Presidential hopeful and Republican Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) this weekend congratulated the 100 million who have participated in Tuidang, or “Renouncing the [Chinese Communist] Party” and said he would continue to stand on the side of “freedom and liberty” against the “scourge of communism.”
In a letter, Rep. McCotter said he was “privileged to honor the bravery of those who have had the courage to publicly step forward and denounce the stifling oppression of communism” and declared, “The defection from tyranny is gaining momentum.”
The Tuidang movement reached a major milestone last month, surpassing 100 million withdrawals from the Chinese Communist Party and its affiliated organizations. In McCotter’s home state of Michigan, supporters gathered to celebrate the achievement in the capital of Lansing on Saturday, Sept. 3.
McCotter’s remarks echoed a sentiment from the upper chamber of Congress: a U.S. Senate resolution sponsored by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), introduced in July, called on the U.S. federal government to support Tuidang.
The Tuidang movement commenced in 2004 after the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times published the editorial series the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. The commentaries describe the nature of the Chinese Communist Party and its history of violence and deceit, and calls for the Chinese to end any association with it.
In the seven years since, Tuidang, which is spearheaded by practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual group, has collected withdrawals via phone, fax, mail, and the Internet at service centers worldwide, and the withdrawals are then posted online. Some Chinese are forced to use pseudonyms in their personal statements for safety reasons.
McCotter urged members of the Chinese Communist Party to denounce their ties with the Party, as a matter of principle and conscience.
“The Chinese people are on the precipice of an important choice,” he wrote. “They can choose to stand on the side of justice, leaving a clean and honorable name in history or to compromise with the despicable Chinese Communist Party and be shamefully remembered forever.”
Furthermore, McCotter lauded the Falun Gong adherents who, despite state-sponsored persecution in China, persist with pushing forward Tuidang.
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