Last year we reported how the Chinese People’s Republic was undoubtedly to blame for much of the spread of the COVID-19 virus (see: The Trouble with China – http://www.marketfaith.org/2020/12/the-trouble-with-china). We indicated that it was clearly evident that the virus originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The Chinese government tried to cover up its guilt in the virus’ spread to the rest of the world. Chinese propagandists even tried to blame it on the United States and India. Nonetheless, international investigators determined that Chinese government policy and delay was at fault for allowing the virus to break out of their country. In this article we will review some of the facts about the current state of the Chinese People’s Republic (CPR) and expose more shocking dimensions of its government policies.
Current Chinese President, Xi Jinping (b. 1953), is now the undisputed supreme leader and political theorist of China’s government and ruling Communist Party. For the past decade Xi has taken an especially hard line in Chinese relations with other countries and in his government’s internal control of its own people. Furthermore, it is obvious that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) desires to replace the United States as the world’s major super power. In the last couple of decades they have made major moves in trade, science, technology, and the military (often stealing intellectual property) to close the gap with America and eventually to surpass it.
Xi has also tightened restrictions and intensified persecution against various religions and minority ethnic groups in China. Many Christian churches are being closed or demolished. Some pastors have been detained. The worst such persecutions have been against an ethnic group in the Chinese province of Xinjiang called Uyghurs. The population of Uyghurs (pronounced “We-gers”) in China is estimated at about 13 million. The total population of China is now about 1.4 billion!
Since about the tenth century A.D., the Uyghurs have been almost totally Sunni Muslim. Since the take over of China by the communists, led by Mao Zedong in 1949, the area where most Uyghurs live has been called the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Perhaps because of their strong religious history, language, and ethnic identity, the Uyghurs have resisted assimilation into mainline Chinese culture as fashioned by the Chinese Communist Party.
As a result, the Chinese government has significantly increased pressure on the Uyghurs to abandon their historic culture and religion, and submit completely to their communist rulers. Conclusive evidence shows that as many as one million of them have been sent to special remote “study camps.” There they are forced to endure harsh labor and undergo extensive “re-education” of their political and religious views. Observers say this may be largest systematic ethnic genocide since the Jewish Holocaust. Reports are that those who have come out of those concentration camps alive (and many do not) have had their personalities and personal habits notably altered.
One sobering aspect of this crackdown in Xinjiang is that the Chinese government utilizes some of the most modern and sophisticated technology for surveillance of its citizens. Video cameras are everywhere observing nearly every inch of populated communities. High tech face-recognition software is used to keep tabs on anyone deemed a non-conformist. Phone calls are closely monitored by computers for buzz words that could be interpreted as disloyal to the regime. People are afraid to say anything or do anything that might bring attention to themselves. It is the truest real-world expression (along with North Korea) of George Orwell’s nightmare totalitarian scenario in his classic book 1984.
All this reiterates the danger of communism. Yes, we all thought the Cold War and the battles with communism ended with the fall of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the Iron Curtain in Europe. Communism did indeed collapse after seventy years of rule in the USSR. Soviet domination forced communism on eastern Europe for forty years after World War II. The fall of communism in Europe in the early 1990s was one of the most dramatic and unexpected turn of events in the history of the world.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), however, has never relinquished any of its power in that most populous nation. Since 1949, the CCP has maintained absolute control over nearly every aspect of Chinese society. During the rule of PRC and CCP founder Mao Zedong (1893-1976) the country lived in constant utter revolutionary chaos, especially during the “Cultural Revolution” of 1966-1976 (when Mao died). All told, it is estimated that under Mao’s regime more than 40 million people died of starvation, murder, executions, and war. Religion especially was targeted for extinction.
Nonetheless, Christianity has grown extensively in China. Estimates are that 130 million or more Christians now reside inside China. Some observers forecast that by the year 2030 the country will have as many as 247 million believers in Christ. That will make it the largest Christian population in the world. The United States now has an estimated 243 million professing Christians and the number is diminishing. The current Chinese communist rulers are alarmed by that growth and will probably do whatever they deem necessary to stifle it.
In the years after Mao’s death, under the leadership of CCP Chairman Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997), the Chinese government loosened many of the restrictions on businesses, churches, and travel. It even adopted elements of a free market economy. However, since his rise to power in 2012, President Xi Jinping has reinstituted much of the state and CCP control over society. He has, as CCP Supreme Leader, instituted a cult of personality not seen since Mao. His image is seen throughout the country on billboards, TV, and magazine covers. This personality cult is similar to that of Kim Jong-un in North Korea. Xi obviously has grandiose ideas about himself and the future power of his country.
These trends in Chinese communism, of course, are indicative of the dark historic legacy of communism in the world. Based on the atheistic presuppositions of Karl Marx, it is one of the most malevolent forms of the worldview of Naturalism.
Rejecting any belief in God, Marx taught that history and economics are determined by certain fixed “scientific” laws. Religion and capitalism, he said, are the sources of all evil and the causes of all human problems. Inevitably, they must be crushed by violent revolution, replaced by atheistic socialism, and ultimately give way to communism. Communism, he claimed, will inevitably usher in a utopian period of peace, harmony, and prosperity for all.
Marx based his theories on the philosophy of Georg Hegel who argued that human learning and progress are the result of dialectical principles. That is, for every new idea or theory (“thesis”) there is a contradictory concept (“antithesis”). Eventually the thesis and antithesis combine to create a new thesis (“synthesis”). This then spawns a new antithesis and results in a new synthesis. And on and on it goes. Marx adopted this line of reasoning to create his ideology of “dialectical materialism.” In his system, world history is dialectically driven by economic forces that will inevitably lead to a worldwide revolution of the working class against the owner class capitalists. He argued that this process will eventually result in a perfect classless utopian society, or what some communists used to promise as “The Radiant Future.” Xi Jinping and the leaders of China still fanatically believe in those principles.
Despite these audacious promises, as we have discussed previously, communism has brought to mankind nothing but starvation, injustice, war, and death. In the last century, 100 million people died as a direct result of the consequences of communist ideology. These terrible statistics were documented in the book by a team of French researchers titled The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (Harvard University Press, 1999).
Communists are at their root atheists. Therefore, they have no moral compunction to do what is right, to tell the truth, or to spare the lives of nonconforming humans. To them human beings are mere pawns in their political schemes. For them, the end (communism) always justifies the means, including violent revolution, mass murder, lying, or doing anything else to further the “revolution.”
All this being said, unfortunately, the world may have to confront the threat from Communist China for many decades to come. China has near and long term goals. For example, they soon hope to force Taiwan into accepting its rule – either by blackmail, persuasion, or military attack. Long term, they hope to increase their economic and military power to force other nations to submit to their aims. Clearly, a new United States versus China cold war looms ahead. Let us pray for our Christian brothers and sisters in China, and that God will continue to do miracles in bringing souls to Himself in that enormous nation.
© 2021 Tal Davis