization has become a priority. On Sept. 11, 2020, the United States launched the Mekong-U.S. Partnership with Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. Then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the partnership “an integral part of our Indo-Pacific vision and our strategic partnership with ASEAN.” To support this partnership program, the United States decided to invest more than $150 million to countries in the Mekong River basin in recovering losses from the COVID-19 pandemic, combating transnational crimes, and developing energy and power markets. This support was built on the basis of the $3.5 billion financial aid through the Lower Mekong Initiative and other projects that the United States has provided to the region since 2009.

On Jan. 12, the United States and Vietnam co-hosted the first Friends of the Mekong Policy Dialogue under the new Mekong-U.S. Partnership. Participating countries and institutions, including Australia, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, Brunei, ASEAN Secretariat, and the Mekong River Commission, were in support of a secure, prosperous, and open Mekong region. In addition, India, Japan, Australia and other countries have also increased their investment in the Mekong region to counter the CCP’s water weaponization.

The CCP more or less condemns most of the countries that share water resources with China. Countering the CCP is a critical challenge for every nation and the international community.

Wang He has master’s degrees in law and history, and has studied the international communist movement. He was a university lecturer and an executive of a large private firm in China. Wang now lives in North America and has published commentaries on China’s current affairs and politics since 2017.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/global-community-should-beware-of-beijing-weaponizing-water-resources_3862492.html

The CCP Turned China Into the World’s Enemy, Not Competitor

Anders Corr

June 21, 2021 Updated: June 22, 2021

Commentary

A competitor is someone with whom you play a game of tennis. Or, someone who makes a widget just like yours that you both try to sell to the same client who wants to buy just one. After a competition, you relax over beers and laugh about the game. President Biden infamously called China a “competitor” rather than an enemy during the 2020 electioneering. He misled America.

The Chinese regime is an enemy for two main reasons. First, it wants to displace democracies with its own power structure, centered in Beijing. And, China isn’t just an enemy of democracies, but of any country that wants to remain independent of the Middle Kingdom. China since 1974 has attacked Vietnam with more animus than nearby democracies, because Vietnam lacks allies and is therefore relatively powerless against China. Democracies and autocracies are in the same boat on a rising and angry river flowing from Zhongnanhai.

Second, China means business. We are not just playing ping pong or doing “win-win” trade with China. Rather, we send our Navy to the South China Sea, where the Chinese navy tracks our ships with increasingly powerful nuclear weapons that have names like “carrier killers.” Beijing is trying to scare America out of the Western Pacific, where the United States is protecting allies like South Korea and the Philippines. Japan and Taiwan buy our jet fighters for the defense of their airspace from Chinese and Russian fighters and bombers that almost daily test and pulse their boundaries. Beijing wants to wipe Taiwan off the map as an independent democracy, and like a boxer it is dancing around Taipei with fake jabs, tiring it for the sucker punch. After Taiwan comes the rest of Asia.

Robert Spalding, a former Air Force B-52 and B-2 pilot who wrote the book “Stealth War: How China Took Over While America’s Elite Slept,” emailed me about how the fight with China is turning technological. As a Brigadier General, he wrote a 5G strategy for the National Security Council under President Trump that clashed with telecom lobbyists and got him a boot out the door. He’s a proven patriot and truth-teller.

“The CCP needs access to US technology,” Spalding wrote in an email. “Everyone knows they are stealing, but the CCP wants that process to continue uninterrupted. They realize that if they are cut off from technology, their strategy will be impacted. Their best defense is to encourage free societies that protecting their citizens from this predation is somehow discriminatory. If they are successful, you will see the continued erosion of the prosperity of the free world and the recognition that China’s model is superior. This is their goal.”

The G7 and NATO countries are starting to coordinate and cut China off from trade and technology, the CCP’s lifeblood. It is apparently just now dawning on us that China under Xi Jinping is an enemy, though our leaders won’t say so out loud because our businesses are making too much money trading with the enemy. We’ve got too much skin in their game. Verbalization of the obvious could escalate “tensions,” which is exactly what China is now doing. Beijing banks on the assumption that democracies are too compromised, weak, and scared to fight back.

Victor Gao, a former Chinese diplomat who now works for the Center for China and Globalisation in Beijing, recently said that more and more people in China see the United States as an enemy. “The G7 and Nato have been distorted into anti-China platforms,” he told the Financial Times. “There are increasingly large forces in China that believe if the US wants to single out China as its fundamental enemy, then let the US have an enemy.”

Gao told the Times, “In the long term China will have a larger economy than the US — no one can change that. Time is on China’s side.”

All China has to do to become a global hegemon is continue to develop its economy, compromise our politicians and academics with lucrative consulting deals that skew their China analysis towards the soporific, steal American, European, Japanese, and allied technology, and continue to build its military at a faster rate than that of the allies. When China’s military and economy are definitively superior to those of America, in five, ten, or twenty years, Beijing can start to edge us back using nuclear brinkmanship and incremental grabs of territory.

The CCP has been following this strategy successfully for decades in Asia, and with no logical territorial limit as they ignore established borders and norms. Western democracies will have little stomach for that kind of fight, when it reaches Guam, Hawaii, New Zealand, and Australia. Or, will we?

Anders Corr has a bachelor’s/master’s in political science from Yale University (2001) and a doctorate in government from Harvard University (2008). He is a principal at Corr Analytics Inc., publisher of the Journal of Political Risk, and has conducted extensive research in North America, Europe, and Asia. He authored “The Concentration of Power” (forthcoming in 2021) and “No Trespassing,” and edited “Great Powers, Grand Strategies.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-ccp-turned-china-into-the-worlds-enemy-not-competitor_3867281.html

The West Is Strategically Reorganizing to Fight Communist China

Wang He

June 21, 2021

Commentary

Recently, three major summits in the Western world—those of the G-7 (Group of Seven), NATO, and the U.S.–EU—have been held back-to-back, highlighting a significant strategic shift to confront the systemic threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). If 2020 was a year marked by a pandemic ravaging the world and the emergence of a new Cold War between the United States and China, 2021 will be one in which a strategic reorganization is being forged in the West to fight communist China.

Since the start of 2021, the CCP has become more bluntly assertive in advancing its global ambitions—by confronting the United States for hegemony at the United Nations, proclaiming that “time and momentum” is on its side and that “the East is rising and the West is declining,” and behaving in an increasingly more belligerent manner through its so-called “wolf warrior” diplomacy. The CCP’s assertive rhetoric and behavior have greatly accelerated the formation of a consensus among Western countries to counter its ambition to dominate the world, prompting the West to begin a comprehensive strategic reorganization toward Beijing.

On June 10, the New Atlantic Charter was signed by President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, pledging to work together to defend democracy and the rules-based international order.

This was immediately followed by the communiqués issued at the G-7 summit on the June 13, the NATO summit on June 14, and the U.S.–EU summit on June 15, outlining the main framework for the strategic reorganization to confront the major threats posed by the CCP.

CCP’s Escalated Provocations Against Taiwan

Since early 2021, the CCP’s military provocations in the Taiwan Strait have increased significantly, and so has the risk of war in the region. Led by the United States, Western countries have repeatedly spoken out jointly in response and have strengthened their military presence in the Taiwan Strait, East China Sea, South China Sea, and Indo-Pacific to contain the CCP’s military adventures.

The G-7, NATO, and the U.S.–EU summits held just a week ago, plus the U.S.–Japan summit on April 16, the U.S.–South Korea summit on May 21, the Japan–Europe summit on May 27, and the Japan–Australia 2+2 talks on June 9, all raised the Taiwan Strait issue and reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the region. The strategic pressure from the CCP to wage war against democratic Taiwan has increased as never before. This indicates that the Taiwan issue has now risen to the level of a weather vane shaping the evolution of the global strategic landscape.

‘Systemic Challenges’ to the West

In its communiqué, NATO listed the CCP as a systemic threat for the first time, saying that its overt “ambitions and assertive behavior present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to Alliance security.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called the summit a “crucial moment” for the organization, calling on member countries to confront the rise of China.

While urging NATO to revamp its strategic approach to confront the Chinese communist threat, the United States is also promoting the Indo-Pacific Strategy, or the Quad, and strengthening the U.S.–Japan and U.S.–South Korea military alliance. This indicates that the military coalition among democratic countries is deepening.

Economic and Technological Challenges

The West has to deal with not only the CCP’s military provocations but also its economic and technological challenges. In order to ensure that the CCP does not use various illicit means to overtake the West while the world undergoes a digital transformation, it is necessary to strengthen coordination and integration based on shared values, as stated in the joint statement (pdf) of the U.S.–EU Summit: “We resolve to drive digital transformation that spurs trade and investment, strengthens our technological and industrial leadership, boosts innovation, and protects and promotes critical and emerging technologies and infrastructure. We plan to cooperate on the development and deployment of new technologies based on our shared democratic values, including respect for human rights, and that encourages compatible standards and regulations.”

In addition, the statement said, “To kick-start this positive agenda and to provide an effective platform for cooperation, we establish a high-level EU–U.S. Trade and Technology Council (TTC).”

In this regard, several positive developments have already taken place during the recent summits. For example, the United States and the European Union reached an agreement to stop the long-standing punitive trade tariffs over the Airbus–Boeing dispute, and agreed to confront “non-market economy countries.” Meanwhile, Canada and the EU also launched a new partnership to secure supply chains for critical minerals and reduce reliance on China.

B3W to Counter CCP’s BRI

Since the CCP launched its global infrastructure development strategy through the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI, also known as One Belt, One Road) in 2013, many countries have been mired in debt and corruption. The G-7 summit agreed to launch a new global infrastructure initiative called Build Back Better World (B3W), a major-democracies-led, high-standard, value-driven, transparent infrastructure partnership to help narrow the financial gap in the over $40 trillion infrastructure need in developing countries. This was the first strategic response from the West to the CCP’s BRI.

Irreconcilable Differences Between Authoritarianism and Democracy

The irreconcilable difference between the CCP’s authoritarian ideology and democratic values must lead to a fundamental confrontation between the CCP and the West.

On June 15, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that China’s record on human rights is the main issue that divides the EU from Beijing and makes the communist regime a systemic rival for the democratic bloc.

For his part, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said that the worldview differences between Australia and the CCP may never be resolved.

The CCP’s long history of gross human rights abuses is a direct result of its communist ideology. In the U.S.–EU summit communiqué, it states: “We intend to closely consult and cooperate on the full range of issues in the framework of our respective similar multi-faceted approaches to China … We intend to continue coordinating on our shared concerns, including ongoing human rights violations in Xinjiang and Tibet; the erosion of autonomy and democratic processes in Hong Kong; economic coercion; disinformation campaigns; and regional security issues. We remain seriously concerned about the situation in the East and South China Seas and strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status quo and increase tensions … We underscore the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

In this regard, there have been several developments so far this year. For example, on March 22, the EU, in a coordinated move with the United States, imposed sanctions on the CCP for the first time since the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre for massive human rights violations in Xinjiang.

As another example, Japan, after cautiously maintaining its relationship with the communist regime for decades, has recently become increasingly critical of the CCP, its top trading partner. In a telephone conversation held on April 5, Japan’s foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi clashed with his Chinese counterpart over a range of issues, including the human rights situation in Xinjiang and Beijing’s repressive activities in Hong Kong.

And at these recent summits, at least two things indicate a trend toward joint Western action against the CCP’s bad deeds. First, the Western leaders’ support for the U.S.-driven reinvestigation into the origins of COVID-19, calling on the World Health Organization to conduct a new, transparent probe into the origin of the virus free from Chinese communist interference. And secondly, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who attended the G-7 summit in Cornwall as an invited guest, said that Australia has won strong support from the leaders of G-7 nations in the fight against the expansion of Chinese communist influence in his country.

Conclusions

At present, the West still has a three-pronged position—“cooperation, competition, and systemic rivalry”—toward the CCP. This shows that the West still has certain illusions and scruples about the communist regime, and has not yet fully realized the CCP’s true nature. Any wishful thinking of “cooperation” will be taken advantage of and treated with contempt by the CCP. If you have any doubt, just take a look at what Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular press conference on June 16: “The U.S. and Europe have put forward the so-called three-faceted approach of ‘cooperation, competition, and systemic rivalry’ toward China, which in essence means that they want to harm China’s interests and take advantage of China at the same time. Those who believe in and advocate such arguments either have problems with their own intelligence or they underestimate the intelligence of the Chinese,” according to the Chinese news portal Sina.

Obviously, the ongoing strategic reorganization in the West has its positive significance, but it needs to come to a better understanding of the true nature of the CCP, otherwise, the West will inevitably continue to be exploited by the communist regime.

Wang He has master’s degrees in law and history. He has studied the international communist movement. He was a university lecturer and an executive of a large private firm in China. Wang now lives in North America and has published commentaries on China’s current affairs and politics since 2017.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-west-is-strategically-reorganizing-to-fight-communist-china_3866912.html

Why Is Beijing Punishing Hong Kong’s Apple Daily?

Alexander Liao

June 25, 2021

Commentary

Hong Kong’s pro-democracy tabloid, Apple Daily, has printed its last edition on June 24 before shutting down. Apple Daily is no longer a newspaper but a symbol.

On June 17, Hong Kong police arrested five top executives of the company. Five hundred police officers searched the newsroom for evidence of the company violating the national security law which was imposed by Beijing on the city in 2020.

In a press briefing, Hong Kong police claimed that since 2019, Apple Daily had published more than 30 articles calling on countries to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and mainland China—an offense that violated the draconian national security law.

The chief executive officer, chief operating officer, deputy chief editor, editor-in-chief, and chief executive editor were all arrested. This marks the second raid of Apple Daily in less than a year.

Last August, Hong Kong police raided Apple Daily and arrested its founder, Li Zhiying, most notably known as Jimmy Lai, as well as his two sons. Hong Kong authorities alleged that Apple Daily and its parent company, Next Media, were suspected of violating Article 29 of the national security law: “conspiracy to collude with foreign countries or foreign forces to endanger national security.” The collusion charge carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Lai has been in jail since December, accused of participating in unauthorized rallies during Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests back in 2019 and allegedly endangering national security.

During the latest raid, more than a hundred police officers patrolled Apple Daily headquarters. All staff and persons entering the building were required to register with their legal identification and company identification. They were also required to provide personal information, including phone numbers and addresses. The computers of all editors and reporters were temporarily seized. Apple Daily claimed that reporters were asked to leave the editorial department.

