Beijing won the right to hold the Olympic Games just as a large group of Falun Gong (
hats.
Anti-governmental organization aside, each of these names represents the communists' method of blaming others for their own crimes. Of all organizations in China, are there any that reach the party's levels of leadership authority, dissemination of illogic, organizational closedness, membership control, active wealth accumulation and secretive activities? The party is itself a tool in the hands of international anti-China forces, functioning as the tool of the Marxist-Leninist Communist International's splitting up of China and its destruction of Chinese culture.
The extirpation of the human character and the making of lies into truth, leading to the perishing of ethics, are the original evils of working against humanism, science and society. To fight the Falun Gong movement, the party has over and over again reported that suicide pacts are taking place in China, but why has this not happened anywhere else? If these are not lies created by the party, then they are suicides that have been forced by the evil communist cult.
It is of course also incorrect to say that the Falun Gong movement is an anti-government organization. Originally, it was completely uninterested in politics, and it is only Beijing's suppression that has forced it to fight back. Since it is China's President Jiang Zemin (
The Chinese Communists' habit of blaming their own faults on others is something that Taiwan learned about a long time ago. It was Mao Zedong (
The Chinese communists' full use of the state apparatus to cruelly suppress the Falun Gong has forced the sect's followers into resistance. In the beginning, the party thought that if sect members were arrested, the Falun Gong would dissipate. They did not expect that its patient followers would refuse to yield and instead resist, making the communists' methods of suppression more cruel. To date, 253 deaths have been reported.
The numbers will continue to rise, since arrests, labor reform camps and prisons use violence and other methods of torture to force the transformation of the thinking of Falun Gong members in order to be able to report their achievements to Jiang. Communist party officials repeatedly dismiss allegations of the use of torture as "rumors," and expend great effort in arranging visits for foreign journalists to labor camps and prisons.
The hypocrisy of the Communist Party shows, however, in its fears of letting the supposedly reformed Falun Gong members, who are said to have been tortured, meet with foreign media freely to tell of their experiences. Rumor has it that, to prevent sect members from other parts of China from returning to Beijing to protest, tourists arriving by bus have to get off the bus before entering the city, walk over portraits of sect leader Li Hongzhi (
Of course, the party's heavy crackdown has already caused Falun Gong protests in China to decrease. This is, however, only a superficial phenomenon, since there is no way that a belief can be completely suppressed by violence. As soon as there is an opportunity, it will come back to life, the thought of which must be keeping Jiang awake at nights.
How can the utterly defenseless Falun Gong be so resilient in the face of such a barbaric government? It's mainly because the sect has been representing the interests of underprivileged groups in China. The majority are people sacrificed or neglected by the extraordinary greed of the privileged classes and the widening gap between rich and poor since the beginning of reforms, and particularly after June 4, 1989. They have become marginalized due to a lack of power and cultural and technical skills. Their primary problem is how to obtain expensive medical care on low incomes, and so they use free methods to keep fit.
Another reason these people have become disadvantaged is that they are not crafty enough, are unable to establish themselves in the commercial world, or, perhaps, have established themselves but then failed. In addition, Falun Gong exercises bring them something positive -- which is why they exercise and why they accept the ideas of, and indeed worship, Li.
The Communist Party said that if Beijing won the right to hold the Olympic Games, it would improve its human rights record. However, the police have been arresting people suspected of being Falun Gong members all over Tiananmen Square, continued to spout lies and stepped up arrests and sentencing of other dissidents. In order to gain freedom of belief, it seems that dissidents and Falun Gong members in China must prepare for long-term resistance and further sacrifices, and endeavor to gain international moral support without placing too high expectations on such support. People find some of their ideas difficult to accept, but we cannot pretend that we do not see the violent behavior of the party. Otherwise, the same fate will sooner or later befall us.
Paul Lin is a political commentator based in New York.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry