If you think what the Chinese regime is doing
to Uighurs
in Xinjiang is bad...
wait till you hear what they’ve done to
prepare for it.
Hi,
welcome back to China Uncensored.
I’m your host Chris Chappell.
They say history repeats itself.
But that’s not entirely true.
At least not in China.
Because for history to repeat itself,
that implies that whatever horrible thing
you’re talking about stopped,
and then started anew.
But under the Chinese Communist Party,
horrible things have pretty much never stopped
happening.
I mean, if it’s working for you,
why change?
Take for instance the persecution of the Uighurs,
the ethnic minority who live in the
Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.
Yes, I know,
it’s called an autonomous region,
not a province.
But believe it or not,
the people there are about as autonomous
as people in the Tibet Autonomous Region.
Which is
not...autonomous.
I think it might have something to do with
all of Xinjiang’s facial-recognition surveillance,
...police stations on every corner…
and the political reeducation camps.
And let’s not forget the torture that makes
death seem like a release!
You know, I do love the Rockettes,
but that may have been some unfortunately
placed advertising.
And while it’s great that the rest of the
world
is finally beginning to take notice,
this extreme form of monitoring and persecution
in Xinjiang is not really new.
It’s just much more visible.
Because the persecution of the Uighurs
is not just similar to what’s happened in
Tibet,
it’s also shockingly similar to what the
Chinese Communist Party
did to another group—Falun Gong.
In fact, many of the tactics the Party is
now using against Uighurs
were perfected under the Party’s mass campaign
to eradicate Falun Gong.
That campaign started nearly 20 years ago,
in 1999.
Of course, Falun Gong is completely different
from Islam.
But the Communist Party doesn’t care what
your beliefs are.
As long as you believe in something that’s
not Party ideology,
you’re a threat.
And Falun Gong’s principles are
Truth, Compassion, and Tolerance.
You can see why that’s a threat to the Party’s
ideology.
Falun Gong is a spiritual practice that has
similarities to Buddhism and Daoism.
It became hugely popular in China during the
90s.
At its peak, the Chinese government estimated
there were 70 to 100 million people practicing
it.
And then they realized,
“Wait, that means more people are practicing
Falun Gong
than are members of the Chinese Communist
Party!”
I mean,
it doesn’t have to be a popularity contest.
But if you’re an authoritarian party-state
that’s spent decades suppressing and controlling
any religion
so that you, and only you,
can control people’s hearts and minds
you feel a little differently about these
things.
Especially since many Party members
were also practicing Falun Gong.
And so the Chinese Communist Party leadership
thought about why
truth and compassion and tolerance were so
popular,
did some deep soul searching,
and decided to change their ways.
I’m just kidding.
They launched a bloody crackdown.
In this episode,
I can’t really get into all the details
of why
Falun Gong was persecuted.
So if you’d like to learn more,
check out my episode What is Falun Gong
and Why Is it Persecuted;
the link is below.
But there are a lot of similarities to
what the Communist Party
did to Falun Gong practitioners starting 20
years ago,
and what they’re doing to Uighurs in Xinjiang
now.
As award-winning China researcher Matthew
Robertson says,
“This campaign [against Falun Gong]
may have very well have been the training
model
for what is now taking place in Xinjiang.”
Here are 5 ways the persecution of Falun Gong
became the template for what the Communist
Party
is doing to Uighurs today.
Number 5:
Propaganda
How do you convince a nation
that torturing and detaining innocent people
is a good idea?
Propaganda!
The first step in these mass campaigns is
obviously
to convince other Chinese citizens
that the group being targeted
is a dangerous threat to society.
In the 90s,
Chinese state-run media had been promoting
Falun Gong,
saying it provided health and mental benefits
for millions.
But in 1999,
they quickly gave Falun Gong a new name:
“evil cult.”
And here’s a website belonging to Xinhua,
the official mouthpiece of the Party.
It’s their landing page for
Falun Gong related articles.
The skull really is a nice touch.
Along with the Microsoft Word “Chiller”
font.
That makes it seem really scary.