The homes of the arrested executives were searched by Hong Kong police, looking for evidence in a suspected violation of the national security law. In addition, the Hong Kong police also froze $18 million HKD (about $2.3 million) of assets under Next Media.

This is the largest action against the media since the the national security law was implemented by the Chinese regime in Hong Kong last year, and the first incident of police publicly arresting journalists.

On June 14, Lai was given the Truman-Reagan Freedom Award, issued by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. The Foundation’s chairman, Andrew Bremberg, called on the free world to support Hong Kong as a beacon of freedom and to stop people like Lai from becoming victims of communist regimes.

Jimmy Lai’s Anti-Communist Stance

When Lai was 12 years old, he snuck into Hong Kong from Guangzhou on a boat. As a grown man, he would go on to build a clothing empire, Giordano. In the early years, Lai maintained a good relationship with mainland Chinese officials. Giordano was first established as a joint venture with China Resources, and its factory was located in China.

However, after the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 1989, Lai ended his relationship with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He went on to set up Next Media and Apple Daily, two resolutely anti-communist publications. Lai not only ran the companies, but he also wrote articles criticizing CCP leaders.

Apple Daily aroused criticism and controversy for its tabloid gossip coverage, but it became the best-selling newspaper in Hong Kong.

What sets Apple Daily apart from other newspapers in Hong Kong is its anti-communist stance, which has remained unchanged amid the city’s political drama. Apple Daily played a very important role in covering the Umbrella Movement in 2014 and the anti-extradition bill movement that began in 2019 and ended in 2020.

In addition to his media company, Lai remains deeply involved in Hong Kong politics and has donated money to the city’s Democratic Party.

Money and media power are what the CCP’s authoritarian system fear most. Therefore, Lai is referred to as one of the backbones of chaos in Hong Kong by the city’s Communist Party. Jimmy Lai, Next Media, and Apple Daily have become the number one enemy of the Chinese Communist Party’s system of ruling Hong Kong.

In the past eight years, Chinese authorities have pressured businesses to withdraw advertisements from the paper and threatened Lai’s business partners.

In the summer of 2019, Lai traveled to Washington, D.C. and met with top U.S. officials to discuss the controversial extradition bill and Hong Kong’s autonomy. At that time, I interviewed him for an event for a think tank in Washington.

Lai expressed very clearly that he did not support Hong Kong’s independence, but he sympathized with the Hong Kong youth’s dreams for the city’s independence. He also called on the U.S. government not to impose economic and trade sanctions on Hong Kong at the time, so that the city wouldn’t become solely reliant on China for trade. Despite this, I was surprised when Apple Daily was charged under the national security law.

Hong Kong authorities accused Apple Daily of publishing an article calling for economic sanctions against China and Hong Kong, which allegedly constitutes collusion with foreign forces to endanger China.

Lai does not approve of economic sanctions against Hong Kong, but I do not know whether he approves of sanctions against the CCP. I have never found a public statement from him on this matter.

Since the national security law was passed, some people fear that it could be applied retroactively and target certain individuals for actions committed in the past. Will statements made after the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre be traced back? Will it go back to the 1950s when landlords and right-wing capitalists fled the mainland in defiance of the CCP’s rule?

This is the dangerous practice of communist groups. During the Cultural Revolution, there were crimes charged against Chinese citizens that traced back to the eighteenth generations of ancestors. Even Confucius, who lived 2,500 years ago, was charged as an anti-Chinese and an enemy of the CCP.

Luo Huining, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong, said at a forum on June 12 that in Beijing’s view, the CCP governs through the “one country two systems” framework and anyone who opposes the CCP’s one-party rule is the “enemy of Hong Kong who seeks to undermine Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity.”

Luo said that under the national security law, Hong Kong has not suffered economic damage and foreign capital has remained steady. This is just a short-term illusion. The recent international summits in Europe have formed a consensus on the CCP, and the strategies to combat the CCP will be released one by one in the coming years. The effect of the global allies countering the CCP may be hard to imagine.

Alexander Liao is a columnist and journalist in research on international affairs in the United States, China, and Southeast Asia. He has published a large number of reports, commentaries, and video programs in newspapers and Chinese financial magazines in the United States and Hong Kong.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/why-is-beijing-punishing-hong-kongs-apple-daily_3866518.html

Vancouver: Epicentre of China’s Massive Flow of Fentanyl Into North America

Vancouver: Epicentre of China’s Massive Flow of Fentanyl Into North America

Bradley Martin

June 26, 2021 Updated: June 27, 2021

Commentary

For years, rampant money laundering in the city of Vancouver has facilitated the production and trafficking of illegal drugs. Through this ongoing laundering of illicit funds, both Chinese organized crime and Mexican cartels continue to profit from the ongoing fentanyl crisis in North America.

The term “Vancouver Model” was coined by Australian international security professor John Langdale, an expert on Asian organized crime, to describe how the Canadian city has become a hub for money laundering, drug trafficking, and capital flight. Money is laundered to and from China, while high rollers use Canadian casinos to facilitate the flight of capital from the country. The same model is occurring in other parts of the economy, in particular real estate.

Since May 2019, expert witnesses during the Cullen Commission—initiated to investigate widespread claims of money laundering in British Columbia—have highlighted claims that Canadian authorities were reluctant to properly monitor and report suspicious cash transactions. Money laundering has facilitated the flooding of fentanyl into the province by criminal networks, including Chinese triads and the Chinese Big Circle Boys. This in turn contributes to the growing fentanyl overdose crisis in major cities across North America.

According to the Vancouver Police Department in a 2017 report, China is the main source of illicit fentanyl that flows into Canada, the United States, and Mexico. International drug cartels and underground banks enable the export of drugs and facilitate money laundering out of China.

The B.C. Coroners Service reports that 1,726 people died from illicit drug overdoses in the province in 2020 alone, the highest number of such deaths in a year based on annual data going back to 2011. This figure also establishes illicit drugs as the leading cause of unnatural deaths in B.C. from 2010 to 2020, compared with other common causes including suicide, car accidents, and homicides.

In a study published by the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use, over 80 percent of drugs sold as heroin on Vancouver streets contain no heroin at all, while nearly all of them contain fentanyl.

Given the differences in trafficking patterns, seizure amounts, seizure purities, and a lack of a distinct geographic forensic profile, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) states that it has not been possible to identify whether China or Mexico is the primary fentanyl supplier to the United States. However, DEA Acting Administrator D. Christopher Evans said in his agency’s 2020 National Drug Threat Assessment that Mexican transnational criminal organizations supply most of the fentanyl, as well as most of the cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin, smuggled into the United States.

Chinese organized crime has deep roots in Latin America. In June 2010, Brazil’s Secretary of Justice Romeu Tuma Júnior was fired for allegedly being an agent of the Chinese mafia, often referred to as the “triads.” Triads are reported to be operating in Peru, Venezuela, and Panama, extorting expatriate Chinese communities, which have historically been reluctant to report problems among their own members to non-Chinese host nation authorities.

In Mexico, cartels like Jalisco Nueva import ephedrine from China while precursor chemicals have been intercepted in Mexican ports. Illegal imports of fentanyl from Mexico involve Chinese-produced fentanyl or fentanyl precursors coming most often from China. According to a paper published in PRISM, a journal of the Washington-based National Defense University, Chinese-owned gambling operations in Latin America present a significant opportunity for money laundering because of the large cash flows involved in such establishments.

It’s no secret that Chinese organized crime covertly moves millions of dollars for Mexican cartels. In April, a Chicago federal judge sentenced Chinese national Gan Xianbing to 14 years in prison for facilitating a scheme where illegal narcotics proceeds from Mexican drug traffickers were picked up in Chicago, transferred to bank accounts in China, and then ultimately sent back to the criminal groups in Mexico.

One of Gan’s associates testified how the funds were laundered through underground channels. Once the money was in the hands of the launderers, they contacted one among a network of Chinese-owned businesses in the United States and Mexico asking for a transfer of a corresponding amount of money through Chinese banking apps. All this took place through Chinese banks and outside the purview of U.S. authorities.

Two other key figures, both Chinese citizens, have emerged since Gan’s arrest: Pan Haiping and Long Huanxin. They are believed to have handled the drug money received in Chicago and ensured its laundering through Chinese bank accounts. Pan was arrested in Mexico and is awaiting extradition to the United States, while Long was arrested in Vancouver in February 2020 and has already been extradited to the United States.

Last year, criminologist Stephen Schneider cited an example of China-linked money laundering operations during his testimony before the Cullen Commission. A Vancouver money service business called Silver International served as a “vortex” of casino and real-estate money laundering, he said. It is alleged that before the RCMP raided the China-linked enterprise in 2015, it was funnelling as much as $1.5 million a day through “underground banks,” which laundered the money via casinos, real estate buys, and exotic cars.

While triads have been instrumental in the laundering of money and facilitation of fentanyl trafficking into Canada, analysts in recent years have observed a growing tendency for these organized criminal groups to act as hired thugs on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to target perceived threats in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and even mainland China.

“When the Communist Party of China finds it inconvenient for it to do something, it will use those gangsters on its behalf,” Hong Kong political analyst Dixon Sing told AFP. This embrace of CCP goals represents a remarkable transition for criminal groups that were once characterized as the arch enemies of communism.

The CCP’s relationship with Chinese organized crime to advance its agenda is not without precedent. Triads are known to have attacked pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong and may have been involved in a series of attacks on an Epoch Times printing facility in the city.

“The Mexican cartels have formed a deadly partnership with Chinese organized crime groups as Americans are dying at record levels. China is exporting massive amounts of precursor chemicals and finished fentanyl from labs in China,” Derek Maltz, a former agent in charge of the DEA’s Special Operation’s Division, told Coffee or Die Magazine.

It is disputed whether the CCP is intentionally flooding North America with fentanyl in order to fuel instability. But according to investigative journalist Ben Westhoff in his groundbreaking book, “Fentanyl Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Created the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic,” the Beijing regime is in fact subsidizing this illicit industry even though it is killing tens of thousands annually.

“I went really deep and tried to learn everything I could about this problem, and that brought me to China,” Westhoff told Yahoo Finance. “I actually went undercover into a pair of Chinese drug operations, including, I went into a fentanyl lab outside Shanghai.” He went on to describe how he found companies making fentanyl being subsidized by the CCP in various ways, such as export tax breaks.

The full extent of Vancouver’s role in the financing and laundering of funds for fentanyl distribution by Chinese and Mexican organized crime will not be known until the release of the final Cullen Commission report in December.

Bradley Martin is the executive director for the Near East Center for Strategic Studies. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter @ByBradleyMartin

https://www.theepochtimes.com/vancouver-epicentre-of-chinas-massive-flow-of-fentanyl-into-north-america_3874111.html

The Morning After the CCP’s Party

June Teufel Dreyer

July 2, 2021

Commentary

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) celebrated the hundredth anniversary of its founding with an orgy of self-congratulation. Momentum was built for the several months preceding the date, with a daily release of posters of milestones in the Party’s history. A separate series of posters carried quotations from Xi Jinping carrying such unforgettable thoughts as “education is essential to the country and the Party” and “the absolute leadership of the Party over the military is a defining feature of Chinese socialism, and a major source of political strength to the Party and the state.” Unmentioned in all of these accounts of the glorious past were its historic failures, most especially the man-made famine of the Great Leap Forward and the destructive policies of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Indeed, in the campaign against “historical nihilism,” meaning challenges to the official version of history, it can be dangerous to those who question.

As affirmations of their patriotism, citizens from toddlers to adults dressed in somewhat fancifully re-imagined facsimiles of Red Army suits, complete with red stars on the caps. Red tourism, meaning visits to the sacred shrines of Chinese communism like Mao’s birthplace at Shaoshan and the site of the CCP’s founding in Shanghai, boomed, with many of the tourists suitably decked out in Red Army costumes or group-issued t-shirts emblazoned with a 100 logo.

As the day approached, the iconic Bird’s Nest lit up the Beijing sky with a mammoth display of fireworks. A day later, Xi awarded gold medals to 29 people who had been deemed China’s most worthy Party members. And a set of 20 commemorative stamps was issued in an envelope inscribed in gold characters that read “stay true to the original aspiration and founding mission of the Party.” State media announced that over 1,300 congratulatory letters had been received from foreign political parties and state leaders, many of them vowing their desire to share its governing experience and lead international society in dealing with current challenges such as climate change and imbalanced development. In London, Zheng Zeguang, Beijing’s ambassador, who had been appointed after the abrupt departure of his controversially combative “wolf warrior” predecessor Liu Xiaoming, to the UK, laid a wreath on Karl Marx’s tomb.

The apex of this extravaganza, Xi’s long-awaited speech, did not disappoint. Clad in a Mao suit that contrasted—one might say jarred sharply—with the standard navy blue suits, crisp white shirts, and conservative ties of the other worthies on the reviewing stand—Xi’s speech extolled the past while looking toward the future. Under the leadership of the CCP, he stated, China had attained the status of a well-off society and would continue to prosper. He pledged that the central government would exercise jurisdiction over Hong Kong and Macao “in order to safeguard national security” and would “reunify” Taiwan: China’s rise was “unstoppable.” Each section was followed by enthusiastic applause from the audience, with the most belligerent statements drawing the most enthusiastic responses.

Far and away the most outstanding of these was Xi’s “The Chinese people will never allow any foreign forces to bully, oppress or enslave us. Anyone who dares try to do that will have their heads bashed bloody against a Great Wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.” 中國人民也絕不允許任何外來勢力欺負、壓迫、奴役我們，誰妄想這樣幹，必將在14億多中國人民用血肉築成的鋼鐵長城面前碰得頭破血流！In addition to spectator applause, it quickly drew 900 million views on Twitter. The English version changed this to the somewhat less confrontational “Anyone who would attempt to do so will find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people,” though it is the Chinese version that is more apt to be remembered.

Just as the excesses of any party are followed by the sober reality of the morning after, a less bright reality lurks behind the pageantry and bravado of the CCP’s hundredth anniversary. Perhaps symbolically, the brilliant fireworks, spectacular though they were, did little to improve the capital’s famously polluted air or advance the Party’s promise to become carbon neutral by 2060. Surprisingly, there was no parade, with an official responding to a reporter’s query by saying the soldiers were needed to protect the motherland’s frontiers. He did not say from whom, and the number of military members in the reviewing stands and serving as honor guards at ceremonies was impressively large. Concern with guarding the country’s frontiers would seem to be genuine, with at least two of the 29 gold medals going to ethnic minorities for their work in stabilizing their areas and a third to a Han Chinese for unspecified acts in defense of China’s sovereignty in the South China Sea.

