What does it truly mean to be a friend to China, and what can we expect from her in the near future, asked the Revealing a True China forum, held at the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. on July 18. The communist regime ruling China today is much more repressive than most people are aware; it's surprisingly effective at portraying a false picture of China, favorable to itself; it's also quite likely on the verge of collapse, found forum panelists.
American alliances should be with the Chinese people, not the Chinese rulers, said forum speaker Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. A strong proponent of civil and political rights in the U.S., Jackson Lee spoke of freedom-loving persons like herself as "Friends of China" who want to help take China to "a new level" of respecting the principle that all people are created equal.
The notion that things are getting better and better and that with more time and patience China will become democratic and respect human rights was firmly rejected by the panelists, consisting of four U.S. Congress members, two journalists, a Taiwanese official and a China scholar.
Jackson Lee praised the "movement of renouncing communism," as a way for the Chinese people to take the next step referring to the 24 million Chinese who have quit the Chinese Communist Party and related organizations. This figure is highly significant, as the proportion that have quit parallels the situations of Eastern European countries when those communist regimes fell, said panelist Dr. Chucheng Ming, a Political Science professor at National Taiwan University.
Revealing a True China
The real intentions of China's rulers are shown by the way they suppress those who are weaker, like Tibet or Taiwan, said David W. F. Huang, Deputy Representative of Taipei Economics & Cultural Representative in the USA. Huang explained how the missiles pointing at his homeland of Taiwan are there for the purpose of influencing domestic policies. He said that even when Taiwan wanted to send rescue teams of about 100 people to Pakistan for earthquake relief, Pakistan wouldn't issue visas due to pressures from the Chinese regime.
The world media that can tell the truth about the Chinese regime's intentions has recently shown itself to be intimidated by China. At the July 1 celebration of Hong Kong's transfer to China, many Taiwanese wanted to demonstrate. The press in Hong Kong, like the world press, did not report that approximately 1,000 Taiwanese Falun Gong adherents were deported, some violently, and Hong Kong's own laws were broken in a city known for its respect for law.
The only explanation for why the Hong Kong press did not cover the story is that it did not want to offend the Chinese regime, said Stephen Gregory, opinion editor of The Epoch Times. "How much can we rely on the media to [provide an accurate view] on China?" asked Gregory.
We ignore the immorality of the Chinese regime at our own risk, warned Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who led the fight in the 1990s against awarding China most favored nation status primarily because of its human rights record. He stated there was a relationship between moral stands taken and building a better world for the future, and used the example of our support for the Taliban who we knew "hated other faiths and suppressed people." What did our alliance with the Taliban lead to, he asked rhetorically. The answer he said was war, threatening the lives of perhaps millions. The clique running China today hold "the same disdain for our values" and democratic way of life, said Rohrabacher.
"We will pay and our children will pay a dear price," said the Congressman. He criticized American corporations that make billions of dollars in profits, which he called "blood money," while ignoring the immorality of the regime. "Just like with the Taliban, if we want a better world, we need to make moral decisions today." If we treat the "gangster regime in China" as a "respectable part of the international community, it will be a horrendous threat to peace and security of the Unites States and the world."
"The suffering of Falun Gong practitioners and others illuminates for the American people the true nature of the regime," said the congressman. Rohrabacher spoke of how the communists "pick up people, cut up their bodies, and sell their organs to make money." He said he much appreciates that "to face that kind of evil [you] have to have a certain kind of courage."
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee agreed that the "maligning of Falun Gong, a religion that should be allowed to express its freedom," was representative of the despotism that China has descended to.
Communism Coming to an End
There are precedents for communism to lose power, namely, the Eastern European countries and the former Soviet Union. An examination of their demise might provide some clues on when the Chinese Communist Party will fall, according to Dr. Chucheng Ming. Professor Ming points out some important historical precedents in the overthrow of communism. First, he notes, that it happened very fast. It typically took each country a little more than one year, and a total of three years for the communist parties in all nine communist countries to collapse. In Romania it was extremely fastin December 1989, the regime was gone in 10 days.
Secondly, with the exception of Poland, there were no major opposition parties to challenge the Communist Party. In Poland, of course, there was the Solidarity trade union.
Could this happen in China where there is no opposition party and the regime looks strong to the outside observer? Professor Ming points out a number of factors make the regime unstable. These include huge economic inequalities as measured by the Gini index, massive corruption and tens of thousands of spontaneous riots, which Ming says the regime is prepared to use the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to put down, according to Chinese documents he read from at the forum.
In Nov 2004, The Epoch Times, published the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, which reveal the history of the Party in China and its devious and immoral nature. Since then, members of the CCP or its affiliates, the China Youth League and China Young Pioneers, have renounced their memberships in droves.
At this time, almost 24 million have quit. Of this number, 60.5 percent were members of the CCP, or about 14 million. This number is 19 percent of the Party membership in China, which is just under 73 million, according to Professor Ming.
Professor Ming then compares the 19 percent who have resigned from the CCP with the numbers of resignations / renunciations in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, when those regimes collapsed. If this trend continues, he says, the CCP could disintegrate at any time.
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