Chinese Dissidents in US Praise Tuidang Movement as the ‘Spiritual Awakening’ of Chinese People

Falun Dafa practitioners carry a banner celebrating 400 million Chinese people who have withdrawn from the CCP as part of the Tuidang movement in China, during a march through the center of Warsaw, Poland, on Sept. 9, 2022. Mihut Savu/The Epoch Times

Chinese dissidents speak highly of a global grassroots movement, triggered by an editorial series published by The Epoch Times, celebrating it as a “landmark of Chinese people’s spiritual awakening” that helps peacefully end the totalitarian rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The Tuidang Movement, literally meaning “Quitting the Party Movement” in English, began in 2004 after The Epoch Times published an editorial series, the “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party” (Nine Commentaries).

The Nine Commentaries expose the CCP’s evil origin, unscrupulous nature, and history of killing, and it is now available in 16 languages, including Chinese and English, according to its website. It won awards for excellence in online news coverage of Asian American Issues from the Asian American Journalists Association in 2005.

“The Nine Commentaries has opened a gate to the truth,” said Jie Lijian, a Chinese rights activist and the executive director of the Youth Department of the Chinese Democratic Party, now residing in the United States.

Since the publication of the editorial series in November 2004, Falun Gong volunteers have been distributing both soft and hard copies of the editorial series in China and other countries, raising people’s awareness of the evil nature of the CCP.

In December 2004, a former CCP member sent his statement to renounce his association with the CCP and its affiliated organizations, which was the first statement of its kind, to the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times.

Now, every day, tens of thousands of people openly declare their withdrawal from the CCP and its organizations on the website of the Tuidang Movement Global Service Center.

As of Nov. 13, 2023, according to the Global Service Center, over 422 million Chinese people have renounced any association with the CCP and the affiliated Youth League and the Young Pioneers, hence also known as the “Three Withdrawals Movement.”

While the CCP claims to have over 95 million members as of 2021, most Chinese citizens are required early on in their childhoods to join its affiliated organizations—the Young Pioneers, for elementary and middle school-aged children, and the Communist Youth League, for middle and high school-aged youths. When they join they make an oath to the CCP that they will sacrifice their lives for the CCP and they will never betray the CCP. Such requirements are mandated as children enroll in almost all schools across China.

The Tuidang movement asks people to withdraw the oaths they gave to the CCP when they joined the CCP organizations.

‘Let’s All Be Tuidang Volunteers’: Overseas Rights Activist

Mr. Jie told the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times in a recent interview that he first learned about the Tuidang Movement in a local market in his hometown in 2004 when he was still a teenager.

He recalled that many locals in his hometown received copies of the Nine Commentaries. He tied the CDs he’d received with tape under his clothes so as not to let the police find them.

Jie Lijian, executive director of the Youth Department of the Chinese Democratic Party, speaks at a candlelight vigil in front of the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles on July 18, 2023. Alex Lee/The Epoch Times

“My whole family would watch the CDs of the Nine Commentaries when we were having dinner,” said Mr. Jie. “We came to see the true nature of the CCP after watching the editorial series. These materials indeed opened the gate to the truth!”

In 2009, he went to Beijing to appeal for justice after his house was forcibly torn down by the local authorities, his mother was persecuted to death, and his father was disabled due to brutal torture by the local police. He met a Falun Gong practitioner in Beijing, who also told him about quitting the CCP, and he quit this time, using his true name.

“There are still 800 million, maybe a billion, Chinese people who haven’t quit the CCP and its affiliations yet,” said Mr. Jie. “Let’s all be volunteers like Falun Gong practitioners and tell our fellow countrymen to break away from the CCP’s authoritarianism and to return to the true Chinese civilization.”

He encourages overseas Chinese to watch the documentary “The Awakening of 400 Million People,” a film that records how Falun Gong practitioners have been raising people’s awareness of the brutality of the CCP, which is being screened in cities across the United States and other countries.

“Our Falun Gong friends have been risking their freedom and even life to tell people the truth and to help people stay away from the red disaster of the CCP. The bravery of our Falun Gong friends and their principles of being good people and defending justice are like the sunshine that has shone its light on every corner of the world, bringing us warmth and goodness,” said Mr. Jie.

Nine Commentaries a ‘Milestone’

Chen Siming, a dissident in Zhuzhou city of China’s central Hunan province, has been blacklisted by the Zhuzhou Public Security Bureau due to his annual participation in or organization of events commemorating the June 4th Tiananmen Square massacre.

He said that the Nine Commentaries is a “milestone in Chinese people’s resistance against the tyranny of the communist regime.

“I hope the Chinese people will voluntarily stand up to condemn the CCP and its communist cult,” said Mr. Chen.

Mr. Chen suffered severe persecution in China for his pro-democracy activities.

In May, public security agents summoned him randomly, detained him for no legal reason, confiscated his phone, attempted to send him for an assessment of psychosis, and canceled his passport.

Mr. Chen fled China in July, and after a series of journeys through multiple countries, he successfully obtained political asylum from the Canadian government in October.