In Hong Kong, which was simultaneously observing—celebrating might be the wrong word—the 24th anniversary of its accession to China, the mood was somber. Newly appointed Chief Secretary John Ka-chiu Lee, warned that “external forces are still waiting to cause trouble especially when many countries want to attack our nation when it is getting strong peacefully.” No permits were issued for gatherings on grounds that they might abet the spread of the coronavirus, and police began clearing Victoria Park, the traditional site of both protests and memorial ceremonies, by noon the day before the birthday celebration. Risking the possibility of arrest under Hong Kong’s new national security law, a few small groups and individuals passed out protest leaflets nonetheless. The official celebration itself was subdued, with a torch relay race, helicopters flying over the harbor, and a fireboat spraying a water salute.

China has more to worry about than Hong Kong and its other frontiers. Xi has not designated a successor, leaving speculation that his appearance in a copy of the same suit that Mao had worn at the founding ceremony of the CCP in 1949 was meant to signify that he, like the Chairman, had no intention of ever retiring. With a Party Central Committee meeting coming up in 2022, such speculation is bound to increase. The fact that he has consolidated so much power in his hands could be a danger not only to the Party but to China itself if he fails.

As good Marxists know, or at least profess to believe, the economy is the substructure on which all else in society is built—and, after a sharp rebound from pandemic-caused contractions, the economy has begun to soften. Xi has long been aware that a thoroughgoing economic restructuring is needed, but pushback from vested domestic interests has been strong. His attempts to silence criticisms, as in his protracted dismemberment of Jack Ma’s Alibaba/Ant Financial empire seem bound to decrease the competitiveness of China rather than enhance it. And, as charges of corruption proliferate—in January, Lai Xiaomin, the CEO of the Huarong Asset Management, was executed for bribery, greed, and associated sins—the way forward is unclear. The default of Huarong, the largest Chinese issuer of dollar-denominated foreign debt, $22 billion, could provoke a regulatory crisis, since the state is a majority owner.

Xi’s signature policy, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has also run into problems. To cite just a few examples, in Montenegro, construction on a highway described as a road to nowhere financed by a Chinese state bank and being built by a Chinese state-owned company halted when Montenegro could not afford to pay for it; the country appealed to the European Union for help. After Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced that, because Chinese companies had been charging three times the normal price for construction she was cutting $5.72 billion from two railway projects that were part of the BRI agreement between the two countries, China withdrew funding. In Australia, the central government canceled BRI agreements between the state of Victoria and China as inconsistent with Australian foreign policy.

Telecommunications giant Huawei has also run into troubles in Canada, Sweden, and elsewhere.

Although the fireworks may have contributed little to China’s overall air pollution problem, the decision to expand coal mine production in order to stimulate economic growth certainly will.

Xi is under no illusions that the road ahead will be easy, as evidenced by his exhortations to the Chinese people to unite to build on the achievements of the past. Blaming foreign countries for China’s troubles, as China’s state media typically do, may resonate domestically, but muscular nationalism and rhetorical recitations of ideology will do nothing to solve these problems and, as pugilistic wolf warrior tactics have shown, may even exacerbate them.

In ancient Rome, emperors used bread and circuses to enhance their popularity. It worked until the costs of building the coliseum and staging the games began to bankrupt the empire. Xi’s government has proved its ability to supply glittering performances. Whether it can continue to produce sufficient rice will be the real test for Xi’s vows for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

June Teufel Dreyer is a professor of political science at the University of Miami, a senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a faculty adviser to the Rumsfeld Foundation, and a former commissioner of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Dr. Dreyer has authored several books on China’s ethnic minorities, China’s political system, China-Taiwan relations, and Sino-Japanese relations.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-morning-after-the-ccps-party_3883499.html

Torture Cannot Shake Falun Gong Practitioners’ Faith

July 8, 2021 | By Song Shan

(Minghui.org) Before the recent United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture on June 26, Falun Gong practitioners held numerous events to highlight the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong in China since 1999.

Practitioners in Auckland, New Zealand held a rally  on Queen Elizabeth Square on June 20, calling for an end of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.

Multiple government dignitaries spoke at the event to support practitioners. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Hon Marama Davidson, 1st Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, sent letters of support to the event.

The brutality of the CCP has violated the Declaration by United Nations, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, United Nations Convention against Torture, and other human rights laws.

Nearly 100 Torture Methods

The CCP began to suppress Falun Gong in July 1999. Its former leader Jiang Zemin, who launched the persecution, issued directives to “defame their [Falun Gong practitioners’] reputation, bankrupt them financially, and destroy them physically.”

An extralegal organization was established on June 10, weeks before the persecution was launched. Known as the 610 Office , this agency has implemented numerous policies from Jiang, including “no consequences if practitioners are beaten to death,” and “counting beating deaths of [practitioners] as suicide,” and “directly cremating [practitioners’] bodies without checking their identities.” As a result, Chinese authorities have used numerous kinds of torture methods on detained Falun Gong practitioners in attempts to make them renounce their faith. Data shows that at least 4,600 Falun Gong practitioners have died as a result of torture they suffered in labor camps, detention centers, or prisons.

These torture methods are applied in conjunction with mental abuse. The purpose is to force practitioners to give up their belief and write statements to renounce their faith and to defame Falun Gong.

The brutal methods include handcuffing, foot chains, dungeons, water dungeons, death bed , sitting still for a long time, solitary confinement, cuffing to a metal chair, the tiger bench , tying up tightly, puncturing flesh with nails, pulling fingernails with pliers, stabbing fingers with needles, force-feeding through a nostril, force-feeding pepper water, force-feeding concentrated salt water, and force-feeding dung soup.

Other torture methods include sexual abuse, keeping female practitioners in male cells, forced abortions, rape, detention in mental hospitals, forced injection of nerve-damaging drugs, and electric needles. Moreover, officials have harvested organs from living Falun Gong practitioners, sell them for profit, and cremate their bodies.

Various torture methods Falun Gong practitioners have been subjected to while detained for their faith in China.

Harrowing Torture Leading to Disability and Death

Ms. Qian Youyun is a resident of Wuhan City, Hubei Province. After a coworker told her about Falun Gong in 1998, she began to practice in May that year and benefited from it both physically and spiritually. She was later persecuted for about 20 years for her belief. This included repeated labor camp and prison terms. In addition, she was kept at detention centers and brainwashing centers.

Sometimes Ms. Qian was hung up high for weeks, handcuffed behind her back during solitary confinement for two weeks, and forced to stand for months in the winter with doors and windows open. In addition, Ms. Qian was deprived of food, sleep and the use of a toilet. She was once kept in a basement with the air conditioning set to a very low temperature for 90 hours; at other times she was left outside under the scorching summer sun when it was 39 o C (or 102 o F) while being bitten by mosquitoes. As a result of torture, she was emaciated and disfigured. She also fell into a trance and was sometimes in a coma.

Mr. Pan Xujun was an English teacher in Pei County, Jiangsu Province. After beginning to practice Falun Gong in August 1996, many of his diseases disappeared, including chronic rhinitis, otitis media, and proctitis. His family became happier, and he was also well-liked by his neighbors and his students. After being arrested in May 2015, Ms. Pan was sentenced to 5.5 years in Hongzehu Prison, Jiangsu Province in 2016. Ten days before his scheduled release, he died of torture  at 55 on November 8, 2020.

The abuse of Mr. Pan included harassment, arrest, brainwashing, and imprisonment. He was beaten, deprived of sleep for long periods of time, and force-fed. He had cold water poured in his collar and shoes in the freezing winter. He also had water poured into his nose while his mouth was covered. He was also subjected to freezing, had his feet scalded with boiling water, and handcuffed in the back for a long time. Sometimes guards and inmates repeatedly choked him, almost killing him.

Police in Nong’an County, Jilin Province arrested nearly 20 Falun Gong practitioners on July 15, 2020. They included Mr. Jiang Quande, a former employee of Nongan Grain Storage Bureau, and his wife, Ms. Sun Xiuying. Mr. Jiang was already emaciated, but police detained him anyway. It was not until he was extremely weak and on the verge of death did police allow his family members to pick him up. After returning home, Mr. Jiang relied on nutrient solution injections to survive.

Even before he died  on August 25, 2020, about a month and a half after his last arrest, he still had scars from torture he suffered years ago. Mr. Jiang’s son once asked police to temporarily release his mother to take care of Mr. Jiang. Nongan police said they would not do that unless the family signed documents to renounce their belief. Mr. Jiang always told his son that they could not do that.

Mr. Jiang was tortured in labor camps for a total of one and a half years and in two different prisons for a total of 11 years. The facilities included Chaoyanggou Labor Camp, Fenjin Labor Camp, Changchun Police Department, Shiling Prison, and Gongzhuling Prison. During his detentions, he was tortured in many ways including with the tiger bench , being forced to sit still for a long time, suffocation by having his head covered with a plastic bag, bamboo sticks being nailed into his fingers and nipples, electric shocks all over, and being tied up tightly. Some of the torture methods were repeated more than 10 times. This led to Mr. Jiang having bruises and blood all over and a disability in his right arm.

Torture illustration: suffocation by covering the head with a plastic bag

Safeguarding Principles

What was described above was only a glimpse of the severe and lengthy abuse that Ms. Qian, Mr. Pan, and Mr. Jiang suffered for their belief. Moreover, the physical pain, mental stress, and harm brought to their families and families like them are beyond words.

In the Communist Manifesto , Karl Marx wrote, “A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism.” The past hundred-plus years have shown that communism is a specter with a nature of class struggle, hatred, brutality, and lies. Therefore, it contradicts traditional values and the universal principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.

Despite the harsh persecution by the CCP in the past 22 years, Falun Gong practitioners have managed to remain peaceful and calm. This is because they simply want to be better citizens following the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Their unshakable faith has enabled them to stand strong when faced with brutal torture and slanderous propaganda.

From ancient times to modern society, countless examples have shown that no totalitarian regime will last long and that the righteous will prevail in the end. Many high-ranking CCP officials have been removed and prosecuted in recent years, and over 380 million Chinese have renounced their memberships in the CCP and its two youth organizations, the Communist Youth League and the Young Pioneers. As more people join the movement to reject the CCP, the regime gets closer to being phased out of history.

https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2021/7/8/193997.html

China’s Sprint to Nuclear Parity, or Superiority?

China has started a sprint to nuclear parity with the US, if not to nuclear superiority

Rick Fisher

July 12, 2021

Commentary

In a February 2021 article for the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) Commander Admiral Charles Richard wrote, “China’s nuclear weapons stockpile is expected to double (if not triple or quadruple) over the next decade .”

Then during a June 2 forum of the Air Force Association Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command Commander General Timothy Ray stated, regarding China’s strategic modernization, “Over the last six months we started to see changes, it’s not that we saw changes, it’s the number of times that assessments fell short of what they were actually accomplishing.”

A potential stark illustration of the degree to which past assessments “fell short” came in a July 1 Washington Post article reviewing recent commercial high resolution satellite imagery of China, by Dr. Jeffery Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, part of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, and Decker Eveleth, a Reed College graduate student.

Near the Gansu Province city of Yumen, they found 109 new silos under construction for intercontinental ballistic missiles  (ICBMs). This major new People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) project likely prompted, in part, the warnings from Admiral Richard and General Ray.

This article noted PLARF efforts in other regions produced a total of 145 new silos under construction for new ICBMs. The ICBM most likely to go in the Yumen silos is a version of the 8,700 mile (14,000 km) range DF-41 made by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).

Then in a July 4 statement on his Twitter page, Eveleth revised his count: 120 silos at Yumen and 16 silos at Jilantai, Inner Mongolia, for the DF-41 ICBM, and 18 operational silos for the liquid fueled CASC DF-5 ICBM, with another 8 DF-5 silos under construction.

In its 2019 issue, the Congressionally-mandated annual China Military Power Report of the U.S. Department of Defense  had provided an earlier warning, stating, “China appears to be considering additional DF-41 launch options, including rail-mobile and silo basing.”

One might conclude that the U.S. intelligence community has been closely monitoring the PLARF’s new silo construction, affirmed by recent commercial satellite imagery.

What remains to be determined is whether there will be more PLARF silo ICBM brigades, or whether construction efforts will stress new railroad-based ICBM brigades, or both.

One alarming prospect of the completion of 145 or 136 silos containing DF-41 ICBMs would be the quadrupling of China’s nuclear warheads over the next one to three years instead of the next decade as mentioned by Admiral Richard.

Military vehicles carry China’s DF-41 nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles in a military parade at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, on Oct. 1, 2019. (Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images)

DF-41 production likely began early in the last decade. The 2015 emergence of the DF-41-based Long March-11 solid fuel space launch vehicle suggests that DF-41 production may be supported by a dedicated second CASC production line.

China is credited in open sources of having about 350 nuclear warheads. The DF-41 may carry six to ten warheads, meaning an additional 136 new silo-based DF-41s could add 816 to 1,360 warheads. To that, one must add warheads from other ICBMs and submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).

Assuming that the DF-5 ICBM silos are now filled with the three-warhead equipped DF-5B, there could be 54 more warheads. An additional 72 warheads would be carried by 72 JL-2 SLBMs aboard six Type 094 nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). These will be followed by the Type 096 SSBN, which informal Chinese sources suggest will be armed with the 6-warhead capable JL-3 SLBM.

By the mid-2020s the PLA Air Force will have its new Xian Aircraft Corporation “H-20” strategic stealth bomber, based in part on stolen U.S. B-2 stealth bomber technology, capable of carrying multiple long-range nuclear-armed cruise missiles.

So, it is possible that by 2025, China’s ICBM and SLBMs warhead inventories alone could exceed 1,400. That is greater than the 1,357 warheads deployed by the United States, according to the latest State Department count, revealed on March 1, 2021 in accordance with the recently extended 2010 New START nuclear weapons limitation treaty with Russia.

Reacting to the revelation of the new silo construction, some U.S. analysts have suggested that the PLARF may not fill all the new silos with ICBMs, inasmuch as it constructed decoy silos for its earlier DF-5 ICBMs. Jeffery Lewis suggested China may be building up its nuclear force in reaction to “U.S. investments and missile defense.”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has its own agenda well beyond responding to the United States. Filling all new silos would offer China more options for nuclear coercion against the United States. This would be all the more so if China and Russia combined their nuclear forces for coercion. Such offensive missile cooperation would follow from their near decade of missile defense cooperation.

