Saturday, April 28, 2012
Chapter 63
From Usurping Democracy to Seize Power to Feigning Democracy to Maintain Despotic Rule
�In a democratic nation, sovereignty should lie in the hands of the people, which is in line with the principles of heaven and earth. If a nation claims to be democratic and yet sovereignty does not rest with its people, that is definitely not on the right track and can only be regarded as a deviation, and this nation is not a democratic nation�how could democracy be possible without ending the Party rule and without a popular election? Return people�s rights to people!�
Does this quotation sound like something from an article written by �overseas enemies� intent on slamming the CCP? In fact, the statement comes from an article in Xinhua Daily, the official CCP newspaper, on September 27, 1945.
The CCP, that had trumpeted �popular election� and demanded �returning people�s rights to the people,� has been treating �popular suffrage� as taboo since it usurped power. The people who are supposed to be �the masters and owners of the state� have no rights whatsoever to make their own decisions. Words are inadequate to describe the CCP�s unscrupulous nature.
If you fancy that what�s done is done and the evil CCP cult that has flourished on killing and has ruled the nation with lies will reform itself, become benevolent, and be willing to �return people�s rights to the people,� you are wrong. Let us hear what the People�s Daily, the CCP�s mouthpiece, has to say on November 23, 2004, 60 years after the public statement quoted above: �A steadfast control of ideology is the essential ideological and political foundation for consolidating the Party�s rule.�
Recently, the CCP proposed a so-called new �Three Noes Principle,� [6] the first of which is �Development with no debates.� �Development� is phony, but �no debates� that emphasizes �one voice, one hall� is the CCP�s real purpose.
When Jiang Zemin was asked by the renowned CBS correspondent Mike Wallace in 2000 as why China had not conducted popular elections, Jiang responded, �The Chinese people are way too low in education.�
However, as early as February 25, 1939, the CCP cried out in its Xinhua Daily: �They (the KMT) think that democratic politics in China are not to be realized today, but some years later. They hope that democratic politics should wait until the knowledge and education levels of the Chinese people reach those of bourgeois democratic countries in Europe and America� but only under the democratic system will it become easier to educate and train the people.�
The hypocritical difference between what Xinhua said in 1939 and what Jiang Zemin said in 2000 reflects the true picture of the CCP�s iniquitous nature.
After the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989, the CCP reentered the world stage with a miserable human rights record. History gave the CCP a choice. Either it could respect its people and truly improve human rights or it could continue to commit abuses inside China while pretending to the outside world to respect human rights in order to evade international condemnation.
Unfortunately, consistent with its despotic nature, the CCP chose the second path without hesitation. It gathered together and sustained a large number of unscrupulous but talented people in the scientific and religious fields and specifically directed them to publish deceptive propaganda overseas in order to promote the CCP�s feigned progress in human rights. It concocted a range of rights fallacies such as �the survival right,� or rights to shelter and food. The argument went like this: When people are hungry, do they not have the right to speak? Even if the hungry cannot speak, would it be allowed for those who have eaten their fill to speak for the hungry? The CCP even tried to deceive the Chinese people and Western democracies by playing games with human rights, even blatantly claiming that �the present is the best period for China�s human rights.�
Article 35 of China�s Constitution stipulates that citizens of the People�s Republic of China have the freedoms of expression, publication, assembly, association, protest, and demonstration. The CCP is simply playing word games. Under the CCP�s rule, countless people have been deprived of their rights to belief, speech, publication, assembly and legal defense. The CCP even ordered that the appeal of certain groups be considered illegal. On more than one occasion in 2004, some civilian groups applied to demonstrate in Beijing. Instead of granting approval, the government arrested the applicants. The �one country, two systems� policy for Hong Kong affirmed by the CCP�s constitution is also a ruse. The CCP talks about no change in Hong Kong for 50 years, and yet it has tried to change the two systems into one by attempting to pass tyrannical legislation, Basic Law Article 23, within just five years after Hong Kong�s return to China. [7]
The sinister new ploy of the CCP is to use the fake �relaxation in speech� to cover up the extent of its massive monitoring and control. The Chinese now appear to speak their minds more freely and, besides, the Internet has allowed news to travel faster. So the CCP claims that it now allows freedom of speech, and quite a number of people have fallen for this. This is a false appearance. It is not that the CCP has become benevolent; rather, the Party cannot stop social development and technological advancement. Let us look at the role the CCP is playing regarding the Internet: It is blocking websites, filtering information, monitoring chat rooms, controlling emails, and incriminating net users. Everything it does is regressive in nature. Today, with the help of some capitalists who disregard human rights and conscience, the CCP�s police have been equipped with high-tech devices by which they are able to monitor, from inside a patrol car, every move net users make. When we look at the degeneracy of the CCP�committing evils deeds in broad daylight�in the context of the global movement toward democratic freedom, how can we expect it to make any progress in human rights? The CCP itself said it all: �It loosens up to the outside but tightens up internally.� The CCP�s unscrupulous nature has never changed.
