The Empire State Building, one of the symbols of American power and prestige now being used by the CCP to celebrate 60 years of rule over the Chinese people. With an uncertain future, the Party has been likened to the many brief between-emperor periods in China's long history. (The Epoch Times)
The New York Times enclosed an eight-page tabloid edition of China Daily, “China's National English Language Newspaper,” as a supplement last week.
Near the White House—at the Ellipse, although not on the White House South Lawn, as rumors had it and Chinese state-media reported it—the Chinese national flag was flown recently.
There's a pattern here. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is celebrating its takeover of China 60 years ago this week, and the image-burnishing machine is in high gear.
What might be taken as a show of self-confidence on the world stage, or an extended hand of friendship with the one remaining superpower, should really be taken as something else: showy attempts to validate the legitimacy of the CCP's power to the home crowd.
These American icons appear prominently in Chinese TV and radio broadcasts inside China these days. These icons are being used by the CCP to convince Chinese people that America is quite alright with CCP rule.
The Empire State Building, a symbol of America's industriousness, high aspirations, and economic might, is being broadcast into Chinese living rooms—and Chinese forced-labor camps—in the colors of the CCP. It sends the signal that the United States is celebrating the CCP.
Raising the CCP flag—the new national flag adopted in 1949 after the CCP takeover—has the same effect.
The New York Times, a symbol of America's freedom of the press, had nestled inside it the product of China's state-owned media, which is at or near the bottom of every press freedom index. By commingling the two, the CCP hopes to gain more prestige for its unfree media.
In the United States, we have the Fourth Estate (the press), watching over public life and helping to ensure freedom by telling the truth independently. It checks government and private interests. On the other hand, China Daily and its brethren are the perversion of the Fourth Estate. They are Party mouthpieces that deceive and manipulate in order to extend the power of the CCP.
Our institutions and our national symbols are being used to strengthen the CCP and convince the Chinese people that it should remain in power. Symbols of freedom are being used to legitimize the flag and media of an enemy of freedom.
Make no mistake: Oct. 1 is not truly China's national day—it's the CCP's day.
Oct. 1 is not a day for admiration of the Chinese people, or of the land of China with 5,000 years of history. It's not for a nation that has given so much to humanity, from the heights of philosophy and arts, to the practical paper and compass, to fireworks.
Oct. 1 is for the glorification of the communist regime that has given the world the following:
The so-called Great Leap Forward, a disaster in collectivizing agriculture that led to the Great Famine, which killed 40 million people.
The Cultural Revolution, the systematic decimation of traditional culture, killing more than seven million, and, the most unspeakable of horrors, cannibalism.
The 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, when thousands of students hoping to make the nation better were gunned down by soldiers.
The persecution of 70 million or more Falun Gong practitioners since 1999, including thousands of cases of removing organs from living practitioners, to be sold for profit.
More than 80 million unnatural deaths, the all-time leader in this category. The red in the CCP flag is the red of the blood that it has spilled, and continues to be spilled.
Many in the West believe that China has improved in the last ten years. It has improved—but only in public relations, only in packaging the image for Western visitors. Ask the majority of Chinese who live in worsening poverty, ask the millions imprisoned without trial.
The long-suffering Chinese people and the historic nation of China—these are deserving of our honor. For them, Oct. 1 is a day of mourning.
The current ruling regime, silently teetering from millions of public withdrawals from the Party, does not deserve glorification in the Land of the Free.
What's next—the Statue of Liberty holding the hammer-and-sickle? Mao on the dollar bill?