It also has to be considered that the CCP likely has long been dissatisfied with simply having a small number of nuclear weapons to assure “retaliation” and thus deter nuclear attacks from the United States and Russia.

A decades long CCP rejection of even the simplest nuclear transparency and arms control is an obvious indicator it wants to build many more nuclear weapon systems.

In the last decade China has built over 2,000 theater ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, many of which are nuclear capable. This means the CCP saw fit to build a theater missile force larger than any other country. It also is a strong indicator that the CCP may now be seeking a superior intercontinental nuclear force.

A superior nuclear force would be consistent with CCP goals of deterring the United States from countering a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, and then displacing the United States as the most powerful state in Asia. It would also be necessary for the CCP’s goal of becoming the world’s military hegemon by mid-century.

If the Biden administration is truly serious about deterring conflicts with China, and about strengthening U.S. alliances, it should offer a far more detailed public assessment of China’s nuclear weapons buildup.

It may dash the Biden administration’s arms control dreams, but leaving the New Start treaty, and compensating with a buildup of modernized U.S. nuclear forces, is far preferable to the disasters that would follow from failure to deter Chinese-Russian nuclear blackmail or attack.

Rick Fisher is a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinas-sprint-to-nuclear-parity-or-superiority_3898309.html

China’s One-Two Punch

Grant Newsham

July 17, 2021

Commentary

In boxing there’s something called a one-two punch.

You might deflect or evade the “one” but if you forget about the “two” you could end up face down on the mat.

So it is with the Chinese regime. Most of the attention is on how to take on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and its rapid build-up of ships, aircraft, and capabilities that pose a serious threat—even to the Americans.

Solve that and you’ve ducked the blow and can breathe easy. Or it’s thought.

But in fact, China ’s economic power is the “two” in the one-two punch—and that’s how Beijing intends it.

The Chinese even have a doctrine for this—”civil-military fusion.” It means civil activities such as commercial and economic activities (the second punch) tie into military activities (the first punch) as mutually reinforcing elements of national power.

The Second Punch

Chinese economic power equals political power—but it also feeds China’s military power.

How so? China earns money to fund the Chinese defense build-up—and the Chinese Communist Party ( CCP ) is not forced to choose between “guns and butter.” Indeed, it can have both.

The so-called Belt and Road Initiative ( BRI ) plays a prominent role in the CCP’s effort to gain economic, political (and military) dominance. The BRI’s principal feature is Chinese funding of infrastructure and commercial projects throughout much of the Indo-Pacific—and in Latin America, Africa, Central Asia, and Europe as well.

BRI has both financial and strategic angles. If projects can make some money and put otherwise idle Chinese labor to work, that’s good. But if China can gain access, political influence, and create dependency in BRI nations—that’s priceless, and financial results don’t matter much.

To that end, many of the BRI projects—ports and airfields, for example—have a “dual-use” aspect. They work just as well for commercial purposes as for military purposes. Look at where the CCP has developed port and airfield access around the globe and the military “power projection” usefulness is obvious. Chinese officials and military officers regularly talk about it—it’s not hidden.

A good example of the Chinese regime successfully using the promise of BRI investment to gain strategic advantage was seen in the Solomon Islands and Kiribati. In 2019, as a result of opaque promises from Beijing, both nations de-recognized Taiwan. Now there is talk of China refurbishing an old American airfield in Kiribati and rumors of military facilities in the Solomons. That’s worth any price to Beijing—and has gotten attention in Washington and Canberra.

China’s BRI is often criticized as predatory—or so-called “debt-trap diplomacy.” And indeed the deals usually are opaque, stacked in China’s favor, way overpriced beyond what is fair or affordable, and rife with bribery of local officials and politicians.

The Sihanoukville port in Cambodia, part of the Chinese regime’s Belt and Road Initiative. Their project to connect Africa, Asia, and Europe through the construction of a network of railways and roads is met with criticism. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP/Getty Images)

But get closer and the locals will often tell you: “What else are we supposed to do?” The president of a Central Pacific nation was overheard several years back commenting: “We don’t do this by choice, but by necessity.”

And China takes time to lay the groundwork. Since long before BRI, Chinese commercial activity was literally everywhere out to the far ends of the Indo-Pacific region—even down to the corner shop level. For example, 80 percent of retail businesses in Tonga are run by recent Chinese arrivals.

The economic to political to strategic progression creates dependency and influence, and also no little resentment. But by then it’s too late, the second punch has landed.

There is an aggregate effect as well, as neighbors see what is going on and perceptions are shaped. China’s economic clout not only reinforces its defense buildup, but it also helps feed the perception that China is a powerful country on the rise—the country that’s destined to dominate (while America declines). This spurs some other nations to want to get closer—either to attach themselves to the future winner—or for self-preservation. Meanwhile, adversaries are worried and even intimidated.

Perception or Delusion?

In the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere, many nations are hooked on the perception of the necessity of China’s market and money.  Even countries that are wary of China have convinced themselves—or at least their businesses and political classes have—that their prosperity depends on plugging into Chinese demand and/or attracting Chinese money via investment, aid, tourism, etc.

This is a bit of a delusion. One needs only to look back 30 years when the China market didn’t matter and the world was still prosperous.

China is indeed successfully using its economic power to expand its presence and influence, and bulking up military might and expanding potential military positioning. But will it continue going from strength to strength? It also faces some serious challenges.

One of the biggest is that the Chinese currency, the yuan or RMB, is not freely convertible. Meanwhile, China must have convertible currency for anything it wants to do overseas or buy from overseas, for example, to pay for overseas construction projects, or to buy companies (some with defense or dual-use technologies), or to buy up or into properties such as ports and airfields, and to purchase political influence to gain control over territory.

It needs convertible currency to fuel its expansion. And nobody accepts Chinese yuan. But not to worry, much of Beijing’s overseas activity is funded by American, Western, and Japanese financial institutions and companies pouring huge amounts (say a few hundred billion U.S. dollars) of convertible currency into China each year.

This allows the CCP not only to expand its reach but to paper over many internal problems and to look more successful than it really is. As a bonus, the foreign investors also apply pressure on their home governments to not “upset” China.

But you see the vulnerability for Beijing: Given that the U.S. military advantage over China is diminishing, the U.S. dollar (and the threat of cutting off Beijing from it) is Washington’s last major “counterpunch” to use against the regime.

An elderly man walks past a poster advertising the renminbi (RMB) currency (Chinese yuan) in Hong Kong on Aug. 18, 2011. (Laurent Fievet/AFP/Getty Images)

Beijing is keen to eliminate this American advantage and is trying a number of ways to do so, including digital currencies, swap arrangements, and “talking up” the yuan and “talking down” the U.S. dollar. This is all intended to present the yuan as a desirable currency and to weaken confidence in the U.S. dollar.

Washington’s response to COVID—spending astronomical amounts that debase the American currency—is nicely helping Beijing’s attempts to dethrone the U.S. dollar.

Looking Ahead

Will Beijing’s one-two punch work? Will it increasingly dominate industries and markets worldwide, while extending its political and military reach in the process?

Possibly. But the CCP has domestic weaknesses that belie its message of inexorable upward economic growth and expansion. Beijing faces problems with bad debt, inflation, loss of confidence (at home and abroad) in the economy and financial system, lack of foreign exchange, and all exacerbated by potential sanctions. And there is also the fact that China’s “markets” are subject to the capricious orders of the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP hasn’t figured out new laws of economics that nobody else has in the last 5,000 years.

Also, consider that the most successful people in the Chinese system—including at the very top of the CCP—have been trying for decades to get their wealth out of China and to put it somewhere safe—like America, Canada, Australia, and the UK. That suggests that those benefiting most from the system have great doubts about its reliability, if not survival.

Just remove export controls on the yuan for a few weeks and you’ll see it flooding out of China to “safe havens.”

There is also talk of foreigners “decoupling” from the China market—and some very nascent attempts to do so, not least to mitigate supply chain dependencies.

But for now, it seems that Western and Japanese commercial and financial interests—and the politicians they fund—aren’t interested in pulling back from the China market.

And statements by groups such as the U.S.-China Business Council, Japan’s Keidanren, and major companies such as Boeing and Nike bear this out. Instead, they are “all in” on China, while turning a blind eye to the CCP’s opaque financial management, mafia-like regulatory enforcement, and human rights atrocities.

As noted earlier, to their credit, the Chinese are willing to go “out there” and do the hard work of commerce the way the “Yankee trader” of old used to—these days U.S. businesses (and most others) seem uninterested in places where the living isn’t so easy and returns aren’t guaranteed or big enough.

To change the current trajectory, the United States and its friends need to provide real alternatives to Chinese economic offerings, and increase proscriptions on investing in or taking investment from China. And shareholders (and their lawyers) should start asking company CEOs why they are investing in a rigged market that aims to destroy the foreign competition? But this had better be done fast.

There’s a common expression in the Indo-Pacific and beyond that—“The U.S. provides security, China provides our business. We don’t want to choose.”

At some point, if the CCP keeps landing enough one-two punches, the United States will be on the mat. Then China will be making the security and business decisions for everybody—and nobody will be able to raise a glove.

Grant Newsham is a retired U.S. Marine officer and a former U.S. diplomat and business executive who lived and worked for many years in the Asia/Pacific region. He served as a reserve head of intelligence for Marine Forces Pacific, and was the U.S. Marine attaché, U.S. Embassy Tokyo on two occasions. He is a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinas-one-two-punch_3905251.html

Law of the Sea Court Ruling Continues to Challenge Chinese Aggression

A China Coast Guard ship (top) and a Philippine supply boat engage in a standoff as the Philippine boat attempts to reach the Second Thomas Shoal, a remote South China Sea reef claimed by both countries, on March 29, 2014. (Jay Directo/AFP via Getty Images)

Austin Bay

July 21, 2021

Commentary

On July 12, 2016, The Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled that China  had systematically violated essential provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or the UNCLOS , at the expense of the Philippines. China’s violations included stealing resources from Manila’s maritime Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ, and illegally encroaching on Filipino territory in the South China Sea , or SCS.

UNCLOS codifies the geophysical conditions and legal precedents establishing sovereign control of territorial waters and rights in EEZs. It is dedicated to preventing and peacefully resolving disputes involving billions of dollars of maritime resources.

In blunt language, the Court concluded China’s communist government had robbed the Philippines and launched a slow, calculated and highly illegal invasion of the SCS. The ruling dismissed Beijing’s ridiculous “Nine-Dash Line” claim to own roughly 85 percent of the SCS’ 2.2 million square miles.

Between 2013, when Manila filed the complaint, and the 2016 Court decision, I wrote three columns addressing the complaint’s strategic implications. Since 2016, the decision has figured in 11 columns, including several on Hong Kong.

Why? Because the Court’s ruling exposes the Chinese Communist Party ’s multidimensional imperialist expansion strategy and aggression as it occurred from the late 1990s through 2016.

The ruling documented the CCP ’s utter disregard for international treaties and civilized diplomacy when they challenge CCP policy actions. China signed and then broke the UNCLOS treaty. China signed and then broke the Sino-British Treaty of 1984, which guaranteed Hong Kong’s democratic autonomy through 2049.

The ruling illustrated how China targets and bullies its smaller neighbors. Beijing insists on “bilateral” one-on-one negotiation, betting Chinese military and economic muscle will dominate. The Philippines internationalized its dispute by going to the Court. Vietnam and Indonesia are reportedly considering similar UNCLOS lawsuits to address Chinese theft.

The ruling documented the fascist criminality of China’s slow SCS invasion. China employs construction barges and fishing boats as weapons. The barges pour concrete on reefs and sand bars, creating artificial islands. CCP propagandists then claim the fakes are Chinese territory, sovereign as Shanghai.

In the Filipino case, China turned three sea features, Mischief Reef, Subi Reef, and Fiery Cross Reef, into fake islands. The Court stated clearly China’s concrete knobs are not legally islands. Since the ruling, the U.S. military has started calling them fortified sea features.

China used its “sea militia” to invade Filipino territory. Here’s how that worked and continues to work in the EEZs of several Southeast Asian nations. Hundreds of Chinese fishing boats enter the smaller nation’s EEZ. Acting as a gray-zone warfare armada, they drive off local fishermen. China Coast Guard vessels arrive to protect the Chinese boats.

China’s response to the Court’s censure vacillates. It attempts to ignore it; it flaunts new violations. Chinese diplomats have criticized the ruling so fiercely their vehemence suggests someone in Beijing fears the decision. China has a face culture. Did the ruling deal the CCP and its president, Xi Jinping, a severe loss of face?

The ruling did not halt Chinese expansion and aggression strategy. China continues to claim the Nine-Dash Line boundary and has doubled down on weapons. The Subi and Mischief fortified sea features sport naval facilities, military airfields, and air defenses. Their anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles create an air-sea crossfire.

However, exposing the regime’s abuse of weaker neighbors has cost China diplomatically. The Filipino theft operation demolishes two key CCP propaganda narratives: that China is the leader of the developing world and is the champion of plurality by ending Western/American hegemony. I think the decision impeaches the CCP dictatorship’s claim to world leadership and its very legitimacy as a responsible governing body. Perhaps that’s what Xi fears.

Alas, the ruling also reveals the weakness of international law. Ultimately, navies enforce maritime law, not courts. The only navy in the western Pacific capable of deterring Chinese aggression flies the Stars and Stripes.

The Philippines recently reaffirmed its alliance with the Unites States. Apparently, superpower backup has value.

Austin Bay is a colonel (ret.) in the U.S. Army Reserve, author, syndicated columnist, and teacher of strategy and strategic theory at the University of Texas–Austin. His latest book is “Cocktails from Hell: Five Wars Shaping the 21st Century.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/law-of-the-sea-court-ruling-continues-to-challenge-chinese-aggression_3911773.html

Xi Jinping’s Seven Misjudgments

Xi Jinping Warns Foreign Countries on CCP Anniversary. (China in Focus -NTD)

Ngan Shunkau, July 26, 2021, Commentary

All of the problems that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is facing today come from fundamental structural factors that can’t be resolved. This is its biggest crisis.

Western countries also encounter issues, but under their democratic form of government, there are solutions. Whether it is fast or slow, deep or shallow, democracies can mitigate conflicts and ultimately redress the balance. However, the CCP’s problems require rectification to bring order out of chaos.