To create a good image for itself at the UN Commission on Human Rights, in 2004 the CCP staged an array of events to severely punish those who abuse human rights. The events, however, were for foreigners� eyes only and had no substance. That is because in China the biggest human rights abuser is the CCP itself, as well as its former General Secretary Jiang Zemin, former secretary of the Political and Judiciary Commission Luo Gan, Minister Zhou Yongkang, and Deputy Minister Liu Jing, of the Ministry of Public Security. Their show of punishing human rights abusers is like a thief shouting, �Catch the thief!�
An analogy could be made to a serial rapist who, when hidden from public view, used to assault ten girls in a day. Then, there are too many people around, so he assaults only one girl in front of the crowd. Can the rapist be said to have changed for the better? His going from assaults behind the scenes to raping in public only proves that the rapist is even more base and shameless than before. The nature of the serial rapist has not changed at all. What has changed is that it is no longer as easy for him to commit the crime.
The CCP is just like this serial rapist. The CCP�s dictatorial nature and its instinctive fear of losing power determine that it will not respect people�s rights. The human, material, and financial resources used to cover up its human rights record have far exceeded its efforts in the true improvement of human rights. The indulgence of the CCP in wanton massacre or persecution throughout China has been the biggest misfortune of the Chinese people.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
SOS Chapter 62
People are often heard to say, �I know the CCP lied too often in the past, but this time it is telling the truth.� Ironically, in retrospect, this was what people would say each time the CCP made a grave mistake in the past. This reflects the ability the CCP has acquired over the decades to use lies to fool people.
People have developed some resistance to the CCP�s tall tales. In response, the CCP�s fabrication and propaganda have become more subtle and �professional.� Evolving from the slogan-style propaganda of the past, the CCP�s lies have become more refined and subtle. Particularly under the conditions of the information blockade the CCP has erected around China, it makes up stories based on partial facts to mislead the public, which is even more detrimental and deceptive than tall tales.
Chinascope, an English language journal, carried an article in October 2004 that analyzes cases whereby the CCP uses more subtle means of fabricating lies in order to cover up the truth. When SARS broke out in Mainland China in 2003, the outside world suspected that China had hidden information about the epidemic, and yet the CCP repeatedly refused to acknowledge it. To find out if the CCP had been truthful about its reporting on SARS, the author of the article read all 400-plus reports on SARS that were posted on the Xinhua website from the beginning to April 2003.
These reports told the following story: As soon as SARS appeared, governments at central and local levels mobilized experts to give timely treatment to the patients who later were discharged from hospitals upon recovery. In response to trouble-makers� inciting people to stock-pile goods in order to avoid going out when the disease became widespread, the government wasted no time in stopping rumors and taking steps to prevent their spread, so the social order was effectively ensured. Although a very small number of anti-China forces groundlessly suspected a cover-up by the Chinese government, most countries and people did not believe these rumors. The upcoming Guangzhou Trade Fair would have the largest participation ever from businesses around the world. Tourists from overseas confirmed that it was safe to travel in China. In particular, experts from the World Health Organization [who had been deceived by the CCP], stated in public that the Chinese government had been forthcoming in cooperating and taking appropriate measures in dealing with SARS, so that there should be no problems. And specialists gave the go-ahead [after over 20 days delay] to Guangdong province for field inspection.
