(Minghui.org) During the 2023 season, one of Shen Yun’s dances was called “Scholarly Aspirations.” On stage, a group of high-spirited young men, each holding a fan, gathered together to share their philosophical aspirations and their future hopes if they passed the imperial exam—the usual path to officialdom in ancient China.
One of them was suddenly inspired. He jumped up, went over to a big flat stone, picked up a brush, and started writing a poem:
“A decade of learning at the master’s side,Though young, we’ve gained profound insight,Let us achieve great deeds for this land…”
At this point, his inspiration came to an abrupt end, and he couldn’t come up with a last line to finish his poem.
While everyone was trying to think of an appropriate last line, a divine being in white on a cloud far away was watching them. Smiling kindly, he started moving toward them. He appeared on stage but had now changed into a young scholar like everyone else. He chatted with them for a bit, then went up to the stone and quickly wrote the last line: “And free our people of all plight.”
Immediately, the young scholars seemed to become enlightened, and started to praise this concluding line, not noticing that the divine being had changed back into his original form and was flying back up into the sky. One scholar suddenly did notice and called out to his friends to look up. They watched the divine being floating away on the clouds with a pleased smile. Everyone was amazed and felt very happy, because they realized that a divine being was guiding them to find the true meaning in their future success if they passed the imperial exam!
There is so much truth in this story. In ancient times, people persevered for years in their studies in spite of hardships, and if they did well on the imperial exam, fame and gain would naturally follow. Fame and gain were only incidental, however, and not the ultimate goal; their titles and positions came with enormous responsibility, expectations, and the trust of the people. That is why, in ancient times, people often called the locally-appointed officials “parental officials,” because these officials had the power to control and pass judgement on everything, from basic daily necessities (food, clothing, housing, and transport) to big issues such as one’s life or death. So it was very important that officials had a good moral conscience and that they were clear about their mission—to punish evil and promote good, to help those in danger and in need, and to maintain social stability and peace.
There were many worthy officials in Chinese history who cared about the people and served them well. But when we take a look at modern times and the officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the middle of the last century, especially during the Great Famine in China (1959-1961), when tens of millions of people in rural China died of starvation, heart-wrenching disbelief doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Seven million people were starved to death in Anhui Province alone, mainly because Zeng Xisheng, the secretary of the CCP Committee of Anhui Province, firmly “followed the Party.” People in Anhui got so angry with his appalling governance that he was about to be executed. But Mao, the CCP’s supreme leader, saved him, saying he was a “good man” because he stuck to “Mao Zedong’s line.” Zeng was also appointed to be the CCP secretary of Shandong Province. According to statistics revealed later, nine million people died of starvation in that province during the Great Famine.
During his time serving in Anhui, one of Zeng’s deputies was Zhang Kaifan. In 1959, when deputy CCP secretary Zhang heard that people were starving to death in the rural areas, he went to investigate. He visited Wuwei County, which was one of China’s grain storage areas at the time. About 1.4 million people lived in Wuwei Count. By the time Zhang went there to investigate, 900,000 people had died of starvation. Troubled by this, Zhang decided to disband the public canteen and open a grain warehouse to release grain for the people. Around 500,000 people were saved as a result. Yet Zeng arrested Zhang and put him in handcuffs and shackles. Mao Zedong labelled Zhang a “right-wing opportunist” and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.
There’s an old Chinese saying, “Better to save one life than build a seven-story pagoda.” Zhang opened a grain warehouse and saved 500,000 people. Although he was deeply loved and praised by the people, he was labelled a “sinner” and sentenced to prison by the CCP. At the same time, the real culprit Zeng, who was responsible for the starvation of tens of millions of people, was hailed as a “good man,” as defined by the CCP. Not only was Zeng able to evade responsibility for the deaths of tens of millions in Anhui Province, he was even promoted and held the position of CCP secretary for two provinces at the same time. Sadly, such practices that confuse right and wrong and go against basic human ethics are commonplace in China under the CCP’s rule.
As time went on, many people in China came to realize that, in a society ruled by the CCP, good people will always have a hard time, while bad people and corrupt officials will often get their way.Talented people and those with moral integrity aren’t promoted and are even suppressed and persecuted, while those who support and follow the CCP are promoted. There have been countless such examples, just like what happened to Zeng and Zhang.
