People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China | |||||||||
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Mao Zedong proclaims the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949. | |||||||||
Chinese | 中华人民共和国 | ||||||||
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People's Republic of China has been the long-form name of the Chinese government since 1949. As an era of Chinese history, the People's Republic follows the Republic of China and continues to the present. The previous regime led by the Nationalist Party fled to Taiwan in 1949. The Nationalists or Kuomintang continued to represent China in the United Nations until 1971, when China's seat was transferred to the PRC. The PRC invaded Korea in 1950 and fought the United States in the Korean War (1950-1953). The Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) was a time of famine. The PRC has been a one-party communist state throughout its history.
In 2002 the PRC was granted most-favored-nation trading status without tariffs by the United States Congress. As a result, its economy has experienced rapid growth and the grip of the Chinese Communist Party over the lives of the people of China strengthened. It now has the second largest economy and military, far more powerful than the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany, and is currently challenging the United States as the pre-dominant world Superpower.
Contents
- 1 Government
- 2 Economy
- 3 Military
- 4 Foreign policy
- 5 Society
- 6 Disputed Territories
- 7 Legitimacy
- 8 History
- 8.1 Anti-Landlordism campaign
- 8.2 Great Leap Forward
- 8.3 Sino-Soviet split
- 8.4 Cultural Revolution
- 8.5 1969 Sino-Soviet border war
- 8.6 Rapprochement with the U.S.
- 8.7 The Post-Mao Era
- 8.8 Trial of the Gang of Four
- 8.9 Tiananmen Square massacre
- 8.10 Third Generation of Leaders
- 8.11 Most Favored Nation status with the U.S.
- 8.12 Fourth Generation of Leaders
- 8.13 SARS-CoVid-1
- 8.14 Repression in 2008
- 8.15 Execution Controversy
- 8.16 Xi Jinping purges
- 8.17 2020 U.S. Presidential election interference
- 9 Further reading
- 10 See also
- 11 References
- 12 External links
Government
The CCP is an alien organization to China, funded and supported in the 1920s by the Soviet Union. It imported the ideological refuse of Western civilization into China. It first followed Marxism, then Maoism and now Socialism with Chinese Characteristics (state market totalitarianism). As a totalitarian far left organization, it promoted a Cultural Revolution in which all vestiges of traditional Chinese culture were removed, including all sorts of buildings, not to mention killing teachers and scientists, among others. It replaced most old books with rewritten Party history books and pamphlets, creating a fake version of history that does not match the version of events acknowledged by the rest of the world, and promoting this version in every school (and recently, in every university).
The unity within the Chinese Communist Party is shattering as all the three factions (Shanghai, Beijing and Zhenjiang) in the party are embroiled in a feud. The Shanghai faction is led by Jiang Zemin, Beijing faction is led by Hu Jintao, and Zhenjiang faction is led by President Xi Jinping. Each one of the three is trying to nullify the influence of the other faction. Since 2012, when Xi Jinping took office political oppression has intensified and it has blanketed China. Press, social media, film, arts, literature and the Internet in China is heavily censored. Many intellectuals, Tibetans, Uighurs, lawyers, university students have been persecuted for voicing their opinions in favor of democracy.
Cracks appeared in Xi Jinping's hold on the Chinese Communist Party over the catastrophic handling of the CCP pandemic. This opened an opportunity for the Shanghai faction and the Beijing faction.
Politburo Standing Committee
The 7 member Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) is the most senior leadership body with each member ranked 1 thru 7, not as equals. Each shoulders primary responsibility for a specific portfolio. The Paramount Leader, Xi Jinping as of 2020, is ranked No. 1. Past Paramount Leaders have been in order of succession:
- Mao Zedong (1949-1976)
- Hua Guofeng (1976-1978)
- Deng Xiaoping (1978-1989)
- Jiang Zemin (1989-2003)
- Hu Jintao (2002-2012)
- Xi Jinping (2012-present)
The Paramount Leader usually holds three positions, Party General Secretary, President or Head of State, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission or Commander-in-chief of the People's Liberation Army. The Central Military Commission is not under civilian control of the State Council. In the Chinese Communist party structure, the Central Military Commission is of equal rank as the civilian bureaucracy.
Gen. Xu Qiliang, vice-chair of the Central Military Commission and a member of the Politburo Standing Committee who is China’s most senior military officer, refused to meet with his counterpart, Lloyd Austin, America's first African American Defense Secretary.[1]
State Council
The Party entrusts implementation of its policies and day-to-day administration of the country to the institution of the State, headed by the civilian State Council or Cabinet, which does not include the Central Military Commission. The State Council, also known as the Central People’s Government, includes the State’s ministries and commissions and layers of “people’s governments” below the national level. The top State officials at every level of administration usually concurrently hold senior Party posts, to ensure Party control. While the Foreign Ministry is a mere ministry under the State Council, the Central Military Commission of the People's Liberation is not. In the Chinese Communist Party hierarchy, the Central Military Commission is of equal rank to the civilian bureaucracy of the State Council that manages domestic and foreign affairs.
The State President serves as China’s head of state. Since 1993, every Communist Party General Secretary has served concurrently as State President, but the position is largely ceremonial and involves few duties other than meeting with foreign heads of state. The State President and State Vice President rank below the Central Military Commission. The Minister of Defense is actually the third most senior uniformed member of the Central Military Commission and is outside the operational chain of command of the People's Liberation Army.
To understand the political system of the People's Republic of China, there are two constitutions, a Party constitution and a state constitution. Both constitutions make it clear that the Party exercises leadership of the political system, the economy, and society at large,
Party committees are embedded in the State Council, ministries under the State Council, the legislature, the courts, prosecutors’ offices, state-owned enterprises, and all other public institutions, such as universities and hospitals, as well as in most private companies and many non-governmental organizations.
At the sub-national level, provinces, counties, and townships all have a Party committee and a parallel people’s government, with the Party Secretary of the Party committee serving as the geographic unit’s top leader.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) and later the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC) led the health care system in the transplantation of organs. Since organ transplantation has been made a high priority in the CCP’s national strategy and heavily emphasized as a future emerging industry, a large number of organ transplant projects have been funded under major national programs. The Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education, other departments, and the military have invested heavily in research, development, and personnel training in transplantation technology to meet the needs of this rapidly-growing industry. New capabilities and techniques have emerged and been extensively spreading, allowing live organ transplantation in China to grow into a large, industrialized operation in less than two decades.
Economy
When the CCP first took over China, it killed landowners and took their land, killed business owners and took their businesses. Private property became CCP-owned. Everything in China is owned by the CCP. When China’s economy was near collapse towards the end of the 20th century, Western countries bailed out the CCP, strengthened the hand of the CCP, and prolonged the enslavement of the Chinese people. With the opening of trade and the U.S. consumer market to China, China privatized a lot of land and companies, but CCP officials and their relatives got the lion’s share of opportunities.
In 2001 China was admitted was admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Many US politicians were supportive of free-trade with China, primarily because US companies wanted access to the one billion plus consumer market. As history shows, China failed to wholly open up its domestic market to foreign companies. In some sectors (generally the profitable ones), access was limited, forcing other countries to seek international remediation.
As of 2020 in the United States, the poverty threshold for a single person is considered to be $1,063 per month; according to Beijing Normal University research, around 964 million have incomes of under 2,000 yuan ($283) per month. That’s 69% of the total population. And about 600 million, or half the population, have incomes of half that amount or less than 1,000 yuan ($141) per month.[2] This is after 70 years of "share the wealth" policies.
Bohai Harvest RST
- See also: Biden family corruption timeline
Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) was created and funded by two Chinese investment funds, owned by the Bank of China (Bohai Capital and Harvest Global). As described in their marketing presentation: “BHR is held in high regard by Chinese government bodies and SOEs [state owned enterprises] at all levels.” BHR’s founding shareholders were: Rosemont Seneca Thornton LLC, Bohai Capital, Angju Investment Consulting (Shanghai) Co Ltd (昂驹投资咨询(上海)有限公司) Angju Investment owned by Li Xiangsheng (李祥生 also known as Jonathan Li), and Shanghai Ample Harvest Financial Services Co Ltd (上海丰实金融服务有限公司). The third and fourth Chinese characters in BHR’s Chinese name represent China (华) and America (美) respectively, indicating that the business is likely viewed by the Chinese SOE shareholders (and the Chinese government) as a country-level business partnership.[3]
Bohai Capital is the private equity arm of Bank of China International Holdings Ltd (中銀國際控股有限公司) (BOCI) and China’s first-ever RMB-denominated private equity fund approved by the State Council. BOCI is wholly-owned by Bank of China Limited (中国银行股份有限公司 ) (BOC), one of China’s big-four state banks, with state-level foreign exchange responsibilities. BOC was formerly part-owned by the Social Security Fund (SSF), and is now controlled by Central Huijin Investment (中央汇金投资有限责任公司), a Chinese government investment fund.
Rosemont Seneca Thornton (RST) was formed from a joint venture between Rosemont Seneca Partners and Thornton, an investment advisory firm headed by James Bulger, of the famous Boston family (son of William “Billy Bulger, the longest serving President of the Massachusetts Senate and the nephew of James “Whitey” Bulger, the infamous mobster who ran the Winter Hill Gang). Rosemont Seneca was formed in 2009 as a private equity and advisory firm that was co-founded by Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz, of the Heinz ketchup fortune and step-son to long time Democratic senator and later Secretary of State John Kerry, along with their friend Devon Archer, Chris Heinz’s college roommate at Yale. The original anchor investor in Rosemont Seneca (which at one point claimed $2.4bn in assets under management) was Rosemont Capital, a Heinz family office alternative investment fund, named after Rosemont – the Heinz family estate outside Pittsburgh. During the most vibrant years of this partnership’s international investment and “consulting” activity, it is important to note that Joe Biden was Vice President and John Kerry was Secretary of State. It was not coincidental that Rosemont Seneca’s headquarters was in Washington, D.C. as opposed to New York where most of its competitors maintained their offices given the investment professional labor pool in and around Wall Street.
Bohai Harvest RST (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Co., Ltd. (BHR) was not a legitimate investment company in the classical sense, set up to make financial return on investment through legal means. The firm was set up as a tool for the CCPs global economic imperial ambitions, using the Biden name, and others in their orbit, to market Chinese mercantile domination.[4]
The Bank of China is owned by the Chinese government and closely connected with the Chinese military and intelligence services. Biden, Heinz, and Archer transferred and sold "duel use" technology to the Chinese military which was used to create the Chinese drone program and replicate the Chinese version of the F-15 fighter.[5]
Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) invested in an app the Chinese leftwing communist government is using to surveil ethnic minority Muslims in western China. Over one million Muslims living in the region are now incarcerated in Chinese gulags.
Overfishing
China has by far the largest distant-water fishing fleet in the world with an estimated 17,000 vessels, according to the British Overseas Development Institute. At least 183 vessels in China’s fleet are suspected of involvement in Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing.[6] According to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, the PRC is number one on the index of illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. The PRC's fleet often turn off transponders, don’t fill out mandated log records. create fake joint ventures with local boats, and fly another country’s flag—called a “flag of convenience”. It dominates fishing off the coast of many developing countries, stripping locals of their economic livelihood and leave a trail of environmental destruction in its wake.
