On July 29, 2014, Xinhua News Agency, the propaganda outlet of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), published a news brief that would inevitably capture the world’s attention: Zhou Yongkang, former member of the Politburo Standing Committee and Secretary of the Central Politics and Law Committee, was under investigation for alleged serious discipline violations. Zhou is the most senior official being investigated on corruption charges since the CCP established its regime 60 years ago.
The actual reason for the coup stems from the fact that more than a decade ago, Jiang and his faction had poured the entire nation’s resources to suppress Falun Gong, resulting in an earth-shattering blood debt. The only way to avoid the inevitable exposure is to tightly grasp onto power and to continue the policy of persecution; Bo Xilai was the hand-picked candidate to achieve this task.
After the CCP established its regime, the persecution suffered by the military personnel of the Chinese Nationalist Party, members of various religious and civil organizations, rural and urban property owners, as well as the targeted victims of the decade long “Cultural Revolution,” it caused the Chinese people to be vulnerable to the CCP’s capability for brutality. Similarly the “June 4th Incident,” otherwise known as the “Tiananmen Square Massacre,” in the eyes of the world, showcased the CCP’s determination of its persecutory tactics. Faced with Falun Gong’s widespread and sustained nonviolent resistance, one can therefore insinuate from the historical context the extent of how cruel and intense the CCP’s persecution could be.
The First Persistent, Large Scale, Non-Violent Resistance in CCP History
In the history of the Communist Party, it has never taken more than three days to completely suppress a certain group or individual. Therefore, Jiang was convinced that it would only take him no more than three months to eradicate Falun Gong. However, he was met with Falun Gong’s enduring peaceful resistance. This resistance has three key characteristics: endurance, large scale and non-violence.From “All Resources and Efforts Are Centered on Economic Development” to “All Resources and Efforts Are Centered on Suppressing Falun Gong”
(1) A Considerable Financial Investment
Nevertheless, the cost of the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong is also considerable. What may cost Falun Gong practitioners one US dollar or one minute’s worth of time, the CCP may have to invest thousands or tens of thousands of US dollars and a few days or months’ to counteract. To give the simplest example: when Falun Gong practitioners’ overseas software developers performed an upgrade to break the internet blockade, the response from the CCP resulted in an immense investment in research and development. Thousands or tens of thousands of firewall upgrades occurred, and export bandwidth at a rate of more than two Tbps data (one trillion bits per second) had to be filtered.(2) (3) For instance, when Falun Gong practitioners filed one lawsuit against Jiang Zemin, the CCP would send a large special interest group to lobby the State Council, the Ministry of Justice, the courts and all relevant personnel, and would make great concessions on trade in order to evade further detailed investigation on Jiang Zemin.(2) The Heavy Price of Persecution
Jiang Zemin changed Deng Xiaoping’s “all resources and efforts are centered on economic development” to “all resources and efforts are centered on suppressing Falun Gong.” From both domestic and foreign affairs, one can already gain some insight.Because of Falun Gong’s resolute and uncompromising resilience, Jiang Zemin’s frustration and humiliation escalated the persecution relentlessly, this exacerbated the already existing bloodbath. In 2002, before the 16th National Congress, Jiang made his last international official visit to Chicago, where he was served a legal summons and complaint about human rights violations against Falun Gong practitioners.
On the one hand, due to the litigation instigated by Falun Gong practitioners, there is the possibility of repercussions for Jiang’s reign of terror. On the other hand, the majority of members of the Politburo Standing Committee did not have any vested interest in the persecution. In order to ensure his power would remain intact, Jiang Zemin enforced a fundamental change in the Politburo Standing Committee before the end of term as General Secretary. Jiang strategically placed two of his henchmen as the eighth and ninth members to the original seven-member committee. Li Changchun was in charge of anti-Falun Gong propaganda and Luo Gan was responsible for ensuring the continued violent persecution against Falun Gong practitioners.
Jiang also re-branded the CCP’s traditional title of “core leadership” and replaced it with a new title of “collective leadership.” This act deliberately and effectively stripped his successor, Hu Jintao, the authority over Li Changchun, Luo Gan and their corresponding political portfolios.
The CCP morphed from a dictatorship to an “oligarchy” system, with a pool of nine Standing Committee members, whereby each position had specific and independent responsibilities. This resulted in: 1) Luo Gan as a member of the Politburo Standing Committee having an instrumental role which gave him access to mobilize the country’s resources to continue Jiang’s repressive policies. 2) The autonomous roles of nine committee members meant that Luo Gan’s authority was not scrutinized or challenged. This important organizational restructure was orchestrated by Jiang, with the primary aim to target the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.
