A Closer Look at the Chinese Regime’s Fascism in Sheep’s Clothing

A Closer Look at the Chinese Regime’s Fascism in Sheep’s Clothing
A female activist holds up a torch, its flame a symbol for universal human rights, during an "alternative" torch relay highlighting China's human rights record in Kuala Lumpur on May 25, 2008. The Human Rights Torch Relay, which protests China's hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games, highlighted the Chinese government's handling of the Tibet riots, the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, and its ties with the Myanmar military junta, organizers said. TENGKU BAHAR/AFP/Getty Images
Torsten Trey
Updated:

China coins its political system “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Despite preserving the name “Chinese Communist Party,” the current Chinese Party/State is purely fascist by any dictionary definition of fascism. That fact warrants our attention.

The fascist intent is clearly backed by the Chinese regime’s Chief Justice Zhou Qiang who explicitly rejected during the 19th Party Congress the “erroneous Western” notions of “separation of powers” and “independence of the judiciary.”

The Communist Party stands above the law and above China’s Constitution, making any claim to rule of law a farce. The chief justice was unequivocal in stating that “a legal system independent of the Party clearly violates the constitution.” These Party demands have consequences in other areas, such as the business field.

In its takeovers of corporations and natural resources around the globe, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been remarkably successful in persuading naïve and simple-minded Western politicians that the purchases are by “private” Chinese companies given birth by a nascent Chinese capitalism over recent decades. However, today’s China has no large-scale private companies. The CEO of every major Chinese corporation is directly appointed by the CCP, reports directly to the CCP, and can be replaced at any time by the CCP.

Anbang, a Chinese insurance company, purchased the Waldorf Astoria, AMC Cinemas, and Retirement Concepts. Overnight, the CCP fired the leadership of Anbang on charges of corruption and is now proud owner of a five-star hotel in New York, a movie theater chain, and 21 nursing homes in British Columbia.

In similar fashion, the China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) purchased Canada’s Nexen in 2013, and the CCP now owns a large piece of Alberta’s Oil Sands. And a shopping spree of semi-conductor firms around the globe in recent years is probably even more concerning.

Asymmetrical Penetration

The Chinese regime’s penetration of the West has not been limited to corporate acquisitions. China has, for the most part below the radar, penetrated all levels and sectors of Western society, including government, educational institutions (in the form of Confucius Institutes), business, civic associations, legal circles, internal affairs, and media.
A person wearing a white mask with tears of blood takes part in a protest march of ethnic Uyghurs asking for the European Union to call upon China to respect human rights in the Chinese Xinjiang region and ask for the closure of "re-education center" where Uighurs are detained, during a demonstration around the EU institutions in Brussels on April 27, 2018. (EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images)
A person wearing a white mask with tears of blood takes part in a protest march of ethnic Uyghurs asking for the European Union to call upon China to respect human rights in the Chinese Xinjiang region and ask for the closure of "re-education center" where Uighurs are detained, during a demonstration around the EU institutions in Brussels on April 27, 2018. EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images

A few years back the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) scheduled and heavily promoted a documentary critical of the Chinese regime’s human rights abuses. When viewers tuned in on the scheduled day expecting to see the China documentary, they were shown an out-of-date documentary about a former dictator of Pakistan.

It was later revealed that the Chinese Consul-General in Toronto had called hours before the scheduled broadcast and complained bitterly about the content. CBC dutifully cancelled the China documentary.

Two weeks later the Canadian audience was allowed to see a heavily censored version of the China film, with the most crucial scenes cut to placate Beijing. Among the cuts dictated by the Party/State were statements by two prominent Canadian investigators who had testified in the Canadian Parliament about their findings on forced organ harvesting in China.

The Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) years ago ruled that China’s state-controlled CCTV and nine substations would be permitted to directly broadcast, in Chinese language, into Canadian living rooms with no provision for Canada to monitor or control its content.

All content is pre-approved and censored by the Central Propaganda Unit of the CCP. Not surprisingly China took advantage of this asymmetrical censorship and has since then broadcasted in Canada non-stop defamatory campaigns about the persecuted Falun Gong spiritual practice, notwithstanding the fact that Falun Gong is recognized and legal in Canada. The pattern of seeking asymmetrical advantages is a core characteristic of China’s interaction with other nations, and is not limited to trade. Needless to say that there is a lack of reciprocity when it comes to rights of Western entities doing business in China.

Interference

China notoriously warns other nations not to interfere in China’s internal political affairs. Yet China systematically, routinely, and as fundamental policy, interferes in the internal affairs of almost all other countries.
Falun Gong practitioners take part in a candlelight vigil to commemorate the practitioners killed in China for their belief, in Washington on June 22, 2018. (Mark Zou/The Epoch Times)
Falun Gong practitioners take part in a candlelight vigil to commemorate the practitioners killed in China for their belief, in Washington on June 22, 2018. Mark Zou/The Epoch Times

When CCP leader Jiang Zemin visited Germany, he demanded that streets be cleared of protesters; when he visited Berlin, he demanded that law-abiding Falun Gong practitioners who had legally booked rooms in the same hotel where he resided were to be removed from their rooms. Germany of course complied with the demands of the Chinese dictator.