Extreme overfishing depletes the adult fish, so there aren’t as many fish born the next season. Chinese trawlers wreck the sea bed, making it harder to support the ecosystem that fish need. Local fisherman see their fish stocks dwindle. Each Chinese trawler can catch up to 26 tons of fish in a day—400 times more than a local boat can bring in.
China’s South Atlantic fishing fleet is based in Montevideo, the capital and main port of Uruguay. According to Milko Schvartzman of Greenpeace, “absolutely no real controls are made of any foreign fishing boat” there. And “[China] effectively created a... pirate port in Montevideo.”
In the African country of Mozambique, Chinese commercial boats are dominating. In 2017, the Chinese effectively took over a major port, doubling its capacity so it could accommodate over 100 trawlers. Since 2017, Chinese trawlers have caught more than 60,000 tons of fish a year in the area.
According to Foreign Policy magazine, “China’s fishing fleet appears engaged, often illegally, in the effort to haul in as much seafood as it can, as fast as it can, in as many places as it can—with little regard for how its practices affect malnourished people or diminish the stocks of their fish....It is government policy, because most vessels are in effect paid to fish by the Chinese government, which covers the fleet’s main operating expense: fuel.” China spends 5.9 billion dollars each year subsidizing fuel. “That’s about 347,000 dollars per vessel per year, far more than any other major fishing country.” To put that into perspective, “European Union vessels, also considered highly subsidized, receive only about 23,000 dollars a year.”
China’s own coastal waters were once the richest in the world. Now, they’ve been depleted by more than 85% after decades of overfishing. The Chinese Communist Party also has a political reason for these distant-water fishing fleets: to establish its maritime claims. Especially in the South China Sea. For the Chinese fishing vessels in those disputed waters, some of them are normal, subsidized fishermen. But others are part of China’s maritime militia, “which means they never fish—they just use fishing boats to monitor other fleets, run supplies, or ram other boats."[7] That’s what’s happening in the Spratly Islands. Chinese fishing boats there are just occupying territory until the military can build another island.
Decoupling
Decoupling refers to restricting and terminating certain trade relationships with the Chinese Communist Party. Decoupling however, is not limited merely to commerce. It will affect student exchange programs as students from China are hand selected by the Chinese Communist Party and expected to serve the party upon graduation without becoming infected with ideas such as democracy, justice, and religion while in the United States. American students studying in China likewise are targeted for compromise, blackmail, and ideological subversion.
The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board oversees the Thrift Savings Plan, a retirement fund for federal employees and members of the uniformed military services, with about $600 billion in assets. Money is withheld from federal employees and the military's paychecks to contribute to the fund. Approximately 11% is invested in Chinese companies, some of which produce weapons designed to kill members of the U.S. military.[8] The government of China even prior to the CCP virus outbreak was in violation of U.S. sanctions law and engaged in humanitarian and human rights abuse.
Military
The 13th Five year Plan, which ran from 2016 - 2020, eliminated a distinction between civilian and military science and technology research, fusing them together in a two-way flow of technology and other resources.[9]
Nuclear weapons
In 1955, Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party decided to proceed with a nuclear weapons program; it was developed with Soviet assistance until 1960. After its first nuclear test in October 1964, Beijing deployed a modest but potent ballistic missile force, including land- and sea-based intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
China became a major international arms exporter during the 1980s. Beijing joined the Middle East arms control talks, which began in July 1991 to establish global guidelines for conventional arms transfers, but announced in September 1992 that it would no longer participate because of the U.S. decision to sell F-16A/B aircraft to Taiwan.
China was the first state to pledge "no first use" of nuclear weapons. It joined the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1984 and pledged to abstain from further atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in 1986. China acceded to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1992 and supported its indefinite and unconditional extension in 1995. In 1996, it signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and agreed to seek an international ban on the production of fissile nuclear weapons material. To date, China has not ratified the CTBT.
In 1996, China committed not to provide assistance to un-safeguarded nuclear facilities. China became a full member of the NPT Exporters (Zangger) Committee, a group that determines items subject to IAEA inspections if exported by NPT signatories. In September 1997, China issued detailed nuclear export control regulations. China began implementing regulations establishing controls over nuclear-related dual-use items in 1998. China also has committed not to engage in new nuclear cooperation with Iran (even under safeguards), and will complete existing cooperation, which is not of proliferation concern, within a relatively short period. In May 2004, with the support of the United States, China became a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Based on significant, tangible progress with China on nuclear nonproliferation, President Clinton in 1998 took steps to bring into force the 1985 U.S.-China Agreement on Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation.
As of mid-2021, the PRC had 145 missile silos under construction capable of housing the DF-41, which can carry multiple warheads and reach targets as far away as 9,300 miles.[10] Discovery of another array of missile silos housing another 120 nuclear-tipped missiles was made public shortly after the first report.[11]
Unrestricted warfare doctrine
Since the publication in 1999 of Unrestricted Warfare: Two Air Force Senior Colonels on Scenarios for War and the Operational Art in an Era of Globalization, by Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, it has been understood that hard-line elements within the Chinese National Security community have been envisioning and positioning themselves for war with the USA. As the title suggests, this book subverts the strategic thinking and rules of "old-style warfare”, proposes “new types of warfare” and explores military tactics, strategy and organization in the age of globalization. The “unrestricted” part of “unrestricted warfare” avoids direct military confrontation and seeks instead to conquer through non-kinetic means.
The authors argued that the notion that “national defense being the country’s main security goal is somewhat outdated, at least rather inadequate." Under such circumstances, a country, especially a weak one, must go beyond the limits of "traditional war" in order to win when it is faced with an opponent stronger than itself.
"Traditional war" follows certain rules or boundaries, for example, protections for the civilians and civilian facilities, humanitarian treatment to POWs, banning the use of weapons of mass destruction, etc. These principles were formally established in a series of international agreements. "Unrestricted warfare" means going beyond the limit, whether it is material, spiritual, ethical or technical; and whether it is called 'range', ‘restriction’, ‘restraint’, ‘boundary’, ‘rules’, ‘law’, ‘limit’, or ‘taboo’ ". In “unrestricted warfare” there is no distinction between "front and rear", "military and civilian”, country and territory. It is not restrained by moral and ethical limits. Any person and any facility can be considered as a military target. In order to achieve the goal, you can do whatever you want.
Unrestricted warfare tactics are divided into three categories, "military, trans-military and non-military. To operate “unrestricted warfare”, any item in the table of the three categories can be combined with one or more other items as needed to form "combined tactics". The authors specifically pointed out in the note: "The three categories of operations here are real wars, not metaphors or descriptions."
When all the boundaries of “old-style warfare” are broken, there is only one reality left: the entire human society is treated as a battlefield. There is no doubt that the United States is the simulated enemy against whom the unrestricted warfare was formulated. The reasoning goes that the Peoples Republic of China, being the weaker party compared with the United States in terms of military technology and power justifies tactics described in Unrestricted Warfare, since conventional tactics may not ensure victory against the US.[12]
Bioweapons
- See also: Wuhan Institute of Virology, Shi Zhengli, and Li-Meng Yan
China agreed to the Biological Weapons Convention in 1984, but both academics and government agencies have asserted that the regime is a world leader in bioweapon production.[13]
James Giordano, a neurology professor at Georgetown University and senior fellow in biowarfare at the U.S. Special Operations Command, said China’s growing investment in bio-science, looser ethics around gene-editing and other cutting-edge technology and integration between government and academia raise the spectre of deadly pathogens being weaponized.[14] In a 2015 academic paper Dany Shoham, a biological and chemical warfare expert at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University asserts that more than 40 Chinese facilities are involved in bio-weapon production.[15]
Dany Shoham, a former Israeli military intelligence officer who studied Chinese biological warfare, said the Wuhan Institute of Virology is linked to Beijing's covert bioweapons program. He said the secure Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory at the institute was engaged in research on the Ebola, Nipah and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever viruses.
The Wuhan virology institute is under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, but certain laboratories within it “have linkage with the PLA or BW-related elements within the Chinese defence establishment,” he said. Suspicions were raised about the Wuhan Institute of Virology when a group of Chinese virologists working in Canada improperly sent to China samples of what he described as some of the deadliest viruses on earth, including the Ebola virus.[16]
In 2015, Chinese military scientists discussed how to weaponize SARS coronaviruses to "cause the enemy’s medical system to collapse." In a 263-page document, written by People's Liberation Army scientists and senior Chinese public health officials and obtained by the US State Department during its investigation into the origins of COVID-19, suggests that SARS coronaviruses could herald a "new era of genetic weapons," and noted that they can be "artificially manipulated into an emerging human disease virus, then weaponized and unleashed in a way never seen before."[17]
Google maps shows cars surrounding the WIV mid-October 2020, which correlates with the spread of the pandemic.
The key to the case, renowned Canadian scientist Frank Plummer, died in mysterious circumstances.[18] He was the very person who received Saudi SARS Coronavirus sample and was working on a Coronavirus (HIV) vaccine in the Winnipeg-based Canadian lab from where the virus was smuggled by Chinese Biowarfare agents to China and is widely believed to be weaponized in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.[19]
Peoples Armed Police
The People Armed Police (PAP) is a paramilitary component of China’s armed forces; its primary mission is internal security. Although the PAP has specialized units for a variety of functions, such as border security and firefighting, most units address internal security. PAP units are organized into contingents for each province, autonomous region, and centrally administered city. There are also a small number of mobile divisions available to deploy anywhere in the country to respond to crises.
In 2017, authorities announced that the PAP would be commanded by the Central Military Commission (CMC), removing the State Council from the chain of command and removing the PAP from the direct control of provincial authorities.[20] Moreover, the changes removed all troops not involved in domestic security duties from the PAP. Following the changes, the PAP has become a force exclusively focused on domestic security that operates under the command of the CMC. Other types of PAP troops, such as firefighting and border defense, have been transferred to other central ministries. Authorities also revised PAP funding to strengthen central control. Mirroring the organizational and administrative changes, the central government began to almost exclusively fund the PAP, thereby removing local and provincial funding streams. Stronger central control of the PAP removes these troops from possible misuse by local power holders, deters potential challengers to Beijing’s authority, and enables the central government to deploy the forces to carry out its own strategic plans, such as consolidation of political control over the western provinces. However, the militarization of the PAP raises the prospect that domestic security concerns will be considered in military terms, further weakening what little remains of the rights of Chinese citizens, especially in the ethnic-minority dominated provinces featuring a heavy PAP presence.
Foreign policy
The PRC passed its own counter-sanctions bill that allows foreign companies having links with Chinese companies and/or government entities, such as Russia and Iran, to sue Western governments over sanctions, and if successful, would be able to seize by court order the bank assets and physical property of Western companies in China whose governments levied sanctions.[22]
In early 2021 the Peoples Republic of China signed a massive 25-year, over $400-billion infrastructure-for-oil deal with Iran, boosting their military and defense cooperation.[23]
Joseph R. Biden's foreign minister, Antony Blinken, told the world that Biden would make no effort to contain the Chinese Communist's bid for global power and hegemony.[24]
Belt and Road Initiative
- Main article: Belt and Road Initiative
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a massive global investment strategy launched by the CCP in 2013 aimed at bolstering its economic and political influence across Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America. The project involves investments in infrastructure and natural resource projects in countries. Chinese officials are quite open that the BRI is aimed at creating a Eurasia wide Chinese led bloc to counter the United States. It has been criticized by the U.S. and other countries as an example of “debt trap” diplomacy, that saddles developing countries with unsustainable debt burdens while allowing the regime to expand governance abroad.
