China is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai on July 1, 1921. For the Communist Party and its elites, it is undoubtedly something to be proud of: since it came to power on October 1, 1949, China has never experienced a political change headed by the Forbidden City, and there has never been a single opposition party.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the future Chairman Mao Zedong, born as a librarian, was first a political leader, then a military strategist with no moral doubts, and finally an uncontrollable dictator, leading the country with alternate crazy ideologies. Exercise and breathing periods are crucial to economic recovery.
By the end of the 20th century, Mao Zedong’s direct heir, Xi Jinping, had restored the established method of personality cult, putting the abhorrent methods of the Cultural Revolution, such as arresting all opponents, thinkers, and ambitious business owners, into the spotlight. The name of the sacred and inviolable social stability. Between the two, there are different options to ensure the peaceful development of the Chinese people.
Who remembers Chen Duxiu, the first secretary of the Communist Party of China?
A man who started advocating that China should accept some new ideas from the West in the 1910s rejected the Confucian conservatism that made China rigid. In 1942, Duxiu died alone and was marginalized and persecuted by his old enemy Mao Zedong.
Others followed closely: Peng Dehuai wanted to ease Mao’s enthusiasm in the reforms of the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s. The Great Leap Forward caused 30-40 million Chinese deaths in famine, and then loyal supporter Lin Biao, when he tried to flee China. When heading north, his plane crashed on the ground.
Xi Jinping reinvigorated this glorious tradition, first using “corruption” as an excuse to purge people close to former leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, and then civil rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo.
In an article titled “Four Mistakes of Free Countries in the 20th Century”, Liu asked a series of questions, such as: Why did Britain and France compromise so easily with the dictators of Germany and Italy? After World War II, why did the United States and Britain make so many concessions to the Soviet Union?
In the 1960s and 1970s, how could the major intellectuals in Europe catch “Mao Zedong fever”? How could this heat last so long?
These questions still have meaning today. A new trend is emerging in the world. We are rebelling against China’s dictatorship, especially because of its treatment of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Uzbeks and others.
I was born in Bulgaria after the Iron Curtain. I belonged to a Turkish-speaking minority and was discriminated against by the Communist regime of Todorzhvkov. We had to change our name to give them a seemingly Christian origin.
Therefore, our family was renamed Kyuchukov. My name changed from Ilhan to Ilian. As soon as freedom returned, the traces of this oppression gradually disappeared. However, this is not the case in China. In Xinjiang, Muslim minorities are persecuted, imprisoned, forced to become “good Chinese” or face severe punishment.
The European Parliament is honored to award the 2019 Sakharov Prize to Uyghur Yiliham Tuchti. This outstanding economist has acquired such charm that he is clearly a threat in the eyes of the power seeking to establish absolute control over all Chinese territories.
Tuheti advocates dialogue and cooperation between the Han and Uyghurs. He was charged with separatism and sentenced to life imprisonment. Dozens of intellectuals, scientists, and civil society actors in Xinjiang suffered a similar fate.
On March 22, 2021, the European Union sanctioned a Chinese organization and four Chinese officials suspected of suppressing Uighurs. Beijing responded immediately, targeting four European organizations and more than a dozen people, including members of the European Parliament.
I am one of those proud to be recognized as a fighter against the Chinese dictatorship.
The economic development advocated by Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s effectively made China one of the economic powers. But since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012, China’s ambitions have become harmful. By starting the huge project of the New Silk Road,
China no longer hides its desire to dominate the world. By proposing huge infrastructure projects to especially low- and middle-income countries, it has created an indivisible situation.
For example, Montenegro agreed in 2014 to repay about $1 billion in debt for a highway that is still unusable, and is now calling on the European Union to help avoid economic bankruptcy.
In my hometown, the Balkans, more dastardly surprises like this are approaching. All over the world, from Asia to Latin America, China is casting a net and successfully establishing itself as an important interlocutor.
It’s time to learn about a dictatorship that relies on tens of millions of surveillance cameras to exercise absolute control over society, from the violence of the 1920s to the suppression of the Tiananmen Square democracy movement in 1989, and even now, by stifling any protest tendencies in Hong Kong, The use of military aircraft to hover over Taiwan’s territory to threaten Taiwan is a serious threat to world peace.
We need to face this, and not repeat the tragic mistakes of the past.