These 400-plus articles gave the author the impression that the CCP had been transparent during these four months, had acted responsibly to protect the people�s health, and had convinced the people that the CCP hadn�t hidden anything. However, on April 20, 2003, the Information Office of the State Council announced in its press conference that SARS had indeed broken out in China and thus indirectly admitted that the government had been covering up the epidemics. Only then did this author see the truth and understand the deceptive, villainous methods employed by the CCP, which had also �advanced with time.�
Saturday, April 14, 2012
SOS Chapter 61 the truth on China
A Painful Cost for the CCP�s Economic Development
While the CCP constantly brags about its economic advancement, in reality, China�s economy today ranks lower in the world than during the Qianlong�s reign (1711-1799) in the Qing Dynasty. During the Qianlong period, China�s GDP accounted for 51 percent of the world�s total. When Dr. Sun Yat-sen founded the Republic of China (Kuomintang or KMT period) in 1911, China�s GDP accounted for 27 percent of the world�s total. By 1923, the percentage dropped, but still was as high as 12 percent. In 1949, when the CCP took control, the percentage was 5.7, but in 2003, China�s GDP was less than 4 percent of the world�s total. In contrast to the economic decline during the KMT period that was caused by several decades of war, the continuing economic decline during the CCP�s reign occurred during peaceful times.
Today, in order to legitimize its power, the CCP is eager for quick successes and instant benefits. The crippled economic reform that the CCP launched to safeguard its interests has cost the country dearly. The rapid economic growth in the past 20 years is, to a large extent, built on the excessive use or even waste of resources, and has been gained at the cost of environmental destruction. A considerable portion of China�s GDP is achieved by sacrificing the opportunities of future generations. In 2003, China contributed less than four percent to the world economy, but its consumption of steel, cement and other materials amounted to one third of the total global consumption. [3]
From the 1980s to the end of the 1990s, desertification in China increased from a little over 1000 to 2460 square kilometers (386 to 950 square miles). The per capita arable land also decreased from about two mu in 1980 to 1.43 mu in 2003 [4]. The widespread upsurge of land enclosure for development has led China to lose 100 million mu of arable land in just a few years time. However, only 43 percent of the confiscated land is actually used. Currently, the total amount of wastewater discharge is 43.95 billion tons, exceeding the environmental capacity by 82 percent. In the seven major river systems, 40.9 percent of the water is not suitable for drinking by humans or livestock. Seventy-five percent of the lakes are polluted so as to produce various degrees of eutrophication. [5] The conflicts between man and nature in China have never been as intense as they are today. Neither China nor the world can withstand such unhealthy growth. Deluded by the superficial splendor of high-rises and mansions, people are unaware of the impending ecological crisis. Once the time comes for nature to exact its toll on human beings, however, it will bring disastrous consequences to the Chinese nation.
In comparison, since abandoning communism, Russia has carried out economic and political reforms at the same time. After experiencing a short period of agony, it has embarked on a rapid development. From 1999 to 2003, Russia�s GDP increased by a total of 29.9 percent. The living standard of its residents has significantly improved. The Western business circles have begun not only to discuss the �Russian economic phenomenon,� but have also begun to invest in Russia, the new hotspot, on a large scale. Russia�s ranking among the most attractive nations for investment has jumped from 17th in 2002 to 8th in 2003, becoming one of the world�s top ten most popular nations for investment for the first time.
Even India, a country that, to most Chinese, is poverty-stricken and full of ethnic conflicts, has enjoyed a significantly expedited development and has achieved an economic growth rate of seven to eight percent per year since its economic reforms in 1991. India has a relatively complete legal system in a market economy, a healthy financial system, a well-developed democratic system, and a stable public mentality. The international community has recognized India as a country of great development potential.
