The Chinese Communist Regime Is a Danger to the World

Soldiers of the People's Liberation Army march in front of the entrance of the Forbidden City in Beijing on May 20, 2020. (Andrea Verdelli/Getty Images)

The very nature of Chinese communism is evil. Much of the harm that has been done around the world for the past 70 or more years is directly attributable to the Chinese Communist Party.

Chinese influence around the world began during the Korean War. If the North Koreans with Chinese army support had been successful, South Korea would have become another communist country in Asia. In fact, during the Vietnam War, China supported North Vietnam in its takeover of South Vietnam and Laos.

The population of the People’s Republic of China numbers approximately 1.4 billion, and the number increases every day. It’s no surprise that the communist regime cares little about its own people, as witnessed by the savagery demonstrated during the Cultural Revolution launched in 1966 by Mao Zedong, finally ending with his death 10 years later.

Mao’s ideology was based on Marxism-Leninism, but with far more brutality against his own people. In one horrendous incident, Mao ordered the slaughter of approximately 340 peasants whom he denounced as “capitalists” merely because they owned their small land holdings. Mao’s perpetrators bragged about these brutal killings as “red terror” during which entire families, including children, were butchered. It is estimated that as many as 65 million Chinese people were slaughtered by Mao.

Mao’s questions to his followers included “who is our enemy”? and “who is our friend”? His enemy was always the capitalist United States. It’s telling that any discussion of the Cultural Revolution is discouraged today, but that doesn’t mean that any subsequent regime under various leaders, including Jiang Zemin and Deng Xiaoping, wasn’t just as brutal.

During the Zemin secretary generalship, the spiritual group Falun Gong was targeted for “eradication” by murder or lengthy prison terms. The practitioners of Falun Gong believed in meditation and exercises and following teachings that promoted morality, truthfulness, compassion, forbearance, and virtue, characteristics that were not acceptable to the communist regime.

It was Deng who ordered the Tiananmen Square massacre, where 10,000 people were killed and many more injured. It was Deng who ordered the “one-child policy,” during which hundreds of thousands of forced abortions were brutally carried out. During Hu Jintao’s leadership, Chinese Gen. Chi Haotian presented a speech in which he advocated biological weapons be developed in order to “clean up America.” In the same speech, Gen. Chi said it would be acceptable to lose millions of Chinese people living in America at the same time. In fact, the regime even today considers the United States China’s greatest enemy, but has deceptively developed and manipulated policies to steal or coerce U.S. technology, innovation, and industrial expertise to China’s advantage.

In China there is no free expression, dissent is non-existent, and much like what happened to Falun Gong, Christianity is under subtle siege with the removal of crosses from churches across China. Over 1 million ethnic Muslim Uyghurs have been interned in concentration camps euphemistically called “re-education” institutions, where these people are indoctrinated to accept and adopt the communist “get your mind right” philosophy.

China has become the censorship and surveillance state of the world. Universities have removed all teaching of the concepts of human rights, freedom of expression, representative government, and the rule of law. The most-popular cell phone app is one that requires users to access certain articles and quizzes intended to encourage support of the regime and its policies. And the “social credit” system gives the government almost complete control over the thinking of the people and determines eligibility for loans, transportation, housing, or government employment. 

Parallel action also takes place beyond China’s borders once any country becomes indebted to the regime in any way. The Chinese Communist Party has been insidiously building support for communism in Asia and is slowly building, bribing, or buying influence all over the world. For example, when a country enters into any joint venture with a Chinese corporation, that country must be willing to share its applicable technological and/or intellectual property with China.

A perfect example of the coercive behavior of the Chinese communist regime is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, also called One Belt, One Road) aimed at building infrastructure projects such as railways, highways, ports, and pipelines throughout Asia and parts of Eastern Europe. Its true purpose is to co-opt control of trade routes and communication networks for China’s access.

The projects are funded by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) that positions itself as a “lean, clean, green” institution with a robust environmental and social policy framework, implying that it is concerned with the environment and human rights. Its 57 founding members include China, India, Australia, France, Germany, and Italy. There are currently 102 member countries of the AIIB, including Canada, but ironically China controls over a quarter of the voting shares of the bank, and it has simply become another tool that the Chinese communist regime uses to co-opt projects in which the bank invests.

It is instructive that Canada, under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, joined the AIIB in 2018 and gave C$256 million to the AIIB, which funded the building of an oil pipeline in Azerbaijan while all new pipeline approvals in Canada have been rejected in the name of reducing global warming. Furthermore, in 2019, the Trudeau government gave C$41 million taxpayer dollars in foreign aid to China, a country whose economy massively exceeds that of Canada.