China has been looking to construct a 120 kilometer mega canal cutting through the Isthmus of Kra, the narrowest part of the Malay Peninsula in Thailand. This will open the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean, bypassing the Strait of Malacca. What China is eyeing is a canal project in Thailand called the Kra Canal and the Thai leadership seems to be on board. Through this canal China is trying to reduce dependence on the Strait of Malacca. Currently 80 percent of China's oil imports passed through the South China Sea.
The Strait of Malacca is a key reason why China has not been able to grow too powerful. Democratic and powers such as India, Australia, and other Southeast Asian nations are well-positioned to cut off Chinese supply lines in the event of a major military confrontation by creating a blockade around the Strait of Malacca. China wants to ensure that its commercial and naval vessels find an alternate route that altogether avoids the Malacca choke point while travelling between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. This is an overhang of the maritime portion of Xi Jinping's Belt and Road initiative that seeks to connect Southeast Asia with the Middle East and Europe.
Society
Religious intolerance
The Chinese Communist Party persecutes the country's Christian population, as well as the Falun Gong population, and Tibetan Buddhists. There are several well-documented cases of abuse, torture and false imprisonment.[25]
In 1950, the CCP instructed its local governments to ban all unofficial religious faiths and secret societies. The CCP stated that those “feudalistic” underground groups were mere tools in the hands of landlords, rich farmers, reactionaries, and special agents of the Kuomintang (KMT). In the nationwide crackdown, the government mobilized the classes they trusted to identify and persecute members of religious groups.
Governments at various levels were directly involved in disbanding such “superstitious groups,” such as communities of Christians, Catholics, Taoists, and Buddhists. They ordered all members of these churches, temples, and religious societies to register with government agencies and to repent for their involvement. Failure to do so would mean severe punishment.
In 1951, the government formally promulgated regulations stating that those who continued their activities in unofficial religious groups would face a life sentence or the death penalty.
This movement persecuted a large number of kind-hearted and law-abiding believers in God. Incomplete statistics indicate that in the 1950s, the CCP persecuted at least 3 million religious believers and underground group members, some of whom were killed. The CCP searched almost every household across the nation and interrogated its members. The executions reinforced the CCP’s message that communist ideology was the only legitimate ideology and the only legitimate faith.
The concept of “patriotic believers” soon emerged, and the state constitution protected only patriotic believers. The reality was that, whatever religion you believed in, there were only these criteria: You had to follow the CCP’s instructions, and you had to acknowledge that the CCP was above all religions. If you were a Christian, the CCP was the God of the Christian God. If you were a Buddhist, the CCP was the Master Buddha of the Master Buddha. Among Muslims, the CCP was the Allah of the Allah. When it came to the Living Buddha in Tibetan Buddhism, the CCP would intervene, and itself choose who the Living Buddha would be.
The CCP left you no choice but to say and do what the CCP demanded you to say and do. All believers were forced to carry out the CCP’s objectives while upholding their respective faiths in name only. Failing to do so would make you the target of the CCP’s persecution and dictatorship.
According to a Feb. 22, 2002, report by Chinese online magazine Ren yu Renquan (Humanity and Human Rights), 20,000 Christians conducted a survey among 560,000 Christians in house churches in 207 cities in 22 provinces in China. The survey found that, among house church attendees, 130,000 were under government surveillance.
In the book “How the Chinese Communist Party Persecuted Christians,”[27] it is stated that by 1957, the CCP had killed more than 11,000 religious adherents and had arbitrarily arrested and extorted money from many more.
By eliminating the landlord class and the capitalist class and by persecuting large numbers of God-worshipping and law-abiding people, the CCP cleared the way for communism to become the all-encompassing religion of China.
State atheism and religious discrimination
See also: China and atheism and Communism and religious persecution and Persecution of Christians in the People's Republic of China
China has the world's largest atheist population.[28][29] China has state atheism (see: China and atheism).
The Government restricts legal religious practice to government-sanctioned organizations and registered religious groups and places of worship, and seeks to control the growth and scope of the activity of both registered and unregistered religious groups, including "house churches." Government authorities limit proselytism, particularly by foreigners and unregistered religious groups, but permit proselytism in state-approved religious venues and private settings. The Chinese government explicitly prohibits students and civil servants from participating in certain religious practices, even when not in school or at work.[30]
In 2008, the Government's repression of religious freedom intensified in some areas, including in Tibetan areas and in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Unregistered Protestant religious groups in Beijing reported intensified harassment from government authorities in the lead up to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Media and China-based sources reported that municipal authorities in Beijing closed some house churches or asked them to stop meeting during the 2008 Summer Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. During the reporting period, officials detained and interrogated several foreigners about their religious activities and in several cases alleged that the foreigners had engaged in "illegal religious activities" (alleged) and canceled their visas. Media reported that the total number of expatriates expelled by the Government due to concerns about their religious activities exceeded one hundred. Officials in the XUAR, the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), and other Tibetan areas tightly controlled religious activity. The Government sought the forcible return of several Uighur Muslims living abroad, some of whom had reportedly protested restrictions on the Hajj and encouraged other Muslims to pray and fast during Ramadan. Followers of Tibetan Buddhism, including those in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region and most Tibetan autonomous areas, faced more restrictions on their religious practice and ability to organize than Buddhists in other parts of the country. "Patriotic education" campaigns in the TAR and other Tibetan regions, which required monks and nuns to sign statements personally denouncing the Dalai Lama, and other new restrictions on religious freedom were major factors that led monks and nuns to mount peaceful protests at a number of monasteries on March 10, 2008. The protests and subsequent security response gave way to violence in Lhasa by March 14 and 15. Moreover, Christians, including the Catholic, Protestant Christians, are facing societal hostility generated by the government, and the Christians are facing difficulties when comes to the decision of ascension in the governmental (regime) enterprises and will be arrested if evangelizing on governmental schools' campus (public schools, but with heavy involvement from the Communist party branches).
"Underground" Roman Catholic clergy faced repression, in large part due to their avowed loyalty to the Vatican, which the Government accused of interfering in the country's internal affairs. The Government continued to repress groups that are designated as "cults," most of which included several Christian groups and Falun Gong.
Religious and ethnic minority groups such as Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims experienced societal discrimination not only because of their religious beliefs but also because of their status as ethnic minorities with distinct languages and cultures. After the March 2008 protests in Lhasa and other Tibetan areas, there were reports of increased tensions between Tibetan Buddhists and Hui Muslims.
The Falun Gong is a self-described spiritual movement that blends aspects of Taoism, Buddhism, and the meditation techniques and physical exercises of qigong (a traditional Chinese exercise discipline), with the teachings of Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi. There are estimated to have been at least 2.1 million adherents of Falun Gong before the Government cleansed and persecute the group in 1999. Hundreds of thousands may practice Falun Gong privately, but with serious risks, and once discovered by the government agents, the practitioners will be jailed, losing jobs, and may not even attend the universities. Moreover, the practitioners will risk the risk of having their organs live-harvested by the Communist government.[31]
Suppression of religion through murder and torture
The Chinese communist regime has used beatings, harassment and torture to suppress religion in China and continues to use these practices.[32][33][34]
Several researchers — for example, Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas, former Canadian parliamentarian David Kilgour, and the investigative journalist Ethan Gutmann estimate that tens of thousands of Falun Gong prisoners in Communist China have been killed to supply a financially lucrative trade in human organs and cadavers, and that these human rights abuses may be an ongoing concern.[35]
Persecution of Falun Gong
- See also: Forced organ harvesting
The CCP has a long history of violently suppressing faith as “feudal superstition.” Given the number of Falun Gong practitioners in the country, the CCP’s persecution was a massive undertaking. The practice became enormously popular—with roughly 100 million adherents in China by 1999, according to official estimates. Threatened by this number, which was greater than the number of Party members, Jiang ordered the brutal suppression of Falun Gong practitioners.
In China there were more than 600 hospitals and over 1,700 doctors engaged in organ transplant surgeries in 2007. The statistics published by the Tianjin Oriental Organ Transplant Center and the No. 2 Hospital of the Second Military Medical University (also known as Shanghai Changzheng Hospital), two hospitals that have close ties to the Chinese military, provide a glimpse into the rapid growth of China's organ transplant market. The China Southern Weekend reported, "The Oriental Organ Transplant Center's rapid growth has brought about huge revenue and profits. According to previous media reports, liver transplants alone bring the Center an annual income of 100 million yuan". According to a Phoenix Weekly 2006 report, "In 2004, the fee for a liver transplant at the Oriental Organ Transplant Center was $32,000 (approximately 250,000 yuan). In 2005, it was over $40,000 (approximately 330,000 yuan). Some intermediary agencies charged a brokering fee as high as USD $13,000."
People with financial means are willing to buy organs at a high cost, and the huge profit pushes the hospitals to pursue new sources of organs by all means necessary to increase their profit margins. Given China's political and legal environment, certain groups of people become especially susceptible targets. Namely, Falun Gong practitioners.[36]
In March 2020 the China Tribunal, an independent people’s tribunal, released its full judgment on Chinese forced organ harvesting.[37] The panel was chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice who previously led the prosecution of former Yugoslavia Prime Minister Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes at the International Criminal Tribunal and included other experts in law, transplant surgery, international politics, Chinese history and business. The experts concluded that the grisly practice has continued unabated. In June 2019 the tribunal delivered its findings in London, concluding beyond a reasonable doubt that state sanctioned forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has taken place for years in China on a significant scale and is still taking place. The main organ supply came from imprisoned practitioners of the persecuted spiritual group Falun Gong.[38]
The Chinese regime has persecuted the group for more than two decades. Hundreds of thousands of adherents have been thrown into prisons, labor camps, and brainwashing centers where many have been tortured in an effort to force them to renounce their faith. The tribunal concluded that the Chinese regime sustained campaign of forced organ harvesting constituted a crime against humanity. Many people have died indescribable hideous deaths for no reason, that more may suffer in similar ways, and that all of us live on a planet where extreme wickedness may be found in the power of those, who for the time being, are running a country that is one of the oldest civilizations known to modern man.[39]
Persecution of Uyghurs
According to various estimates, Xinjiang authorities have detained over 3 million Turkic Muslims, mostly ethnic Uyghurs, and Kazakhs, in “reeducation camps” without formal charges, trials or hearings, and with no timetable for release. Many detainees have little or no contact with their families and, in some cases, young children. Some CCP officials describe the Xinjiang camps as “vocational education institutions” in which “trainees” learn the Chinese language, legal knowledge, and job skills, and undergo “de-extremization.” Other CCP authorities state that detainees are “infected with religious extremism and violent terrorist ideology.” According to some reports, many detainees had engaged in activities that authorities may now deem “extremist,” including participating in religious services outside of officially sanctioned places of worship; home-schooling one’s children; spending time abroad or having relatives living abroad; and expressing religious sentiments.
Many detainees reportedly are compelled to express or chant their love of the Communist Party and President Xi Jinping, sing patriotic songs, renounce or reject many of their religious beliefs and customs, including their avoidance of pork, alcohol, and smoking, and undergo ideological indoctrination and self-criticisms. According to former detainees, treatment and conditions in the camps include beatings, food deprivation, and crowded and unsanitary conditions. Some reeducation centers reportedly contain factories where detainees are forced to work, in some cases producing goods for export.
