Protesters Insisting on Their Rights
Protests happen every day in China, and the number is rapidly increasing. Professor Xia Yeliang of Beijing University said in a Radio Free Asia interview that, according to the statistics from the CCP’s Political and Legal Committee, the number of group protests in 2009 rose to 230,000.
Two of the recent protests show the Chinese people not backing down in confronting authorities.
On Aug. 14, over 50,000 residents of Dalian City, Liaoning Province, occupied the People’s Square in front of the office building of the city government and the Communist Party Committee, demanding the shutdown of a petrochemical plant in the city due to its potential toxicity.
The crowd was growing and expanding from the square to the local streets. The city’s Communist Party chief, Tang Jun, failed to convince the protesters to disperse with his promise to relocate the plant. The protesters demanded a clear timetable for the relocation.
On the same day, over 5,000 residents in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, blocked the streets and traffic, demanding electricity be provided without blackouts. The poorer quarters of the city say they have been targeted for power outages by authorities.
A Collective Press Rebellion
Control of the media has always been the highest priority of the Communist Party. Its Central Committee has a special department called the Central Propaganda Department, which dictates what stories media can cover and how they should be covered. However, lately the Propaganda Department’s edicts seem to have generated widespread resistance and criticism, which they have never encountered before.
On July 23, two bullet trains collided in Wenchou City, in Zhejiang Province. According to official figures, 39 died and 192 were injured. Unofficial estimates of the number of dead were far higher.
A rescue effort at the accident site was abruptly discontinued. The cleanup work began, and the front car of the second train was buried under mud by excavation equipment. Yiyi, a 2-year-old girl, was found still alive after six hours of the cleanup work.
Anger from the victims’ family members overflowed, as they believe more lives like that of the little girl Yiyi could have been saved if a thorough rescue effort had been carried out.
Reporters were interested in reporting and investigating the real cause of the crash and the reason that the train car was buried so quickly.
In China, the Ministry of Railway is well-known for its corruption and poor service. Its former minister, Liu Zhijun, is known as the father of high-speed trains in China. He was arrested for corruption in February 2011.
Since corruption is a widespread disease infecting every department and level of the communist regime, the Central Propaganda Department feared that digging into the real cause of theaccident would inevitably expose more stories of corruption and induce a wave of anger toward the Communist Party.
The Propaganda Department therefore quickly issued directives to all the media and ordered them not to dig into the causes, not to elaborate on theaccident, and not to associate the collision with other systematic issues like corruption. Instead, it asked the media to report how great love was demonstrated by the government during this great tragedy.
The Beijing-based Economic Observer interviewed several eyewitnesses and published a series of commentaries online, directly criticizing the Ministry of Railways for improperly handling theaccident.
Read more on the Ministry of Railways
The Twenty-First Century Business Herald, a Guangzhou-based financial newspaper, published over 40 reports and commentaries on theaccident, which challenged the Ministry of Railways’ explanation and handling of the accident and listed the Ministry of Railways officials who were closely connected to companies in the high-speed train industry.
Beijing News published six editorial commentaries, questioned those experts who misled the public into believing China has the best high-speed train safety technology, and demanded the Ministry of Railways provide more transparent information.
Even Xinhua and the People’s Daily—the regime’s mouthpieces—started criticizing the Ministry of Railways. A commentary by Economic Information, a publication under Xinhua, said: “The right to life is the most basic human right for human beings. … Protecting every citizen’s right to life is the bottom line for every country.”
On July 29, nearly 100 newspapers had used as headlines in their print editions the words of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao: “We must provide the public the truth,” and “the Ministry of Railways must answer if saving people is their No. 1 task.”
The Beijing Evening News published a 3,000-character interview with Peking University Law School professor He Weifang, who called on the National People’s Congress (NPC) to establish a special committee to investigate the accident. In doing so, it is trying to challenge the NPC to be independent of the CCP.
China Youth Online published an article titled “It’s Time to Use the Internet to Force [the CCP to] Reform.”
Many newspapers protested the ban on reporting the accident with blank pages that only have the date of the accident and quotes from Wen Jiabao.
100 Million Chinese Renounce the CCP
After the Epoch Times published the editorial series “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party” in 2004, an unprecedented movement began—the “Tuidang” (renounce the Party) movement.
In China, most of the people, whether they have joined the CCP or not, have joined the youth organizations affiliated with the CCP—the Young Pioneers and the Communist Youth League. Upon joining, individuals were required to vow to die for the cause of communism. No one dared to quit these communist organizations—even if they disliked what they had experienced—for fear of reprisal.
The “Nine Commentaries” helped the Chinese people come to recognize the truth of their experience with the CCP—that it is a political evil cult that has hijacked China and the Chinese people for over 60 years, causing over 80 million deaths.
The Chinese people use pseudonyms to renounce association with any of the CCP organizations and, in particular, the vows they made to die for the Party. Their renunciations are delivered to Tuidang Service Centers in person or by phone, fax, letter, or through the Internet, where they are recorded on a Website.
According to a Chinese saying, those who lose the heart of the people will lose the world. The CCP is steadily losing its ground.
Michael Young, a Chinese-American writer based in Washington, D.C., writes on China and the Sino-U.S. relationship.
