China: Liberty Rising?

By Aussiegirl

Jamie Glazov publishes here a very enlightening interview with Harry Wu, who spent 19 years in Chinese prison camps during the 1960s and 1970s. Wu states that neither the CCP nor the common Chinese citizen believes in Communism, but even if the Chinese government doesn't believe in its rhetoric, that really doesnt matter, since it's still going to be our deadliest enemy throughout this century

FrontPage magazine.com :: China: Liberty Rising? by Jamie Glazov

FP: Are there any Chinese citizens who actually believe in communism and support the Communist Party?

Wu: Both China’s Communist Party (CCP) and the common Chinese clearly understand that the Communist Revolution has failed. Today it maintains a traditional totalitarian regime with a capitalism style under the name of Communism. Today almost no one trusts the CCP, and no one believes that communism is their future, including members of the Party.

Wu: My understanding is that the communist system means totalitarianism and no private ownership. Today the CCP has no choice but allow the capitalist system to come back to help them to survive, so the capitalist system is growing in China. But the existence of a capitalist system doesn’t necessarily mean freedom and democracy. It is possible that China could still maintain a totalitarian regime with a dictatorship for many years, just as China has had for the past couple thousand years.

[...] FP: Do you think the Chinese people yearn for freedom or for a stern authoritarian father figure? I ask this in the sense that I am Russian and, as the son of Soviet dissidents, I always thought that all people want freedom. But the more I examine my own people, I am not so sure a large percentage of them want anything to do with individual freedom and responsibility. Look at all the statues of Stalin being resurrected. Look at Putin’s re-Brezhnevization. Perhaps most Russians, with their long history of slavery, just want to be led. I am not necessarily saying this is true; I am just asking a question. What do you think?

Wu: There is no doubt that freedom and human rights are a natural part of every human. However, it is true that liberty, human rights and democracy are not a part of Chinese history, culture and tradition. Chinese philosophy always talks about status, order, class and ethics.

FP: China will eventually have to face the Islamist threat, no? How will it deal with it?

Wu: Islamists generally do not pose a serious threat to China. Muslims mostly live in the remote, northwestern area of China, not in the central part of the country. If an uprising or rebellion were to occur in this region, the Chinese government would suppress it, just as the Qing government did in the 18th century with a bloody suppression that included the killing of 30 million Muslims.

[...] Wu: Both of them are totalitarian regimes. Both of them lack the freedoms of speech, religion and association. The Nazi system was based on private ownership, but the regime controlled the economy. The communist system in China is partially giving up state ownership, but it entirely controls the economy. In Nazi Germany, Hitler divided people by race and set up Holocaust concentration camps to abolish humans. According to communist class ideology, the CCP divided people by economic status and set up Laogai camps to get rid of people. Genocide is equal to Classicide.

[...] FP: Why is there tyranny in the world?

Wu: People are selfish, and they want to have a good life. Some clever people, assisted by philosophers, create an ideal (-ism) to try to tell the people that they are able help them have a good life, giving them power and authorization, and they become tyrants after they receive this power.

]...] Everyone has the right to have a dream. But for many years I could not. Not only did the authorities not allow me to have my own dream, I also didn’t want to have a dream. Dreams are nice, dreams are wonderful, and dreams create energy, but dreams also sometimes cause serious problems. Should I have a dream of freedom? Should I have a dream of love? I did have these dreams. Dreams also cause suffering and pain. Because I supposed that I could never become a free man. Under oppression, dreams are torturous.

But since I have become a free man, I can dream now. My son, he's my dream. I hope that my son, and all Chinese boys and girls, will never lose their freedom, will never lose their faith like me.