Recent security measures include the following:
- Police Presence and Surveillance: Thousands of “convenience” police stations, furnished with antiriot and high-tech surveillance equipment, have been installed.
- Biometric data collection: Authorities have systematically collected and cataloged DNA samples, blood types, and fingerprints and performed eye scans of Uyghurs for identification purposes as part of its social stability campaign, often under the guise of “health physicals.”
- Internet and Social Media Controls: Uyghurs in some areas of the XUAR are required to install an application on their mobile phones that enables authorities to monitor their online activities.
- Home stays: The government has sent an estimated one million officials and state workers from outside the XUAR, mostly ethnic Han, to live temporarily in the homes of Uyghurs to assess their hosts’ loyalty to the Communist Party.[41]
According to some reports, the CCP has begun to move large numbers of Uyghurs, including many former detainees, into textile, apparel, and other labor-intensive industries in Xinjiang and other PRC provinces. Uyghurs who refuse to accept such employment may be threatened with detention. They continue to be heavily monitored outside of work, and are required to attend political study classes at night. A study by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute identified nearly 120 Chinese and foreign companies, including global brands, that the institute alleges directly or indirectly benefit from Uyghur labor in potentially abusive circumstances.[42]
Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 83 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Inc., Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen. In factories far away from home, they typically live in segregated dormitories, undergo organised Mandarin and ideological training outside working hours, are subject to constant surveillance, and are forbidden from participating in religious observances.[43]
Racism
- See also: China and racism
An article entitled Racism in China declares:
The Han Chinese have traditionally considered themselves more advanced and civilized than other ethnic groups in China. In the imperial era, this was almost state policy. The sentiment continues today even though laws have been enacted to protect minorities, racism is officially condemned and Chinese multi-ethnicity is celebrated in propaganda. In recent years assimilation has been encouraged, particularly in Tibet and Xinjiang, whose ethnic groups are regarded as a threat.
The Chinese have many prejudiced views about race, gender and nationality. Chinese often have no compunctions about directly mocking ethnic minorities, and there sometimes seems to be a prevailing belief that anything non-Chinese is primitive.[44] |
The Internations organization website says this about racism in China:
When it comes to foreign nations against which racism in China exists, the Japanese are particularly disliked. The use of slurs, such as “little Japanese” and even “Japanese devils”, is fairly common. The two countries’ bloody history — particularly Japan’s occupation of China and the atrocities against Chinese citizens during World War II — is neither forgotten nor forgiven. According to a BBC World Service poll, nine out of ten Chinese think negatively of their island neighbors.
Black people are often regarded suspiciously, too, and considered as all coming from Africa, regardless of their actual origin. In a society where light skin is still deemed desirable and seen as a sign of fortune, darker skin is often associated with less favorable traits. There have, for instance, been reports of African-American English teachers (and thus native speakers) being turned down in favor of white English teachers with non-native language skills. China’s economic investment in a number of African countries may well have helped to create the prejudice that all Africans are poor and profiting from money that should rather be invested at home, thus fostering racism in China. In Guangzhou, where a large number of Africans have settled over the last few years, racial tensions have been particularly high.[46] |
One of the biggest ways the outbreak of the CCP coronavirus has damaged China's international reputation is by exposing the country's racist attitude toward Africans. The communist government's response to the coronavirus was to blame foreigners for importing the virus.[48] Despite the fact that the virus originated in China itself, local governments and people in different parts of the country have been treating Africans like they were the ones responsible for triggering the COVID-19 pandemic. Black Africans and African Americans were evicted from their apartments and refused service in local shops and restaurants.[49] Such an attitude obviously has angered millions of Africans back home.[50] Those who could not leave the socialist paradise ended up living on the streets, constantly harassed by the police.[51]
On April 13, 2020, the U.S. consulate had to issue an alert warning African-Americans to avoid the Guangzhou region since they could be racially targeted. It advised African-Americans in China to always carry their identity documents with them since it is less likely for officials to target an American citizen.
China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian accused the U.S. of trying to drive a wedge between Africa and China, saying that the United States was being neither responsible nor moral. A State Department spokesperson pointed out that the mistreatment meted out to Africans in China is a clear signal of how hollow the China-Africa relationship is despite Beijing constantly masquerading as being a benefactor for African people.[52]
Gen. Xu Qiliang, vice-chair of the Central Military Commission and a member of the Politburo Standing Committee who is China’s most senior military officer, refused to meet with his counterpart, Lloyd Austin, America's first African American Defense Secretary.[53]
Uyghurs and Muslims
According to various estimates, the Chinese Communist authorities have placed anywhere from 1-3 million Turkic Muslims, mostly ethnic Uyghurs, and Kazakhs, in concentration camps without formal charges, trials or hearings, and with no timetable for release. Many detainees have little or no contact with their families and, in some cases, young children. Some CCP officials describe the Xinjiang camps as “vocational education institutions” in which “trainees” learn the Chinese language, legal knowledge, and job skills, and undergo “de-extremization.” Other CCP authorities state that detainees are “infected with religious extremism and violent terrorist ideology.” According to some reports, many prisoners had engaged in activities that authorities may now deem “extremist,” including participating in religious services outside of officially sanctioned places of worship; home-schooling one's children; spending time abroad or having relatives living abroad; and expressing religious sentiments.
Many detainees reportedly are compelled to express or chant their love of the Communist Party and President Xi Jinping, sing patriotic songs, renounce or reject many of their religious beliefs and customs, including their avoidance of pork, alcohol, and smoking, and undergo ideological indoctrination and self-criticisms. According to former detainees, treatment and conditions in the camps include beatings, food deprivation, and crowded and unsanitary conditions. Some reeducation centers reportedly contain factories where detainees are forced to work, in some cases producing goods for export.
Recent security measures include the following:
- Police Presence and Surveillance: Thousands of “convenience” police stations, furnished with antiriot and high-tech surveillance equipment, have been installed.
- Biometric data collection: Authorities have systematically collected and cataloged DNA samples, blood types, and fingerprints and performed eye scans of Uyghurs for identification purposes as part of its social stability campaign, often under the guise of “health physicals.”
- Internet and Social Media Controls: Uyghurs in some areas of the XUAR are required to install an application on their mobile phones that enables authorities to monitor their online activities.
- Home stays: The government has sent an estimated one million officials and state workers from outside the XUAR, mostly ethnic Han, to live temporarily in the homes of Uyghurs to assess their hosts’ loyalty to the Communist Party.[54]
Disputed Territories
China is a Han-dominated occupational force and there are seven countries: Tibet, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Xinjiang which is also East Turkestan, Manchuria, Chengdu, and Zhang Zhung. China has muted reports of protests against the CCP's single party control in all these countries. The main force driving these regions towards revolutions that could split the country is the racial domination of the Han Chinese. The minorities are being attacked aggressively, and Beijing has been trying to flood Han migrants into these regions, such as Tibet.
Identity politics is a big issue in China. Muslim Uyghurs from Xinjiang and Buddhist Tibetans are, for example, resisting attempts at assimilation. Forced Hanification at times results in violent reactions. The Manchu people in Manchuria are also ethnically different from the Han. They are an ethnic minority in China facing domination from the Han Chinese ethnic group.
With the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent aggression, China has put itself in the same situation as the Soviet Union in the 1980s. First the covid 19 pandemic made the world realize the perils of an autocratic communist regime trying to create a new world order for itself. Then Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and the Indian border led to the creation of a new front against China. The United States shifted its focus from Russia to China. The U.S. led NATO also recognized China as the main threat. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the rise of China is fundamentally shifting the global balance of power, multiplying the threats to democratic societies and individual freedoms, and increasing the competition over values and our way of life. He also urged like-minded countries to join the alliance to stand up against bullying and coercion in world affairs.
East Turkestan (Xinjiang)
- Main article: East Turkestan
East Turkestan was an independent country until the year 1949, when it was invaded by the Communist Chinese.[55] From the years 1951-1959, there were over 14 major armed rebellions against the Chinese occupation. The largest armed rebellion took place in Khotan from December 28-31, 1954.
The main inhabitants of East Turkestan are the Uighurs among other Turkic peoples such as Kazakhs, Kirghiz, Uzbek and Tatars.
South China Sea
- See also: South China Sea
The CCP lays claim to almost all of the South China Sea bordered by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan. Beijing has sought to bolster its claims in the strategic waterways by building artificial islands in the area and building military outposts on them. “In one and half years [in 2013 and 2014 under Xi’s administration], China has created more than 3,200 acres of territory. The other four claimant states have created only 100 acres in 45 years,” said Jin Canrong, a professor and associate dean of the School of International Studies at Beijing’s Renmin University.[56]. Jin boasted about the regime’s success in wresting control of the Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines in 2012 with the help of Chinese fishing boats and coast guard vessels.
Taiwan
- See also: Taiwan
The Beijing regime views the self-ruled island of Taiwan as part of its territory and has vowed to bring Taiwan under its fold with force if necessary. The democratic country has never been part of the PRC.
Hong Kong
- Main article: Hong Kong Independence Movement
The Hong Kong branch of the Chinese Communist Party was founded in 1947 as the Xinhua News Agency Hong Kong Branch. Although the party has ruled Hong Kong since 1997, it remains technically illegal, or "underground." This status, unique among the world's ruling parties, allows the CCP to evade local laws that require political parties to disclose financing and to provide a membership list. In 2000, the name of the branch was changed to "Liaison Office of the Central People's Government." It is headquartered in a tower in the city's Sai Ying Pun district. In 2003, the office was reorganized as a "second government" parallel and equal in status to the "local government" in Admiralty. Since 2012, Sai Ying Pun has been the dominant partner in the Hong Kong government. The Liaison Office is headed by a director, currently Luo Huining. Luo is a member of the national party's central committee. The office has extensive and undisclosed property holdings through Newman Investment, a subsidiary. The office reports to the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, an agency of the Beijing government. This agency is currently headed by Xia Baolong, also a central committee member.
The Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984 provides that Hong Kong will enjoy a "high degree of autonomy except for foreign and defence affairs" under a "one country, two systems" approach. This approach was to last for fifty years, from 1997 to 2047. China promised that it would hold a direct election for chief executive by 2017. In August 2014, the Chinese parliament announced that Hong Kong voters would choose a chief executive from two or three candidates nominated by a committee. This announcement triggered mass pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in the form of the Umbrella Movement. The protests failed to the stop the selection of Carrie Lam as chief executive in 2017. In 2017, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced that the joint declaration was no longer valid.
In 2019 the Hong Kong government proposed a bill to extradite suspects who were wanted on the mainland. Unlike Hong Kong courts, mainland courts do not provide suspects with due process or other legal protections. A series of the enormous protests were held in Hong Kong and the bill was withdrawn on October 23, 2019. Parties that supported the pro-democracy protesters swept the District Council elections that were held in November.[58]
Manchuria
- Main article: Manchurian Independence Movement
The Manchurian Independence movement advocates for the creation of an independent Manchuria out of Northeast China. There is currently a Manchukuo Government in Exile which claims to have embassies in Japan, Thailand and the U.K. [59]
Cantonia
- Main article: Cantonia Independence Movement
Southern Mongolia
- Main article: Southern Mongolian Independence Movement
The Southern Mongolian Independence Movement (also known as the Inner Mongolian Independence Movement) is a movement for the independence of Inner Mongolia from China. Some in the movement also advocate for a merger with Mongolia.[60]
Indo-China border
- See also: Ladakh
The India-China border has not been agreed upon and has been in dispute since 1962.