Unfortunately, everyone of these BRI projects has strings attached, or what could be called “economic clientele-ism,” which is a ruthless trap giving China some level of economic control over many of the countries where BRI projects have been completed. For example, Sri Lanka invested in a sea port in which the Chinese navy now houses one of its submarines. The practice of co-option is prevalent in all these activities as international companies operating in China have been known to have their economic activities curtailed if that company is critical of any Chinese government policy.

It’s ironic that the United Nations heaps praise on China for its willingness to provide more funding and peacekeeping soldiers around the world than any other country today, but this involvement is both strategic and economic and helps China take advantage of its co-option and coercion policies. China has provided peacekeepers to the Democratic Republic of the Congo primarily because China has huge interests in copper and cobalt mines. It sent an entire battalion of peacekeepers to South Sudan, primarily to protect its interests in that country’s oil resources, in which China has significant interests.

Not withstanding the history of human rights abuses in its own country, China has been awarded a seat on the influential United Nations Consultative Group, whose responsibility is to select member countries to sit on the United Nations Human Rights Council. By comparison to the United States, whose contribution to the United Nations is just under one fifth of the U.N.’s budget, or $10 billion, China’s contribution is a paltry 2 percent or $1.3 billion, another act of co-option.

In a recent article, Dr. V. A. Shiva Ayyadurai explained that the United States is becoming an “indentured servant” to China. Chinese industrialists and foundations controlled by the Chinese communist regime are buying access to U.S. universities, such as Harvard, and banks, such as Wells Fargo. These activities are ongoing, in an attempt to influence those who have connections to the United Nations, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and strongly suggest that China is waging economic, scientific, and psychological warfare on the West.

Of serious concern to Western democracies is the implementation of the new 5G communications infrastructure in which the Chinese technology company Huawei is encouraging the West to utilize its equipment. In an article “How China Sees the World,” published in The Atlantic, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the former U.S. National Security Adviser, wrote, “Many Huawei workers simultaneously work for China’s Ministry of Security and the Intelligence arm of the Peoples Liberation Army.”

The implication is clear. Security of military, industrial, and communications technology will be at severe risk if Huawei technology becomes part of the 5G system. As a result, Western democracies must not utilize Huawei technology if these countries wish to retain full control of their communications security.

These predatory business practices combined with its totalitarian political philosophy proves conclusively that China cannot be trusted in any activity, political, economic, or societal. China’s trade policies, total absence of any regard for human rights and free speech, combined with its brutal treatment of its own people, should make every Western leader extremely cautious when dealing with China. Yet, when he is questioned about Canada’s relationship with China, Trudeau refuses to answer any direct question and will not criticize the communist regime or its practices, even while Canadian products such as soybeans, beef, and canola are blocked from Chinese trade, and two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, languish in Chinese communist prisons for so-called spying.

Recently, another blow to Alberta was struck with two of the biggest meat packing plants in Canada closed due to the pandemic that has taken several workers’ lives. The agriculture and ranching industries across the Prairies will be severely hurt, but Trudeau, with his unthinking selfish tax greed, has not removed the carbon tax from our food producers. It should surprise no one that during the past few months, Trudeau has introduced legislation that strongly suggests he is moving Canada to a socialist if not totalitarian regime. Canadian voters must be on their guard.

The Chinese communist regime has no regard for international treaties or the recognition of international waters, as proven by their ongoing practice of building artificial islands and installing landing strips on them. The pandemic has allowed China to bully Taiwan and Hong Kong even more.

In view of the COVID-19 pandemic that is ravaging the entire world at this time, it’s instructive to remember that China did not warn the world of the coronavirus for almost two months. It’s shameful that Chinese Dr. Li Wenliang warned the Chinese authorities of the virus in early December 2019. He was castigated for “upsetting the social order” and made to sign a confession as such. Dr. Li died on Feb. 7, 2020, after contracting the virus.

At this time the British government is considering bringing suit against the Chinese government for trillions of pounds, as is the Henry Jackson Society for $6.5 trillion in economic losses. The Chinese communist regime cannot be trusted under any circumstance, and this editorial is a warning for Prime Minister Trudeau. Will he listen or has he been “co-opted” by the Chinese communists? We must fear the latter.

To conclude, whether or not the COVID-19 virus that originated in Wuhan, China, was natural or accidentally released by the carelessness of laboratory personnel causing well over 400,000 deaths, the virus can be placed directly at the doorstep of the corrupt Chinese Communist Party.

Lloyd Leugner