The arrest of Ching Cheong (程翔), a correspondent of Singapore's Straits Times newspaper, has drawn international attention. Up to now, comments made by Beijing and Ching's family on his arrest suggest that he is a Chinese patriot who has been betrayed by his "homeland."
After all, this homeland is one that has been transformed by the tyrannical Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and is also what officials of its regime like to claim is the "homeland" of the Taiwanese people as well.
A song lyric from the Cultural Revolution period reads "nothing is as immense as the party's kindness to you. Even your parents cannot love you as much as Chairman Mao." It is therefore understandable that the CCP thinks nothing of asking people to "accuse their family in the name of justice."
Ching is a Hong Konger, who considers China his motherland. After graduating from a university in Hong Kong, he declined a well-paid offer and instead chose to work as an journalist for Wen Wei Po, a CCP-backed newspaper. After more than 10 years of hard work, he was promoted to deputy editor-in-chief of the paper.
However, the Tiananmen Massacre that took place on June 4, 1989 led Ching to steer clear of his motherland. Ching, whose love for China has never ceased, always hopes that Beijing can one day relinquish its tyrannical rule, introduce political reform and seek to achieve something for the benefit of people in Hong Kong. Ching even offered his advice to Beijing on cross-strait unification. Unfortunately, eventually his homeland turned on him and accused him of being a spy.
According to Beijing, Ching is a spy who has been working for an "external" intelligence agency, likely referring to Taiwanese intelligence. Since Ching clearly hopes for cross-strait unification, it is difficult to believe that he has been conducting espionage for Taiwan. Lau Mun-yee (
As a result, the incident has now become even more complicated. It is generally believed that it is Lu who relayed the undisclosed speech made by Hu to Ching. Upon receiving the content of the speech, Ching made a copy and stored it in his computer.
This has led us to associate the whole incident with the power struggle within the Chinese leadership. If the CCP's infighting has already come into play in this matter, anything could happen. Clearly, the 1989 student-led protests do have something to do with political conflict within the Chinese leadership. That is why students were treated as political human sacrifices.
Recently, Beijing has taken rigid measures against the real estate sector in Shanghai. Obviously, China's leadership can no longer bear to see that this small Shanghai clique always has their way to deal with policies enacted by the central government. In April, the government-manipulated anti-Japanese demonstrations which swept through major cities across the country. Shanghai and Shenzhen, where most foreign enterprises are situated and where violent acts are supposed to be the least tolerable, turned out to be the cities where things got most out of control.
Shanghai is considered the turf of former president of China Jiang Zemin (江澤民), and Shenzhen is the stronghold of Huang Liman (黃麗滿), former party secretary of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and Jiang's right-hand man. When Hu sought to put an end to these demonstrations, there were claims that attempts had been made to fan the flames, and Shanghai came in for the harshest crackdown on the protests. There were claims of a "black hand" behind the demonstrations and a 25-year-old man got a five-year jail sentence for inciting people over the Internet to participate in the demonstrations.
We wonder how many times Beijing has staged this sort of melodrama. Zhou Yurui (周榆瑞), former publisher of the Ta Kung Pao, a Hong Kong-based daily, was detained in 1953 on charges of conducting espionage in China simply because he had frequent contact with foreigners.
Huang Xian (黃賢), a Harvard graduate and Hong Kong-based lawyer, went to China to help the nation with the establishment of the rule of law. However, he was detained in 1981 and charged with "stealing a large quantity of state secrets,"and sentenced to a jail term of 15 years.
In 1982, Luo Fu (劉孚), the deputy editor-in-chief of the Ta Kung Pao was also accused of engaging in espionage in China and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The real reason behind his arrest is still unknown.
Viewed as spies by Beijing, these patriots, who devoted themselves to the CCP, have paid a high price for their patriotism. We believe that there are more people who are suffering Beijing's oppression. As a Chinese saying goes: being a patriot too early is no better than being a patriot too late, and being a patriot too late amounts to not being a patriot at all.
Although they pay a high price for loving China, many still carry a torch for their so-called "homeland." It is a pity that these patriots do not understand the history of the CCP and believe they can make use of the party.
This is also true of some pro-unification politicians in Taiwan. They are not aware that the CCP is actually the one that uses them. Even such a dedicated patriot as Ching still fell victim to the Chinese regime. How many of those who want to make use of the CCP will suffer the same fate?
Paul Lin a New York-based political commentator.
Translated by Daniel Cheng
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