In June 2020 troops from the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) and India clashed in the Galwan Valley.[61] The battle was fought with rocks, batons, and barbed wire-wrapped clubs. A 1996 agreement banned the use of guns and explosives along the disputed line of control. India reported 20 of their soldiers were killed, whereas the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) did not report any of its deaths. Indian media and the Russian news agency TASS reported that as many as 45 PLA soldiers may have been killed.[62] Over the following 12 months the PLA increased its troop strength along the border from 15,000 to 50,000 by July 2021, and moved advanced surface-to-air missiles including its HQ-9 system, which is similar to Russia’s S-300 and America’s Patriot missile.[63]
In late 2021 the PRC deployed machine gun robots along the line of actual control.[64]
Tibet (includes Qinghai, Western Sichuan and Northern Yunnan)
- Main article: Tibet
Resistance to the Chinese occupation started to take on organized forms as early as 1952, reached massive proportions in 1959, and has continued, primarily underground, ever since.[65] Tibetans inside Tibet have no basic human rights. Particularly, nuns and monks are being denied the right to practice their religion freely. People are forced to denounce their spiritual leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Even carrying a photo of the Dalai Lama is prohibited.[66]
The Dalai Lama was made Tibetan head of state in 1950, the same year that China invaded and occupied Tibet.[68] CNN reports the Chinese find it "unacceptable when they see the Dalai Lama treated as a VIP, or even akin to a head of state."[68]
After the Dalai Lama met with Barack Obama in February, 2010 he was unceremoniously escorted through a side door that trash is regularly carried out for a photo op with awaiting cameras.
On Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's first official visit to China, the Secretary told Chinese leaders the Obama administration considered human rights concerns secondary to economic survival[69] and asked the CCP leaders for help financing President Obama's massive $787 economic stimulus plan by buying US Treasury securities.[70]
Often portrayed as a religious leader by Western media, the Dalai Lama was made Tibetan head of state in 1950, the same year that Communist China committed an act of aggression against Tibet.[71]
Bhutan-China boundary dispute
The Sino-Bhutanese border dispute has involves 295 square miles (sq mi) of territory, including 191 sq mi in the Jakurlung and Pasamlung valleys in northern Bhutan and another 104 sq mi in western Bhutan that comprise the areas of Doklam, Sinchulung, Dramana and Shakhatoe.[72] Under the 2007 India-Bhutan Treaty of Friendship, India is virtually responsible for Bhutan’s security.
Legitimacy
A series of bonds issued by the Qing government in the early 29th century questioned the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist regime that is now in a difficult dilemma it can not get out of. The market value of the bonds is worth $1.6 Trillion USD, and if the CCP wants to prove itself to be the legitimate government of China, then it has to pay back these bonds. If the CCP refuses to acknowledge this debt, then it must recognize that the Republic of China (Taiwan) is the legitimate government of China.
Americans who hold the “Hukuang Railway Bond”—issued by the Qing Dynasty to the United States, Britain, France, and Germany to raise funds for the construction of the Huguang Railways that run from Hunan to Guangzhou—initiated a movement demanding the Chinese Communist Party repay the debt. The chairman of the American Bondholders Foundation (ABF), Jonna Bianco, said:
“These bonds were originally issued under the Republic of China, what we know today is Taiwan. And the Communist regime who went in and took over mainland China and became the official government in 1949. It becomes their responsibility to honor this debt. The CCP, Chinese Communist Party’s debt, just as they paid Great Britain in 1987 for the very same bond. It is successor government doctrine.”
However, the CCP has always refused to cash in on bonds held by Americans. It selectively defaulted, deliberately not repaying the money owed to American investors.
As early as 1973, before the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China, the U.S. representative told the CCP during negotiations that although the debt does not have to be repaid immediately, the U.S. will not exempt it. Although the CCP government claims to be the only legal government in China and has the right to inherit the sovereignty of Hong Kong left by the Qing government, it does not recognize the right to inherit the "Hukuang Railway Bonds" issued by the Qing government.
Bianco said that the previous U.S. administrations did not attach any importance to the issue of the Huguang Railway bond, but President Trump is different from them. “Thank God for President Donald J. Trump, who is listening to this issue. I have met with him personally. He has committed his support behind this issue. He is the only president that has held China accountable to play by the same rules, to have fair trades, to have as he said perfectly, reciprocity, and that’s what Americans expect, that’s what the world expects,” she said.
According to data from the US Treasury Department, as of May 2020, the CCP holds US $1.08 trillion in US Treasury bonds. Bianco suggested that the Trump administration exchange bonds with the CCP, that is, use the Hukuang Railway Bonds to repay the U.S. Treasury bonds held by the CCP. Bianco said that she is confident that this matter will succeed.[73]
History
- See also: History of the Chinese Communist Party
In the face of economic collapse,[74] the Communists won the civil war in 1949 under Mao Zedong (1893-1976). Until his death in 1976, Mao Zedong was its paramount leader. Mao established a dictatorship, driving the KMT to Taiwan. Taiwan has been independent since 1949. Mao liquidated millions of opponents, fought the United States in the bloody Korean War (1950–53), and broke with the Soviet Union over the issue of who best represented the Marxist orthodoxy.
History of China | |||||||
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Xia c. 2070–c. 1600 BC | |||||||
Shang c. 1600 – 1046 BC | |||||||
Zhou 1045–256 BC | |||||||
Qin 221–206 BC | |||||||
Han 206 BC – 220 AD | |||||||
Three Kingdoms 220–280 | |||||||
Jin 265–420 | |||||||
Northern and Southern Dynasties 420–589 | |||||||
Sui 581–618 | |||||||
Tang 618–907 | |||||||
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms 907–960 | |||||||
Song 960–1279 | |||||||
Yuan 1271–1368 | |||||||
Ming 1368–1644 | |||||||
Qing 1644–1911 | |||||||
Republic 1912–1949 | |||||||
People's Republic 1949–present |
Anti-Landlordism campaign
To seize real power, the CCP went on a nationwide anti-landlord campaign in rural areas and in cities, murdering landlords and their families, allegedly freeing the oppressed. Land owners were tried in public kangaroo courts in village squares where they were openly shamed and mocked, accused of committing crimes against the people. The land, however was transferred to state ownership and not to the people, and Stalinist collectivization imposed based upon the model implemented in the Ukraine in the 1930s (see Holodomor).
These anti-landlord campaigns and murder which the left deems "liberating the people", actually began in the communist occupied territory of Yan'an during World War II, where the communists were hiding out from the Kuomintang and the Japanese even before the party captured the Chinese state in 1949. Landlords were forced into a rectification process, making false confessions and apologies, after which they were murdered.[75]
Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward (1958–60) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) were the two worst periods of leftist domination in the history of China. Deng Xiaoping claimed the death toll to be 16 million, while the lowest estimate is 8 million [76]
Mao's grand strategy for Cold War competition inflicted a catastrophic agricultural failure in China and victimized tens of millions of Chinese peasants. After Nikita Khrushchev boasted in 1957 that the Soviet Union would soon surpassing the United States in key economic outputs, Mao decided to launch an even faster industrialization program that would push China past Britain in some production categories within 15 years. Beginning in 1958, Mao imposed unrealistic targets on Chinese grain production to extract funds from agriculture for rapid industrial growth. Maoists placed relentless pressure on Communist cadres for ruthless implementation of the Great Leap Forward. Contrary to Maoist plans, China's grain output in 1959-60 declined sharply from 1957 levels and rural per capita grain retention decreased dramatically. Throughout China, party cadres' mismanagement of agricultural production was responsible for the decline in grain output, and the Communist state's excessive requisition of grain caused food shortages for the peasants. But the key factor determining the famine's uneven impact on the peasantry in the provinces was the degree to which provincial leaders genuinely and energetically embraced Maoist programs.[77]
Although the Great Leap Forward was much more disastrous in both human and economic terms, the Cultural Revolution receives the more negative assessment in China. This harsher review of the Cultural Revolution stems from the facts that it occurred more recently, was much longer in duration, and that many of its victims were cadres and intellectuals.[78] Mao said,“What can Emperor Qin Shi Huang brag about? He only killed 460 Confucian scholars, but we killed 46,000 intellectuals. There are people who accuse us of practicing dictatorship like Emperor Qin Shi Huang, and we admit to it all. It fits the reality. It is a pity that they did not give us enough credit, so we need to add to it.”[79]
Sino-Soviet split
- See also: Deviationism
After the death of Stalin, Mao did not consider Stalin's lieutenants who succeeded him as equals, and showed an increasing willingness to depart from the Moscow-directed worldwide communist revolution declared by Lenin in 1919.
In 1958, Mao broke with the Soviet model and announced a new economic program, the "Great Leap Forward," aimed at rapidly raising industrial and agricultural production. Giant cooperatives (communes) were formed, and "backyard factories" dotted the Chinese landscape. The results were disastrous. Normal market mechanisms were disrupted, agricultural production fell behind, and China's people exhausted themselves producing what turned out to be shoddy, un-salable goods. Within a year, starvation appeared even in fertile agricultural areas. From 1960 to 1961, the combination of poor planning during the Great Leap Forward and bad weather resulted in one of the deadliest famines in human history.
The already strained Sino-Soviet relationship deteriorated sharply in 1959, when the Soviets started to restrict the flow of scientific and technological information to China. The dispute escalated, and the Soviets withdrew all of their personnel from China in August 1960. In 1960, the Soviets and the Chinese began to have disputes openly in international forums.
By 1962 when the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the planet to the brink of nuclear war, Beijing ceased entirely taking its strategic foreign policy direction from the reckless Moscow band of Marxists.
Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution was a disastrous attempt to reform the economics, education and politics of Communist China, which led to the deaths of tens of millions of people. The upheaval began in August 1966 by Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong.
Mao's objective was to replace leaders with people who would think like him and be supportive of him as Chairmen, make the Chinese Communist Party function the way he wanted, give the Chinese youth a revolutionary experience, and make changes so that education, health care, and cultural systems would be for the entirety of China and not just for the elite. In order to do this, he began to establish a cult towards himself. His party would be forced to support him as he had little patience for opponents during what he believe to be the pinnacle point of China's future as a communist state. He quickly began a system of purges to cleanse of any unwanted opposition toward him or to the gang of four, especially after he was embarrassed with the part rejecting his great leap forward policies[82]
Mao Zedong wanted the Cultural Revolution to affect everyone in China. Ordinary people perceived to be members of the "Five Black Categories" were targeted as well as their children. The Five Black Categories were Landlords, so-called "Rich farmers", anti-communists or counter-revolutionaries , "Bad-influencers" or "bad elements", and Rightists. The Black Book of Communism reports,
The Cultural Revolution's effects, past and present, on the world's imagination and memory stem not only from the extreme radicalism of its discourse and actions but also from its visibility; largely an urban phenomenon, it occurred in the age of television, for which it presented superb images of deftly organized political ceremonies filled with a touching fervor.[83] |
In August 1966 all schools were closed. During this time Mao told the Red Guards to question things that traditionally had great value and importance, and question the activities of government officials by slighting them in a way that was visible to all. The party itself was also purged:
The "investigations" inside the government administration, carried out by policemen dressed as Red Guards, were massive and sometimes murderous: there were 1,200 executions in the purge of the Ministry for Security; 22,000 people were interrogated and many imprisoned during the investigation into Liu Shaoqi; 60 percent of the members of the Central Committee (which hardly ever met) and 75 percent of all provincial Party secretaries were expelled and usually also arrested. In all, for the whole period of the Cultural Revolution, between 3 million and 4 million of the 18 million cadres were imprisoned, as were 400,000 soldiers, despite the banning of Red Guards in the PLA. 197 Among the intellectuals, 142,000 teachers, 53,000 scientists and technicians, 500 teachers of medicine, and 2,600 artists and writers were persecuted, and many of them were killed or committed suicide. In Shanghai, where intellectuals were especially numerous, it was officially estimated in 1978 that 10,000 people had died violent deaths as a result of the Cultural Revolution.[84] |
According to Prof. R. J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii, 7,731,000 people died in the Cultural Revolution.[85] Others place estimates as high as 20 million. Incidents of cannibalism were also reported. Massacres were mainly led by the local Communist Party branches, governmental agencies, the militia, and military.
It was no coincidence that the Red Guard violence began in 1966, seventeen years after the 1949 revolution; the first act after the 1949 revolution was take control of the public education system and indoctrinate a generation with Cultural Marxism and to target anyone who opposed them as fascists. The Maoist Red Guard were a supposed "Anti-fascist" movement.
1969 Sino-Soviet border war
On March 2, 1969, under what CIA analysts believed were direct orders from Beijing, Chinese border guards and soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ambushed a unit of Soviet KGB border troops. Instantly, around 300 more PLA soldiers burst out of foxholes and opened fire on the remaining Soviets. The Soviet Union was ready to retaliate
This brutal clash was the escalation of a ‘pushing war’ in which Soviet and Chinese soldiers had patrolled the same contested stretch of land for years. Mao’s gamble was that either the Soviets would not retaliate, or would do so at a small scale, despite the huge buildup of Red Army forces in the region.
CIA files show the Soviet’s Strategic Missile Forces went to high alert – their nuclear warheads ready to be unleashed at targets 1,600 kilometres away in less than 15 minutes.[86] Dr Robert Farley, assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy, revealed just how close the pair came to wiping each other off the map. He wrote:
“China tested its first nuclear device in 1964, theoretically giving Beijing an independent deterrent capability.“However, their delivery systems left much to be desired, liquid-fuelled missiles of uncertain reliability that required hours to prepare, and that could only remain on the launchpad for a limited amount of time.
“Moreover, Chinese missiles of the era lacked the range to strike vital Soviet targets in European Russia.
“China’s bomber force – consisting of an extremely limited number of Tu-4 and H-6 – would have fared very poorly against the USSR’s sophisticated air defence network.”
“The Soviets, on the other hand, were on the verge of achieving nuclear parity with the United States.
“The USSR had a modern, sophisticated arsenal of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons, easily capable of destroying China’s nuclear deterrent, its core military formations and its major cities.
“Sensitive to international opinion, the Soviet leadership would have resisted launching a full-scale nuclear assault against China, but a limited strike against Chinese nuclear facilities, as well as tactical attacks on deployed Chinese forces might have seemed more reasonable.
“Much would have depended on how the Chinese reacted to defeats on the battlefield.
“If the Chinese leadership decided that they needed to “use or lose” their nuclear forces in anticipation of decisive Soviet victory, they could easily have incurred a preemptive Soviet attack.”
Writing for National Interest in 2016, Farlay added:
“The United States reacted to the clashes with caution.“While the border conflict reassured Washington that the Sino-Soviet split remained in effect, officials disagreed over the likelihood and consequences of broader conflict.
“Through various official and non-official channels, the Soviets probed US attitudes towards China.
“Reputedly, the United States reacted negatively to Soviet overtures in 1969 about a joint attack on Chinese nuclear facilities.
“However, even if Washington did not want to see China burn, it would not likely have engaged in any serious, affirmative effort to protect Beijing from Moscow’s wrath.”
Rapprochement with the U.S.
In 1972 the world was stunned when American President Richard Nixon visited Beijing, ending the cold war between the two countries and opening an era of détente and friendship that continues into the 21st century.[87]
After 1978, Mao's successor Deng Xiaoping focused on market-oriented economic development, and by 2000 output had quadrupled, population growth ended (by imposing a one-child policy), and good relations were secured with the West. For much of the population, living standards have improved dramatically and the room for personal choice has expanded, yet political controls and Internet censorship remain tight.
For regime survival, the CCP sought to reshape external perception of China after it opened up to the world in the late 1970s. To that end, the Party moved to control and influence critical channels of messaging delivery—schools, think tanks, media, business, and political elites—to ensure effective delivery of its propaganda. In the coming decades the CCP successfully created a “Red Matrix,” or an informational environment that is largely pro-China and lacking in key knowledge about the CCP.
During the First Cold War the Soviet Union formed the Iron Curtain to “block out” the West. The CCP, however, created a Red Matrix to “plug in” the world to a view of China that the CCP controlled. The result of these influence operations were decades of misinformation and disinformation about China that has been knowingly or unknowingly produced by Western information repositories and providers.[88]
The Post-Mao Era
Mao's death in September 1976 removed a towering figure from Chinese politics and set off a scramble for succession. Former Minister of Public Security Hua Guofeng was quickly confirmed as Party Chairman and Premier. A month after Mao's death, Hua, backed by the PLA, arrested Jiang Qing and other members of the "Gang of Four." After extensive deliberations, the Chinese Communist Party leadership reinstated Deng Xiaoping to all of his previous posts at the 11th Party Congress in August 1977. Deng then led the effort to place government control in the hands of veteran party officials opposed to the radical excesses of the previous two decades.
The new, pragmatic leadership emphasized economic development and renounced mass political movements. At the pivotal December 1978 Third Plenum (of the 11th Party Congress Central Committee), the leadership adopted economic reform policies aimed at expanding rural income and incentives, encouraging experiments in enterprise autonomy, reducing central planning, and attracting foreign direct investment into China. The plenum also decided to accelerate the pace of legal reform, culminating in the passage of several new legal codes by the National People's Congress in June 1979.
After 1979, the Chinese leadership moved toward more pragmatic positions in almost all fields. The party encouraged artists, writers, and journalists to adopt more critical approaches, although open attacks on party authority were not permitted. In late 1980, Mao's Cultural Revolution was officially proclaimed a catastrophe. Hua Guofeng, a protégé of Mao, was replaced as premier in 1980 by reformist Sichuan party chief Zhao Ziyang and as party General Secretary in 1981 by the even more reformist Communist Youth League chairman Hu Yaobang.
Reform policies brought great improvements in the standard of living, especially for urban workers and for farmers who took advantage of opportunities to diversify crops and establish village industries. Literature and the arts blossomed, and Chinese intellectuals established extensive links with scholars in other countries.
At the same time, however, political dissent as well as social problems such as inflation, urban migration, and prostitution emerged. Although students and intellectuals urged greater reforms, some party elders increasingly questioned the pace and the ultimate goals of the reform program. In December 1986, student demonstrators, taking advantage of the loosening political atmosphere, staged protests against the slow pace of reform, confirming party elders' fear that the current reform program was leading to social instability. Hu Yaobang, a protégé of Deng and a leading advocate of reform, was blamed for the protests and forced to resign as CCP General Secretary in January 1987. Premier Zhao Ziyang was made General Secretary and Li Peng, former Vice Premier and Minister of Electric Power and Water Conservancy, was made Premier.
Trial of the Gang of Four
In 1976, after the death of Zhou Enlai in January, the replacement of Deng in April, and Mao's death in September, a short, dramatic struggle ended with the arrest of the Gang of Four, the end of the Cultural revolution, and the transition to the post-Mao era. For a brief moment hope existed that the party might reform itself and the specter of communism cast off from China.
In the aftermath of the Lin Biao fiasco, many officials criticized and dismissed during 1966-69 were reinstated. Chief among these was Deng Xiaoping, who reemerged in 1973 and was confirmed in 1975 in the concurrent posts of Politburo Standing Committee member, PLA Chief of Staff, and Vice Premier.
The ideological struggle between more pragmatic, veteran party officials and the radicals re-emerged with a vengeance in late 1975. Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, and three close Cultural Revolution associates (later dubbed the "Gang of Four") launched a media campaign against Deng. In January 1976, Premier Zhou Enlai, the #2 leader, died of cancer. To save Mao's reputation, all the atrocities and corruption were blame on Mao's wife and others who subsequently were convicted and allegedly committed suicide in prison. Mao however, is revered as a god by communists worldwide and by the CCP to this day.
Tiananmen Square massacre
- Main article: Tiananmen Square massacre
After Zhao became the party General Secretary, the economic and political reforms he had championed came under increasing attack. His proposal in May 1988 to accelerate price reform led to widespread popular complaints about rampant inflation and gave opponents of rapid reform the opening to call for greater centralization of economic controls and stricter prohibitions against Western influence. This precipitated a political debate, which grew more heated through the winter of 1988-89.
The death of Hu Yaobang on April 15, 1989, coupled with growing economic hardship caused by high inflation, provided the backdrop for a large-scale protest movement by students, intellectuals, and other parts of a disaffected urban population. University students and other citizens camped out in Beijing's Tiananmen Square to mourn Hu's death and to protest against those who would slow reform. Their protests, which grew despite government efforts to contain them, called for an end to official corruption and for defense of freedoms guaranteed by the Chinese constitution. Protests also spread to many other cities, including Shanghai, Chengdu, and Guangzhou.
Martial law was declared on May 20, 1989. Late on June 3 and early on the morning of June 4, military units were brought into Beijing. They used armed force to clear demonstrators from the streets. There are no official estimates of deaths in Beijing, but most observers believe that casualties numbered in the hundreds.
After June 4, while foreign governments expressed horror at the brutal suppression of the demonstrators, the central government eliminated remaining sources of organized opposition, detained large numbers of protesters, and required political reeducation not only for students but also for large numbers of party cadre and government officials.
Third Generation of Leaders
Deng's health deteriorated in the years prior to his death in 1997. During that time, President Jiang Zemin and other members of his generation gradually assumed control of the day-to-day functions of government. This "third generation" leadership governed collectively with President Jiang at the center.
In March 1998, Jiang was re-elected President during the 9th National People's Congress. Premier Li Peng was constitutionally required to step down from that post. He was elected to the chairmanship of the National People's Congress. Zhu Rongji was selected to replace Li as Premier.
In 1999 NATO deliberately bombed the People's Republic of China embassy in Belgrade,[91] which provoked a militarization of the PRC in subsequent decades.[92]
Most Favored Nation status with the U.S.
In the 1990s the issue of Most Favored Nation trade status for China was pushed by the CCP, globalists and agribusiness interests, but strongly opposed by religious and human rights groups. Bill Clinton's policy, which began with a 1993 executive order to make MFN status conditional on Chinese human rights and political reforms, changed as lobbyists pushed a trade relationship with the CCP and forced the issue to be separated from the CCP's human rights abuses.