Rigidly adhering to communism  is the CCP’s major structural problem. As proven by history, communism is wishful thinking. The disintegration of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the communist bloc is an outstanding example of the failure of communism. Deng Xiaoping salvaging a failing system with a capitalist market economy through reform and openness is another. But the CCP continues to seek opportunities to rise while holding fast to communism.

Forty years of reform and openness have transformed the CCP from being strictly communist into crony capitalist, showing that communism is a big sham. However, it still ensures that Red elite families reap public wealth under the cover of a long-term brainwashing mechanism. Will the CCP completely relinquish communism? If they dare to do so, the tyranny will collapse.

Another fundamental problem of the CCP is leader Xi Jinping  positioning himself as the “ ultimate arbiter ” in having the authority to give the final say. Among all the leaders of the CCP, I think only Mao Zedong had absolute authority. That’s until Xi began emulating Mao’s dictatorship.

However, Xi falls far behind Mao in many aspects. Regarding an evil nature and political astuteness, Mao enjoyed supreme power in personnel arrangements and left specific affairs such as government operations to Zhou Enlai, vice chairman of the CCP. However, Xi cannot even compare with Zhou’s high prestige as a Party veteran.

Xi’s absolute authority is tottering. It is not established by personal achievements of long-term political struggles, but by people around Xi providing unquestionable praise after he took office. Xi simply lacks personal charisma in the party.

He has repeatedly misjudged domestic and foreign situations. His absolute authority leads the regime to miss opportunities and frequently make mistakes in handling domestic and foreign affairs. The regime’s recent clampdown on the Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing, right after it went public on the U.S. stock market, caused China Concepts Stock to plunge in the United States and damaged the regime’s global image. In addition, a third-generation Red, Zhang Tao, who assaulted two academicians of the International Academy of Astronautics, was only “suspended from his duties to cooperate with the investigation” a month after the incident. The regime slowly responded to both incidents because they were of great importance that called for Xi’s opinion.

Since Xi took office, he has made many severe misjudgments based on his personal political insights. These misjudgments have bred ill effects that have not been remedied in time. The regime is digging itself into a hole that only gets deeper.

Xi’s Seven Misjudgments:

1. China Is Strong Enough to Confront Democracies

The CCP has made great progress in gaining strength and accumulating a great amount of wealth for itself, while leaving a number of Chinese citizens poor, with 600 million people having a monthly income of about $140, according to state-run Global Times . It costs a fortune to achieve external expansion and maintain domestic stability, but the CCP demands more than it can afford.

According to a report by Radio Free Asia , “in 2013, the [regime’s] $124 billion domestic security bill outstripped the military budget. But since then, it has stopped publishing a total spending figure for its nationwide ‘stability maintenance’ system, which refers to a plethora of law enforcement agencies, including state security police who target rights activists, political dissidents, religious believers and ethnic minority groups as potential ‘threats’ to social stability.” Considering there are 1.3 billion people inside China, the regime only looks nice on the outside but is virtually rotten beneath the surface.

2. China Has Enjoyed Substantial Wealth From a Strong and Sustained Economy

The fact is that the national economy is crisis-ridden and seriously unbalanced in various categories such as local government debt, property bubbles, obscure and unhealthy bank systems, serious corruption, and many others. It will shake China to its foundations if any of these situations go wrong.

Nowadays, problems arise frequently and the regime is robbing Peter to pay Paul. A prominent example is local governments being forced to rely on new loans to repay debt and fund ongoing construction projects with central authorities struggling to honor their existing financing, according to the South China Morning Post.

China had $2.8 trillion worth of local government debts at the end of 2018. Dong Dengxin, director of the Finance and Securities Institute at the Wuhan University of Science and Technology projected that China’s outstanding local government bond issuances may exceed $4.6 trillion at the end of 2021, reports state-run Global Times.

“Yields on many of the projects invested in by local governments are not optimal, adding to the pressure of debt repayments, especially with the approach of the peak of local government bonds that are due in 2021,” according to Xi Junyang, a professor at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics told the Global Times. The worst scenario is looming on the horizon.

People pick up useful construction waste from a garbage dump in Hefei, central China’s Anhui Province, on Dec. 9, 2012. China’s wealth gap has widened to a level where it is among the world’s most unequal nations, a Chinese academic institute said in a survey, as huge numbers of poor are left behind by the economic boom. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

3. The West Is Declining

The CCP’s united front seems to work well for the communists to infiltrate and create chaos in Western democracies. Take the United States as an example: the financial crisis has dragged down the U.S. economy, the Republican and Democratic Parties have been fighting hard, and many Western media have been more and more left-leaning. Authoritarianism seems to defeat democracy. The West is easy to manipulate.

In fact, domestic issues are not only common in every nation, but also open for debate and improvement in democratic countries. However, Xi fails to realize that a consensus against the push of communist coercion in the international arena has been formed and is getting stronger than ever.

For instance, just this year, three major summits in the Western world—those of the G-7 (Group of Seven), NATO, and the U.S.–EU—highlighted a significant strategic shift to confront the systemic threats posed by the CCP.

In addition, “the United States is also promoting the Indo-Pacific Strategy, or the Quad, and strengthening the U.S.–Japan and U.S.–South Korea military alliance. This indicates that the military coalition among democratic countries is deepening,” according to Wang He , a commentator on Chinese current affairs.

4. European Countries Can Be Easily Manipulated

Xi believed the EU did not care about human rights issues as much as the United States, and would remain silent about the CCP’s human rights violations in exchange for economic benefits. He thought this would be the perfect time for the CCP to manipulate and control Europe.

On Dec. 7 last year, the EU adopted a decision and a regulation establishing a “global human rights sanctions regime.” The EU announced in a statement: “For the first time, the EU is equipping itself with a framework that would allow it to target individuals, entities, and bodies—including state and non-state actors—responsible for, involved in, or associated with serious human rights violations and abuses worldwide, no matter where they occurred.”

The EU imposed sanctions on the CCP in March this year over the Xinjiang human rights violations. The CCP counter-sanctioned 10 people and 4 entities of the EU, including European lawmakers. The sanctions imposed by the CCP on the EU have caused serious consequences. The EU on May 20 passed a resolution to freeze ratification of the EU–China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), in response to China’s sanctions on EU politicians. This is the most recent consequence of Xi’s misjudgment toward the EU.

5. China’s Market and Supply Chains Have Become Indispensable to Western Nations

Xi believes Western countries will bear bitter consequences of worsened relationships with China. Governments will be forced to make concessions under the pressure of business groups and professionals.

The reality is, however, opposite to Xi’s judgment. The CCP’s geopolitical tensions, aggression on neighbors and in the South China Sea, high tariffs, use of forced ethnic minority labor, misusing WTO (World Trade Organization) rules are all coming together to move the world’s factories away from China, according to Financial Express . The pace of this is increasing since the CCP virus  has destroyed much of what people knew as a way of life in 2020 and beyond.

The pandemic has brought medical supplies into the group of industries traditionally sensitive to national security concerns such as defense, telecom, and technology. From the United States to Japan to Europe to Australia, governments are pondering how to bring the production of crucial items such as personal protective equipment and pharmaceuticals back home. In November 2020, the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai (AmCham) released its annual China Business Report ( pdf ) showing that 29 percent, nearly one-third of manufacturers polled by AmCham, were thinking about or already planning to exit China.

6. Pervasive High-Tech Control Has Inhibited the Development of Civil Disobedience

In fact, the prerequisite for effective social control lies in the gradual improvement of people’s living standards. In other words, civil unrest breaks out once the economy declines, people’s livelihoods are at stake, property prices plummet, and unemployment surges.

A 2012 report by the European Union-funded Europe China Research and Advice Network (ECRAN) noted that incidents of social unrest rose from 8,700 in 1993 to 87,000 in 2005. The Ministry of Public Security of the CCP stopped issuing such data altogether after 2005. Unofficial data estimated by a researcher at Tsinghua University suggested that there were 180,000 incidents in 2010.

According to the report, the immediate reasons for such unrest include land disputes, environmental degradation, labor conflicts, and ethnic strife rooted in the institutional structures of central-local relations and the authoritarian nature of Chinese politics. To control society but lose sight of people’s well-being turns society upside down.

Young participants hold a banner during a “Stand With Hong Kong” rally in Pasadena, Calif., on June 12, 2021. (Ringo Chiu/AFP via Getty Images)

7. Hong Kong is Easy to Settle, Taiwan Can Be Taken by Force, and Xinjiang Will Be Conquered Behind Closed Doors

But things did not go as planned. The oppression of Hong Kong has sparked international backlash, Taiwan has become an indispensable ally of the United States and Japan, and the Xinjiang suppression has become the regime’s weak point. The three issues exacerbate an already difficult situation for the regime.

Nevertheless, the CCP will neither abandon the communist sham, nor will it lessen Xi Jinping’s absolute authority. Many of Xi’s misjudgments have wreaked irreparable harm that comes one after another.

Take Hong Kong for example. Since the Hong Kong National Security Law ended the “one country, two systems” model on June 30, 2020, the ongoing political turmoil and tensions between China and the West have increased sharply. On July 14, 2020, the United States United States revoked Hong Kong’s special trading status, which may expose Hong Kong exports to higher U.S. tariffs as applied to mainland China. The Washington-based Heritage Foundation removed Hong Kong from the 2021 Index of Economic Freedom , where Hong Kong topped for 25 years up to 2019, partly as a result of Beijing’s growing control over the city’s economy.

In recent weeks, the regime has initiated wholesale jailing of opposition leaders and disempowered Hong Kong’s elected assemblies. The territory is even less stable. Hong Kong’s future as an international financial center is now in grave peril.

Xi recently made a remark about “staying fearless in the face of death … in the face of even greater difficulty,” referring to its guerrilla warfare in the early years when the Red army was trying to escape from the purge of the Nationalist army of the government Republic of China. He touted, “the revolutionary ideals soar above the clouds,” however, he cannot salvage the situation this time.

Some netizens said that Xi’s recent gaffe at the CPC and World Political Parties Summit—“Have I finished talking?”—signaled an ominous sign. The last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, Puyi, ascended the throne at the age of three, sitting on the throne and crying. His biological father comforted him by saying, “It’s nearly finished!” The casual remark came true. Sure enough, the Qing Dynasty was finished shortly after.

Signs of downfall often appear in inconspicuous places. Xi is mentally and physically exhausted. The turmoil-stricken regime is destined to collapse when a critical crisis strikes.

Ngan Shunkau is a writer and a publisher who has lived in Hong Kong since 1978. He is the author of “Blood Rain in My Youth,” a story about opposing factions among the Red Guards during China’s Cultural Revolution.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/xi-jinpings-seven-misjudgments_3900849.html

The Chinese Regime’s Biggest Export? Tyranny

Chinese Communist Party delegates attend the regime’s rubber stamp legislative conference in Beijing, China on May 28, 2020. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

John Mac Ghlionn

July 28, 2021

Commentary

In a recent op-ed  for the South China Morning Post, the researcher, S. George Marano , writes, “Predictions of the Communist Party’s impending doom have come to nothing as its form of political governance has not only endured but thrived. The party has created a system that has rewritten China’s economic and social record in a short period of time.” Now, according to Marano, other countries around the world are eager to emulate the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) “mode of political governance.”

Today, with an increasing number of countries adopting this tyrannical style of “political governance,” the Free World is starting to feel a little less free. Within the next decade , according to Bloomberg Economics, China looks likely to become the world’s leading economy. The recipe for Beijing’s success is simple: lots of investments, both at home and abroad, lots of lies, and a staunch commitment to ruling with an iron fist. As the aforementioned Marano writes, “China’s economic and social success is inseparable from the effectiveness of its mode of political governance.”

Around the world, “beneficiaries” of the Chinese model can be found all around the world, from Latin America to the entire continent of Africa, where the Chinese regime’s influence is most definitely on the rise . Take Ethiopia, for example, the fastest-growing economy  in Africa. As Marano notes, the country’s leaders are only too happy to adopt a “Chinese-style political governance.” What does this style of governance look like, exactly? Not pretty.

Ever since the Chinese regime involved itself in Ethiopian politics, Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of the country, has gone from  being a champion of human rights to a literal authoritarian. Coincidence? I think not.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping poses with African leaders, including Malawi’s President Arthur Peter Mutharika (2nd row, 2nd R), during the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing, on Sept. 3, 2018. (How Hwee Young/AFP/Getty Images)

With authoritarianism on the rise —not just in Africa, but all around the world—the CCP-endorsed style of governance places great emphasis on limiting people’s freedoms, from policing language to the actual policing of people. In Cuba, where the Chinese regime exerts a nefarious influence , some of the biggest protests in decades  have just taken place. As Joseph Humire, the executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society, recently told Newsweek ,  “China uses Cuba as a platform for many of its regional intelligence and security operations,” even using signals intelligence stations to “intercept communications in the United States.” Wherever the Chinese regime’s influence is felt, chaos quickly follows . Sadly, this particular style of chaotic influence can be detected in a growing number of countries, from Uganda  to Uruguay .

What we are witnessing now is authoritarian learning  in its purest form, which is similar to the psychological phenomenon known as “social mirroring,” where an individual imitates the gestures, speech pattern, or attitude of an influential person. With authoritarian learning, leaders around the world are mirroring the CCP’s rigid, highly tyrannical style of governance.

The Great Mall of China

Forget the Great Wall of China, let’s discuss the Great Mall of China. Accounting for almost 30 percent of global manufacturing output , a country run by despots has become the world’s mall. How did it come to this? Well, that is an essay—no, a dissertation—in and of itself. Of all the country’s exports, from steel to sneakers, its surveillance systems  are by far the most worrying. As Caitlin Dearing Scott and Adam George, two authors with a background in authoritarianism, write, the Chinese regime has sold this invasive technology  to “governments accused of human rights violations (Egypt, Serbia, Cambodia, for instance).” Not only this, but the regime sends representatives to train “the recipients on how to use the technology for social and political control.” Furthermore, according to the authors, “it extols the virtues of authoritarian rule to political parties” in South Africa (which has recently witnessed mass riots), Kenya, Vietnam, and aforementioned Cuba. The Chinese regime’s “internet and social media regulation, which really amounts to censorship, even spurred Nigeria’s minister of information and culture to call for replicating CCP practices.” Not long after the duo’s piece was published, the Nigerian government banned Twitter and threatened to “rein in” the press.

Is This Really the Future?