I guess Xinhua editors
read a lot of R. L. Stine.
Most of the anti-Falun Gong propaganda was
more sophisticated than that, though.
Chinese state-run media spent millions
to create media articles and fake events
to make Falun Gong look dangerous and stupid.
And also to erase all those older state-run
news reports
about Falun Gong’s health benefits
and how intellectuals practiced it.
Oops!
The Party is using similar propaganda tactics
now
against the Uighurs.
Uighurs went from being
one of the 56 happy ethnic minorities,
to being “separatists”,
and then after 9/11,
the most effective label:
“Muslim terrorists.”
Those reeducation camps where Uighurs are
being tortured?
Why, they’re just reforming religious extremists.
This article from Xinjiang Daily is called
Extremist Religion is Not Religion.
And of course,
the Chinese Communist Party always thinks
of the children.
Like in this school play
where an evil Uighur is being arrested.
And here’s a dance number called uphold
science;
deal with evil religions according to the
law.
Hey, why are you leaving in the middle?
Do you not want to learn how to deal with
evil religions
according to the law?
That guy is definitely getting arrested.
Number 4:
Weaponizing Your Beliefs
The Communist Party uses people’s
deeply held spiritual beliefs as a weapon
against them.
For Falun Gong practitioners,
here’s a good example.
As the persecution intensified,
Falun Gong practitioners went underground.
And since all sorts of people practice Falun
Gong
from factory workers to lawyers to even Party
members
well, the Communist Party struggled to identify
who still secretly practiced.
As a way to root them out,
they had major subway stations plaster pictures
of the founder of Falun Gong on the ground.
In Chinese culture,
stepping on a picture of someone’s face
is extremely disrespectful.
So if you stepped on the picture,
you were allowed through.
If you refused,
you’d be put in jail.
They’ve used similar tactics against Uighurs,
who are Muslim.
For example,
the Communist Party has banned beards and
veils,
and restricted fasting during Ramadan.
And shopkeepers are now required
to stock cigarettes and alcohol.
Although that last one
is not so much to make Muslims violate their
beliefs.
You see, persecuting people is hard work,
and sometimes the Chinese police
just need a cigarette and a stiff drink.
Number 3:
Blame Hostile Foreign Forces
The Chinese Communist Party wants you to know
that Falun Gong practitioners,
or Muslims,
or whoever the victim du jour is,
well, they’re extremely dangerous.
But also,
they’re definitely not more powerful than
the Party.
So remember kids,
if there’s some group undermining
China’s social harmony,
you can bet there are hostile foreign forces
at work behind the scenes.
For example,
there’s this article in the totally-trustworthy-sounding
Facts.org.CN
that suggests Falun Gong
is secretly funded by the CIA.
Yes,
the CIA has decided
to stop running guns to Latin American rebels,
and start funding the world’s most boring,
nonviolent protests that attract
almost no media attention.
The Party uses the same line about Uighurs.
Here’s a People’s Daily article saying,
“We must be vigilant of foreign forces
using religion to infiltrate and conspire
to carry out the ‘four transformations’
and ‘splittism.’”
And obviously,
any claims that the Party is mistreating the
Uighurs
are also coming from anti-china forces.
For good measure,
any Tibetan protesters are
funded by hostile foreign forces, too.
Because there’s no way Tibetans could be
genuinely upset
about how they’re treated by the Communist
Party.
And we’ll be right back
to show you how the Party manipulates the
law,
right after this quick commercial break.
We’re back,
and it’s time for...
Number 2:
Manipulating the Law
Even though these persecutions are done
outside of any form of rule of law,
in recent years,
the Party has been creating legal justifications.
And nothing says rule of law,
like a giant ax chopping Uighurs into mincemeat.
Who says reeducation camps have to be illegal?
I mean, if you control the government,
you can make anything legal.
Like medieval torture.
Now I’m not going to detail all the insane
methods
the Communist Party has invented
to torture Falun Gong practitioners.
Because YouTube would probably demonetize
this video.
But they’re bad.
