An opinion piece published by the Washington Post on Monday last week suggested that if Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) receives a morning briefing, the briefing that day “must have been a doozy. Nothing but bad news.”
First, self-professed Chinese spy William Wang Liqiang (王立強) claimed to have participated in China’s manipulation of elections in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and to have helped Beijing kidnap dissidents.
Second, a new batch of documents belied China’s claim that “re-education camps” in Xinjiang are vocational training centers for Muslims rather than concentration camps.
Third, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy candidates won an overwhelming victory in the territory’s district council elections the prior day, trouncing pro-Beijing establishment candidates.
These three incidents not only struck a huge blow to Xi’s imperial dreams, but also thrashed China’s dream of expanding a digital authoritarian system to the world.
These incidents imply a strong counterstrike against China’s “red” infiltration. Although China has become the world’s second-largest economy with the help of economic growth accumulated over 40 years and a massive population, giving it great influence in the global economy, that economic growth did not lead the nation to democracy, but instead an increasingly dictatorial autocracy. This development has been pushed to the extreme, creating the “Xi regime,” a combination of a one-party dictatorship and one-man dictatorship.
Communism might be incompatible with fascism, but communist China today bears a striking resemblance to the Nazi regime in Germany prior to World War II. Their greatest common features are the revitalizing of a depressed economy and using the nation’s past humiliation to stir up patriotism and nationalism. More importantly, both regimes were very quick to take the step toward expansionism after national strength improved.
For China, the major pathway for expansionism in the past several years has been to use military and economic means to restore the perceived glory of the Han and Tang dynasties. The primary target of this red Chinese dream — called “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people” — is to bring about the comprehensive sinicization of Tibet and Xinjiang within its borders; Hong Kong and Macau, which were returned to China in 1997 and 1999 respectively; and independent Taiwan, by imposing the shackles of authoritarian dictatorship and Chinese nationalism.
Red China’s expansion has never been smooth. For instance, Xinjiang was only incorporated into Chinese territory after the Manchus — descendants of the Jurchen people — conquered the area after establishing the Qing Dynasty. Naming it “Xinjiang” (新疆) — which literally means “new frontier” — underlines the rather weak connection to the Central Plain dynasty. International society often refers to the area as “East Turkestan” and its ethnic composition mainly consists of Uighurs, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, with Islam as the area’s major religion.
Another example is Tibet, where the major ethnic group are the Tibetans, who practice Tibetan Buddhism. The ethnic composition, culture, religious beliefs and lifestyle of the people in these two regions are completely different from China and the Han Chinese.
Nowadays, communist China calls these areas “autonomous regions,” but it still uses high-tech monitoring technologies to impose concentration camp-style imprisonment, transformation and brainwashing to engage in what essentially amounts to an attempt to exterminate an ethnic group and its culture and religion. Following the leaks of internal documents, these atrocities can hardly be covered up as the international community now can clearly see the cruel and brutal essence of the Chinese Communist Party.
However, the red empire’s expansionism has run up against the wall everywhere in Taiwan and Hong Kong. A former British colony, Hong Kong enjoys a high degree of freedom, the rule of law and a global financial system, which have made it a prosperous and free trade port, as well as a financial center.
At the beginning, just after the handover to communist China, Hong Kong was temporarily given a promise that its way of life “shall remain unchanged for 50 years” under the “one country, two systems” model.
China was eventually unable to hold back its craving for control over the territory and it is now gradually increasing the level of interference, which eventually sparked a public backlash in Hong Kong. A succession of events beginning in June, from a movement against a now-withdrawn extradition bill, the protesters’ five demands, increasingly violent demonstrations to the sweeping victory of the pro-democracy candidates in the district council elections, essentially constituted a heavy blow to China.
Taiwan, following the defeat of Japan in World War II, has introduced democratic elections and now exercises effective control over its armed forces, population, territory and government. According to the right to self-determination, Taiwan is undoubtedly an independent nation. This historical context means that China’s vow to annex Taiwan holds no legitimacy. It has to resort to buying people off and interfering with elections as it tries to take advantage of Taiwan’s democracy to build a team of cross-strait compradors that will infiltrate and change the nation.
During the nine-in-one local elections on Nov. 24 last year, the Chinese cyberarmy went wild and pervasive misinformation permeated the elections. Foreign academic institutions and intelligence agencies have since confirmed that this manipulation was mainly controlled by China and that it did so with the intent of influencing Taiwan’s elections.
Wang turned himself in to Australia and reportedly gave away many details related to China’s manipulation and interference in Taiwanese and Hong Kong elections, as well as the Chinese infiltration of Australia. Australia’s prime minister and the Australian Security Intelligence Organization have publicly expressed their concern over the matter, and police are investigating Wang’s allegations.
Wang identified China Innovation Investment Ltd executive director Xiang Xin (向心) and his wife, acting director Kung Ching (龔青), as major espionage suspects. The couple, who frequently visited Taiwan, were barred from leaving the nation as national security officials started a probe.
This is evidence that Wang’s allegations, to a certain degree, conform to what is known about China’s red infiltration of Taiwan, which is something that many still doubt. It also shows that the West has attached importance to the authenticity of Wang’s confession, which is not something that can be fabricated or manipulated by the Democratic Progressive Party administration.
The public should take Wang’s description of the activities more seriously. It also sheds light on the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) legislator-at-large list, which is stacked with people with a strong pro-China stance. The list is regarded as a “red” list not only because the KMT neither conceals its pro-unification stance any longer nor cares about public perception, but also because it might become an effective reagent for testing Taiwanese society’s support for the Chinese communist regime.
Taking cues from Hong Kongers, who have shown great will to support democracy, Taiwanese must use their vote next month to show Hong Kong the free world’s determination to oppose totalitarianism in a bid to break through the red empire’s obstruction.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
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