Why are so many countries so intimately involved with the Chinese regime? Why are so many countries employing Chinese public security and purchasing surveillance technology platforms  from the Chinese regime? There are no simple answers. However, researchers at the Brookings Institution, the nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, argue that the drivers of this trend  stem “from expansion of China’s geopolitical interests, increasing market power of its technology companies, and conditions in recipient states that make Chinese technology an attractive choice despite security and privacy concerns” (emphasis mine). In other words, although the price of getting “intimate” with the Chinese regime is extremely high both literally  and figuratively , Beijing’s model of governance is far too tempting to ignore. This, of course, is deeply worrying. Surveillance systems everywhere, mandatory masks, limits on speech, vaccine passports, inevitable lockdowns in the fall, etc. The world is starting to look a lot more like mainland China.

John Mac Ghlionn is a researcher and essayist. His work has been published by the likes of The New York Post, Sydney Morning Herald, The American Conservative, National Review, The Public Discourse, and other respectable outlets. He’s also a columnist at Cointelegraph.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-chinese-regimes-biggest-export-tyranny_3921566.html

Can Taiwan Deter China?

A Taiwanese Air Force F-16 in foreground flies on the flank of a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) H-6 bomber as it passes near Taiwan on Feb. 10, 2020. (Republic of China (ROC) Ministry of National Defense via AP)

Richard A. Bitzinger

August 1, 2021

Commentary

Can Taiwan deter China?

It’s not a rhetorical question, nor is it an idle inquiry. In fact, whether or not Taiwan can successfully dissuade China from attacking it could be the focal point for war and peace in Asia for the next 20 years.

Tensions across the Taiwan Strait have persisted for decades. Twenty-five years ago, the Chinese threat to Taiwan was perhaps the paramount security concern in East Asia. A war between China and Taiwan was considered to be the most likely military clash during the time, as evidenced by the 1995–96 missile crisis.

Interestingly, cross-strait tensions soon lessened. In fact, relations between Beijing and Taipei improved dramatically in the late 1990s and 2000s, with a host of new political, economic, and cultural cooperation. Twenty-five years ago, one couldn’t mail a letter directly from Taiwan to China; today, there are nonstop flights between Taiwan and the mainland.

The 2020s, however, promise to be an era of renewed hostilities, mostly driven by Xi Jinping’s growing ambitions. Xi is very much a “ man on a mission ,” profoundly aware of his limited time as the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to realize his deep-seated dream of a strong and globally powerful China, but also totally confident in his abilities to do so.

Xi is a man of hubris, and hubris causes people to take risks. Absorbing Taiwan into China could easily end up on Xi’s near-term agenda— perhaps as early as 2027 , the centenary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

That said, actually invading and occupying Taiwan might be more difficult than Xi expects. To be sure, the PLA is much more capable than it was in the mid-1990s. It has greatly expanded the PLA Navy (PLAN)—particularly its amphibious forces—and the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) is nearly fully modernized with 4th- and even 5th-generation fighters. Nevertheless, Taiwan would not be a push-over.

The People’s Liberation Army storms ashore from landing crafts in an exercise on the mainland coast close to Taiwan, on Sept. 10, 1999. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Ian Easton of the Project 2049 Institute has closely studied Taiwan’s defensive capabilities . He notes that Taiwan is “a rugged, heavily urbanized nation … made up of over 100 islands, most too tiny to see on the map. Many of Taiwan’s outer islands bristle with missiles, rockets, and artillery guns.” In addition, the island’s “granite hills have been honeycombed with tunnels and bunker systems.”

As such, Taiwan’s “coastal terrain … is a defender’s dream come true. Taiwan has only 14 small invasion beaches, and they are bordered by cliffs and urban jungles.”

Moreover, Taiwan’s military is a modern force in its own right, with upgraded F-16 fighters, AH-64 helicopter gunships, and Javelin anti-tank missiles, and it is acquiring 100 M1 tanks from the United States. The Taiwanese Navy is taking delivery of a dozen Tuo Chiang-class stealth corvettes—these are heavily armed with supersonic anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles, and their combination of speed and stealth make them well-suited for ” hit-and-run guerrilla operations at sea .”

Moreover, Taiwan increasingly possesses advanced cyber weapons, electronic warfare suites, smart mines, and even armed drones .

Consequently, Easton argues that China might require a force of up to 2 million troops—practically the entire PLA—in order to overcome Taiwan’s counter-invasion force of at least 450,000 (based on the conventional wisdom that an invader needs at least a 3:1 ratio of numerical superiority over a defender).

Finally, invading and occupying Taiwan demands a level of confidence that even Xi cannot muster up. Such an attack would be a crapshoot of monumental proportions, an all-or-nothing proposition. If Xi were to try and fail, it would mean not only his own political demise, it could threaten the very future of the CCP.

Again, Taiwan wins by deterring an attack, not necessarily by defeating one.

Nevertheless, weakness can undermine deterrence, and many have noted Taiwan’s continuing deficiencies in its defense capabilities. According to Wendell Minnick, a long-time defense journalist who also lives in Taiwan, the country’s military is woefully lacking in many areas .

In the first place, it is particularly under-manned. Force numbers continue to be cut, and conscription is only four months long—hardly enough time to consider a new recruit “battle-ready.” Although Taiwan says that it can count on 1.5 million reservists, Minnick notes that they train only five days every two years (if they are called up at all), “during which time they typically perform simple chores and not weapons training.” In fact, the reserves would be more than useless in wartime, Minnick argues, they would simply be “cannon-fodder.”

Minnick further argues that annual exercises have become just “dog-and-pony shows for the media,” and that individual infantry companies “must borrow heavily from other companies to fill [manpower] gaps.”

A Chinese submarine attends an international fleet review on April 23, 2009, off Qingdao in Shandong Province. The Chinese regime may soon deploy nuclear-armed submarines for patrols. (Guang Niu/AFP/Getty Images)

At the same time, the cross-strait military balance has shifted significantly in China’s favor . Of course, China has always had the numerical advantage over Taiwan, but now it possesses a qualitative edge as well. Since the turn of the century, the PLAN has added more than 30 modern attack submarines (both diesel-electric and nuclear-powered), 20-plus destroyers and more than two dozen frigates, seven large amphibious assaults ships, and two aircraft carriers; in addition, it operates around 1,000 4th-, 4th-plus-, and 5th-generation fighters.

In comparison, Taiwan has not acquired a new submarine in more than 30 years or a new fighter jet since the late 1990s. It operates only 26 destroyers and frigates, and perhaps 460 combat aircraft. According to Minnick, the Taiwan air force has perhaps one day’s worth of missiles and other munitions.

In the mid-1990s, Taiwanese and Chinese military budgets were roughly equal. Today, Beijing outspends Taipei by more than twenty-to-one.

Of course, the United States contributes to Taiwanese deterrence efforts through its general support of the island and specifically through the Taiwan Relations Act (a “semi” security guarantee). Washington knows that if a Chinese invasion and occupation of Taiwan were successful, it would totally disrupt the status quo in the Indo-Pacific. The United States would lose a valuable outpost in the far western Pacific. Meanwhile, China would gain access to airbases and naval facilities on Taiwan, permitting it to tighten its hold over the South China Sea and control strategic lines of communication, affecting Japan, Australia, and U.S. allies and partners in Southeast Asia.

Taiwan’s continued existence as a self-governing and democratic entity could become the linchpin to security and stability in the Indo-Pacific in the 2020s and 2030s. Deterrence is the job, and the job never ends.

Richard A. Bitzinger is an independent international security analyst. He was previously a senior fellow with the Military Transformations Program at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore, and he has held jobs in the U.S. government and at various think tanks. His research focuses on security and defense issues relating to the Asia-Pacific region, including the rise of China as a military power, and military modernization and arms proliferation in the region.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/can-taiwan-deter-china_3928581.html

Forced Organ Harvesting in China Is Medical Genocide for Profit

Part 1 of the 4-part series 'World Summit on Forced Organ Harvesting'

Anders Corr

September 23, 2021 Updated: September 28, 2021

News Analysis

New details are emerging about the billion-dollar forced organ harvesting industry in China that has resulted in a million or more deaths of unwilling “donors.”

The   World Summit on Combating and Preventing Forced Organ Harvesting , held between Sept. 17 and Sept. 26, brought together academics, lawyers, and politicians from around the world to discuss the overwhelming   evidence  of the Chinese Communist Party’s ( CCP ) transplant abuse, committed mostly against prisoners of conscience.

But the CCP isn’t the only perpetrator, according to summit participants. Political, academic, and media silence in the West, for reasons of commerce, amounts to complicity. The CCP’s goal of eroding international norms of consent in order to maximize its profit from this industry must be stopped, participants argued, by more forcefully speaking out and legislating against the abuse, including through individualized sanctions against those CCP members who are most responsible, as well as an end to the international training of transplant surgeons from China.

‘Medical Genocide’

More than   a million , by some estimates, have fallen prey to forced organ harvesting in what could be considered “medical genocide,” according to organizers of the World Summit on Combating and Preventing Forced Organ Harvesting. The killings meet the   U.N. Genocide Convention  definition of genocide, which includes attempts to eradicate not only races but religions, when there is state-level intent to do so.

“The mass killing of prisoners of conscience for their organs serves a dual purpose for the [Chinese Communist] Party,”   according  to David Matas, an international human rights lawyer from Canada. “The killings eliminate what the Party sees as its political enemies.”

David Matas presents a new report on mass organ harvesting in China, at the National Press Club in Washington on June 22, 2016. (Lisa Fan/Epoch Times)

Carlos Iglesias Jiménez, an international human rights lawyer from Spain,   agreed .

“The CCP’s aim is to eradicate, to physically eliminate people because of their spiritual beliefs—these prisoners of conscience—such as Christians, Tibetans, Buddhists, and especially the millions of Falun Gong practitioners. The priority objective is their elimination, their eradication, and this logically has the connotations of a crime of genocide,” he said.

According to   Theresa Chu , a lawyer with the Taiwan Falun Gong Attorney Group, “Forced organ harvesting is not only used to carry out the … genocide of Falun Gong practitioners and ethnic minority groups, such as Uyghurs, but also implicated in massive economic profits from organ transplantation, transnational organ sale, transplant tourism, and organ brokerage.”

Forced organ harvesting in China has a pecuniary root, as it has likely produced billions of dollars in revenue for China’s hospitals, and hundreds of millions in taxes for use by Beijing.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, in London,   called  the practice “commercialized murder.”

Indeed, it is mass murder carried out on an industrial scale, with the involvement of China’s military. On close read, the evidence  of forced organ harvesting in China sounds a lot like genocide, given that it’s focused against a particular religion that the state seeks to eradicate.

Dr. Declan Lyons at Trinity College in Dublin   said  that “organ transplantation is … estimated to be a billion-dollar business per annum in China, and up to 60,000 to 100,000 transplants occur on an annual basis in the People’s Republic [of China].”

China’s organ transplant customers are global. Dr. Huang Shi-wei, from Taiwan,   said  that “over the past 20 years, over 4,000 Taiwanese went to China for liver or kidney transplants. Besides Taiwan, people from   South Korea , Japan, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and even Western countries flocked to China to receive transplant surgeries after 2000.”

Dr. Weldon Gilcrease, director of oncology at the University of Utah School of Medicine,   said , “This kind of egregious and mass crime has never really been at the hand, so largely, of the medical community in history.”

Huang stated that from 2000 to 2006, China’s military maintained the country’s organ banks, which hold data about organ “donors.” After evidence was first   published  in 2006 that Falun Gong practitioners were being targeted for forced organ removal, the CCP started to more effectively hide the practice. That year, David Matas and David Kilgour, a former member of the Canadian parliament, published their book “Bloody Harvest: Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China.”

Chu recounted  the story of a woman named Annie, who helped reveal the existence of forced organ harvesting in China that singles out Falun Gong practitioners. Annie was the ex-wife of a Chinese physician who was “harvesting corneas from living Falun Gong detainees,” and her account exposing the crime caused a global uproar, Chu said.

Transplants provide the primary source of income for some hospitals in China, according to Huang, with one in Beijing registering an increase in transplantation revenues from $4.5 million in 2006 to $30 million in 2010. He said that after 2007, Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities were added to Falun Gong as victims of forced organ harvesting.

Falun Gong, Uyghurs Targeted

Dr. Raymond Scalettar, former chair of the American Medical Association, noted at the summit that the World Medical Association (WMA) has taken a stand against forced organ harvesting, including against Uyghurs, who the United States and the United Kingdom have recognized as being victims of genocide.

“The WMA in 2020 issued a declaration to prevent and battle transplant-related crimes,” he said. “Previous resolutions condemned the many reports of continued violations of these ethical standards by the PRC with imprisoned members of Uyghurs and the Falun Gong.”

An international coalition of five nonprofit groups—Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) in the United States, CAP Freedom of Conscience in France, the Taiwan Association for International Care of Organ Transplants, the Korea Association for Ethical Organ Transplants in South Korea, and the Transplant Tourism Research Association in Japan—organized the event.

The founder of DAFOH and host of the summit, Dr. Torsten Trey,   alleged  on Sept. 15 that Beijing’s goal with organ harvesting exceeds the bounds of China’s borders. It is to erode international norms requiring the consent of organ donors, he told Epoch TV. Such an erosion would advantage China’s organ transplant industry, which depends upon a massive and ready supply of organs from living prisoners of conscience. “So China is highly interested in tearing down this system of [Western medical ethics] to basically make forced organ harvesting the common standard in transplant medicine,” Trey said.

DAFOH was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and in 2019, it received the Mother Teresa Social Justice Award.

Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) holds an event at the University of Arizona in Phoenix, Arizona, on April 19, 2019. (Lucy Fan/Epoch Times)

In 2019, the London tribunal on forced organ harvesting in China heard evidence that the practice is widespread and state-sanctioned. Falun Gong practitioners, whose religion the Chinese regime seeks to eradicate, are imprisoned and made the main source of organs, as recognized by many at the World Summit.

A key component of the Falun Gong religion is truthfulness, which makes them easy targets for Chinese authorities, who simply knock on their doors and ask for admissions of guilt on the spot, according to a Falun Gong source.

Falun Gong practitioners also avoid substances such as alcohol and tobacco that could harm their organs, making them optimal targets of unethical transplant surgeons.

In 1999, there were as many as   100 million  Falun Gong adherents in China, according to its state media. They were seen as a threat to the state because they exceeded the number of CCP members at the time, and they organized demonstrations against misrepresentation in China’s state media. According to a Human Rights Watch   report , the persecution began in earnest after an April 25, 1999, mobilization. “From all reports, more than 10,000 practitioners, most of them middle-aged, lined up in an orderly column around two sides of Zhongnanhai, the compound in the heart of Beijing where China’s leaders live and work.”