The 1989 Tiananmen Massacre is another example. Zhao Ziyang, who was the general secretary of the CCP at the time, sympathized with the students and was unwilling to suppress them by violence. As a result, he was removed from his position and put under house arrest until his death in 2005. Yet, Jiang Zemin, who slavishly enacted Deng Xiaoping’s violent suppression of the students and demanded tough measures that resulted in the massacre of students on June 4, was promoted to the top leadership.
After the massacre, two upright and courageous CCTV news anchors, Xue Fei and Du Xian, dressed in black and announced on their news program “Let us remember this black day!” This was their way to express their disagreement with the atrocities the authorities had committed and their support for the students fighting corruption. The CCP removed both of them, replacing them Luo Jing, who had no qualms about spouting lies for the CCP to deceive the people.
Almost a decade later, on April 25, 1999, more than 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners gathered near Zhongnanhai (a building that houses the offices of the CCP leadership) to appeal for their legitimate right to practice Falun Gong. Then-prime minister Zhu Rongji came out to meet the practitioners and invited a number of them in Zhongnanhai for further discussions. This led to the release of dozens of practitioners who had earlier been unlawfully arrested in Tianjin. Zhu also promised that the government would not interfere with people’s freedom to practice Falun Gong.
Falun Gong practitioners’ peacefulness and perseverance in their righteous faith, as well as the prime minister’s proper handling of the incident, was praised by the international community and set a precedent for peaceful dialogue between government officials and the people in resolving issues.
However, this peaceful resolution of the April 25 incident made Jiang, the then-leader of the CCP, extremely jealous, since he was very anxious to establish his own authority in the central government. He colluded with Luo Gan, secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Committee, to distort the facts and labelled the peaceful petition on April 25 a “siege of Zhongnanhai.”
On July 20, 1999, Jiang forced a decision to persecute Falun Gong, even though the majority of the Politburo Standing Committee members disagreed. The persecution has continued to this day. Over the past 25 years, a large number of officials who actively persecuted Falun Gong and followed Jiang’s policies quickly moved up to top positions. But what goes around comes around. Many of these perpetrators were later sent to jail for corruption, which, from the standpoint of Chinese culture, was simply karmic retribution for their participation in persecuting good people.
To earn cash incentives, many people who worked in public security, the judiciary, and the 610 Office (established solely to persecute Falun Gong) blindly followed Jiang’s persecution policies. They abandoned their morals and became directly responsible for the deaths of a large number of Falun Gong practitioners.
On the other hand, an increasing number of lawyers who believe in upholding justice have learned the truth about Falun Gong and realized that the CCP’s persecution is illegal. They have defended practitioners in court, courageously and rationally, often leaving the judges and police speechless. Furious, the CCP has retaliated against these lawyers by revoking their licenses and using other means to destroy them. The CCP even kidnapped some lawyers, took them to secret locations, and tortured them both physically and mentally. For a long time, their families could not discover where they were.
As time has passed, people have begun to see the reality of today’s China: Good people—who dare to speak the truth, follow their principles, do their duty, and are down-to-earth, humane, and compassionate—become targets of the CCP’s elimination, suppression, and exclusion policies. Evil people—who abandon their consciences and collude with the CCP to persecute these good people and destroy the morality of Chinese society—are offered opportunities by the CCP to be promoted, make money, engage in corruption, and indulge themselves.
In today’s China, morality has been corrupted and society is in ruins. The desire to “get rich quick” driven by the CCP; the notion of “amusing oneself to death;” and the mentality of “having fun before you die” have become the dominant social norms, with people becoming impulsive, vicious, indifferent, and selfish. The current situation in China and with the Chinese people is indeed very grave! Yet, most people who live in China are unaware of the danger.
The COVID-19 pandemic that broke out in late 2019 has killed more than 400 million people in China to date, far beyond the statistics published by the CCP. Many people say that this is God eliminating people, especially those who support the CCP and help it do evil. In the face of natural disasters like the COVID-19 pandemic, our supposedly “advanced” medical science is helpless. The CCP’s extreme measures, such as city closures and the zero-COVID policy, as well as limiting the number of confirmed cases in order to conceal the true number of people infected, have left many people in despair, waiting to die because they couldn’t get proper treatment as they were not diagnosed.
Having suffered through so much, more and more Chines now realize just how insignificant superficial things such as money, fame, status, and power actually are, because these things cannot save their lives or the lives of their family.