Secretary
of State Antony Blinken allowed his Chinese counterpart, Foreign
Minister Wang Yi, to define the parameters of a meeting they held in
Washington, DC, on Thursday, offering only a brief welcome to Wang
before ceding the floor in remarks to reporters.
Wang
arrived in America on Thursday for conversations with Blinken, National
Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and, potentially, President Joe Biden,
though neither the White House nor the Chinese Foreign Ministry has confirmd such a meeting at press time.
The Chinese government described the visit as reciprocal in response to Blinken’s travel to
Beijing in June, which the top diplomat used to promote the expansion
of trade with Communist China and to effusively deny that any calls to
diversify supply chains out of communist areas were meant to “contain”
nefarious Chinese influence.
Blinken
had initially scheduled his visit for February but canceled it in light
of the discovery of a Chinese espionage vessel flying freely over
sensitive American military sites. Biden allowed the balloon to traverse the continental United States after initially being discovered in the Northwest and ultimately shot it down over the Atlantic Ocean.
The Chinese spy balloon when it was traversing the United States (screenshot)
Reports
prior to Wang’s arrival in Washington indicated that he would discuss
the ongoing crisis in Israel following the unprecedented, atrocious
terrorist attack by the genocidal jihadist group Hamas on October 7.
Neither Wang nor Blinken publicly mentioned the issue, however – or any
other. Israel also did not appear in the readouts of Wang and Blinken’s
meeting issued by both governments.
WATCH — Graphic Content Warning: Home Where Hamas Murdered an Israeli Family in Kibbutz Be’eri
Joel B. Pollak / Breitbart News
Blinken
and Wang held a joint press conference prior to their private
discussion in which Blinken bizarrely refused to offer any substantive
comment.
“Good
evening. I’m very pleased to welcome Foreign Minister Wang Yi to the
United States. I very much look forward to constructive conversations
over the next two days,” Blinken said.
The remarks caused an awkward moment in which Wang waited for Blinken
to continue before realizing he was not saying anything else, gestured
toward Blinken, and asked, “so brief, huh?” to reporters’ laughter.
Wang offered reporters much more extensive remarks, though he did not mention any specific issue the two would discuss.
“We
have disagreements; we have differences. At the same time, we also
share important common interests and we face challenges that we need to
respond together,” Wang said. “Therefore, China and the United States
need to have dialogue.”
“Not
only should we resume dialogue, the dialogue should be in-depth and
comprehensive so that with dialogue we can increase mutual
understanding, reduce misunderstanding and misjudgment,” Wang continued,
“constantly seek to expand common ground and pursue cooperation that
will benefit both sides so that we can stabilize China-U.S. relations
and return it to the track of healthy, stable, and sustainable
development.”
Wang
went on to claim that China ignores “jarring voices” that run afoul of
China’s interpretations of “the three China-U.S. joint communiques,” are
not “consistent with international law and basic norms of international
relations” as Beijing interprets them, and not “consistent with the
climate of the times.”
The “three communiques”
are a set of diplomatic statements issued between 1972 and 1992 in
which the United States accepted China’s false claims of ownership over
the sovereign state of Taiwan, formally established diplomatic ties with
communist China, and claimed it would not engage in “long-term” arms
sales to Taiwan. Beijing routinely condemns the United States when
Taiwanese officials are allowed in the country or Washington engages in
loose, informal exchanges with Taiwan.
“I agree with what the foreign minister said,” Blinken offered after Wang’s remarks.
Following the meeting, the State Department said in
a readout that the two “discussed a range of bilateral, regional, and
global issues, including addressing areas of difference as well as
exploring areas of cooperation,” without naming any particular issue the
two discussed.
“The
Secretary reiterated that the United States will continue to stand up
for our interests and values and those of our allies and partners,” the
readout added, noting that Blinken and Wang expect to meet again for
discussions on Friday.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry readout was even less informative, offering,
“In a constructive atmosphere, the two sides exchanged in-depth views
on Sino-U.S. relations and issues of common interest.” China’s state
media networks reproduced the short readout without adding any details.
The lack of commentary on Friday was a contrast to the Chinese state-run Global Times newspaper
playing up the Wang visit as “crucial” for the future of the
relationship between both countries. The state newspaper predicted that a
warm welcome for Wang in Washington could precede a meeting in the near
term between Biden and dictator Xi Jinping; other reports have speculated that
Xi may visit San Francisco for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
summit in November. The former mayor of San Francisco and current
California Governor Gavin Newsom met with
Xi in Beijing on Wednesday, reportedly telling Xi that he was “willing
to push California to strengthen exchanges with China and seek closer
cooperation in fields such as climate change and new energy.”