While the U.S. government and establishment media have paid extensive attention to China’s genocide against the Uyghurs, less attention is being given to the similar genocide against Falun Gong. This arguably has three reasons. First, Falun Gong is seen by some scholars as a relatively new religion, which therefore is less known and gets less sympathy from members of the public. Second, the Uyghur genocide targets the more established Muslim religion. And third, CCP authorities have made a concerted propaganda push to label the Falun Gong with the derogatory term of “cult.”

André Gattolin, a senator from France, is co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. He   told  the summit that the CCP tactic of smearing Falun Gong as a “cult” was effective at chilling debate in France about forced organ transplants.

“The fact that the victims of these forced removals are most often followers of religious minorities such as Falun Gong, presented by the Chinese government as a cult, always provokes distrust within our population, where a sometimes rather intolerant conception of secularism has prevailed for more than a century,” he said.

“The accusation of sectarianism sounds like an anathema and often leads to a dismissal without appeal. This is the case even though the Interministerial Mission of Vigilance and Combat against Sectarian Abuse has already pointed out several times that Falun Gong does not fall into this category.”

The Interministerial Mission of Vigilance and Combat against Sectarian Abuse is a French government agency charged with analyzing cults and protecting their victims.

“Beijing has played a masterstroke of propaganda in order to cover Falun Gong with an image of being unacceptable and therefore indefensible,” Gattolin said.

The CCP has likewise tried to tar Uyghurs as anathema, labeling their legitimate protest activities as “terrorism,” even though the CCP themselves are the terrorists, according to an authoritative   reading  of U.S. law. American human rights lawyer Terri Marsh and University of Chicago academic Teng Biao make this argument forcefully in a 2020 article in the Journal of Political Risk, which includes a discussion of forced organ harvesting as one kind of terrorism committed by the CCP.

U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio)   noted  that the CCP is the “principal perpetrator of forced organ harvesting.” As the lead Republican on the Foreign Affairs subcommittee, Chabot said he closely monitors “Beijing’s efforts to remake the world in the image of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Given the CCP’s brutal repression of Uyghurs and Tibetans, Chabot said, “it should come as no surprise, then, that the PRC under communist leadership is engaged in one of the most barbaric practices in human history—forced organ harvesting—to bring health and wealth to the CCP and its cronies.”

As   identified  by Trey, a danger for the West is that the CCP could become so powerful that it’s able to export its lack of medical ethics globally.

Chabot   added : “A world that conforms to the values of the CCP is one in which those who don’t toe the Party line can be put in a concentration camp or have their organs harvested. That’s a vision for a world that nobody wants to live in. And that’s the vision of the world that we are all fighting against.”

Dehumanization, which forced organ harvesting executes in an almost literal fashion, is an integral part of the CCP’s terror campaign and genocide against Falun Gong.

One doesn’t need to be an international lawyer to realize that the brutal suppression of Falun Gong that began in 1999 meets  the U.N. definition of genocide. And the rise in transplant tourism to China in the early 2000s corresponds to the start of the genocide against Falun Gong. The two are connected. Forced organ harvesting against Falun Gong is a medical and profit-driven means of genocide.                                                                  https://www.theepochtimes.com/forced-organ-harvesting-in-china-is-medical-genocide-for-profit_4011280.html

Beijing Silences Global Media on China’s Forced Organ Harvesting

Part 2 of the 4-part series 'World Summit on Forced Organ Harvesting'

Anders Corr

September 25, 2021; Updated: October 5, 2021

News Analysis

The   World Summit on Combating and Preventing Forced Organ Harvesting  is   highlighting  media silence on one of the greatest atrocities of our time: a billion-dollar forced organ harvesting industry in China.

The Chinese Communist Party ( CCP ) has used its gatekeeper role over the immense economic power of China, as well as its political influence campaigns abroad, to silence global media and influence nations and international organizations globally on the human rights atrocity of forced organ harvesting. The summit, held between Sept. 17 and Sept. 26, sheds light not only on this, but on what one participant has called  a “diplomacy of silence.”

Despite incontrovertible   evidence , Beijing denies that it’s currently conducting forced organ harvesting and has gotten the   World Health Organization  (WHO) to support the CCP’s denials. But the WHO’s assessment is faulty. According to Lord Hunt in the UK, “It was revealed by the UK government in 2019 that the World Health Organization’s assessment is based on China’s own self-assessment and that the WHO has not carried out its own assessment of [the] Chinese organ transplant system.”

Organizers of the summit have demonstrated that CCP pressure has decreased media coverage of forced organ harvesting in China, leaving nations and international organizations with little incentive to take the costly steps necessary to address the problem.

“Many members of the news media have failed to report truthfully on this atrocity but bowed to CCP pressure and published paid propaganda instead,” the organizers   wrote  on the summit website. “Societies around the world are kept ignorant of the dangers of becoming complicit with forced organ harvesting crimes.”

Dr. Torsten Trey, founder of the nonprofit group Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) and host of the summit,   stated  on Sept. 17 that the summit looks “into the role of the news media and the issue of censorship.”

“By default, the first task of the news media is to report facts and truths,” Trey said. “However, another important aspect of the media is to connect people. Over the past 15 years [since The New York Times broke the story of forced organ harvesting in China], the mainstream media has failed to connect the people in the free world with the victims of forced organ harvesting in China. This separation between the readers and the victims is another, often neglected aspect of censorship.”

Torsten Trey, the executive director of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, speaks at an event in Taipei, Taiwan, on Feb. 27, 2013. (Chen Po-chou/Epoch Times)

Trey noted that the summit is an attempt to bridge the divide between citizens and the victims of forced organ harvesting.

Dr. G. Weldon Gilcrease, director of Oncology at the University of Utah School of Medicine,   told  the summit that the extensive evidence of forced organ harvesting has gone unrecognized by “most of the medical community and, indeed, most of the world.”

Gilcrease attempted to stop training Chinese doctors how to perform transplants at his own university, arguing that they would likely use the knowledge to murder unwilling donors. His administration opposed him, saying that “there’s no doubt that forced organ harvesting is happening, but that taking a stance against a large, strong country such as China could be dangerous both to our institution, as well as the undergraduate and graduate schools that we serve at our university.” He was told that “if we said anything [about these atrocities], China would simply send all of its students to Texas.”

Several other summit participants called for an end to the international training of doctors from China in transplant techniques. Dr. Andre Gattolin, a senator from France and co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC),   criticized  “developed countries, which, in the name of sacrosanct medical and health cooperation, have proceeded without precaution to the transfer of skills and technologies which have led to the shameful abuses observed today in China.”

Gattolin said France has “widely taken part in the training of numerous Chinese surgeons in the very delicate technique of organ transplantation.”

“Our trust—granted too naively—has been betrayed,” he said. “We failed to demand a right of supervision over what might have resulted, and those who were tricked in the name of sharing knowledge and a certain scientific humanitarianism still refuse to acknowledge their share of responsibility.”

Also speaking at the summit, Carlos Iglesias Jimenez, an international human rights lawyer from Spain,   said  that Western governments and international organizations haven’t been tough enough to confront the CCP and condemn forced organ harvesting.

“We have many examples of this. The CCP has infiltrated so many international organizations: the United Nations Human Rights Council, the World Health Organization, the United Nations itself, managing to ensure that everything goes unnoticed, that everything is concealed, that these events can never be generally and publicly known by society and the whole world,” Jimenez said. “And they are succeeding with the complicit silence of Western governments and international institutions and international organizations.”

According to retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Spalding, the CCP’s use of carrots and sticks against international democratic processes and deliberations on forced organ harvesting amounts to “political warfare.” He   told  the conference on Sept. 19 that political warfare, in the form of influence through economic elites, is used to immobilize democracies to these atrocities.

“Political warfare is used to desensitize, to deflect any criticism on understanding of things like the genocide of the Uyghur population, the lockdown and control of the people of Hong Kong, the mass incarceration and organ harvesting of the Falun Gong, and the outright oppression of … certain elements of the Chinese population, particularly those that … the Chinese Communist Party fears,” Spalding said.

Retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general Robert Spalding in Washington on May 29, 2019. (Samira Bouaou/Epoch Times)

Françoise Hostalier, a member of the French Parliament,   said  that the failure to acknowledge that Chinese leaders are operating on discrepant moral and ethical principles is due to the country’s global influence.

“China is an unavoidable economic partner, which is increasingly successful in many scientific fields, and which is bringing more and more territories and countries under its domination,” Hostalier said. “There is a great risk that our researchers, doctors, laboratories, industrialists, and students, through scientific or economic exchanges, will find themselves complicit in the inhuman and criminal practices of their Chinese counterparts, which are contrary to all ethics, but without being aware of it.”

Hermann Tertsch, a member of the European Parliament from Spain,   criticized  the mainstream media for failing in its duty to cover the crimes of the CCP.

“The criteria of the media world, which has hegemony over the world’s communication, are criteria that have been increasingly defined in one direction over the last 50 years, and it is in this direction that the crimes committed by the Chinese dictatorship are treated in such a benevolent way,” Tertsch said.

“[Images critical of the CCP] have been disappearing from the networks, not only in the Chinese networks, where nothing can be found about that tragedy of 32 years ago [the Tiananmen Square massacre], [but] also in the Western media, by Chinese desire or by the desire of so many of China’s partners, as we have among those who applaud in Davos, with those who applaud Xi Jinping, the great giants of the big takers of the big technology companies, of the big networks, we all know their names.”

He said we’re indulgent of CCP crimes because “they manufacture a lot there, because they have many economic relations, because they admire the model, because they want to apply a similar model.”

Democracies in the West could hold the CCP accountable, Tertsch said, but “they prefer a big globalist regime where every person is anonymous and interchangeable and we can take organs from one person and give them to a higher bidder or to someone who suits us for some reason.”

Economic interests, he said, “lead these Western elites to be complicit with the Chinese Communist Party … to hide the monstrosity of the transplants, which are taking away, we do not know how many thousands of political prisoners, of common prisoners, of people from the Falun Gong movement, of dissidents.”

The world has a responsibility to face squarely the atrocity that is forced organ harvesting. That it’s mostly imposed on highly vulnerable populations in China, namely Falun Gong practitioners and potentially the Uyghurs as well, and that these populations have been targeted for cultural eradication, brings forced organ harvesting to the level of a means of genocide, per the U.N.   definition .

As forced organ harvesting is also a commercial medical procedure, those who support human rights face an entirely new type of crime against humanity: medical genocide for profit. The mainstream media must do a better job of covering this issue, or it loses any claim to be an unbiased conscience of the community.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/beijing-silences-global-media-on-chinas-forced-organ-harvesting_4011287.html

Sanction the CCP for Forced Organ Harvesting

Part 3 of the 4-part series 'World Summit on Forced Organ Harvesting'

Anders Corr

September 26, 2021;Updated: October 12, 2021

News Analysis

The   World Summit on Combating and Preventing Forced Organ Harvesting  covered the means to stop the atrocity of forced organ harvesting in China, including a universal declaration, economic sanctions against the Chinese Communist Party ( CCP ), and bans on international training of transplant surgeons from China.

Organizers of the summit, held between Sept. 17 and Sept. 26, have called upon the legal profession and international community to take incontrovertible   evidence  of forced organ harvesting more seriously and work to end transplant abuse through specific legal measures, including individualized Magnitsky sanctions against the CCP’s worst perpetrators, national laws that criminalize those who participate in forced organ harvesting domestically, and an end to the international training of transplant surgeons from China.

“The legal profession is called upon to enact an end to this unacceptable crime against humanity,” the summit website reads.

Dr. Weldon Gilcrease, director of Oncology at the University of Utah School of Medicine, has   called  for holding accountable all those medical professionals and others who have collaborated over the years to China’s illegal transplant system.

Changes to commercial relations are also required, according to Dr. R. Scalettar, former chair of the American Medical Association.

“There should be no conflicts of interests such as payments for and commercialization of transplants,” he said.

Such conflicts can be banned by legislation at the national and international levels.

Israel ,   Spain ,   Taiwan , Italy, Belgium, Norway, and South Korea have been   leaders  in enacting legislation to prevent transplant tourism, according to Lord Philip Hunt of the UK and two international human rights lawyers, David Matas from Canada and Carlos Iglesias Jimenez from Spain.

David Matas gives evidence at the people’s tribunal in London on Dec. 8, 2018. (Justin Palmer)

This could include the censure and loss of license of complicit medical professionals, as well as litigation,   according  to Scalettar. If you violate medical ethics on forced organ harvesting, “you’re out of business,” he said.

Jimenez called  on people and governments to speak up and legislate against international forced organ harvesting.

“The CCP dictatorship moves very well, either by buying people’s will, or by bribing people’s will, or by threatening people’s will,” he said. “And it can do that with a small group, but it cannot do that with millions of people, who are the brave ones who must speak out.”

For Jimenez, silence is complicity.

“Justice, in the future, will not only judge those who are guilty of these crimes, but also all those people whose complicit silence has facilitated, made it possible for all these atrocities to take place,” he said. “They will have to answer to justice.”

Theresa Chu, a lawyer with the Taiwan Falun Gong Attorney Group,   introduced  the idea of the Universal Declaration on Combating and Preventing Forced Organ Harvesting (UDCPFOH), an international document that denounces forced organ harvesting by the CCP and proposes measures to prevent it from “gravely violating the value of human existence.” The document was formally released on Sept. 26, the summit’s final day.

“The UDCPFOH builds on the foundation of inalienable rights which cannot be deprived by any person or regime and lays bare the core principles to the universal values, including the inviolability of human dignity and the fundamental protection for human life, body, and freedom,” Chu said.

It   calls  on nations and international organizations to “bar entry to any person known to be directly or indirectly participating in forced organ harvesting,” she said. It also urges “medical professionals not to train Chinese doctors or medical personnel in transplant surgery and shall urge medical journals to reject publications about the ‘Chinese experience’ in transplant medicine.”

Chu released   Article 8  of the UDCPFOH early.

“All governments shall urge the Party-State of China to cease the repression, imprisonment and mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners and any other prisoners of conscience; to cease the forced organ harvesting of all prisoners; to open all detention centers and camps for free and independent international investigation of the crime of forced organ harvesting,” the article reads.