On the other hand, the CCP only engages in economic reform without political reform. The false appearance of an economy that flourishes in the short run has hindered the natural �evolution of social systems.� It is this incomplete reform that has caused an increasing imbalance in the Chinese society and sharpened social conflicts. The financial gains achieved by the people are not protected by stable social systems. Furthermore, in the process of privatizing the state-owned properties, the CCP�s power-holders have utilized their positions to fill their own pockets.
The CCP Cheats the Peasants Once and Again
CCP relied on peasants to gain power. The rural residents in the CCP-controlled areas in the early stage of its buildup devoted all they had to the CCP. But since the CCP obtained control of the country, peasants have experienced severe discrimination.
After the CCP established the government, it set up a very unfair system � the residential registration system. The system forcefully classifies people into rural and non-rural populations, creating an unreasonable separation and opposition within the country. Peasants have no medical insurance, no unemployment welfare, no retirement pensions, and cannot take loans from banks. Peasants are the most impoverished class in China, but also the class carrying the heaviest tax burden. Peasants need to pay a mandatory provident fund, public welfare fund, administrative management fund, extra education fee, birth control fee, militia organization and training fee, country road construction fee and military service compensation fee. Besides all these fees, they also have to sell part of the grains they produce at a flat rate to the state as a mandatory requirement, and pay agriculture tax, land tax, special local produce tax, and butchery tax in addition to numerous other levies. In contrast, the non-rural population does not pay these fees and taxes.
In the beginning of 2004, China�s Premier Wen Jiabao issued the �No. 1 Document,� stating that rural China was facing the most difficult time since the beginning of the economic reform in 1978. Income for most peasants had stagnated or even declined. They had become poorer, and the income gap between urban and rural residents continued to widen.
In a tree farm in eastern Sichuan province, upper level authorities distributed 500,000 yuan (approximately US$ 60,500) for a reforestation project. The leaders of the tree farm first put 200,000 yuan in their own pockets, and then allocated the remaining 300,000 yuan to tree planting. But as the money was taken away when passing through each level of the government, very little was left in the end for local peasants who did the actual tree planting. The government did not need to worry that the peasants would refuse to work on the project because of inadequate funding. The peasants were so impoverished that they would work for very little money. This is one of the reasons that products made in China are so cheap.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
SOS Chapter 60
What Is the Real Source of Turmoil?
Many people know and dislike the CCP's Machiavellian behavior, and loathe its struggles and deceptions. But, at the same time, they fear the CCP�s political movements and the resulting turmoil, and fear chaos will visit China again. Thus, once the CCP threatens people with �turmoil,� people fall into silent acceptance of the CCP�s rule and feel helpless in the face of the CCP�s despotic power.
In reality, with its several million troops and armed police, the CCP is the real source of turmoil. Ordinary citizens have neither the cause nor the capability to initiate turmoil. Only the regressive CCP would be so reckless as to bring the country into turmoil at any hint of change. �Stability overrides everything else� and �Nipping the buds of all unstable elements��these slogans have become the theoretical basis for the CCP to suppress people. Who is the biggest cause of instability in China? Is it not the CCP, who specializes in tyranny? The CCP instigates turmoil, and then in turn uses the chaos it created to coerce the people. This is a common action of all villains.
II. The CCP Sacrifices Economic Development
Taking Credit for the Achievements of People�s Hard Work
The CCP�s claim to legitimacy lies in the economic development over the past 20 some years. In reality, however, such development was gradually achieved by the Chinese people after the fetters of the CCP were slightly relaxed and, therefore, has nothing to do with the CCP�s own merit. The CCP has, however, claimed this economic development as its own achievement, asking people to be grateful for it, as if none of these developments would have taken place without the CCP. We all know, in reality, that many non-Communist countries achieved faster economic growth a long time ago.
The winners of Olympic gold medals are required to thank the Party. The Party did not hesitate to use the contrived image of a �great nation of sports� to eulogize itself. China suffered a great deal in the SARS epidemic, but People's Daily reported that China defeated the virus �relying on the Party's basic theory, basic line, basic principle, and basic experience.� The launching of China�s spaceship Shenzhou-V was accomplished by the professionals of astronautic science and technology, but the CCP used it as evidence to prove that only the CCP could lead the Chinese people to enter the rank of powerful countries in the world. As for China�s hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games, what was in reality an �olive branch� given by Western countries to encourage China to improve its human rights, the CCP uses to enhance its claims to legitimacy and to provide a pretext for suppressing the Chinese people. China�s �great market potential,� which is sought after by foreign investors, stems from the capacity for consumption of China�s population of 1.3 billion. The CCP usurps credit for this potential, and turns it into a keen weapon used to coerce Western society into cooperating with the CCP�s rule.
