In early March, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “Two Sessions” began, during which time top officials of the CCP met to discuss policy. This year, as expected, Xi Jinping was anointed for a third term as Party chief.
Concurrent with this self-aggrandizing pomp are the “sensitive days,” during which the regime’s stability maintenance agency takes the CCP’s opponents on forced “holiday,” thereby ensuring the regime’s glossy image isn’t marred by any unsightly nay-saying (namely truth-telling) coming from known dissenters.
The term in Chinese is a decisively passive phrase, “to be taken on holiday,” a euphemism that implies the sense of lassitude, hopelessness, and lack of any shred of amusement or replenishment commonly associated with “going” on a vacation of one’s own accord. This is a bizarre form of punishment perfected by the regime over the past decade, part of its overall toolkit of repression reserved for those specific actors it has in its spotlight but who remain—for the moment—out of actual prison.
As “sensitive days” approach, activists can find themselves suddenly en route to an unexpected destination, perhaps a far end of the country, in the company of officials and captors. The sole aim is to keep these independently minded citizens from upsetting the Party’s programmed public choreography. Often, the officials charged with these preposterous forced retreats take the opportunity to do some sightseeing. After all, it’s a free paid vacation for them.
For this year’s Two Sessions, “being taken on holiday” has had especially cruel significance for prominent human rights activist Hu Jia. Hu’s mother, Feng Juan, was gravely ill when he was “taken on holiday” because of the CCP’s 20th Plenary Conference last fall. While he was away, she wasn’t given the care she needed. By the time he was brought back to Beijing, she was in the throes of a severe infection that eventually killed her. Amid the stress of Feng Juan’s illness, however, no one noticed that Hu Jia’s father, Hu Chenglin, was himself seriously ill. When his father at last sought medical care, he was diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer. Hu Chenglin was placed in a hospital in January.
On March 4, the day the Two Sessions opened, Hu Chenglin was clearly approaching the end of his life. Hu Jia, however, was removed from Beijing to an unknown location, reportedly somewhere in Shandong province. It was only on March 8 that Hu Jia was brought back to Beijing to see his father, whose condition was plummeting. On March 9, Hu Chenglin passed away.
The trauma of losing one’s father so close to losing one’s mother would be hard enough for anyone to bear. But imagine being deliberately prevented from comforting a loved one who lies dying, alone in a hospital room. The pain and the sorrow at the loss are compounded by the inhumanity of this enforced banishment.
But the regime holds no regard for the circumstances facing activists for the rest of their lives, as, in the regime’s calculation, the less someone would want to be removed from their family, the better to inflict torment. Indeed, for the CCP, the impending death of a loved one provides the opportunity to inflict psychological suffering of the cruelest kind. The clear intent of the CCP is to cause irrevocable hurt. And what better means than via the invisible threads of our closest human relationships? Barring activists from attending to those they love in their last moments is a kind of torture, all the more convenient for the regime, as the wounds show no outward physical manifestation.
Thinking of Hu Jia and his father, now gone, reminds me of my experience of a similar loss and the intentional suffering inflicted by the CCP.
I was being held in illegal detention at home with my wife, daughter, and mother, surrounded by teams of guards, when we were informed that my second brother was dying in the hospital. Such was the blockade that the CCP had created. We didn’t even know he had stomach cancer. My mother begged to be taken to see him, and we tried to push our way out of our yard despite the throngs of thugs blocking our way. I wasn’t allowed out, thus missing my last opportunity to experience his face by touch, as I’m blind. But my mother was taken to the hospital—only to find that he had already died. When she returned home, she was inconsolable. The guards, whose hearts could only be made of stone, pushed her inside our house to prevent other villagers from hearing her bitter cries, which would implicate them in wrongdoing.
Hu Jia already spends more than 200 days per year under house arrest. That the CCP regime would deny him the precious last days with his father is a cruelty better fit for barbarians than the leadership of a nation that holds positions of influence in the U.N. and other global organizations.
The CCP will destroy the common goodness at the core of humanity. Let no one be fooled by the lofty proclamations coming out of the Two Sessions and the euphemisms the regime uses for persecution.