In
this photo taken Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023 and released by Office of the
Governor of California, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, left, meets with
Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
(Office of the Governor of California via AP)
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.
In 2018 and 2020, Breitbart Senior Contributor and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer published Secret Empires and Profiles in Corruption. Each book hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and exposed how Hunter Biden and Joe Biden flew aboard Air Force Two in 2013 to China before Hunter’s firm inked a
$1.5 billion deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of
China less than two weeks after the trip. Schweizer’s work also uncovered the Biden family’s other vast and lucrative foreign deals and cronyism. Breitbart Political Editor Emma-Jo Morris’ investigative work at the New York Post on
the Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” also captured international
headlines when she, along with Miranda Devine, revealed that Joe Biden
was intimately involved in Hunter’s businesses, appearing to even have
a 10 percent stake in a company the scion formed with officials at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party. PAM KEY
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
Biden Whistleblower Emails: Chinese Energy Company Gave $5 Million Non-Secured, Forgivable Loan to Biden ‘Family’
MATTHEW BOYLE
A 2017 email from a top official with a Chinese
energy firm, provided by a whistleblower to U.S. Senate investigators,
demonstrates the terms of an agreement included officials with the firm
giving a $5 million non-secured, forgivable loan to the Biden “family.”
The email, sent to SinoHawk Holdings CEO Tony
Bobulinski, shows how a top official with CEFC Energy — a now bankrupt
and defunct energy company based in China — offered to wire $10 million
into an account to begin operations, $5 million worth of which would be a
non-secured forgivable loan to the “BD Family,” which means the Biden
family.
Breitbart News senior contributor Peter Schweizer
spent four and a half hours with Bobulinski before he went public, and
discussed these communications in particular regarding this loan during
that meeting. According to Schweizer, the Chinese energy company
officials were going to put $10 million into an account, $5 million of
which was designated as a non-secured forgivable loan to the Biden
family. Schweizer said this would constitute significant leverage the
Chinese energy company officials would have over the Biden family.
“In a way, this would give
CEFC greater leverage over the Biden family than simply giving them a
gift or bribe because if they were dissatisfied with what the Bidens
were doing they could ask for their money back,” Schweizer told
Breitbart News when asked about the arrangement upon the public release
of Bobulinski’s emails.
The email also says that $5 million loan is
“interest free” and asks how that $5 million would be used, and if used
up, whether CEFC should lend more money to the Biden family.
This email further fleshes out details surrounding
the controversial arrangement first uncovered by U.S. Senate
investigators in a recent Homeland Security Committee report, and later
further uncovered by a bombshell New York Post story on emails retrieved from Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Bobulinski’s new emails add to the story by
including terms of the financial arrangement behind the wire transfer
that CEFC officials made into a firm aligned with the Bidens that then
made significant payments to Hunter Biden’s own firm, a wire transfer
and financial payments that were first exposed by Senate investigators.
The New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop emails added more information
to this questionable arrangement by revealing emails that showed how
Biden associates intended to divvy up the cash from the Chinese
investors.
These new emails from Bobulinski add more to the
picture by showing that the agreement was that this payment would serve
as a non-secured forgivable loan, and that the CEFC side of the
arrangement understood that the then-forthcoming payment — which Senate
investigators confirmed was made just two weeks after these discussions
—would serve as a loan to the Biden “family,” not just to Hunter Biden.
An e-mail to Hunter Biden's partner from a top
Chinese official on July 26, 2017 shows the Chinese energy company CEFC
proposed a $5 million "interest-free" loan to the Biden family "based on
their trust on [Biden] family[.]"
"Should CEFC keep lending more to the family?" pic.twitter.com/MGFizPqOdm
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 22, 2020
This email is part of a broader trove of documents
that Bobulinski provided to U.S. Senate investigators with the Homeland
Security and Finance Committees, and also to media outlets including
Breitbart News. Other media outlets are reporting on the emails as well.