The CCP attributes anything bad to reactionary forces and the ulterior motives of individuals, while crediting everything good to the Party leadership. The CCP will make use of every single achievement to make its claim to legitimacy more attractive. Even the wrongdoing that the CCP commits can be turned into something �good� to serve its purposes. For example, when the truth about the rampant spread of AIDS could no longer be covered up, the CCP suddenly created a new identity. It carefully mobilized its propaganda machine, utilizing everyone from well-known actors to the Party�s general secretary, in order to portray the prime culprit, the CCP, as a blessing for patients, a destroyer of AIDS, and a challenger to disease. In dealing with such a serious life-and-death issue, all the CCP could think of was how to use the issue to glorify itself. Only as vicious a schemer as the CCP is capable of such ruthless behavior as brazenly or underhandedly taking credit and utterly disregarding human life.
Economic Disadvantage Caused by Shortsighted Behaviors
Facing a serious �crisis of legitimacy,� the CCP carried out the policies of reform and opening up in the 1980s in order to maintain its rule. Its eagerness for quick success has placed China at a disadvantage, termed by economists as the �curse of the latecomer.�
The concept of �curse of the latecomer�, or �latecomer advantage� as some other scholars call it, refers to the fact that underdeveloped countries, which set out late for development, can imitate the developed countries in many aspects. The imitation can take two forms: imitating the social system, or imitating the technological and industrial models. Imitating a social system is usually difficult, since system reform would endanger the vested interests of some social or political groups. Thus, underdeveloped countries are inclined to imitate developed countries� technologies. Although technological imitation can generate short-term economic growth, it may result in many hidden risks or even failure in long-term development.
It is precisely the �curse of the latecomer,� a path to failure, that the CCP has followed. Over the past two decades, China�s �technological imitation� has led to some achievements, which have been taken by the CCP to its own advantage in order to prove its legitimacy and continue to resist political reform that would undermine the CCP�s own interests. Thus, the long-term interests of the nation have been sacrificed.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
SOS Chapter 59
This is the ninth of Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.
Foreword
The communist movement, which has made a big fanfare for over a century, has brought mankind only war, poverty, brutality, and dictatorship. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European communist parties, this disastrous and outrageous drama finally entered its last stage by the end of the last century. No one, from the ordinary citizens to the General Secretary of the Communist Party, believes in the myth of communism anymore.
The communist regime came into being due to neither �divine mandate� [1] nor democratic election. Today, with its ideology destroyed, the legitimacy of its reign is facing an unprecedented challenge.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is unwilling to leave the historical stage in accordance with the currents of history. Instead, it is using the ruthless methods developed during decades of political campaigns to renew its crazed struggle for legitimacy and to revive its dead mandate.
The CCP�s policies of reform and opening up disguise a desperate intention to maintain its group interest and totalitarian rule. Despite tight restrictions, the economic achievements earned by the hard work of the Chinese people in the past 20 years did not persuade the CCP to put down its butcher knife. Instead, the CCP stole these achievements and used them to validate its rule, making its consistently unprincipled behavior more deceptive and misleading. What is most alarming is that the CCP is going all out to destroy the moral foundation of the entire nation, attempting to turn every Chinese citizen, to various degrees, into a schemer in order to create an environment favorable for the CCP to �advance over time.�
In the historical moment today, it is especially important for us to understand clearly why the CCP acts like a band of scoundrels and to expose its villainous nature, so that the Chinese nation can achieve lasting stability and peace, enter an era free of the CCP as soon as possible, and construct a future of renewed national splendor.
I. The Unscrupulous Nature of the CCP Has Never Changed
Who Is the CCP�s Reform for?
