Chinese Citizen Moves to US After Being Silenced by the CCP

Liu Donghui, a former employee of a Chinese state-owned enterprise, in Los Angeles, Calif., in April 2024. He said his family members suffered under the CCP's rule. Shawn Ma/The Epoch Times

Reflecting on the persecution endured by two generations of his family under the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) rule, Liu Donghui describes the regime as “a malignant tumor” that deceives, steals, and surveils the people.

Mr. Liu recently fled China to escape the CCP’s repression and currently resides in Los Angeles. He is a native of Fuzhou and grew up in a renowned historical and cultural district of the southeastern coastal city. He graduated from Beihang University, formerly Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. As a student, he witnessed the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

After witnessing other injustices committed by the authorities against his family members and hometown, Mr. Liu became a vocal critic of the CCP.

Grandfather Lost Everything

Mr. Liu’s paternal grandfather owned a noodle factory in downtown Fuzhou before the CCP came to power in 1949 under Mao Zedong. The factory produced high-quality noodles that were exported to Southeast Asia.

The business was successful until his grandfather lost everything under the CCP’s system of public-private partnerships.

Mr. Liu’s family members also owned multiple rental properties in the area. However, in 1958, they were forced to hand over their properties to the authorities for unified management, and they received only a symbolic portion of the rent in return.

Starting in 1956, the CCP began the socialist transformation in housing in three steps. First, authorities turned private rentals into “state management” and then a “public-private partnership” between landlords and public housing agencies. Finally, in 1966, the regime engaged in turning all private housing into state ownership according to the CCP’s ideology to eliminate private homeownership.

By the 1980s, the CCP issued internal regulations to nationalize these rental properties.

In 2007, the CCP demolished all the houses with courtyards that had stood for over a hundred years in the name of redevelopment.

Mr. Liu told the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times that he is saddened by the destruction, noting “how sturdy and beautifully crafted the beams and pillars were, but sadly, they were all dismantled one by one.”

His mother’s family suffered in a similar manner.

His maternal grandfather was of Manchu descent, and his maternal grandmother had lived in the “Ge Family Courtyard” since childhood. This neighborhood has become part of Fuzhou’s “Three Lanes and Seven Alleys” historical and cultural district, composed of several sections. Mr. Liu’s childhood memories were filled with joy spent in this large courtyard, but the CCP also targeted these properties.

Once, the study room caught fire for unknown reasons. Although his grandfather wanted to rebuild it on the same spot, the CCP refused, claiming the land belonged to the regime.

Despite the family’s resistance, the CCP coerced Mr. Liu’s grandfather into silence, citing his previous role as a minor official under the Nationalist government before the communists took over. The Fuzhou Cultural Bureau seized the land and built staff dormitories on it.

In 2004, under the guise of redevelopment, the Fuzhou authorities attempted to demolish and rebuild all the houses in the “Three Lanes and Seven Alleys.” Some old houses had already been previously destroyed.

“Seeing these more than eight-century-old houses being torn down was very distressing,” Mr. Liu said, adding that some residents insisted on not moving out.

He said the CCP deployed many security personnel to the area to force residents to vacate by cutting off water and electricity and locking the gates. Mr. Liu couldn’t visit his relatives in the area during that time.

According to Mr. Liu, some relatives still hold on to the houses passed down by their ancestors.

‘You Can’t Trust’ the CCP

Mr. Liu’s father was dismayed over the CCP’s policies and didn’t trust the regime.

His father entered Xiamen University in southeastern China in 1948. By the time he graduated in 1952, the political landscape had changed drastically under the CCP’s rule. He was immediately sent to the Shenyang Aircraft Manufacturing Plant in far northeastern China without a chance to return home.

After spending over a decade at the factory, Mr. Liu’s father could not adapt to the working environment and culture there. Moreover, he couldn’t tolerate Mao’s Great Leap Forward. Launched in 1958, the radical economic campaign aimed to surpass Great Britain and catch up with the United States in producing steel.

However, the campaign led to widespread fraud, intimidation, failure to achieve record-breaking production, and significantly, the Great Chinese Famine.

His father wanted to return to his hometown in Fuzhou, but the authorities forbade him.

Finally, he found a solution by writing a letter stating that he belonged to a politically untrustworthy class because his father had previously operated a factory. His request was soon approved, but after that, the authorities never trusted him.

“When I was a child at home, I often saw my father listening to shortwave radio,” Mr. Liu said, adding that the signal would become weak, and his father would adjust it back and forth.

One day, his father wanted to learn English and began studying with a book titled “English 900,” every day.

Mr. Liu recounted what his father told him: “This regime is actually very bad. You can’t trust anything the authorities say in the newspapers.”

His father passed away before retirement and never joined the CCP. Mr. Liu was a sophomore at the time.

Tiananmen Square Massacre

Mr. Liu experienced firsthand the 1989 student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square before graduating from university.

At that time, he attended gatherings at Tiananmen Square several times.

On the night of June 3, 1989, he and several classmates drank and ate together. Most went back to their dorms after getting drunk, except one who went to Tiananmen. Mr. Liu recounted that between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. the following morning, that classmate returned and shouted in the dormitory corridor, “They’re killing people!”

A secret British diplomatic cable has alleged that at least 10,000 people were killed during the massacre on June 4, citing a source within the Chinese regime.

In the following days, students left Beijing and returned home. Mr. Liu also boarded a train back to Fuzhou. Over the next few years, most of them began preparing for the TOEFL exam, hoping to leave China.

‘Invited for Tea’

After graduating from university in 1990, Mr. Liu was assigned to work in a state-owned enterprise that engaged in import and export trade.

Like his father, Mr. Liu never wanted to become a member of the CCP. Two experiences of being “invited for tea” by the authorities left him disappointed with the regime.

One instance occurred during a “landscape renovation” in downtown Fuzhou.

Near his office, a resident stood up against the authorities forcibly demolishing homes but was beaten by thugs. “They went in and beat up the elderly, women, and even children,” Mr. Liu recounted.

Unable to bear it, Mr. Liu encouraged more residents to protest the authorities. That night, the police took him to the police station and warned him not to interfere with their actions.

The second incident was in 2018 when CCP leader Xi Jinping was campaigning for reelection. Someone hung a banner in the square pleading for Xi to stay in power.

In a small WeChat group, Mr. Liu criticized the banner, saying, “Lifetime tenure has already been implemented; why bother saying this?” That night, he was forcibly taken to the police station, where authorities showed him a copy of the message he sent and warned him not to speak out again.

They told him, “Similar remarks were prevalent,” and the police were busy dealing with people “invited for tea.”

“My small online group was being monitored,” Mr. Liu said.

At that time, he felt he could no longer stay in China. “With my personality, I can’t keep silent, right? Whenever I speak, trouble follows,” he said.

‘The CCP Is a Malignant Tumor’

After coming to the United States in February 2022, Mr. Liu had the opportunity to reassess the CCP: His family had suffered long-term persecution under the Party’s rule, and his parents’ physical and mental health had been severely affected—they both died of cancer before the age of 60, much earlier than their siblings.

“To sum it up, the CCP relies on deception and forcibly seizes others’ assets,” Mr. Liu said, “Whenever it finds itself in a bind, it resorts to deceit once again.”

He believes the CCP could only attract individuals with “malicious intentions, seeking to dominate and enslave others.”

“The CCP is a malignant tumor,” he said.

Shawn Ma contributed to this report.