According to the Senate Homeland Security
Committee’s recent report, $5 million was wired directly into the
account in question two weeks later — and then Hunter Biden’s firm spent
the next year wiring $4.8 million from there into his own firm’s
account:
Less than two weeks later, on August 8, 2017, $5
million was wired from a CEFC-affiliated investment vehicle to a
Delaware LLC, which spent the next year transfering nearly $4.8 million
directly to Hunter Biden's firm, according to Senate investigators. https://t.co/Byyo3FNp3T pic.twitter.com/8XHHVTuFml
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 22, 2020
CEFC was a controversial energy company, as
Breitbart News has reported. “The owner of CEFC, Ye Jianming, was among
the most ambitious of Chinese tycoons before his business empire
collapsed and he vanished into the Communist nation’s shadowy prison
system,” Breitbart News’ John Hayward wrote earlier this week. “Ye was once portrayed as one
of China’s greatest rags-to-riches stories, a humble park ranger who
began making successful oil investments in his twenties and became a
billionaire before he hit 40. He was marketed as an affable businessman
foreigners could feel safe making deals with, well-connected but not an
obvious tool of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”
CEFC is at the center of the burgeoning Biden
scandal. When Bobulinski went public on Wednesday night, he was the
first source on one of the emails that the New York Post published from
Hunter Biden’s laptop retrieved from a computer repair store in
Delaware. One such story that the Post published was about Hunter Biden
and the Biden family seeking a deal with CEFC, and in those original
emails James Gilliar of J2cR emails Bobulinski about “remunerations
packages” related to the CEFC deal.
“I am the recipient of the
email published seven days ago by the New York Post which showed a copy
to Hunter Biden and Rob Walker. That email is genuine,” Bobulinski said
in his statement issued publicly.
Bobulinski had been, sources familiar with the matter told Breitbart News, cooperating with the Wall Street Journal for an investigation it is working on. But since the Journal has not published its story several days later
after its staff had indicated it would, Bobulinski decided to go public
on his own on Wednesday night — and made clear he is cooperating with
Senate investigators.
In the original email, published by the New York Post, from Hunter Biden’s laptop, Gilliar references a
breakdown of how money acquired would be distributed throughout the firm
of which Bobulinski was CEO. The email says at one point that “10 held
by H for the big guy.”
In his nearly 700-word statement, Bobulinski confirmed the authenticity of that email and further
explained its meeting including that “the big guy” was a reference to
former Vice President Joe Biden, the 2020 Democrat presidential nominee,
himself.
“What I am outlining is fact.
I know it is fact because I lived it. I am the CEO of Sinohawk Holdings
which was a partnership between the Chinese operating through
CEFC/Chairman Ye and the Biden family,” Bobulinski said. “I was brought
into the company to be the CEO by James Gilliar and Hunter Biden. The
reference to ‘the big guy’ in the much publicized May 13, 2017 email is
in fact a reference to Joe Biden. The other ‘JB’ referenced in that
email is Jim Biden, Joe’s brother. Hunter Biden called his dad ‘the Big
Guy’ or ‘my Chairman,’ and frequently referenced asking him for his
sign-off or advice on various potential deals that we were discussing.
I’ve seen Vice President Biden saying he never talked to Hunter about
his business. I’ve seen firsthand that that’s not true, because it
wasn’t just Hunter’s business, they said they were putting the Biden
family name and its legacy on the line.”
Court Doc: Hunter Lived in California When Chinese Partners Wired Money to Joe Biden’s Delaware Address
JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images
WENDELL HUSEBØ
27 Sep 20230
4:03
Hunter
Biden did not reside with President Joe Biden in Delaware when his
Chinese business partners wired money to Joe Biden’s address in 2019,
court documents show.
Joe Biden’s address received two
wires from BHR Partners associates linked to the CCP in July and August
totaling $260,000, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY)
revealed Tuesday.
The
time frame detailed in Hunter Biden’s collapsed plea deal in July with
now-special counsel David Weiss says Hunter Biden’s residence was in
California when the Chinese partners sent money to Joe Biden’s address.
Hunter Biden “remained in California and spent much of the Summer 2019
painting and developing plans for his memoir,” the plea deal states on page 9. In Hunter Biden’s memoir, “Beautiful Things,” the president’s son also noted that he lived in California at the time his Chinese partners wired the money to Delaware.
According to Hunter Biden’s text messages and emails, he shared a bank account with Joe Biden and paid some of his father’s expenses. Hunter Biden also listed Joe
Biden’s Delaware house as the billing address for his personal credit
card and Apple account in 2018 and 2019. In addition, Hunter Biden’s
driver’s license issued in 2018 lists Joe Biden’s residence.
