There is a strong, silent current moving through the fabric of Chinese society—millions of Chinese are withdrawing from and completely renouncing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This movement, which is gaining momentum each day, is far more worrisome to the CCP than all of the appellants, angry farmers, laid-off workers, and corrupt officials combined. The CCP is scared, because a mandate of change is growing in China, and more and more Chinese are deciding that they want their country to move forward without the CCP.
Yet the majority of people living in China have never heard of this movement. They have never read The Epoch Times Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party —the “book that started it all.”
Through constant efforts to block all information regarding the “withdrawal phenomenon,” the CCP has managed to keep an astonishing chunk of the Chinese citizens in the dark. But as people do find out what’s going on through the whispers of freedom being passed from friend to friend, they wonder what it means. If it is true that over eleven million people have withdrawn from the CCP, and that tens of thousands more are doing so each day, does that mean that the CCP is on the verge of collapse? Are its days numbered? What would that mean for China?
How will their lives be affected?
To understand the answers to these questions, what must first be understood is this: the withdrawal phenomenon is real—it is truly happening.
At the end of 2004, The Epoch Times published a series of editorials titled Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. Since December 3, 2004, The Epoch Times has been collecting statements for “three withdrawals”, which are resignation statements from the CCP, the Communist Youth League (CYL), and the Communist Young Pioneers (CYP), on the Quitting the CCP website. On New Year’s Day 2005, over 50 people united in a group statement of withdrawal from all three Chinese communist organizations. They urged people to spread widely Nine Commentaries.
In January 2005, when former prime minister Zhao Ziyang passed away, the slogan of “Say Good-bye to the CCP” started to emerge all over the world. The number of “three withdrawals” reached 1 million on April 21, 2005; 2 million on May 31; 3 million on July 15; 4 million on August 30; 5 million on October 18; 6 million on December 1; 7 million on January 8, 2006; 8 million on February 14, and 9 million on March 20—by April 25 the number had gone beyond the 10 million mark.
At this point, some people raised questions about how the withdrawal statements were being organized and tallied. They wanted to know: Are these numbers accurate?
How Are Withdrawal Statements Collected?
Dr. Gao Dawei, chairman of the Global Service Center for Quitting the Chinese Communist Party, addressed this issue in a statement: “There are a few major routes for three withdrawals: one is via internet. The name can be entered into the list of withdrawals at the Quitting the CCP website after breaking through China’s Internet blockade. The second route is via fax. After the statement is written or printed, it is fax to service center for Quitting the CCP. The third route is via email. The statement can be sent out via email after breaking through the Internet blockade. Another route is via phone. Our service center has several hotlines. On top of this, many volunteers all over the world are directly contacting people in China.”
The volunteers at Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP answer the phone with, “Hello, Global Service Center for Quitting the Chinese Communist Party.” Once the caller gives his or her name and the name of the organization he or she wishes to withdraw from, it will be done right then. Sometimes the callers are calling for someone else or specifically request that their name and statement be published in The Epoch Times newspaper.
In addition, some people renounce their membership in groups. The groups range from a few people to hundreds of people. In one city a few days ago, 140 people renounced their party memberships. Most people in rural areas use their real names, but those from the cities usually use aliases. There are also people who send their renouncements abroad. They give their statements to family members traveling abroad who then give them to the Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP. To get around the Chinese government’s obstruction of service centers within China, some people post their statements in public places such as on street posts or government bulletin boards. The newest and most popular method is to write the renouncements on paper currency. Some people even carve their messages right into the coins.
Are Chinese People Really Quitting the Party?
