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Peace of Mind
Given the extremes of violence the Party has wrought on the Chinese people over its decades in power, some of the renunciation statements are extreme. One is from a decommissioned soldier calling himself Chen Xiaoyu. He describes being forced, along with his company, to open fire on a village of the Hui ethnic group in China. “I will never forget that extreme cruelty and tragic scene, which cannot be described with words,” Chen wrote.
The next lines go to the heart of the Tuidang experience for Chinese people: “I was raised as an honest and kind person, and I could have passed a happy and peaceful, normal life, but the demon robbed me of this happiness I should have had. … If gods hear my repentance, please grant me peace of mind so that I will no longer be terrified by this recurring nightmare. Today, I solemnly declare that I withdraw from the CCP and any of its affiliated organizations.”
A policeman, using a pseudonym (since getting caught could lead to punishment from dismissal to torture), wrote that he was full of remorse after years of “suppressing the common people.”
“Because I have lost hope with everything the CCP has done and have been an accessory to its crimes for the past 30 years, my conscience can no longer take the huge pressure. With the help of Falun Gong practitioners, I am publishing my withdrawal from the CCP and its affiliated organizations,” he wrote.
China has persisted for thousands of years, but no dynasty has ever tried to brainwash people out of being a good person. Chinese have always emphasized the truth, but do you have that feeling today?References to gods or higher forces that watch over man are a common feature of the longer statements. Such beliefs were a fundamental part of Chinese culture until 1949, when the Communist Party forcefully suppressed all religions as “superstitions.” And the reference to Falun Gong is fitting, since most of the people on the front lines pushing the movement forward are practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted since 1999 in China.— Yan Zhijun, Tuidang activist
A New China
Tuidang not only enjoins Chinese to face the moral issues presented by the CCP’s dictatorship, but it also presents a compelling vision of another China that is grounded in authentic Chinese traditions, rather than the theories of Marx and Lenin.
“When I meet people I ask them if they had heard about the ‘santui,’” Yan Zhijun says. Santui means the “Three Withdrawals,” referring to the Young Pioneers, the Communist Youth League, and the Party proper.
“I talk to them about it simply: ‘Why do you want to fight with heaven and earth?’” as is espoused by CCP communist theory. “This isn’t what the Yellow Emperor taught us,” she would say, referring to the mythical founder of Chinese civilization.
Yan peppers her speech with ancient Chinese phraseology and historical references. “China has persisted for thousands of years, but no dynasty has ever tried to brainwash its people out of being a good person. Chinese have always emphasized the truth, but do you have that feeling today?” Few do, she notes.
Tuidang presents itself as the alternative to the culture that has been created by the Communist Party: it is the old China, the China long before the communists arrived; it’s about understanding the law of karma, embracing simple virtues, and honest living. And it is finding a receptive ear.
On a recent sunny weekend, Yan obtained one renunciation within 30 seconds. A man approached seeking some of the materials she and her colleague were handing out. She asked him if he had joined the Communist Party. He said no. Had he joined the Youth League? Nope. But what about when he was young, didn’t he wear a “red kerchief”? Like most Chinese, he had. When he was just a tot he also made an oath to “resolutely obey the Chinese Communist Party.” Now that he realized the CCP was bad news, shouldn’t he make a clean break? She gave him a pseudonym of Xia Ming (a play on words of “It’s summer; I understand the truth”) and he agreed. She would later enter that name for him onto the dajiyuan.Tuidang.com website.
Xia Ming’s entry is recorded somewhere in the tidal wave of 55,000 new statements that appear on the website each day—every one of them stating a time, ID number, and number of people making a renunciation. As of the evening of Aug. 9, the numbers had reached 100,141,700; by Aug. 10 they will be over 100,200,000.
Around the world, wherever there are Chinese, and particularly in China, people like Yan Zhijun are talking to friends, relatives, former school friends, and tourists, reminding them of the dark horrors of Communist Party rule, and informing them that they do have a choice—something the Party has resolutely tried to take away from its citizens. “Shouldn’t you make a clean break?” activists ask. Over 100 million have said, “Yes,” they should.