“This
was a documented loan (not a distribution or pay-out) that was wired
from a private individual to his new bank account which listed the
address on his driver’s license, his parents’ address, because it was
his only permanent address at the time,” Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s
lawyer, told CNN.
“We expect more occasions where the Republican chairs twist the truth
to mislead people to promote their fantasy political agenda.”
The
wired money from Beijing, China, to Joe Biden’s address contradicts the
president’s false claim that Hunter Biden never made money from China.
Joe Biden also falsely claimed he
never spoke to his son about business. Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s
best friend in business, told the Oversight Committee that Joe Biden spoke with a BHR Partners associate, Jonathan Li, on speakerphone to sell the “Biden brand.”
BHR
Partners, the fund Hunter Biden co-founded via a joint venture with
Archer and Li, maintains investments worth billions of dollars around
the globe. Hunter Biden conveyed his stake to his current lawyer, Kevin
Morris, Breitbart News exclusively reported in April. Archer conveyed his stake in BHR Partners to his wife in 2017.
“President Biden has lied to Americans again,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters
Tuesday evening. “We now have found today that when President Biden was
running for the presidency, when he told the American people that, ‘My
family has never received money from China,’ was wrong.”
White House spokesman Ian Sams pushed back on McCarthy’s comment by telling CNN that money wired to Joe Biden’s address is a part of a conspiracy theory, CNN reported:
Extreme
House Republicans are pushing out half-baked innuendo and conspiracy
theories that yet again show no evidence of wrongdoing by President
Biden, just more discredited personal attacks on him and his family, in a
sad effort to distract from their chaotic inability to govern that is
leading us to the brink of a dangerous government shutdown.
Despite the White House’s repeated disinformation, Tuesday’s revelation emerged from
the committee’s recent subpoena of financial records related to a
specific bank account that received two wires from China linked to BHR
Partners associates. “Joe Biden’s abuse of public office for his
family’s financial gain threatens our national security. What did the
Bidens do with this money from Beijing?” Comer asked.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author
of Politics of Slave Morality.
CUT AND PASTE YOUTUBE LINKS
Bidens don't seem to 'cover their tracks' in alleged China money web: Curley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQkbnOO-mbM
SERVING RED CHINA: JOE BIDEN AT WORK
Biden admin is ‘enormously dangerous’ to the survival of America: Newt Gingrich
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB8YNrfbD_E
Did Hunter Biden Sleep with a Chinese Spy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn83Uk9pX2k
Hunter Biden faces possible subpoena after missing deadline to turn over docs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6hxjrGHJ8I
My colleague Peter Schweizer’s runaway bestseller, Red Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win,
first revealed that the Biden family received some $31 million from the
highest levels of Chinese intelligence at the same time Hunter was
paying the vice president’s bills. Schweizer believes that there is a
slam dunk case to indict Hunter Biden.
VIDEO
CUT AND PASTE YOUTUBE LINK
Watters: I guarantee you Satan went to law school
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6Ln2aXLqWw
THE BIDEN KLEPTOCRACY
American people deserve to know what China was up to with Joe Biden, especially when Beijing had already shelled out millions of dollars to Biden family members — including millions in set-asides for “the big guy.” What else is on that infamous Hunter Biden laptop? The conflicted Biden Justice Department cannot be trusted to engage in any meaningful oversight on this issue. We need a special counsel now.
TOM FITTON - JUDICIAL WATCH
Breitbart Political Editor Emma-Jo Morris’s investigative work at the New York Post on
the Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” also captured international
headlines when she, along with Miranda Devine, revealed that Joe Biden
was intimately involved in Hunter’s businesses, appearing to even have
a 10 percent stake in a company the scion formed with officials at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
Hunter
has reportedly sold five paintings worth $75,000 each to an anonymous
buyer. Hunter’s art dealer, Georges Bergès, has previously boasted he
had strong ties to businessmen in Communist China, which has concerned many due to the Biden family’s business ventures abroad.
“We
are 95% sure that that artwork went to China,” Comer said. “We don’t
know where exactly that went to in China, but we’re going to try to find
out when we get subpoena power.”
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
Biden family business dealings with China is a ‘national security issue’: Schweizer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hew-Pm1d-0
Peter Schweizer’s new book Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win tells
the story of how Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) husband Richard Blum
was part owner of a Chinese firm that allegedly sold computers with
spyware chips to the U.S. military. The military has never been able to
calculate how much sensitive data these computers allowed China to
steal.
