How the CCP Systemically Controls People’s Thoughts and Why It Matters

(Minghui.org) Freedom of thought is a basic human right. Everyone should be able to think about, believe, express, and pursue ideas, without external interference, pressure, or threats. Through education grounded in traditional values, individuals will be able to learn about the world, improve themselves, and raise their spiritual realms.

Unfortunately, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) does not allow independent thinking. To maintain its rule, it has established a systematic mechanism to control people’s thoughts. The regime has brainwashed people with communist ideology over the past several decades through education, monopoly over the news media, censorship, surveillance, and destruction of traditional culture.

Brainwashing Through Education

The CCP’s systematic control of the mind begins with education from kindergarten to college and beyond. Starting in elementary school, for example, students have mandatory subjects such as “Ideology and Morality” and “Politics.” The texts in these classes praise the CCP’s leadership and communist and socialist ideology. These textbooks repeatedly emphasize the importance of the CCP and mandate students’ political loyalty.

To achieve this goal, the CCP has twisted and rewritten major historical events. For example, it includes the staged self-immolation in Tiananmen Square in elementary and secondary school textbooks to slander Falun Gong and incite hatred of the spiritual discipline in young minds. As these textbooks are used for both tests and criteria for judging morality, the students are not allowed to think independently or critically.

Monopoly of News Media

All news media in China are either owned or effectively controlled by the CCP. This allows the regime’s propaganda to be disseminated in a unified way through news, entertainment, and online platforms. Combining this control with tight censorship and blocking of overseas information, the CCP is able to dominate public opinion and suppress different voices.

For example, when the COVID epidemic started in Wuhan in early 2020, both government agencies and news media covered up the reports. A whistleblower doctor was disciplined by police and his employer for publicizing information about the epidemic. After the doctor’s mistreatment sparked outrage on social media, the CCP changed its narrative to make the doctor a “hero” while praising the regime’s leadership.

Meanwhile, the CCP forbade independent investigations. Across media platforms were countless reports of success stories in combating the epidemic but little information on the shortage of medical supplies, number of deaths and infections, and harm caused by the military-style lockdown.

This monopoly on news media has deprived citizens of access to facts other than the CCP’s official narrative.

Online Censorship

The CCP has established a huge internet monitoring system to delete dissident opinions and sensitive information in real time, and even hold publishers accountable.

For example, since the CCP began to persecute Falun Gong in 1999, “Falun Gong” and “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance” have become sensitive terms. In China, all media reports and internet search results on information about Falun Gong are the regime’s defamatory propaganda, such as the self-immolation hoax mentioned above.

Since most Chinese citizens have no way to access truthful information, they are led to believe the CCP’s claims and turn against whichever groups are targeted by the CCP at any given time.

Comprehensive Surveillance

The CCP has also leveraged modern technologies to carry out mass surveillance. Through cameras and mobile phone tracking, the CCP has gained comprehensive ideological and behavioral control over Uyghurs and other targeted groups.

Together with mass reporting mechanisms and facial recognition technology, the CCP has been able to effectively monitor all ideological dissent and instill a sense of fear.

Destruction of Traditional Culture

Through numerous political movements and especially the Cultural Revolution, the CCP has undermined religions and abolished various belief systems in China, replacing them with its atheist ideology.

Chinese civilization has a long history of spiritual faith that promotes goodness and reverence for the divine. This has sustained moral values and helped people stay connected with the divine. But the CCP’s destruction of traditional culture has severed recent generations from these traditions, including values like benevolence, justice, propriety, wisdom and trust.

Older generations, on the other hand, have been intimidated by past political movements and persecutions. They have either abandoned these traditional values or remained silent to protect themselves.

Serious Consequences

The CCP’s ideological control has limited individuals’ ability to think independently and led to widespread self-censorship and ideological rigidity. To avoid getting into trouble, many people are forced to conform to the official rhetoric and act against their own will or conscience.

If a person’s thoughts represent a person, then people whose thoughts are controlled by the CCP have essentially become puppets of the totalitarian regime. In addition to toeing the party line themselves, some have also helped the regime to suppress other people. During the Cultural Revolution, for example, husbands and wives turned against each other, fathers and sons became enemies, and social relationships grew cold and indifferent.

Moreover, people whose thoughts are controlled by the CCP tend to turn against traditional values such as Falun Dafa’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. This could explain why many people remain numb and even hostile toward Falun Gong practitioners as they are arrested, tortured, and even killed in the persecution.

These examples show how the CCP’s ideology has cut people off from independent thinking and their kind nature. Only by rejecting the CCP and its influence can people return to traditional values, cherish goodness, and reconnect with the divine.