I am here on behalf of Quality Software Developer (QSD) of Southern California to report on a joint project with the Global Service Center for Quitting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Tuidang (Quit the CCP) website of The Epoch Times, to develop artificial intelligence software to analyze data regarding the number of people who have quit the Party. I'd like to give a brief description of our indexing and sorting of the Chinese character data of 11 million people’s “three withdrawals” — resignations from the CCP, the Communist Youth League (CYL) and the Communist Young Pioneers (CYP). I will also explain how the newly developed Internet Data Real Time Analyzer relates to all of you.
It’s been a year and a half since the first 109 people withdrew from the CCP on the Epoch Times’ Tuidang Website—that was back in December of 2004. Since then, more and more people, from all levels of Chinese society, have been quitting the CCP each day. This phenomenon has attracted international attention. To date (as of 9 June 2006), the total number of the Chinese people renouncing their membership in the CCP and its affiliated organizations has reached just under 11 million. But one question has been plaguing observers both inside China and abroad: How many of these people were actual, card carrying members of the CCP?
This is the question that our new software is devised to answer. We have used it to successfully analyze the Quitting CCP data on the Internet and I would like to take the opportunity, at this rally to mark the 11 million people who have quit the Party, to share the results with you.
Our analysis using the new software indicates that of the 11 million people to have declared their three withdrawals during the 550 day period from December 4, 2004 to June 4, 2006, 6,589,648 were actually official members of the CCP—that’s roughly 60.5 percent. Those renouncing membership in the CYL and the CYP accounted for 16.3 percent and 13.3 percent respectively. Due to some factors including the complexity of Chinese characters’ expression, some data cannot be analyzed by the new software. At present, 1,078,693 withdrawal statements are still temporarily categorized as unidentified data. It stands to reason that 60.5 percent of those should be from actual Party members, which indeed bring the total to 6.6 million at least.
Until now, people have attempted to analyze and sort the huge quantity of withdrawal statements manually. This has proved a daunting and practically impossible task. The new software, with its ability to quickly analyze Chinese character data, solves this problem. The accurate statistics that it provides will help keep accurate tabs on the withdrawal phenomenon.
With accurate statistics available, those who doubt the authenticity of the withdrawal numbers will be pacified. This will help more people to realize the weight and magnitude of the withdrawal phenomenon and allow them to make a more educated choice about whether they wish to continue to support the Party.
Then how did we search and analyze the text of three-withdrawal declarations and guarantee the accuracy of the result? We basically created numerous filters of meaning related to relevant word combinations. The bulk characters pass through the filters and the program assigns a probable meaning. Thus the information is sorted.
These filters are actually different combinations of keywords. For instance, possible ways of saying withdrawal from the Party can appear as the following: “withdraw from the Party” “withdraw from the communist party” “withdraw from the evil communist party” “withdraw from the evil Party” “withdraw from the wicked Party” “withdraw from the Chinese Communist Party”—and the list goes on and on. I will not attempt to say them all. Many different ways of expression have to be considered, in addition to pairings with adverbs in different orders, to analyze the authors’ meanings. For some word combinations that do not precisely indicate withdrawal from the Party, our software categorizes these as “undetermined.” They could be referring to withdrawal from the CYL or the CYP. It could include withdrawal from the CCP, but it is not certain, so cases like these are sorted into a separate category. These statements are then subjected to further analysis.
Our software is also capable of recognizing when multiple people declare their withdrawals in one statement. It does this mainly by recognizing the use of punctuation to separate lists of names in combination with Chinese language specific forms of introductive phrases associated with people.
In the process of our development of the Quitting CCP Internet Data Real Time Analyzer, we’ve read a great amount of content of three-withdrawal declarations. This has greatly boosted our morale. We have all been moved by the heart-felt and urgent sentiments of the authors. They have awakened to the real nature of the CCP and are eager to distance themselves from the CCP and its affiliated organizations as quickly as possible. We all feel that the wave of withdrawals has a great historic significance for the Chinese people. We have lived under the spectre of Communism for so long and only recently have we begun, as a group to awaken from the nightmare. Today, the nation has started to regain its consciousness. This has made us feel very gratified.
With more than 20,000 Chinese people posting their withdrawal statements each day, we are extremely grateful to the men and women who have tirelessly spread the Nine Commentaries On the Communist Party, the book that started it all. Also, those volunteers at the withdrawal service centers around the country. Every one of them has worked so hard to help bring this about.
We drew the strength necessary to complete the painstaking work of creating this software from the example of these tireless volunteers and the millions of brave people who have had the courage to formally reject the Party and its associated organizations. Their energy kept us going through revision after revision.
We will still continue to strive to make an even more accurate program. We are currently designing a type of even more reasonable, accurate and faster retrieval system, to reduce the error and the ratio of uncertain classification.
Thank you to all our friends here attending the conference today for their effort, support and attention. Thank you to every fellow Chinese countryman and every peace and freedom loving international friend concerned for the prosperity and decline of the Chinese nation, and their efforts, participation, support and attention to the current great wave of withdrawals taking place in China as we speak.