THE BIDEN KLEPTOCRACY
RIDING THE DRAGON: The Bidens' Chinese Secrets (Full Documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRmlcEBAiIs
Kevin McCarthy Pledges Subpoenas for 51 Intel Agents in Wake of Hunter Biden ‘Twitter Files’
71
PAM KEY
11 Dec 20220
2:26
House
Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said Saturday on FNC’s “One Nation”
that he will bring the 51 intel agents that signed a letter that said
the Hunter Biden information was Russia collusion to testify at a
congressional hearing.
Host Brian Kilmeade asked, “We saw the revelations coming out of Twitter as Elon Musk is unmasking the
corruption that existed there and the denials that they testified
about. So for you personally you have another move you want to make. Not
only do we want to hear from the former executives of Twitter and the
other entities, but you have something else you want to say.”
McCarthy
said, Yeah, I do. This is egregious what we are finding. They should
not have section 230 to start out with, but we also have to go further.
What did Facebook and Google do as well because they became an arm
of the Democratic Party and an arm of government.”
He
continued, “Those 51 intel agents that signed a letter that said the
Hunter Biden information was all wrong — was Russia collusion — many of
them have a security clearance. We are going to bring them before
committee. I’m going to have them have a hearing. Why did they sign it?
Why did they lie to the American public? A Clapper, a Brennan? Why did
you use the reputation that America was able to give to you more
information, but use it for a political purpose and lie to the American
public?”
In 2018 and 2020, Breitbart Senior Contributor and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer published Secret Empires and Profiles in Corruption. Each book hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and exposed how Hunter Biden and Joe Biden flew aboard Air Force Two in 2013 to China before Hunter’s firm inked a
$1.5 billion deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of
China less than two weeks after the trip. Schweizer’s work also uncovered the Biden family’s other vast and lucrative foreign deals and cronyism. Breitbart Political Editor Emma-Jo Morris’ investigative work at the New York Post on
the Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” also captured international
headlines when she, along with Miranda Devine, revealed that Joe Biden
was intimately involved in Hunter’s businesses, appearing to even have
a 10 percent stake in a company the scion formed with officials at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party. PAM KEY
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
According
to the article, Falun Gong and its associated media, including the
Epoch Times, have engaged in "conspiracy narratives" targeting Democrats
and the Chinese Communist Party and of "links" between Joe Biden and
the CCP. In fact, a great deal of evidence is emerging in the Comer
investigation to show that those links are far from being conspiracy
narratives. (See also a 2020 New York Times article, which labels Falun Gong "a leading purveyor of right-wing disinformation.")
The Group the Chinese Communists Fear the Most
By Jeffrey Folks
I
have rarely heard it mentioned in the mainstream media, but, according
to reports, during the 1990s in communist China, thirty thousand members
of Falun Gong were rounded up and executed. The founder of Falun Gong,
Li Hongzhi, fled China and now lives in the U.S., while in China
members of the order went underground. According to Freedom
House, "Falun Gong practitioners across China have since [July 1999]
been subjected to widespread surveillance, arbitrary detention, horrific
torture, and extrajudicial killing — abuses which continue
today." Nonetheless, there are still some 100 million practitioners
worldwide, and the movement continues to grow.
Information
concerning the repression of Falun Gong is a Chinese state secret, with
severe penalties for anyone attempting to obtain data. As the Falun
Data Infocenter puts it:
"The CCP has also used political and financial influence around the
world to either keep journalists silent, or drive false narratives about
Falun Gong." With
total control inside China and compliance by foreign journalists, the
Chinese Communist Party has driven a false narrative that minimizes the
number of Falun Gong practitioners and hides data on the number of those
abducted, tortured, killed, and killed for their organs, thus totally
obscuring the record. At the same time, Chinese and foreign media continue to suggest that the victim is the abuser: the false idea that Falun Gong is a cult with dangerous potential.
For
anyone who has studied the history of or practiced Falun Gong, the
enormity of this continuing abuse and misinformation is obvious. Falun
gong is a benign practice of meditation, exercise, and moral instruction
with no political ties of any sort, but it is often represented, even
by well-meaning Western journalists, as a "cult" or as a right-wing
anti-CCP organization, as in a recent article in the Guardian, relying heavily on statements by Media Matters. According
to the article, Falun Gong and its associated media, including the
Epoch Times, have engaged in "conspiracy narratives" targeting Democrats
and the Chinese Communist Party and of "links" between Joe Biden and
the CCP. In fact, a great deal of evidence is emerging in the Comer
investigation to show that those links are far from being conspiracy
narratives. (See also a 2020 New York Times article, which labels Falun Gong "a leading purveyor of right-wing disinformation.")