Chen Siming holding a banner that says "In Commemoration of the 31st Anniversary of June 4 [Massacre]" at Lanyun Gazebo in Zhuzhou City, Hunan Province, in an undated file photo. Courtesy of Chen Siming

He said that he has never been a CCP member, but he joined the Communist Youth League, when he was young, which he quit in 2018 when a Tuidang volunteer called him.

“To make a public statement of my renouncement of the Youth League is to publicly show my attitude [against the CCP],” Mr. Chen told the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times earlier in the month.

Wang Jing, a citizen reporter and a human rights activist from China’s northeastern Jilin Province, said that she read the Nine Commentaries online in 2014 and publicly renounced her association with the CCP on Aug. 2, 2022. She told The Epoch Times in a recent interview that she’s very “grateful” to the Falun Gong friends who told her about the Tuidang movement.

She said she got to know more facts about the CCP’s history of killing and brutality after reading the editorial series. However, she was imprisoned for appealing for justice for her 19-year-old sister, who was killed in her workplace not long after reading the editorial.

Ms. Wang noted that more and more Chinese people have taken the initiative to quit the CCP via the Tuidang movement.

“With so many years of efforts and perseverance of Falun Gong friends, the Tuidang movement has launched an era of ‘spiritual awakening’ of the Chinese people,” said Ms. Wang.

“This movement has become not only a pursuit of physical safety and spiritual liberation but also a means and expression of the Chinese people living in dire circumstances to convey their intolerable feelings and resistance against the tyranny of the CCP.”

Ms. Wang served a term of four years and ten months in Jilin Women’s Prison and was brutally tortured. She saw many Falun Gong practitioners imprisoned in the same prison. She immediately contacted the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times and sent the names of these imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners she could remember to the publication.

A Spiritual Awakening for Chinese People

Li Jun, the director of the documentary “The Awakening of 400 Million People,” spent three years interviewing over a dozen Tuidang volunteers in Europe, Australia, the United States, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China.

Mr. Li Jun (r), director and producer of the award-winning documentary, “Harvested Alive, 10 Years of Investigation,” answers questions after the English premiere on June 23, 2017, at a Congressional building in Washington. To his right is Dr. Peng Tao, the film's co-producer. Gary Feuerberg/The Epoch Times

“The Tuidang Movement is a spiritual awakening movement for the Chinese people,” said Mr. Li. “The essence of the movement is the withdrawal of the pledge we made to the CCP in which we were required to dedicate our lives and sacrifice everything for it,” he said.

He added that Chinese people were forced to pledge allegiance to the CCP when they were primary school pupils.

“I feel it is my responsibility, as a documentary filmmaker, to present this period of history. One day, when China moves towards democracy and freedom, we should express our gratitude to these volunteers and certainly remember this part of history,” he said.

The documentary had its premiere in Palo Alto in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, on Nov. 4, and nearly 300 audience members attended the premiere. Deeply moved and profoundly affected, many of them shed tears watching the documentary.

Fang Zheng, whose legs were run over by a tank during the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, expressed his “deep respect” for Falun Gong volunteers after watching Mr. Li’s documentary.

Mr. Fang, one of the peaceful student protestors in Tiananmen Square in 1989, said that he quit the CCP in 2005 after reading the Nine Commentaries.

“The future path of China towards democracy and freedom, the ultimate rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, requires a genuine enlightenment movement, a nationwide awakening. I believe the Tuidang movement is the beginning of this awakening,” Mr. Fang told The Epoch Times on Nov. 4.

He called on all the audience members at the screening venue to become Tuidang volunteers.

Feng Congde, one of the student leaders during the 1989 pro-democracy student protest on Tiananmen Square in China’s capital Beijing, said that Chinese people should be aware of the evil nature of the CCP and be descendants of the Chinese nation, not of Marxism or Leninism.

“In fact, the CCP is more evil than the Nazis and Hitler, but the West has not fully realized this. We should awaken the Western companies and political parties that have nourished the CCP,” said Mr. Feng.

He looked forward to seeing English, French, and various language versions of “The Awakening of 400 Million People,” he told The Epoch Times on Nov. 4. He said that he hopes people around the world will no longer engage in any business with the evil CCP.

Mr. Li Jun was a member of the China Documentary Film Association and a nationally recognized director. With engagement in television media for 30 years, Mr. Li received five Golden Eagle Awards, the highest award in Chinese television arts, and two International Golden Panda Documentary Awards.

Mr. Li moved to the United States in 2014 and has since produced three documentaries: “Harvested Alive: 10 Years of Investigation,” which won the Hollywood International Independent Documentary Awards best foreign documentary feature category in January 2017, “False Fire,“ and ”The Awakening of 400 Million People.”

Mr. Li’s latest documentary, “The Awakening of 400 Million People,” will be premiered exclusively on Gan Jing World at 8 a.m. on Nov. 26, 2023, in the Eastern Time Zone. The documentary is currently in Chinese. Viewers can turn on the English subtitle function on the media platform to watch it.

Li Xi, Li Yingying, and Andrew Chen contributed to this report.