In China, Where Can One Find a True Sense of Safety?

(Minghui.org) Several days ago, I met a former colleague who is now a college professor. During our chitchat, we talked about the 2020 U.S. election. He expressed different opinions than mine and said that I should trust that he is capable of independent thinking, free of the influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

I then asked if he had read Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, a book published in 2004 that details the CCP’s core ideology of violence, lies, and deceit. “No, I heard it is banned [in China],” he said, “So I won’t read it.”

I told him that his independent thinking was still limited to the confines of the CCP’s ideology. Whatever conclusions he drew about the U.S. election and many other world affairs were still along the Party line.

Actually in China there are many self-proclaimed elites who boast their independent thinking, but they all lose their courage to speak the truth when it comes to sensitive issues. Why did my former colleague try to avoid information banned by the CCP? Because he feels unsafe stepping outside the “safe zone” designated by the CCP. Unfortunately many Chinese are in a similar situation.

This happened because the CCP holds power in China and controls all resources, including freedom of speech. The regime often shows disregard for the law and abuses its power to violently suppress or even kill people at will. Through numerous political campaigns targeting different groups, the CCP has also been reinforcing people’s fear of the regime and brainwashing people to believe that only those who follow the CCP would survive and those who don’t would be annihilated. As such, people dare not question–let alone stand up to–the Party.

But will giving in to the CCP’s terror lead to true safety? Numerous lessons in history indicate that pleasing the CCP at the expense of one’s conscience has led to countless tragedies, even within families. Zhang Hongbing, a lawyer in Beijing, was heavily brainwashed at a young age to be highly aligned with the CCP. As a result, he reported his mother Fang Zhongmou to authorities simply because she had made some remarks at home defending Liu Shaoqi, former Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China, who was taken down in the Cultural Revolution. Fang was arrested on the same day and executed two months later. It was not until decades later that Zhang regretted what he did when he was 16.

When Accomplices Become Scapegoats

Since it came to power in 1949, the CCP has always pitted one group of people against another, with different groups targeted in different political movements. Anyone targeted in a particular political campaign would be suppressed ruthlessly. To ensure their own “safety,” many people even betrayed their families, coworkers, and friends in order to show their loyalty to the party.

But the CCP kept changing its definition of the “targeted groups” in its never-ending political campaigns. What was considered a “safe” group may become the “targeted group” in the next political movement. Lao She, one of the best-known writers in China, was such a victim. Although he tried meticulously to follow the Party closely, he eventually became a “target” himself, leading to his suicide in 1966.

Accomplices who actively followed the CCP to attack the “targeted groups” also met the same fate. Nie Yuanzi, Tan Houlan, and a few others were the most prominent Red Guards who targeted intellectuals and demolished Confucius heritage sites, including temples, statues, and tombs. After the Cultural Revolution, however, they were given prison terms between 9 and 17 years.

Integrity and moral values were highly respected in traditional Chinese culture. When people choose to follow the CCP unconditionally, the price they pay is giving up their conscience and principles. Sooner or later, it leads to serious consequences. This happened to the individuals mentioned above, as well as in other areas. For examples, when the CCP took over Hong Kong in 1997, it promised to preserve the special region’s political system for 50 years. Less than 25 years later, the regime passed the National Security Law and arrested Hongkongers who hold different opinions than the Party.

Such tragedies are not accidental. Many scholars have found that the communist party was rooted in Satanism and the Illuminati. Founded by Adam Weishaupt, the Illuminati was an anti-religion secret society that aimed to destroy social order and moral values. This eventually led to communism, a theory and regime that has brought endless horror to mankind. Then, how can one find safety by bowing to communism?

In various political movements like the Cultural Revolution, the CCP successfully silenced intellectuals and destroyed traditional values. Furthermore, in the past 22 years it has persecuted Falun Gong, a meditation system based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance that has benefited millions of people both physically and spiritually. Numerous Falun Gong practitioners have been detained, tortured, or even killed for their organs simply because they refused to renounce their belief. If one stands with such a regime, what kind of future will they face when the time comes to bring the CCP to justice for its crimes against Falun Gong practitioners?

Following Our Conscience

There is a story circulating on the internet about a young man. One day upon driving home, he saw blood on his car wheels. He drove back along the same road and found a girl lying in blood. He realized that his car did not hit the girl but that it did drive over the pool of blood. He immediately sent the girl to emergency rescue. She survived but remained in a coma.

Thinking the young man must have caused the accident, the girl’s parents beat him up. He did not fight back or complain, but paid the medical bill and a large sum in compensation. Several weeks later, the girl regained consciousness, and the police found the real perpetrator through surveillance footage. When interviewed by a journalist and asked why he did what he did, the young man simply said he was following his conscience and that it doing that gave him peace of mind.

The young man’s answer tells us following one’s conscience gives one real peace of mind.

German philosopher Immanuel Kant once said, “Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”

But what the CCP does is just the opposite: by luring people in with short-term gains and threatening them with brutality, it forces people to gradually deviate from moral principles and their conscience. Since its founding, the CCP has been especially targeting young people by taking advantage of their immaturity and proneness to being deceived by external influences. The Red Guards in the Cultural Revolution are one such example. Today’s school-age children are not immune from the CCP indoctrination, with their textbooks filled with CCP propaganda attacking tradition and glorifying the pursuit of material gain. The CCP’s constant brainwashing has resulted in people deviating from morality and committing sins unwittingly.

Zhang Hongbing may have awakened from the tragedy of turning in his mother during Cultural Revolution. But many people are still being misled by the CCP’s brutality and lies. As the regime advances the communist agenda globally, it is critical for us to follow traditional values of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and reject the CCP for long-term safety, peace, and happiness.