If those journalists would do their homework, beginning with studying Falun Gong websites and the book Zhuan Falun by
Li Hongzhi, instead of relying on the well funded Chinese "zero out"
campaign, they would realize that Falun Gong is an uplifting instruction
based on traditional, conservative Chinese practices.
The
story of the Chinese government crackdown on Falun Gong is a classic
example of totalitarian intolerance of competing ideas, and it involves
both propaganda and physical terror. A careful examination of the record proves
that the response of the communist Chinese regime is not very different
from that of ancient regimes toward their own enslaved
peoples. Despite their vast power, totalitarian leaders are fearful and
at times even paranoid, as was Stalin, and the flip-side of fear is
repression.
In
reality, Falun Gong is a complex spiritual practice involving
qijong-like exercises, positive thinking, and moral belief based on
truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. As a practitioner myself, I
know how Falun Gong can transform an individual from illness to health,
confusion to knowledge, and intolerance to open-mindedness. It is
obvious to me how a totalitarian regime would view Falun Gong as a
threat, as indeed it would be to any form of deceit, corruption, or
intolerance. As Falun Gong spread in China during the 1990s, at one
point with 60 to 100 million followers in China alone, the practice
became a threat to a government that had once encouraged it as a healthy
"money-saving" vehicle and a social safety valve for a dissatisfied
citizenry. Yet
within months, beginning in July 1999, perhaps 100,000 followers were
arrested and 30,000 executed. Even now, nearly 4,000 practitioners were arrested in 2021 (latest figures).
It is critical to consider the magnitude of this repression, with between two and four million Falun Gong followers "detained" in
forced labor camps between 2000 and 2008 alone. Chinese policy toward
Falun Gong is similar to the more widely publicized repression of
Uyghurs, 1.5 million of whom have reportedly been detained in China,
with hundreds of thousands of others subjected to forced sterilization,
forced abortion, and religious suppression, and with the razing or
damaging of 16,000 mosques. Like totalitarian regimes of the past, the
CCP appears willing to employ the most ruthless tactics in order to
secure its hold on the country.
Though
Falun Gong is not a political movement, the exponential growth of Falun
Gong during the 1990s might well have pressured authorities to change,
and as soon as China's leaders recognized this threat, they suppressed
Falun Gong with a heavy hand. One could hardly be truthful,
compassionate, and forbearing and lend one's support to a communist
regime governed by a few thousand members of the political elite intent
on benefiting from their rule at the expense of the general
population. Falun Gong teaches a form of gentleness and goodness that
threatens the lies and violence of any totalitarian government.
One
must ask: if the Chinese communists are willing to imprison millions of
ethnic and religious minorities and to murder tens of thousands, if not
hundreds of thousands, what are they capable of in the future? How
many lives are they willing to expend in a takeover of Taiwan? And once
Taiwan is taken, how many Taiwanese will they imprison and execute? In
the event of a war with Japan or with the United States, how many are
they willing to see die, on both sides? And if Chinese communism were
ever to achieve world domination, what kind of future could we
expect? As Christians, probably something not unlike what the Uyghurs
and Falun Gong have already experienced.
At
the same time, the specter of Chinese repression should open our eyes
to the remarkable value of our own system of democratic capitalism. The
CCP has diminished Falun Gong in China, but, like all religious and
spiritual practices, Falun Gong has found a safe home in America, at
least in principle, though the Biden administration continues to
restrict religious practice, to challenge religious rights in the courts
and in agency practices, and to unleash the power of agencies like the
Justice Department and IRS against the open practice of religion. Many
of the same tactics adopted in communist China are accepted by
progressives in our own country, including the encouragement of birth
control and abortion, even late-term abortion and infanticide after
birth.
For
the present, there is still a difference between totalitarianism and
democracy as practiced in the USA. Now is a time when American
citizens, media, government, and corporations need to see clearly that
communist China is a totalitarian government and to recognize what it is
capable of. China's record toward Falun Gong, a violent repression
that continues today, is one element in a string of crackdowns and
arrests. We do not need to send a balloon over China to understand the
nature of their regime, but we do need to recognize the enormity of its
abuses and take appropriate actions to defend ourselves.
Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture, most recently Heartland of the Imagination (2011).
Image: tookapic via Pixabay, Pixabay License.
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