[Vacets-local-dc] [Panicked Communists Ban Any Mention of The Nine Commentaries]

[Hai Tran]

The Nine Commentaries Rush into China
Panicked Communists Ban Any Mention of Them

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By Li Tu
The Epoch Times
Dec 18, 2004

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The publication of the Nine Commentaries on November 18 is being discussed worldwide and has shocked China (Epoch Times) "The Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party" (CCP) have drawn worldwide attention since their publication in The Epoch Times. This has become a hot topic particularly among Chinese communities, with seminars and workshops held in various cities, and ever more articles about the CCP appearing. Former communists have seized the moment to withdraw their membership. In the meantime, the Nine Commentaries have found their way into mainland China through different channels; they are reported to be having a tremendous impact. 
Beijing has tightened its control within China, banning any mention of the Nine Commentaries. It has adopted a more cautious approach in its overseas propaganda, with its website Xinhua Net fabricating a statement to cover up its weaknesses. Hidden motives were further revealed in its game of arresting and releasing dissident writers. 
The Fast-spreading Nine Commentaries Astound China’s Political Circle 
Since overseas Chinese began sending the Nine Commentaries to their friends and family in China through various channels, those in China have been scrambling to read them. By using various tools to break through the website blockade by the government, people have downloaded the Internet electronic book form of Nine Commentaries. With Internet being the fastest conduit to transmit the Nine Commentaries, the daily number of downloads from mainland China has been astounding. Though Beijing has kept its Internet cafes under close surveillance and blocked selected overseas websites, Chinese can still surf the net through websites such as China News on Freenet and zhongguohun.com. 
Several kinds of chat rooms have offered passage to transmit the Nine Commentaries to China. In those chat rooms, many net users showed enthusiasm in discussing the Nine Commentaries with the overseas net users, or just requested the articles. 
Hundreds of thousands of extra copies of the Epoch Times’ Nine Commentaries on the CCP have been distributed in Hong Kong, and a large portion of those have entered China. The Epoch Times Office keeps receiving phone calls, asking for more or to order in advance. 
Feedback indicates that many Chinese have become bolder since reading the commentaries. Some have said they would take those articles with them when they visit China this year. Westerners, too, grabbed them and wanted to let their Chinese friends read them during their China trip. 
Despite the strong interest the commentaries have aroused in China, people still cannot express their views publicly. They do, however, talk about them in private. A provincial official said privately, “An anti-China group overseas published an editorial series on our Party. I heard it’s quite appealing and anyone who reads it will feel inspired. The articles have overcome the firewalls and found their way inside China.” 
A private source in China said, “the publicity you, The Epoch Times, created, is so overwhelming that the propaganda agency in China has issued internal instructions without mentioning the Nine Commentaries, demanding adherence to the current state and political systems for social stability.” 
The source revealed that the leaders of the CCP are faced with a dilemma and don’t know how to react. What they finally did was to relay the message from above orally and refrained from mentioning the Nine Commentaries. 
Since the opening of CCP membership withdrawal website on December 3rd, more than 1,600 communists have declared their withdrawal from the Party or League, half of them from mainland China. 
The Nine Commentaries, reportedly, have become a strong challenge to the CCP and unmasked all the absurdness of Beijing’s media. 
Some overseas China specialists believed that the Nine Commentaries have undoubtedly shocked the CCP’s political circle and will certainly raise question to the base of Beijing’s communist regime. Like a shot in the arm, the commentaries will bring to life the insensitive and hopeless souls of the Chinese people. Ye Ning, a lawyer and expert on China in Washington D.C. said, “the publication of the Nine Commentaries is a historic event and signals the starting point to reassess the CCP theoretically.” 


A propaganda poster used in The Cultural Revolution. It says, “Chairman Mao is the Sun in our heart” (Epoch Times) 


