July 20 Anniversary and Its Significance for the West

July 20 Anniversary and Its Significance for the West
Falun Gong practitioners take part in a parade to commemorate the 24th anniversary of the persecution of the spiritual practice in China, in Sydney on July 14, 2023. Wade Zhong/The Epoch Times
John A. Deller
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Commentary

Today, the persecution of Falun Gong in China is widely known in the West, but this year July 20, marks 24 years since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began its brutal campaign to eradicate Falun Gong in China.

However, the significance of this persecution and its impact on Western democratic freedoms may be less understood.

Falun Gong (also called Falun Dafa) was introduced to the public in China by Mr. Li Hongzhi in May 1992. It is a spiritual practice in the Buddhist tradition based on the principles of truth, compassion, and forbearance (Zhen 真, Shan 善, Ren 忍 in Chinese). By 1998, over 70 million people across China had found improved health and morality through Falun Gong.

The CCP’s response to this growing practice was to ban Falun Gong on July 20, 1999. It sought to destroy Falun Gong because it awakens China’s spiritual and moral foundation, which was crushed during the Cultural Revolution.

The CCP promotes and rewards officials who “excel” at persecuting Falun Gong and threatens those who don’t, which has led to the destruction of good governance and morality in China.

The methods of physical and psychological torture refined on Falun Gong since 1999, have also been transferred by experienced Party officials to persecute Tibetans, Uyghurs, Christians, and now the good people of Hong Kong.

The CCP also uses its economic power to either induce or force other nations to be silent on the persecution of Falun Gong, leading to the subjugation of human rights to trade and economic interests.

It has also spread its anti-Falun Gong propaganda overseas so that some Western academics and government officials even follow the CCP’s false narratives.

The CCP’s contempt for international agreements and the rule of law has created hostile and even criminal market forces that impact industries around the world.

In short, the unchecked persecution of Falun Gong has damaged Chinese society and promoted corruption and dishonesty while exporting the CCP’s influence to defraud nations and damage morality and ethics around the world.

Falun Gong adherents perform the fifth exercise of meditation and spiritual practice at Queen's Park in Toronto on July 15, 2023. Later that day, hundreds of adherents took part in a rally followed by a parade through the city's downtown area, calling on the Chinese regime to stop the persecution of the spiritual practice. (Evan Ning/The Epoch Times)
Falun Gong adherents perform the fifth exercise of meditation and spiritual practice at Queen's Park in Toronto on July 15, 2023. Later that day, hundreds of adherents took part in a rally followed by a parade through the city's downtown area, calling on the Chinese regime to stop the persecution of the spiritual practice. Evan Ning/The Epoch Times

Standing Up for Freedom of Belief

At the start of the persecution, Falun Gong practitioners stood up for their right to freedom of belief, not because they were against communism. They all worked and lived within that system.
But practitioners knew that adhering to the principles of Zhen, Shan, Ren was something inherently good—good for themselves, how they positively changed, good for their families, and workplaces and society. They stood up for their rights by initially appealing to the CCP to allow them to practice Falun Gong, which was shown in the gathering at Zhongnanhai on April 25, 1999.

But they soon realised that the CCP’s ideology was entrenched and awakened to the poisonous nature of communist propaganda they had absorbed over decades. That process was assisted by the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times’ publication of the Juiping (Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party) in November 2004.

The only way to uphold their right to freedom of belief and protect that right for other Chinese, and even the people of the world, was to expose the true nature of the CCP.

Today, over 415 million people have withdrawn from the Chinese Communist Party or its affiliated tools of political indoctrination, the Communist Youth League, and Young Pioneers.

Response to Forced Organ Harvesting in China

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has created a China where the military and medical worlds perversely combine to select and kill citizens to sell their vital organs for profit. A regime with such a disdain for human life presents an extreme danger to the world.

Western democracies can expose these atrocities and avoid complicity in China’s illicit organ harvesting practices by enacting appropriate national legislation.

U.S. Congressman Scott Perry introduced Bill HR 4132 Falun Gong Protection Act, on June 14, 2023, which provides for the imposition of sanctions with respect to forced organ harvesting within the People’s Republic of China (pdf).
On March 27, 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Bill HR 1154—Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2023, authored by Congressman Chris Smith, to combat the Chinese Communist Party’s killing and stealing organs, especially from Falun Gong practitioners and Uyghurs (pdf).
Falun Gong practitioners during a re-enactment of the Chinese Communist Party's practice of forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners, during a rally in Taipei, Taiwan, on April 23, 2006. (Patrick Lin/AFP via Getty Images)
Falun Gong practitioners during a re-enactment of the Chinese Communist Party's practice of forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners, during a rally in Taipei, Taiwan, on April 23, 2006. Patrick Lin/AFP via Getty Images
The Canadian Bill S-223—“An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act” (trafficking in human organs) creates new offences for trafficking in human organs and provisions to deny entry to those considered involved in trafficking in human organs.
In 2022, the UK Heath Care Act was amended to include extra-territorial offences for commercial dealings in organs for transplantation.
In June 2023, Australian Senator Dean Smith introduced the Migration Amendment (Overseas Organ Transplant Disclosure and Other Measures) Bill 2023, which provides for information about persons entering Australia who have received an organ transplant and provisions to deny entry to those considered involved in trafficking in human organs.
Allied to such internal processes is the ongoing role of Western liberal democracies in upholding the sanctity of human life and inalienable human rights.

Approach to Soviet Communism Applicable to China Today

Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan was known as a man of strong Christian faith. In the 1980s, he forged an effective partnership with Pope John Paul II to help end communism in Poland.
A Ukrainian boy walks past a statue of Soviet Union founder Vladimir Lenin decorated with a Ukrainian national flag in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, on Aug. 9, 2014. (Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo)
A Ukrainian boy walks past a statue of Soviet Union founder Vladimir Lenin decorated with a Ukrainian national flag in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, on Aug. 9, 2014. Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo
In an interview with the Hoover Institute in March 2023, about his book “The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, The Cold War, And The World On The Brink,” Will Inboden quoted Mr. Reagan as saying, “How can a system continue to exist that devotes so many resources to stamping out and persecuting religious faith?”

Mr. Reagan was, of course, referring to Soviet communism.

Mr. Inboden also noted that previous Cold War U.S. presidents “had seen Soviet communism as a challenge to be managed or contained. Reagan reverses that, he sees the Cold War as a battle of ideas, and he sees Soviet communism as a vile idea to be defeated, rather than a geopolitical rival to be managed.”

He also explained that when Mr. Reagan called the Soviet Union ‘the focus of evil in the modern world,’ it was deliberate and calculated.

Mr. Inboden said, “This is part of the sustained offensive that he was engaging in the battle of ideas to highlight the truth, the viciousness, the depredations of Soviet communism and the better way of the free world, and, as part of that, included this very unvarnished, straightforward language condemning the Soviet Union for these iniquities.”

Mr. Reagan’s approach provides Western liberal democracies with a clear yet peaceful and strategic approach to expose China’s communist regime.

Falun Gong practitioners have seen that the CCP is an evil entity that cannot be managed but only dissolved.

When Chinese people stop accepting the lies that support it, and the West stops enabling it and starts exposing it, the CCP will disintegrate, and there will be a new China.

July 20 is a time to remember Falun Gong practitioners’ commitment to defending morality and goodness in China, not just for the Chinese people but for the benefit of the world.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
John A. Deller
John A. Deller
Author
John A. Deller is a committee member of the Falun Dafa Association of Australia.
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