Taiwan human rights lawyer Theresa Chu at a panel event at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, Taiwan, on Dec. 8, 2017. (Chen Po-chou/The Epoch Times)

Chu recommended the enactment of a “Universal Act Against Forced Organ Harvesting.”

Judge Song Kim, of the Seoul Administrative Court in South Korea,   proposed  the utilization of Global Magnitsky Sanctions to prevent forced organ harvesting in China. Given that China is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and that the 193 U.N. members would find it hard to agree on a resolution against forced organ harvesting, Song argued that “autonomous sanctions by individual countries” or a “Magnitsky alliance” is a better short-term goal.

U.S. sanctions could ban anyone complicit in forced organ transplants from entering the United States. This has more effect than normally acknowledged, Chu pointed out. She cited statistics that in 2017, 85 percent of high-ranking officials in China were preparing for an overseas escape. Between 1995 and 2008, she said that more than 18,000 Chinese officials fled China and smuggled out $145 billion.

“Thus freezing their overseas assets and banning them from entry into overseas countries can be a significant threat to them,” she said. “It means involvement in the human rights abuse like forced organ harvesting could be a big risk for their future.”

Dr. Andre Gattolin, a senator from France and co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC),   told  the summit that IPAC has had many successes in raising awareness of the China threat, but is “still struggling to mobilize on … the question of China’s increasing interference in the Western academic and scientific world, and the scandal of forced organ harvesting and the violent repression of Falun Gong followers on Chinese territory for the past 22 years.”

Minnesota state Sen. John A. Hoffman said  he has worked with other legislators “to support a resolution calling on our nation to go and be opposed to these grievous violations of basic human rights.”

“Those efforts have not succeeded yet, and it may be because of relationships with the perpetrator of this crime,” Hoffman said. “That relationship [is] an economic tie with many nations, that … some wish to treat gently, as horrific actions exist in international and intentional silence, so that [only] a few know what is happening.”

Gattolin explained that in France, “when one questions the forced removal of organs in China, one quickly runs the risk of being labeled as heavily anti-communist or anti-Chinese.” He said that raising this “almost taboo” question exposes oneself to “scathing and outraged denials and sometimes even to threats of commercial or political retaliation from Beijing.” He called the result a “diplomacy of silence.”

To overcome this silence, several measures are needed. First, there must be public education about the reality of forced organ harvesting in China, and how it’s focused against Falun Gong practitioners. Second, democracies and their allies must enact tougher legislation against domestic cooperation with global transplant abuse, including through stronger laws against transplant tourism.

Third, Magnitsky sanctions need to be imposed on the individual leaders and transplant surgeons involved in initiating and executing forced organ harvesting. These sanctions should include those at the top of the CCP hierarchy, including all members of the Politburo Standing Committee of the CCP. Fourth, international economic sanctions should be imposed against the Chinese economy as a whole in order to stop what should be considered a medical genocide for profit. And fifth, governments around the world should make a concerted effort to publicly recognize and assist the victims and families affected by this most shocking case of transplant abuse.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/sanction-the-ccp-for-forced-organ-harvesting_4011294.html

Ban Scientific and Medical Cooperation With China’s Unethical Gene Harvesting

Part 4 of the 4-part series 'World Summit on Forced Organ Harvesting'

Andes Corr, Sept.28, 2021; Updated Sept. 29, 2021

News Analysis

Scientists are increasingly wary of China’s practice of collecting DNA data. Geneticist David Curtis argues that China’s mass collection of DNA could be used as an organ bank database. The organizers of the World Summit on Combating and Preventing Forced Organ Harvesting  proposes a boycott of China’s medical and scientific establishment.

One of the most powerful presentations in the summit, held between Sept. 17 and Sept. 26, suggested that China could be developing a gene bank that is useful for   forced organ harvesting  through mass genetic testing. The presenter, professor David Curtis, is a geneticist at the University College London (UCL). He also   argued  that some scientific journals should potentially reject article submissions from China due to the country’s egregious record of human rights abuses.

Other experts, too, are increasingly wary of engaging with scientists from China.

“There have been other [protest] cases associated with analysis of genetic data, especially in the context of surveillance and/or identification,” according to professor Margaret Kosal, who holds numerous appointments, including at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience.

“For my work dealing with security implications of emerging and disruptive technologies, these studies are some of the most specific, scientific-based, documented open-source exemplars of use of genetics and machine learning [ML] algorithms by [the] PRC [People’s Republic of China] and indicators of capability. I wrestle ethically with questions of in what context, or even if, I should use [for example, cite and reference] them in my own research writing and speaking.”

Curtis stated: “We know that forced organ harvesting is occurring [in China]. We know that people are subject to arbitrary arrest, to detention, sometimes to disappearances—sometimes without judicial process. The third thing we know, and this is more recently, is that there is … mass genetic testing across whole populations, minority populations, and particular regions.”

Technicians work at a genetic testing laboratory of BGI in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China, on Dec. 26, 2018. (Stringer/Reuters)

He said that “people are sometimes subjected to medical examinations, they provide blood samples, and one of the things that are done with these blood samples is that one can take DNA from them.”

Since 2017, according to   research  by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the Chinese regime is collecting the DNA of all of its 700 million males in order to track them for law enforcement reasons. The American company Thermo Fisher is reportedly providing DNA testing kits to the Chinese authorities that meet their specifications.

But China’s DNA collection was previously focused on minorities, and according to Curtis, it allows the Chinese authorities to maintain a data bank of potential organ donors, who could be forced into organ donation.

There is a relative lack of voluntary organ donations in China and mass DNA collection is also opposed in the country. Human rights organizations argue that there is no real consent to DNA collection in a highly authoritarian system where it is difficult to decline. They are also concerned that widespread DNA testing could be used to punish family members of dissidents and activists.

According to The New York Times, police officers in China have demanded blood samples in mass DNA testing of male children in schools. It cites another case in which a 31-year-old male was forced to give a blood sample after being threatened. Mr. Jiang, a computer engineer from northern China, told the Times in a 2019 interview that authorities warned him, “If blood wasn’t collected, we would be listed as a ‘black household.’” If he failed to comply, it “would deprive him and his family of benefits like the right to travel and go to a hospital,” the report said.

Given the nature of the regime in Beijing, Curtis said: “It is very hard to see why that [forced organ harvesting based on mass DNA collection] would not be happening. Here you have a regime that is collecting samples … from which they can get DNA from all of these people. We know that they have no compunction about arresting people, detaining people. We know that they have no compunction about forced organ harvesting. That brings a uniquely terrible new dimension to this process.”

Curtis argued that the pool of potential donors for forced organ harvesting has expanded in China from executed prisoners, convicted prisoners, to detainees in general. And now Chinese “authorities can go through the DNA banks that they have. They can identify a suitable donor. … It does not have to be a detainee, because it can be someone just walking on the street, going to work, going to school, at home. There could be a knock on the door, and that person can be detained, taken from their home, taken from their workplace—never seen again because they are a good match for somebody who needs an organ transplant,” he said.

This creates the potential for the entire population of China to be a “human farm of potential organ donors,” according to Curtis, who stressed that there is no evidence of this. But he said: “We do have evidence that forced organ harvesting is happening. We do have evidence of arbitrary detention and people disappearing. And we do have evidence that there is massive DNA collection going on.”

He asked, “Why would the Chinese authorities not engage in forced organ harvesting from Tibetans, Uyghurs, and prisoners, for example, who have their DNA stored in a bank, if a powerful CCP official needs a kidney transplant, and therefore needs to find a good match?”

A technician works in a lab specializing in DNA in Beijing on Aug. 22, 2018. (Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images)

Curtis said that if gene banks are used for transplants that utilize forced organ harvesting, then “this does not only involve security services.” He continued, “For this to work, doctors have to be involved, genetic sciences and a lot of other people” in a professional scientific and medical network.

Unlike in Britain, where scientists would go to jail for involvement in such unethical medical practices, there is no professional transparency and accountability in China, he said. “There is no mechanism to go up against the state and advocate to uphold an ethical standard if it goes against what the state wants to do.”

Given what he knew about forced genetic testing and forced organ harvesting, Curtis felt increasingly uncomfortable, as editor of a genetics journal, about submissions he received from China. “Why should I trust that the scientists had carried out their research in an ethical way, when I know that the [Chinese] scientific establishment and medical establishment is willing to put up with practices such as this?”

Curtis explained, “What this brings us is a new genetics dimension to this problem.” He said that we should be doing something about this. “I think there is a way that we could seek to influence China’s behavior,” he said. “There are places where there are sensitivities and things that they care about and one of these things is their scientific recognition, and the careers of those in their sciences.”

Curtis raised the question of the routine rejection of scientific papers based on their origin in China. He did this when he was editor of the Annals of Human Genetics, which is based at UCL and published by Wiley.

According to Curtis in an email: “I felt I could not continue as editor if I had to keep dealing with contributions from China. At the annual meeting with the publishers, having discussed with the board, we agree[d] that a boycott was not feasible. At the meeting, as a compromise, we agreed that I could publish an editorial setting out my concerns and suggesting that people might consider a boycott. I and Thomas Schulze [at LMU Munich in Germany and SUNY Upstate Medical University in New York] composed an editorial. (This is the text linked in the Guardian   article , more or less.) When the publishers saw the editorial they refused to publish it and wanted it changed. I refused to change it because I thought that I should be responsible for the content, not the publishers. Since they would not publish the editorial I had written I submitted my resignation.”

Curtis, Schulze, Yves Moreau at KU Leuven ESAT-STADIUS in Belgium, and Thomas Wenzel at the Medical University of Vienna in Austria, attempted to publish the letter, titled “China—is it time to consider a boycott?” elsewhere.

The proposal to reject all articles from China contradicts rules frequently found in non-discrimination clauses against discrimination based on national origin. But this is a misguided inclusion when some nations are committing crimes against humanity and genocide, according to the U.N. definition.

Not allowing such discrimination, especially against the world’s most powerful totalitarian state, invites the further growth of its power. Failing to take measures against this state’s genocide and crimes against humanity is to fail to take a stand against these greatest of injustices. Should we not discriminate against genocide? Is non-discrimination in this case not complicity in an exponentially greater discrimination?

Other journals refused to publish the letter, including the Lancet, the British Medical Journal (BMJ), and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

It was, however,   published  by the Guardian in June. While the medical journals denied being overly deferential to China, the Guardian reported that Wiley and the Lancet suggested that the letter’s publication could cause difficulties to their offices in China, according to the letter’s authors.

Curtis explained in an email: “According to my contract I had sole responsibility for what was published and I could have simply rejected every submission from China. But I knew this would not be in keeping with what was expected of me. It would not accord with the policies of the publisher and it was also something that the editorial board did not support (it was discussed with them). I realized that it was a personal position that I was taking and so I decided to resign.”

Curtis resigned from his editorship of the Annals of Human Genetics in protest in September 2020, which became   public  in June. He told the Guardian: “I resigned because publication of the article was blocked by senior managers at Wiley who should have no say in the content of a scientific journal. I was told that Wiley has got an office in Beijing, the implication being that publication would make it difficult. … The publisher has no business telling the editor what they can and can’t publish because of strong interests in China.”

The Annals of Human Genetics was originally called the Annals of Eugenics, the disgraced scientific field of “improving” the human species through breeding out supposed traits of mental illness, criminality, or in the case of Nazi Germany, racial characteristics.

The case of Curtis unfortunately demonstrates that the most ethical of scientists, in fields sometimes lacking in ethics, are the ones forced out of positions of salutary influence.

Curtis continues his work on bringing a more ethical approach to the genetics field, however, both through speaking out publicly against forced genetic collection and forced organ harvesting, and in raising questions about whether a formal medical scientific boycott of cooperation with China should be instituted.

Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, chair of the China Tribunal into forced organ harvesting on the first day of public hearings, London, UK, on Dec. 8, 2018. (Justin Palmer)

“What that would mean for scientific journals is that we would not consider submissions coming out of China, coming from Chinese doctors and Chinese scientists,” he said. “We would be saying, look, you know your profession is complicit in these practices. We are not going to treat you as our colleagues. We are not going to say that we know that you follow the same ethical practices that we do.”

Curtis argued that this would raise awareness in China’s medical and scientific communities about unethical practices. He wrote in an email, “We are hoping to soon launch a website that will allow doctors and scientists to sign up to a boycott.”

Just after Curtis spoke at the summit, the coalition of five nonprofit groups that organized it, Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) in the United States, CAP Freedom of Conscience in France, the Taiwan Association for International Care of Organ Transplants, the Korea Association for Ethical Organ Transplants in South Korea, and the Transplant Tourism Research Association in Japan, released their “Universal Declaration on Combating and Preventing Forced Organ Harvesting.”

Its Article 9 is directly supportive of Curtis’ proposal, among other prescriptions. It states, “All governments shall (1) urge medical professionals to actively discourage their patients from going to China for transplant surgery; (2) urge medical professionals not to give training in transplant surgery or not to provide the same training in their countries to Chinese doctors or medical personnel; (3) urge medical journals to reject publications about the ‘Chinese experience’ in transplant medicine; (4) not issue visas to Chinese medical professionals seeking training in organ or body tissue transplantation abroad; [and] (5) not participate in international seminars, symposia or conferences of Chinese doctors in the field of transplantation and transplant surgery.”

We do in fact need not only a scientific and medical boycott of China, as Curtis has mooted, but legislation banning scientists and medical professionals from cooperating with foreign medical and scientific establishments that are engaged in highly unethical practices. This applies as much to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) today, as it should have applied to Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.

With such legislation, awareness would be raised that the West is serious about its commitment to human rights and its willingness to energetically assert these rights in the face of the overwhelming power of illiberal political parties like the CCP. Awareness would be raised in China, where constraining effects of the law would provide consequences for the CCP’s support and leadership in unethical medical and scientific practices, thus pressuring it to cease forced DNA collection and forced organ harvesting. We must take these issues with the utmost of seriousness in countries that are privileged to enjoy their freedoms, as in the case of the Falun Gong, Uyghurs, and Tibetans in China, they are constitutive of genocide.

Anders Corr has a bachelor's/master's in political science from Yale University (2001) and a doctorate in government from Harvard University (2008). He is a principal at Corr Analytics Inc., publisher of the Journal of Political Risk, and has conducted extensive research in North America, Europe, and Asia. He authored “The Concentration of Power” (forthcoming in 2021) and “No Trespassing,” and edited “Great Powers, Grand Strategies.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/ban-scientific-and-medical-cooperation-with-chinas-unethical-gene-harvesting_4020580.html