Throughout history, whenever the CCP encountered crises, it would demonstrate some traces of improvement, enticing people to develop illusions about the CCP. Without exception, the illusions were shattered time and again. Today, the CCP has pursued short-term benefits and in doing so has produced a show of economic prosperity that has once again persuaded the people to believe in fantasies about the CCP. However, the fundamental conflicts between the interest of the CCP and that of the nation and the people determine that this false prosperity will not last. The �reform� the CCP has promised has one purpose � to maintain its rule. It is a lame reform, a change in surface but not in substance. Underneath the lopsided development lies a great social crisis. Once the crisis breaks out, the nation and the people will suffer once again.
With the change of leadership, the new generation of CCP leaders had no part in the Communist revolution, and therefore has less and less prestige and credibility in managing the nation. Amidst the crisis of its legitimacy, the CCP�s protection of the Party�s interests has increasingly become the basic guarantee for maintaining the interests of individuals within the CCP. The CCP�s nature is selfish. It knows no restraints. To hope such a party might devote itself to developing the country peacefully is wishful thinking.
Consider what People�s Daily, the mouthpiece of the CCP, said in a front page story on July 12th, 2004: �The historical dialectics have taught the CCP members the following: Those things that should be changed must change, otherwise deterioration will follow; those that should not be changed must remain unchanged, otherwise it will lead to self-destruction.�
What is it that should remain unchanged? The People�s Daily explains: �The Party�s basic line of �one center, two basic points� must last solidly for one hundred years without any vacillation.� [2]
People don�t necessarily understand what the �center� and �basic points� stand for, but everyone knows that the communist specter�s determination to maintain its collective interest and dictatorship never changes. Communism has been defeated globally, and is doomed to become more and more moribund. Nevertheless, the more corrupt a thing becomes the more destructive it becomes during its dying struggle. To discuss democratic improvements with the Communist Party is like asking a tiger to change its skin.
What Would China Do Without the Communist Party?
As the CCP is waning, people have come to discover unexpectedly that for decades the evil specter of the CCP, with its ever-changing villainous means, has instilled its vile elements into every aspect of ordinary people�s lives.
At the time of Mao Zedong�s death, so many Chinese cried bitterly before Mao�s portrait, wondering, �How can China continue without Chairman Mao?� Ironically, 20 years later, when the Communist Party has lost its legitimacy to rule the country, the CCP has spread a new round of propaganda, making people again wonder anxiously, "What would China do without the Communist Party?�
In reality, the CCP�s all-pervasive political control has so deeply branded the current Chinese culture and the Chinese mindsets that even the criteria with which the Chinese people judge the CCP have the mark of the CCP, or have even come from the CCP. If in the past, the CCP controlled people by instilling its elements into them, then the CCP has now come to harvest what it sowed, since those things instilled in people�s minds have been digested and absorbed into their very cells. People think according to the CCP�s logic and put themselves in the CCP's shoes in judging right and wrong. Regarding the CCP�s killing of student protesters on June 4, 1989, some people said, �If I were Deng Xiaoping, I too would quell the protest with tanks.� In the persecution of Falun Gong, some people are saying, "If I were Jiang Zemin, I too would eliminate Falun Gong.� About the ban on free speech, some people are saying, �If I were the CCP, I would do the same.� Truth and conscience have vanished, leaving only the CCP�s logic. This has been one of the vilest and most ruthless methods used by the CCP due to its unscrupulous nature. As long as the moral toxins instilled by the CCP remain in the people�s minds, the CCP can continue to gain energy to sustain its iniquitous life.
�What would China do without the CCP?� This mode of thinking fits precisely the CCP�s aim of having people reason by its own logic.
China came through her 5,000-year history of civilization without the CCP. Indeed, no country in the world would stop social advancement because of the fall of a particular regime. After decades of the CCP's rule, however, people no longer recognize this fact. The CCP's prolonged propaganda has trained people to think of the Party as their mother. The omnipresent CCP politics have rendered people unable to conceive of living without the CCP.
Without Mao Zedong, China did not fall. Will China collapse without the CCP?