How the CCP Has Brainwashed the Chinese People to Control Them Better

Students working in their class at the Yang Dezhi "Red Army" elementary school in Wenshui, Xishui county in Guizhou Province, on Nov. 7, 2016. (Fred Dufour/AFP via Getty Images)

Commentary

The arrogant and domineering Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cannot tolerate differences of opinion. In its eyes, independent thought is a threat to its rule. For the convenience of ruling the country, the CCP deprives the Chinese people of their rights to a free economy, participation in politics, and independent thinking. Instead, the CCP has people think, speak, and act as it instructs them to; and keeps total control over people’s thoughts and actions.

‘Party Culture’ and Violence

The two main weapons the CCP uses to exercise mind control over the Chinese people are "Party culture" and violence.

The purpose of mind control is to completely remove all divergent or independent thinking so people can be turned into slaves and obedient tools.

To this end, the CCP spares no effort to block and monopolize information and prohibits people from contacting different ideologies or accessing historical facts. At the same time, starting in kindergarten, the CCP instills its own deviant “Party culture” ideology into the Chinese people, so that from childhood to adulthood, life is filled with "Party voices."

And even more terrifying, this abhorrent brainwashing is completely enforced by violence. If you obey the CCP, you will be safe and sound and promoted into the “red noble class.” Keeping mistresses and accepting bribes are then no problem, because you are "politically correct." But if you dare to resist the CCP and stick to your own views and beliefs, you will be in serious trouble: it will cost you your life, and even your entire family’s. Under such violent coercion, the vast majority of Chinese people can do nothing but obey the CCP’s orders and willingly allow themselves to be fooled.

When not engaged in violent political campaigns against the Chinese people—such as the Cultural Revolution or the persecution of Falun Gong—the CCP steadily carries out brainwashing and mind control of the people in a step-by-step fashion. But once a political campaign is launched, brainwashing and mind control will be ratcheted up and turned into a massive storm to support the content and goals of the campaign.

It can be said that every political campaign since the CCP’s takeover of China has been a frenzied effort of brainwashing the Chinese people and an unprecedented strengthening of its mind control.

This absurd and brutal brainwashing and mind control of the population has continued from the day the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949 to the present. Across the country, people’s thinking has been imprisoned and confined within the limits allowed by the CCP. One step beyond the line is considered a sin.

Moral and Spiritual Degradation

The inevitable outcome of this violent mind control has been the moral and spiritual degradation of the entire Chinese nation.

The CCP has not only changed the definition of values and moral standards and rewritten China’s code of conduct and lifestyle, it also turned its absurd "Party culture" ideology into the collective thinking mode of the mainland Chinese people.

Many Chinese have completely lost the ability to pursue the search for truth, think independently, distinguish right from wrong. They have become spiritual slaves who can only understand things according to the CCP’s "Party culture." There is no longer a need for the CCP’s propaganda mouthpieces to blatantly clamor all the time. People have formed a conditioned reflex and will actively follow the CCP’s logic when thinking about a problem, and they will look at things from the CCP’s perspective to determine what’s right or wrong. As the saying goes, "As soon as the CCP blows air, it rains among the people."

The CCP has constantly told the Chinese that living conditions in the West are miserable. So when a newspaper published a picture of homeless people below a skyscraper in the United States, the Chinese automatically identified it as “the death struggle of capitalism and its reactionary nature.”

Another claim the CCP has repeatedly made is that democracy and freedom are not suitable for China. Therefore, when there is an argument during an election in a democratic country, as long as the CCP reports it as a joke, Chinese people will secretly rejoice about how happy they are living under a dictatorship.

The CCP also tries to make the Chinese people believe that the United States has serious human rights issues. For example, state-run media would report on police violence in America and take it out of context.

Former CCP leader Jiang Zemin, who started the persecution campaign against the Falun Gong spiritual practice, spent several years fabricating lies and slandering its adherents. In May 2005, state broadcaster CCTV aired a program about Zhang Hai, the owner of a sports drink company. The report alleged that Zhang had used Tibetan qigong to defraud people of money. There was no mention of Falun Gong in the program, and it had nothing to do with Falun Gong. But since qigong was defamed, some viewers associated Zhang with Falun Gong and then openly attacked the practice. Slandering a spiritual practice or a religion is a common tactic the CCP uses to incite hatred against a group it has targeted.

Many Chinese have lost the ability to think independently but still believe that they are thinking on their own. When they were the club the CCP relied on to strike at others, they thanked the Party for its "trust." When they themselves were hit by the CCP, they sincerely thanked the Party for its "lesson."

How much longer can the CCP brainwash and fool the Chinese people?

Yuan Bin is a freelance writer and independent scholar on contemporary China issues.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.