When CCP leader Hu Jintao visited France, he threatened to immediately return to China if he saw one person wearing yellow clothing (Falun Gong practitioners characteristically wear yellow t-shirts and uniforms on public occasions). The French government accepted Hu’s instructions without hesitation, and all French citizens wearing yellow clothing were removed from the streets around Paris.

Genocidal Games

Chinese fascism is a real, clear and present danger to free societies everywhere. Comparisons with the Nazi regime are staggering. A single all-powerful party, one leader, total control over all media, extending abroad, brutal suppression of dissent, creation of fictional external threats and enemies, and jingoism and strident nationalism masquerading as foreign policy.

There is another similarity that needs attention: the Holocaust of the Jewish people under Hitler and the ongoing genocide against 70 million Falun Gong practitioners now.

There is a striking parallel between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarding the Olympic Games to the greatest perpetrator of crimes against humanity in 1936 (Berlin Games), and the IOC awarding the 2008 Summer Games to the current greatest perpetrator of crimes against humanity. Yet, the IOC seems to continue ignoring human rights atrocities of host countries by awarding Beijing the 2022 Winter Games.

Before the Games began in 2008, the IOC was informed that China is harvesting organs from living prisoners of conscience without consent. The IOC ruled that such objections to the mass-murder-for-organs-industry in China were an attempt to politicize the Olympic Games, an unfortunate assessment given that there is agreement that the mass pillaging of practitioners’ organs is a facet of a cold genocide against Falun Gong.

But the stunning double standard of the IOC is laid bare by the fact that both the German Nazis in 1936 and the Chinese fascists in 2008 openly, obviously, brazenly harnessed the prestige that accompanies hosting of the games specifically for the purpose of glorifying the Party/State regime, a clearly political aim.

Interestingly, Canada’s Prime Minister, in answer to a media question, not long ago identified China as the country he most admired, noting that the Chinese “know how to get things done.” A thoughtful approach to selecting one’s admiration would not be limited to “getting things done” but would also include the ongoing crimes against humanity

In this picture taken in Lhasa on March 16, 2008, Chinese soldiers patrol a street in Lhasa, Tibet on March 16, 2008. Prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Tibet suffered a brutal crackdown. (KIM JAE-HWAN/AFP/Getty Images)
In this picture taken in Lhasa on March 16, 2008, Chinese soldiers patrol a street in Lhasa, Tibet on March 16, 2008. Prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Tibet suffered a brutal crackdown. KIM JAE-HWAN/AFP/Getty Images

The fascist rise in Europe in the 1930s brought full employment and the autobahn to Nazi Germany, and also triggered admiration among Germany’s neighbors, but was followed by a tragic awakening. An admiration of ethical values and respect for human dignity appears to be a wiser factor in the assessment of our neighbors.

The U.S. Congress, the European Parliament, and other national governments have passed multiple resolutions condemning China for its transplant abuse.

China denies all charges, but refuses transparent access for observers to make independent evaluations of Chinese transplant practice. Neither Beijing nor any of its mouthpieces abroad have ever been able to refute the evidence proffered by independent investigators who have marshalled impeccable evidence.

China claims no international transplant tourists are allowed into the country. But in November of 2017, the Korean TV program Chosun filmed a transplant ward in the Tianjin transplant center with Korean transplant patients waiting for a transplant organ. The number of patients from Korea alone travelling to China for transplants ranges between 300 and 1,000 annually.

With the hindsight to understand how the Chinese Party/State used the 2008 Summer Games to glorify and legitimize its bestiality and criminality, why does the IOC once more turn its back on fundamental human morality by inviting the perpetrator of massive crimes against humanity to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games?

Although the IOC and the Chinese regime rail against interference in the internal political affairs of the host country, genocide and crimes against humanity are of such an abominable nature that they cannot be ignored and treated as internal political affairs. The CCP’s openly proclaimed and globally promoted intent to eradicate Falun Gong is not a mere internal political affair but a matter for the world community.

While the IOC supposedly aims to unite people around the world through sports, it neglects the hopes for human rights on the part of this same international community. The attempt by the IOC to relegate crimes against humanity that rank with the Holocaust to the same level as debates on fiscal policy and local traffic control is obscene.

It is also both unfair and unethical to require athletes who only want to compete in their sports to become propaganda marionettes in the hands of a fascist regime. The athletes have no choice but to perform on the stage which then will serve the political agenda of a brutal rogue state.

The IOC has the moral responsibility to choose locations where athletes will not unwittingly be used for purposes of national propaganda; it is not reasonable to ask athletes to boycott the Games, but it is even more unfair and unethical, that the IOC awards those Games to countries where athletes are used for political propaganda purposes and employed as propaganda marionettes to sustain crimes against humanity.

Clive Ansley is a Canadian lawyer who practiced law for over a decade in China. His deep understanding of the legal mechanics in China make him a sought after expert on Chinese law. 
Torsten Trey, MD, is Executive Director of the non-profit organization Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, which has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for its work exposing unethical transplant practices in China. 
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Torsten Trey
Torsten Trey
Founder/CEO of DAFOH
Torsten Trey, M.D., Ph.D., founder and executive director of the medical ethics advocacy group Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, is among those who lead the global movement against forced organ harvesting in China. Considered a leading expert in the field, Trey has co-authored books and written widely in medical journals on this topic. An international speaker, Trey was featured in the award-winning documentary “Human Harvest.” He is also co-editor of the book “State Organs: Transplant Abuse in China.”