A Panicked CCP Fabricated An Official Statement 
Xinhua Net, China’s state media website, officially posted a statement on December 12th that says, “we are authorized to announce: Meng Weizai solemnly states that he will remain a member of the CCP forever.” 
This is the first official response from Beijing to the wave of withdrawals from the CCP triggered by the commentaries, and they picked Mr. Meng Weizai, former director of Division of Art and Literature under CCP’s Propaganda Department and former deputy Party chief at China Federation of Art and Literature (CFAL), who, at age 70, declared his membership withdrawal on an overseas website. But nothing could be further from the truth. Mr. Meng declared in a statement entitled "the last dignity at an advanced age" on December 12th: "The Solemn Statement of CCP member Meng Weizai is a fabrication by the Party group at CFAL and Xinhua Net. I, Meng Weizai, a once CCP member, am no longer a CCP member and I will not be a CCP member for as long as I live." 
Many commentators have pointed out that such uncalled for tricks by the CCP are counter-productive. The CCP’s constitution stipulates that “the membership operates on a join-or-leave-at-will basis”. Then why would a member who wanted to declare that he would quit his membership authorize an official media to say otherwise? Besides, the statement didn’t dare to mention the background of such an announcement. 
Mr. Shi Zangshan, a specialist on China in Washington, said, “it’s rare for Beijing’s Xinhua News Agency to post an ordinary Party member’s withdrawal statement. Such an unusual practice reveals nothing but panic and loss of coherence in thinking on the part of CCP.” 
Same Day Arrest of Dissident Writers Linked to the Nine Commentaries 
At dusk, December 13th, police detained several liberal writers, searched their homes and took away their computers. Most of the detainees are members of the Independent Chinese Pen, affiliated with the International PEN. Among them, some are columnists for The Epoch Times. Liu Xiaobo, Yu Jie, Wang Yi, and Zhang Zuhua from Beijing, and Shi Tao, have been arrested on charges of illegally providing state secrets to overseas groups. All have been released, except for Shi Tao. 
“Their arrests are probably linked to the publication of the Nine Commentaries on the CCP by The Epoch Times” said political commentator Mr. Ling Feng. “The publication created such a stir worldwide that the CCP printed out the articles the writers posted on the net and asked if they were the authors. The authorities asked them to sign their names as acknowledgement, so as to collect evidence. According to Yu Jie, most of the articles were published on The Epoch Times website, so it’s clear that the arrests are associated with The Epoch Times’ editorial series.” Ling commented. 
Chinese Across the World Talk about the Commentaries and Denounce the CCP 
Many cities and areas have held seminars and workshops on the commentaries since their publication and almost every one of them was a full house. The allocated time had to be extended a few times, as it seemed that those who attended were unwilling to leave and had ever more to say. 
Coming from all backgrounds, the participants included college professors, lawyers, and former communists who joined the CCP in its early years. There were also Ph.Ds, mentors, editors, journalists, medical doctors, and democracy activists. They came in different age groups, including the elderly who had witnessed political movements in China to young adults who were born after 1970. 
The seminars widely agreed that the Nine Commentaries have ignited a wave of reflection among the Chinese in China and abroad on the nature of the CCP, as well as issues like social ethics, conscience, human nature and Chinese traditional culture. In fact, all Chinese are victims of the CCP. They have been persecuted and deceived by the CCP to varying degrees. 
Mr. Feng, who was born in Indonesia, said at the Los Angeles seminar that he himself was a typical person who was deceived by the CCP’s lies. He returned to China in 1949, convinced that the CCP would “build a nation without oppression and exploitation.” He only found that the CCP did not do as it promised. In 1957 when he was a student at Tsinghua University, he was condemned as the biggest right-wing supporter among all students at the university and was sent to a forced labor camp. He was later sentenced for life for trying to escape from the camp by cutting electrical wires. He was on the verge of being executed during the Cultural Revolution. Mr. Feng said that the CCP is the craftiest, most cowardly and brutal political party in the world. China will never have a future if the CCP does not fall. 
What every Chinese faces today is how can one remove one’s fear of the CCP, which can still be felt from far away lands, where people value honor and dignity, which is the real meaning in life for a lot of Chinese. One participant said that we could start with picking up our pens and writing down what we know to be the truth. We should all clean out the malignant tumors planted by the CCP from our bodies, reestablish a spiritual system, and recreate a humanist environment of tolerance and coexistence. 
In the meantime, the page run by The Epoch Times for the solicitation of articles on the Nine Commentaries keep receiving articles from readers, and these experience-based articles all aim at exposing CCP’s true face, denouncing the persecutions the authors and their family have gone through, and reflecting upon CCP’s tyranny. 
Overseas Chinese said that the Nine Commentaries are like a mirror that has reflected the true being of the CCP, and thus it has no place to hide. The Nine Commentaries are a flag, under which the Chinese across the world have rallied. 
The Wave of Quitting the CCP Continues 
Over 1,500 people have called quit from the Party or League 10-plus days after the withdrawal webpage was set up. Some quit on behalf of other members of their families as well as themselves. Others withdrew as a group. 
Some professors and scholars in academia from Beijing stated that the evil CCP has deceived people by cowardly means. After it set up the sham People’s Republic of China through fraternal killings among the Chinese, it destroyed the will of China’s intellectuals through such despicable ways as brainwashing and subjected them to its illegal rule. As for those intellectuals who retain the very basic conscience, it would try to eliminate them physically in an attempt to transform them into a group that serves at the Party’s pleasure. What a sad and pitiable story. 
This group of intellectuals held the view that The Epoch Times’ editorial series Nine Commentaries on the CCP call a spade a spade and has enabled people to see clearly the CCP’s viciousness, cruelty, and cowardliness. In order to restore the dignity of the intelligentsia, they, some professors and scholars from Beijing academia hereby made the following appeal: all the upright and honest intellectuals should step forward, cast aside the corpse that has been tossed aside by history, and refuse to be scholars that serve as tools for the CCP. 
A former soldier of the People’s Liberation Army that is stationed in Hong Kong said, “I joined the CCP in March, 1998. After reading the Nine Commentaries and in view of what I’ve seen and heard in society, I believe those articles have really stripped the CCP to its bone. I can no longer drift with the CCP in its slide and aid this evil doer. I solemnly declare today that I quit the CCP! Here I want to call on all my comrades-in-arms to be brave enough to do away with the CCP.” 
Ms. Huang Xiaomin, a famous Olympic athlete from China, said, “after reading The Epoch Times’ Nine Commentaries, I realized the CCP’s true face. I felt a deep shame that I was once a member of the CCP. The reality is that I did not join the Party willingly, and I’ve automatically withdrawn my membership for the fact that I’ve had no relationships with the Party for more than ten years and, during that period, have never paid my due. Still I feel it better to make a solemn statement. I want to clean out the poisonous elements of the CCP from my heart by quitting this evil political party.” 
What Follows Remains to Be Seen 
Columnist Zhang Jielian said that the Nine Commentaries, like nine heavenly spells, have sealed CCP’s nine vital points and made it immovable. Will the CCP call it halt and wisely step off the historic stage? Is the detention of liberal writers a signal that a cold winter of purge will start? 
At present, as the enthusiasm about the Nine Commentaries continues to soar, Chinese communities and groups overseas will hold more seminars. On December 18th, a few Chinese language media agencies and Chinese groups in Washington D.C. will host the second seminar on the Nine Commentaries at the request of the local Chinese.





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You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
		
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