The stories of torture from Xinjiang
are only just beginning to come out.
But I’m betting they will be very similar
to what Falun Gong practitioners went through.
And there’s a reason for that.
As Robertson says,
“The need to hit transformation rate targets
set by higher-ups
likely contributed to the level of brutality
used against Falun Gong,
and given that similar quotas are being dictated
in Uighur transformation work,
security cadres may find that more violent
methods
are required to achieve their ends.”
And finally...
Number 1:
Re-Education Makes You Less Dumb
It’s very important for everyone to remember,
if you believe in anything besides communism,
it’s because you’re dumb.
See, according to state-run media,
Chinese people who believe in Falun Gong,
or Christianity,
or Buddhism,
or Islam,
well, they’re all a bunch of uneducated
simpletons.
Hence the need for re-education!
And it’s all about learning
to love the Chinese Communist Party.
Ideological education is a major part of it.
Reading Communist doctrine and singing patriotic
songs
all to help these misguided souls join
“the big socialist family.”
It’s such a loving family...
that has killed 100 million people over 100
years.
Which, in their defense,
is only an average of one million people a
year.
Now comparing the persecution
of the Uighurs and Falun Gong practitioners
isn’t to diminish the suffering of either
group.
But there’s a common misconception floating
around
in response to the situation in Xinjiang
that this shows how things in China are getting
worse.
Yes, it’s absolutely bad now.
But it’s also been bad since the Communist
Party’s early days
from thought rectification in Yan’an,
to “liberating” Tibet,
to the Cultural Revolution,
to the Tiananmen massacre,
to killing Falun Gong practitioners,
to now also oppressing Uighurs.
And that’s still leaving out a lot.
We could do an entire series on
all the different groups of people the Chinese
Communist Party
has persecuted over the years.
Wouldn’t that be fun to watch?
The Communist Party has never stopped persecuting
people.
They’ve just been refining their craft.
The problem is systemic.
We can’t expect the Communist Party to fundamentally
reform
and become good.
As long as it’s around,
there’s always going to be another group
that needs to be persecuted
I mean, re-educated
for a better,
more harmonious society that loves the Party.
Gotta say that it’s not looking too great
for the Christians right now, either.
But the more people who are aware of what
the Chinese Communist Party has been doing
over the years,
the more likely it is that someday,
all of the rightists,
splittists,
counterrevolutionaries,
intellectuals,
running dogs,
separatists,
religious extremists,
and puppets of hostile foreign forces
will see justice in China.
So what do you think?
Leave your comments below.
And now I want to take a moment to answer
a question
from a fan who supports China Uncensored
on the crowd funding website Patreon.
Wesley Tucker asks,
“What can you offer in the way of hopeful
insight
that can assure your audience that we are
not going to be living under a CCP world order
in matter of decades from now?”
Well, Wesley, I wish I could promise that.
The Chinese Communist Party is doing everything
it can
to make a CCP world order happen.
Like by asserting its views at the United
Nations.
And waging a brazen and aggressive campaign
of influence in Western democracies.
That could be a very grim future.
The good news is that people around the world
like you
are beginning to wake up and take action.
US officials have been speaking out about
it
more directly than ever.
Australia has banned foreign campaign contributions
because of concerns about
Chinese Communist Party influence.
And Canada...
well, the Prime Minister is still hugging
pandas,
so there’s some work to do.
So stay educated by watching China Uncensored
and share what you learn with your friends
and family.
Especially if you live in Canada.
Thanks for your question, Wesley.
And if you want a shot at having
your question answered on the show,
contribute a dollar or more per episode
to China Uncensored by going to
patreon.com/chinauncensored.
Once again,
I’m Chris Chappell.
Thanks for watching China Uncensored.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
If you want to know the truth about
why the Communist Party went after Falun Gong,
Click this video.
And on our podcast
China Unscripted
I sat down with Matthew Robertson
To talk about this issue
and how the Chinese Communist Party
perfected its craft of
persecution and media manipulation
Check it out, the link is below
or subscribe on iTunes.
I'll see you in the comments section below.