As the Chinagate scandal progressed, Bill Clinton adjusted his China policy in 1996 and advocated dialogue and engagement; this led to a change in relations. But Washington continued to criticize China on the issues of Hong Kong, human rights, trade, arms sales, Taiwan, and questionable political donations to US election campaigns. Clinton welcomed General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and Butcher of Tiannanen Square Jiang Zemin's to the White House. The major factors affecting the relationship include: the enduring impact of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre when the Communist Party crushed a peaceful democratic movement with the army; the negative coverage of the CCP's human rights abuses by American media, American psychological insecurity caused by the rise of Communist China, and US domestic politics grappling with a thirst for cheap Chinese manufactured goods while American factories shut down and jobs loss to China.
China's "economic miracle" since it was granted Most Favored Nation status by the U.S. Congress in 2002, and access to the U.S. consumer market, led to unprecedented economic growth and better living conditions for millions of Chinese. It also strengthened the grip of the anti-democratic Chinese Communist Party over people's everyday lives, and the loss of manufacturing jobs for consumer products in the United States.
As China grew in power, it also became increasingly aggressive on the international stage.[93] The CCP increased control over the country and economy,[94] and foreign companies worked to appease the Chinese government.[95] China uses about half of the world's steel and cement/concrete. In the 3 years from 2011 to 2014, China used 6.6 gigatons of cement, which is more than the US did in the entire 20th century.[96] China also worked to isolate Taiwan diplomatically.[97] China became the dominant trading partner of a large majority of the world's countries, overtaking the U.S.[98] Under Xi Jinping, China regressed back to Mao's totalitarianism.[99]
By 2017, the imposition of tariffs by U.S. President Donald J. Trump began to redress the imbalance. China's economy was developed over those early decades of the 21st century as a coastal, manufacturing economy entirely dependent on exports. Young people left their home villages in the countryside to seek work in coastal factories. The prosperity was all built on access to the U.S. consumer market, and Americans' appetite for cheap manufactured goods. Scant attention was paid to developing a domestic service sector economy, while the vast interior remained impoverished, and increasingly so as young people abandoned rural agricultural work for urban factory work.
Tariffs on Chinese imports stemmed the capital outflow from the U.S. to China, sparked creation of manufacturing and service sector jobs in the U.S., and slowed the Chinese military build-up which previously was being funded by American consumers.[100]
Fourth Generation of Leaders
In November 2002, the 16th Communist Party Congress elected Hu Jintao, who in 1992 was designated by Deng Xiaoping as the "core" of the fourth generation leaders, the new General Secretary. A new Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee was also elected in November.
In March 2003, General Secretary Hu Jintao was elected President at the 10th National People's Congress. Jiang Zemin retained the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission. At the Fourth Party Plenum in September 2004, Jiang Zemin retired from the Central Military Commission, passing the Chairmanship and control of the People's Liberation Army to President Hu Jintao.
China is firmly committed to economic reform and opening to the outside world. The Chinese leadership has identified reform of state industries and the establishment of a social safety net as government priorities. Government strategies for achieving these goals include large-scale privatization of unprofitable state-owned enterprises and development of a pension system for workers. The leadership has also downsized the government bureaucracy.
On March 14, 2013 Xi Jinping was "elected" as new president.[101]
SARS-CoVid-1
- See also: SARS-CoVid-1
Supposedly the 2003 SARS epidemic struck suddenly and there was no time to prepare. In reality, the first cases happened in Guangdong province in late November 2002. Chinese officials didn't inform the World Health Organization about SARS until February 2003. When it started to spread to other regions of China, the CCP covered that up. Eventually SARS was reported to have killed just under eight hundred people in China, but in reality there may have been several thousand more.
Dr. Jiang Yanyong in April 2003 wrote a letter exposing the true number of SARS patients in Beijing, which was several times higher than the official number. His letter was publicized by Western media. The party was forced to respond. They fired several Beijing officials and put Dr. Jiang under surveillance. The Communist Party has never admitted there was a SARS cover-up. But afterwards, the Chinese Communist Party did create what was supposed to be a fail-safe system to track contagions. It failed.
The system put in place focused on having doctors across China put patient data into a centralized database. This way central authorities could monitor if there are any new outbreaks. It suppose to work in theory. In July 2019, eight thousand Chinese health officials conducted a massive online drill focusing on how to handle an infectious disease outbreak. In the style of the 2002 SARS outbreak, the officials raced to test how quickly and effectively they could track, identify, and contain the virus, including by notifying Beijing. It worked in the simulation. But in Th December 2019 Wuhan SARS-CoV-2 outbreak it did not work in reality because the Chinese Communist Party's political apparatus makes it impossible for even the best design system to function properly.
Repression in 2008
In 2008 China's human rights record remained poor and worsened in some areas. During the year the government increased its severe cultural and religious repression of ethnic minorities in Tibetan areas and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), increased detention and harassment of dissidents and petitioners, and maintained tight controls on freedom of speech and the Internet. Abuses peaked around high-profile events, such as the Olympics and the unrest in Tibet. As in previous years, citizens did not have the right to change their government. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), both local and international, continued to face intense scrutiny and restrictions. Other serious human rights abuses included extrajudicial killings, torture and coerced confessions of prisoners, and the use of forced labor, including prison labor. Workers cannot choose an independent union to represent them in the workplace, and the law does not protect workers' right to strike. The government continued to monitor, harass, detain, arrest, and imprison journalists, writers, activists, and defense lawyers and their families, many of whom were seeking to exercise their rights under the law.[102]
Execution Controversy
In December 2009, China executed a man named Akmal Shaikh for drug smuggling. There is evidence that Shaikh was mentally ill, but he was not given a psychological exam of any sort before the trial. He was not given an examination because the Chinese government declared that neither Shaikh or his family could prove he was mentally ill through documentation or family history. The British government made many requests for clemency, including at an eleventh-hour meeting with the Chinese ambassador, but they were consistently ignored.[103]
Xi Jinping purges
According to China expert Ian Easton. in January 2016, the CCP launched a sweeping military reform and reorganization program. It was the first time a purge like this had happened in Communist China’s 70-year history. To succeed, Xi fired, imprisoned, and, in several cases, executed, well over 100 high-ranking generals in front of their peers.[104]
In July 2019, the CCP released a threatening defense white paper that read,
“Solving the Taiwan problem and achieving complete national unification is in the fundamental interest of the Chinese race. It is obviously necessary for achieving the Chinese race’s great renewal... China must be unified and obviously will be... If anyone splits Taiwan off from China, China’s military will pay any price to totally defeat them.”[105] |
2020 U.S. Presidential election interference
Di Dongsheng, a vice-dean at the School of International Relations at Renmin University in Beijing, made public statements before a large audience on November 28, 2020:
"We know that the Trump administration is in a trade war with us, so why can’t we fix the Trump administration? Why did China and the US used to be able to settle all kinds of issues between 1992 and 2016?" he asked. "I’m going to throw out something maybe a little bit explosive here. It’s just because we have people at the top. We have our old friends who are at the top of America’s core inner circle of power and influence."
"During the US-China trade war, Wall Street tried to help, and I know that my friends on the US side told me that they tried to help, but they couldn’t do much. But now we’re seeing Biden was elected, the traditional elite, the political elite, the establishment, they’re very close to Wall Street, so you see that, right?" "Trump has been saying that Biden’s son has some sort of global foundation. Have you noticed that? Who helped [Hunter] build the foundations? Got it? There are a lot of deals inside all these."[106][107][108] |
Further reading
- Barnouin, Barbara, and Yu Changgen. Zhou Enlai: A Political Life (2005) excerpt and text search
- Baum, Richard D. "'Red and Expert': The Politico-Ideological Foundations of China's Great Leap Forward," Asian Survey, Vol. 4, No. 9 (Sep., 1964), pp. 1048-1057 in JSTOR
- Becker, Jasper. Hungry Ghosts: China's Secret Famine (1996), on the "Great Leap Forward" of 1950s
- Chang, Jung and Jon Halliday. Mao: The Unknown Story, (2005), 814 pages, ISBN 0-679-42271-4
- Dittmer, Lowell. China's Continuous Revolution: The Post-Liberation Epoch, 1949-1981 (1989) online free
- Dietrich, Craig. People's China: A Brief History, 3d ed. (1997), 398pp excerpt and text search
- Kirby, William C., ed. Realms of Freedom in Modern China. (2004). 416 pp.
- Kirby, William C.; Ross, Robert S.; and Gong, Li, eds. Normalization of U.S.-China Relations: An International History. (2005). 376 pp.
- Li, Xiaobing. A History of the Modern Chinese Army (2007) excerpt and text search
- MacFarquhar, Roderick and Fairbank, John K., eds. The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 15: The People's Republic, Part 2: Revolutions within the Chinese Revolution, 1966-1982. Cambridge U. Press, 1992. 1108 pp.
- Meisner, Maurice. Mao's China and After: A History of the People’s Republic, 3rd ed. (Free Press, 1999), dense book with theoretical and political science approach. excerpt and text search
- Spence, Jonatham. Mao Zedong (1999) excerpt and text search
- Shuyun, Sun. The Long March: The True History of Communist China's Founding Myth (2007)
- Wang, Jing. High Culture Fever: Politics, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Deng's China (1996) complete text online free
- Wenqian, Gao. Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary (2007) excerpt and text search
Cultural Revolution, 1966-76
- Clark, Paul. The Chinese Cultural Revolution: A History (2008), a favorable look at artistic production excerpt and text search
- Esherick, Joseph W.; Pickowicz, Paul G.; and Walder, Andrew G., eds. The Chinese Cultural Revolution as History. (2006). 382 pp. excerpt and text search
- Jian, Guo; Song, Yongyi; and Zhou, Yuan. Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. (2006). 433 pp.
- MacFarquhar, Roderick and Fairbank, John K., eds. The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 15: The People's Republic, Part 2: Revolutions within the Chinese Revolution, 1966-1982. Cambridge U. Press, 1992. 1108 pp.
- MacFarquhar, Roderick and Michael Schoenhals. Mao's Last Revolution. (2006).
- MacFarquhar, Roderick. The Origins of the Cultural Revolution. Vol. 3: The Coming of the Cataclysm, 1961-1966. (1998). 733 pp.
- Yan, Jiaqi and Gao, Gao. Turbulent Decade: A History of the Cultural Revolution. (1996). 736 pp.
