WASHINGTON, D.C.—On Sunday afternoon a former Chinese intelligence officer, Mr. Li Fengzhi, formally announced his withdrawal from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) while standing outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.
In a small ceremony, the director of the Global Quit CCP Center, Dr. Gao Dawei, issued a certificate formally recognizing Mr. Li’s withdrawal.
The events outside the Embassy on Sunday were the very public enactment of the withdrawal from the CCP Li had first announced on March 11.
Afterwards, Li appeared at a rally at MacPherson Square in downtown D.C. and spoke about his decision to quit. His remarks follow.
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I do not consider myself as having a noble character or great moral courage. However, as a man of basic conscience, as an ordinary Chinese, and as a former Intelligence Officer for the Ministry of State Security (MSS), I didn’t seem to have a choice. The only thing I could do was publicly renounce the CCP.
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the June 4 incident. I was a sophomore in 1989 and also participated in the protest rallies. Though not a student leader, I was an activist. Seeing how many ordinary folks welcomed and supported the rallies, I sigh sadly in my mind. Our country could have become one in which people could speak and live freely. Yet, it has been so oppressed under the CCP’s rule, and freedom has become a crime.
That was a turning point for my understanding of the CCP. After June 4, when the regime started the crackdown on dissidents, I was not implicated because of protection from two teachers. After graduation, when I could choose between the criminal police and the State Security police, I chose to join the MSS without any hesitation. At the time I was still very naïve and thought that the MSS was responsible for protecting the country’s security.
Nevertheless, my personal experience working in the MSS proved to me that China’s state security is far less important than the security of the CCP. For example, in the intelligence manual of the MSS, which has a top security classification, it states that politics is the first and most important agenda and means.