All over the world people are quitting from the CCP. But how many of these people are actually in China? This question concerns the CCP more than it does its citizens. The Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP recently teamed up with Quality Software Developer (QSD) of Southern California to create software that records and analyze The Epoch Times Tuidang (Quit the CCP) website 24 hours a day. According to Dr. Liu Jiesen, a representative of QSD, from December 4, 2004 to June 27, 2006, the number of “three withdrawals” reached 11,366,927, of which 6,876,990—over 60 percent—were current members of the CCP. Then where are these people from? Every resignation statement contains the name of the country, area and even the city it is from. Dr. Liu said, “Based on the results of our analysis, of the 11,366,927 people who have renounced membership in the CCP, the CYL and the CYP, 11.35 million are from mainland China and 16,289 are from other countries or areas.”
Bill Xia, the CEO of QSD, explained that dynamic Internet technology is the key to breaking through China’s Internet blockade and being able to post withdrawal statements. According to their data, the overwhelming majority of the withdrawal statements are from mainland China. A few IP (identification pass) addresses are from overseas, but most of them are understood to be Internet users in mainland China who connected to Dynamic Internet through overseas proxies. In other words, they are still Internet users in mainland China. Through analysis, QSD found that those Internet users were from various provinces in China, including remote provinces such as Tibet and Xinjiang. Beijing and the three Northeast provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Helongjiang, however, are the areas with the most withdrawals.
When first looking at the numbers for the “three withdrawals,” many people in mainland China might disbelieve the figures. They might think that the number of withdrawals cannot possibly be that high because they have not heard anything about it.
Expert Says Resignations Will Continue
Mr. Ye Ke, a researcher at the Public Policy Doctoral program of University of Southern California believes that it is not strange that people have not heard more about this. His reasons are that information about the Nine Commentaries and the quitting the CCP campaign is disseminated through the Internet, and that many people who have been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime do not want to make their identity public. Therefore, perhaps many people you know have withdrawn from the CCP, but you just are not aware of it, since it is possible for people to retain their anonymity when they withdraw.
According to Mr. Ye, 11 million withdrawals is really not large considering the structure of the CCP today. He said, “I am convinced that people will continue to quit the CCP at the rate we have seen so far. Why do I say this? For one thing, if you take a close look at the situation of communism in China, you see that all its ideals have died out. It is no longer attractive to people.”
Ye said, “According to a recent survey, 80 to 90 percent of the CCP organizations in China are no longer active. No one really believes in communism these days. That being the case, if there were an even more effective method for renouncing membership from the CCP, you would see the numbers really skyrocket. There are not just people who have become disillusioned with the CCP, there are people with a deep hatred of the CCP.”
“In 2005, 30 million people petitioned the government about abuses in their localities. Many of them were petitioning simply because they were so poor they did not know what else to do. There are also a lot of dissidents who do not dare petition the government because it would be dangerous for them to do so. So you see, there are a lot of people in China who resent the CCP, not to mention the tens of millions of unemployed workers, persecuted Falun Gong practitioners and members of other persecuted religions. The number adds up to tens of millions. It is indeed an astronomical number of people. If we were to provide all of them with a convenient way to express their real feelings, I think they would be more than willing to do so.”
Why Haven’t Even More Quit?
If there are so many Chinese people who hate the CCP so much that they are eager to quit it, the question we should be asking is “Why have only 11 million people quit the CCP?” rather than “Is it true that 11 million people have quit the CCP?”
Expert analysis suggests that currently the biggest taboo for the CCP is the Nine Commentaries and information about the mass withdrawals from the CCP. The CCP has been trying their best to block such information from the Chinese people. This is one of the main reasons why Nine Commentaries and the information of the withdrawals have not been spreading more widely.
Bill Xia believes the Nine Commentaries and information about the mass withdrawals from the CCP have become the main targets of the CCP’s Internet blockade. A part of the blockade is the blockage of emails. The CCP has spared no effort in blocking emails about Nine Commentaries. The blockade was particularly severe before June 4, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. At that time, for about a whole week people in China could hardly access DynaWeb (Dongtaiwang.com) and Ultrareach.net (Wujiewang), the two important tools for breaking through the Internet blockade. As a result the number of people who quit CCP through DynaWeb was lowered during that period. It took a couple of weeks to restore the access to DynaWeb.