See also
References
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- ↑ https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-chinese-communist-party-is-sinking-like-the-titanic-but-officials-have-a-plan_3382776.html
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- ↑ https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17297/china-fishing-fleet
- ↑ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/30/china-beijing-fishing-africa-north-korea-south-china-sea/
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- ↑ https://fas.org/blogs/security/2021/07/china-is-building-a-second-nuclear-missile-silo-field/
- ↑ https://jianglinswritings.blogspot.com/2020/05/unrestricted-warfare-rulelessness-is.html
- ↑ https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/questions-surround-canadian-shipment-of-deadly-viruses-to-china-66254
- ↑ https://edmontonjournal.com/health/bio-warfare-experts-question-why-canada-was-sending-lethal-viruses-to-china/wcm/fce2a521-4ce1-4eb0-8ccf-43f165713c0b/
- ↑ https://idsa.in/system/files/jds/jds_9_2_2015_DanyShoham.pdf
- ↑ https://greatgameindia.com/coronavirus-bioweapon/
- ↑ https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/chinese-military-discussed-weaponizing-covid-2015-cause-enemys-medical-system-collapse
- ↑ https://greatgameindia.com/frank-plummer-canadian-lab-scientist-key-to-coronavirus-investigation-assassinated/
- ↑ https://nationalpost.com/health/bio-warfare-experts-question-why-canada-was-sending-lethal-viruses-to-china
- ↑ https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2126039/reason-why-chinas-armed-police-will-now-only-take
- ↑ Similar to the final meal Jesus shared with his apostles before his crucifixion that The Last Supper depicted, Bantonglaoatang painted a vivid picture of nine animals – respectively representing the US, the UK, Italy, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Australia and India – sitting around a table with a Chinese-map-shaped cake on it. On top of the painting is the words in quote: Through this we can still rule the world. […] Wearing a bowler hat with an American flag on it, a bald eagle sits in the middle like Jesus in The Last Supper, obviously the convenor of the meal. In front of the bald eagle there is a small banknote printing machine and a bill on the table. The machine is printing toilet paper into dollars, and the number on the bill gets bigger and bigger – from $2 trillion to $8 trillion. Citing a vlogger nicknamed “sharp-tongued pumpkin,” the Global Times noted that there is “also an iron hook under the bald eagle’s feet, and two pieces of cotton with blood near its hands on the table, suggesting ‘the US’ capital accumulation was built on racial oppression.'” https://www.bizpacreview.com/2021/06/17/ccp-linked-newspaper-touts-g7-political-cartoon-mocking-last-supper-alleged-us-decline-1090244/
- ↑ https://www.rt.com/op-ed/526201-west-%D1%81hina-countermeasures-sanctions/
- ↑ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/iran-china-sign-25-year-deal-will-see-400bn-chinese-infrastructure-investment-oil
- ↑ https://thenationalpulse.com/breaking/biden-wont-contain-china-reveals-blinken/
- ↑ Christians under Attack in China, By Frederick W. Stakelbeck Jr., FrontPage Magazine, January 25, 2007.
- ↑ https://freebeacon.com/national-security/chinese-embassy-in-france-tweets-quickly-deletes-anti-semitic-imagery/
- ↑ “How the Chinese Communist Party Persecuted Christians” (in Chinese). 1958. Cited in Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, Part 3.
- ↑ Top 50 Countries With Highest Proportion of Atheists / Agnostics (Zuckerman, 2005)
- ↑ A surprising map of where the world’s atheists live, Washington Post By Max Fisher and Caitlin Dewey May 23, 2013
- ↑ Didi Tang "China bans Ramadan fast in Muslim northwest." July 3, 2014. Associated Press.
- ↑ https://www.theepochtimes.com/new-documentary-secret-audio-recordings-of-politburo-standing-committee-members-reveal-vast-state-run-enterprise-of-live-organ-harvesting_2263247.html
- ↑ China: The crackdown on Falun Gong and other so-called "heretical organizations". Amnesty International (23 March 2000). Retrieved on 17 March 2010.
- ↑ Militant Atheist extremist regime persecuting and torturing Christians in China
- ↑ Woman describes torture, beatings in Chinese detention camp By MARIA DANILOVA, AP News, November 26, 2018
- ↑ Review of: Ethan Gutmann, “The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting and China’s Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem”, (Prometheus Books, 2014).
- ↑ http://www.stoporganharvesting.org/business-of-organ-harvesting/
- ↑ https://chinatribunal.com/
- ↑ https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2019/4/15/176497.html
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gfN2_uOvTM
- ↑ https://www.businessinsider.com/china-xinjiang-prisoners-blindfolded-tied-up-leaked-drone-footage-2019-10
- ↑ https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1148671/download
- ↑ https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10281
- ↑ https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale
- ↑ Racism in China
- ↑ https://archive.is/GYHYc
- ↑ Discrimination and Racism in China, Internations.org website
- ↑ https://qz.com/africa/1101699/africans-in-china-are-infuriated-over-a-museum-exhibit-comparing-africans-to-animals/
- ↑ https://www.ibtimes.com/china-blames-world-new-coronavirus-cases-all-imported-no-local-transmission-2946187
- ↑ https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/africans-in-china-being-evicted-from-homes-after-lockdown-ends/ar-BB12uxqM
- ↑ https://www.visiontimes.com/2020/05/05/africans-enraged-at-chinas-racist-attitude.html
- ↑ https://www.france24.com/en/20200411-if-you-re-black-you-can-t-go-out-africans-in-china-face-racism-in-covid-19-crackdown
- ↑ https://en.tuidang.org/news/communist-regime/2020/05/africans-enraged-at-chinas-racist-attitude.html
- ↑ https://www.bizpacreview.com/2021/05/23/show-of-disrespect-top-military-leaders-in-china-shunning-bidens-woke-defense-sec-report-1078176/
- ↑ https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1148671/download
- ↑ https://www.iuhrdf.org/uyghurs
- ↑ https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/xi-jinpings-adviser-outlines-plan-for-ccp-to-defeat-us-including-manipulating-elections_3748196.html
- ↑ https://twitter.com/HKstreetart/status/1196483549492391937/photo/1
- ↑ Loh, Christine, "Underground Front: The Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong" Second Edition.
- ↑ http://www.manchukuo.net/index33e.htm#National_Name
- ↑ https://unpo.org/members/7883
- ↑ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53062484
- ↑ https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/china-says-5-military-officers-soldiers-killed-in-galwan-clash-with-india-report-2373770
- ↑ https://archive.is/6Hbvt
- ↑ https://youtu.be/EJ-cYBsAaeg
- ↑ Tibet: Proving Truth from Facts
- ↑ http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/05/201253192951400741.html
- ↑ http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/02/18/obama.dalailama/index.html CNN
- ↑ 68.0 68.1 FlorCruz, Jaime, CNN Beijing Bureau Chief (February 18, 2010). "Analysis: Why the Dalai Lama angers China". Cable News Network website/World/Asia Pacific.
- ↑ Hillary Clinton: Chinese human rights secondary to economic survival, Richard Spencer, Daily Telegraph, 20 Feb 2009.
- ↑ Clinton wraps Asia trip by asking China to buy US debt, Breitbart.com, Feb 22 2009.
- ↑ Analysis: Why the Dalai Lama angers China, Jaime FlorCruz, CNN Beijing Bureau Chief, February 18, 2010.
- ↑ https://thebhutanese.bt/understanding-the-doklam-border-issue/
- ↑ https://youtu.be/8B4L_dqU79c
- ↑ See Harry_Dexter_White#Betrayal_of_the_Kuomintang
- ↑ The CCP murderers were he alleged "agrarian reformers" the New York Times and Secretary of State George Marshall spoke of.
- ↑ Mao: The Real Story by Alexander P. Pantsov with Steven I. Levine, pg. 472
- ↑ Yixin Chen, "Cold War Competition and Food Production in China, 1957-1962," Agricultural History 2009 83(1): 51-78,
- ↑ William A. Joseph, "A Tragedy of Good Intentions: Post-mao Views of the Great Leap Forward." Modern China 1986 12(4): 419-457. Issn: 0097-7004 in Jstor
- ↑ http://www.ninecommentaries.com/english-3
- ↑ https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/04/back-to-the-future-biden-hires-anita-dunn-former-obama-adviser-who-praised-mao/
- ↑ Video of Obama Communications Director Claiming Mao One of Her Favorite Political Philosophers' Video, YouTube. Retrieved October 29, 2009.
- ↑ http://asianhistory.about.com/od/modernchina/f/What-Was-The-Cultural-Revolution.htm
- ↑ Black Book of Communism, Pg. 513.
- ↑ Black Book of Communism, Pg, 524.
- ↑ Rummel, R. J. (2011-12-31). China's Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 (in en). Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-1-4128-1400-3.
- ↑ https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1320551/world-war-3-soviet-union-nuclear-warning-china-cia-files-zhenbao-island-brezhnev-mao-spt
- ↑ For primary sources and details see "Record of Historic Richard Nixon-Zhou Enlai Talks in February 1972 Now Declassified"
- ↑ https://sinoinsider.com/2018/10/the-world-is-trapped-in-red-chinas-matrix/
- ↑ https://archive.is/6nzNI
- ↑ http://www.cnd.org/HYPLAN/yawei/june4th/
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/oct/17/balkans
- ↑ https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202103/1219579.shtml
- ↑ Scaliger, Charles (February 19, 2019). China’s New Aggression on the World Stage. The New American. Retrieved February 19, 2019.
See also:- Blanchard, Ben (September 24, 2019). Timeline: Seven decades of Communist China. Reuters. Retrieved September 25, 2019.
- Newman, Alex (September 25, 2019). China’s Subversion of the United Nations. The Epoch Times. Retrieved September 26, 2019.
- ↑ Multiple references:
- Byas, Steve (March 7, 2019). Chinese Communists Tighten Grip as 70th Anniversary Nears. The New American. Retrieved March 8, 2019.
- Li, Olivia (March 6, 2019). China Cracks Down on Private Enterprises. The Epoch Times. Retrieved March 8, 2019.
- Blanchard, Ben (March 7, 2019). In sensitive year for China, warnings against 'erroneous thoughts'. Reuters. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
- Timm, Leo; Hao, Nicole (December 24, 2019). Year in Review: For Communist China, the Worst Is yet to Come. The Epoch Times. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
- Adelmann, Bob (December 30, 2019). China Facing Massive Headwinds in 2020. The New American. Retrieved December 30, 2019.
- ↑ Lowe, Tiana (August 15, 2019). Woke capitalism cowers to China. Washington Examiner. Retrieved August 26, 2019.
See also:- Kraychik, Robert (October 14, 2019). Rob Spalding: China Silenced Its Critics by Buying Off America’s Elites. Breitbart News. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
- Virgil (October 20, 2019). Virgil: Five Takeaways from Capitalism’s Kowtow to China. Breitbart News. Retrieved October 21, 2019.
- ↑ https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Concrete-in-China
- ↑ Schmitt, Gary (September 26, 2019). China is quietly winning the diplomatic war with Taiwan. The Hill. Retrieved September 26, 2019.
- ↑ Zeeshan Mhaskar. Twitter. November 24, 2019. Retrieved December 1, 2019.
See also:- Akan, Emel (January 6, 2020). China’s Rise Has Had Negative Impact on Global Innovation, Experts Say. The Epoch Times. Retrieved January 6, 2020.
- ↑ Adelmann, Bob (December 30, 2019). China’s Xi Jinping Is Now the “People’s Leader”. The New American. Retrieved December 30, 2019.
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9929619/Xi-Jinping-elected-Chinas-president-Telegraph-dispatch.html
- ↑ See U.S. State Department, 2008 Human Rights Report: China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau) Feb. 25, 2009
- ↑ https://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-britain-china30-2009dec30,0,4153003.story
- ↑ https://youtu.be/Se_r1qwWMMA
- ↑ http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2019/10/28/2003724771
- ↑ https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/12/08/top_chinese_intellectual_boasts_about_old_friends_who_are_at_the_top_of_americas_core_inner_circle_of_power_and_influence.html#!
- ↑ https://youtu.be/lyQUtPEBBSA
- ↑ https://thepostmillennial.com/watch-tucker-carlson-exposes-how-media-democrats-have-been-working-on-behalf-of-china/
External links
- History of The People's Republic of China Timeline of Key Events since 1949.
- People's Daily: China at a Glance
- Nan Putou Plan (DT-L117-119)
- PRC Think Tank Study on US Governors Attitudes Toward China June 22 2019