Meanwhile, Jiang also made a decision that shocked the international community. Jiang organized Zhang Wannian to employ a paramilitary coup, in order for a special motion to re-elect Jiang Chairman of the Central Military Commission for an extended-term after the 2002 16th National Congress. Jiang was prepared to concentrate another two more years to resolve the Falun Gong issue. However in 2004, when the persecution became increasingly difficult to sustain, Jiang had no choice but to withdraw from the CCP’s highest position of power.
(3) The Failed Assassination Plots and Coup D’etat
At a banquet, Liu Jing, former deputy director of the “610 Office,” revealed that the CCP leadership was divided into two factions over the Falun Gong issue. Hu Jintao’s disagreement with the suppression of Falun Gong was met with reprimand and vehement opposition by Jiang Zemin, who subsequently attempted to plot Hu’s assassination.(7)(4) The Boiling Over of Grievances From the People
Today, China is brimming with discontent and turmoil. It is not only the direct consequence of the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong, but also an unfortunate situation deliberately manufactured by the Politics and Law Committee.According to China’s official statistics, before the CCP’s crackdown on Falun Gong, there were one hundred million people practicing Falun Gong. In the beginning of the persecution, the CCP utilized all its propaganda tools to broadcast 24-hour continual programs to demonize Falun Gong. However, none of the planned programs so much as alluded to Falun Gong practitioners as having committed corruption, prostitution, petty theft, murder, or arson. This omission in the broadcasts precisely gave proof that Falun Gong practitioners who live their lives in accordance with the tenets of “truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance,” are all good citizens.
It can be said that to suppress such a large group of the population, Jiang’s evil intention cannot be achieved as long as there is a hint of social justice. In a normal society, freedom of speech, freedom of belief, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom to protest and demonstrate, freedom to have an independent judiciary and so on, are means of maintaining social justice. The primary task of the “610 Office” is to be an obstacle that hinders social justice and stunt its development.
In this way, the Chinese society is turned into a jungle where “the survival of the fittest” and “the strong will devour the weak” rule, where there is no opportunity for victims to voice or redress their grievances. These grievances grow ever bigger and accumulate, creating a situation similar to a pressure cooker that can explode at any time.
Conclusion
From instituting the “610 Office” in 1999, to coercing the re-election of Jiang Zemin as Chairman of the Military Committee in 2002; from deliberately adding two more members to the Politburo Standing Committee, to be in charge of “politics and law” and “publicity and propaganda,” respectively, during the 2002 16th National Congress, to abolishing Hu Jintao’s core power by changing the Standing Committee into an “oligarchy” mode of operation; from strengthening the Politburo Standing Committee’s powers and increased “stability maintenance” expenditure by the creation of a second central authority, to the detailed planning of assassinations and coups; the CCP’s reorganizations of the power structure in the last 15 years have all been designed to safeguard the resources it can access for the persecution.The CCP monopolizes all public resources and possesses absolute power without restrictions, while the international community continues to invest large amounts of capital into China through investment, trade, and good relations. Be that as it may, the expenditures for this persecution and the related issues that are generated are such that even China, the world’s second-highest GDP economy, is overwhelmed.
Since the premise of the persecution of Falun Gong is to allow the mechanism that upholds society to fail completely by encouraging evil actions and attacking the compassionate and kind, therefore the victims are not just Falun Gong practitioners, but also ordinary people who are all faced with the loss of social security. Currently, government officials and the general public are in opposing camps. Then, there is also the issue of environmental and social problems brought about by a nationwide moral decay—all of which are directly related to the persecution.
In ancient Chinese history, four different emperors had taken calamitous measures to annihilate Buddhism, but none of these incidents lasted over six years or covered more than a limited geographic area. In the West, likewise, was the intermittent persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire. However, regardless of whether it is ancient China or the Roman Empire, neither had the capability to control every aspect of society, nor the indemnity of a full range of organizational and financial security, unlike the CCP. Additionally, the CCP has the power to pour the entire nation’s resources to focus exclusively on the persecution, with an array of extreme torture methods and brainwashing, as well as the guaranteed protection of the army and armed police when undertaking large-scale and systematic organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners—resulting in murder for profit.
Seventeen years of persecution and counter-persecution activities, the situation has been evidently clear; Falun Gong’s protests against the persecution will continue and persist, while the CCP’s regime is not able to sustain its status quo and is on the verge of disintegration.
In human history, there has never been an empire that spanned over a thousand years, but there have been faiths that lasted for more than a millennium. No matter how utterly devoid of conscience the persecution seems, good and evil retribution will eventually become apparent.