Dr. Gao said, “Over the past year, over ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners have been confirmed to be kidnapped for distributing Nine Commentaries and encouraging people to quit the CCP. Last year we handed President Bush a report on over 70 persecution cases before he visited China.”
The CCP has spent a large sum of money to maintain the intense blockade. It reduced the avenues of withdrawal declarations. The people at the lower stratums of Chinese society are the primary victims of the blockade because they have hardly any means to break it.
In China only a very small percentage of people have both Internet access and know how to break through the blockade. Therefore, a lot of people who want to quit the CCP do not have a channel to declare their withdrawals. Bill Xia said, “Many middle-aged and old people, having experienced enough to know better the history and nature of the CCP, want to quit the CCP, but they do not know how to break the Internet blockade. It is the same, or even worse, for the poor, as they may have difficulty even in making international phone calls or sending faxes. All these factors result in the fact that it is not all that easy in China to find a way to quit the CCP.”
Although it is still not easy to spread Nine Commentaries and help people quit the CCP, the prospective is promising. The more something is banned, the more enthusiastic people are to get it and spread it. So far, the Chinese government has publicly denied the mass withdrawals twice. But the denials only resulted in firmer belief in the existence of the withdrawals.
People from all Segments of Society Are Quitting the Party
QSD’s analysis of the withdrawal declaration database shows that among people who declared to quit the CCP, 20,448 are government officials, 879 are from public security and law enforcement departments, 584 from the Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CCP, 407 are deputies to the People’s Congress, 149 from the Public Security Bureau, 140 from provincial Party committees, 138 from people’s courts, 72 from the Ministry of State Security, 22 from State Council, 21 from Zhongnanhai, the central headquarter of Chinese government, and 13 are members of the Standing Committee of National People’s Congress.
Dr. Gao says that even within the CCP, it is a common understanding that the Party will not last long. He hopes the withdrawal movement can disintegrate the CCP in a peaceful way.
A volunteer at the Service Center for Quitting the CCP said that some high-ranking officials also have withdrawn from the CCP. They have received a call from an official who is in charge of propaganda in mainland China. He said he had received information about quitting the CCP and organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. He urged us to further spread the truths to mainland China, and gave us suggestions on how to do it.
The Center also received a phone call from a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau. He called to see whether the Service Center for Quitting the CCP is a false rumor made by Falun Gong practitioners and whether it is manipulated by Taiwan independence forces. The volunteer’s explanation dismissed his doubts, and he said he would consider reading the Nine Commentaries.
On March 1, 2005, 46 veteran cadres who have worked for 30 to 50 years for Chinese military nuclear programs, declared to withdraw from the CCP. In May, dozens of people from the Central Party School submitted their declaration of withdrawals through other people to The Epoch Times. Among them were ministry-level and vice-ministry level officials in service. They wrote in the letter, “As far as we know, 90 percent of the more than 2000 employees of the Central Party School will quit the party when conditions allow.”
The latest trend is the withdrawal statements from corrupt officials. Dr. Gao said they received one statement from an official from Guangdong Province who used to evict residents from their homes by violence. He said in his declaration that he deeply regrets hurting many people in the violent evictions, and that he would not do that any more. Quitting the CCP is his way to say goodbye to his past, and to apologize to the victims of the force evictions.
Another declaration received by the service center was from a group of corrupt officials. They said that they always knew that the CCP was evil, and so did their parents. They used to be good officials, but later they became corrupt when they could find no reason not to grab money from the CCP, as it is so evil and corrupt. They said they still cherish some righteous thoughts in their hearts. Now they have emigrated abroad with their families after they obtained enough money. These ex-CCP officials offered to provide financial support to help disintegrate and eliminate the CCP.
This article was compiled from the NTDTV program “Attention to World News”
Friends Read Free