Delivered remarks of Oct. 4, 2009

Delivered remarks
for Tuidang rally at Boston Common, October 4, 2009

by John Kusumi, China Support Network Director emeritus

I want to thank the organizers for bringing me back to Boston, and of course for your own turnout - I know that soggy weather was forecast.

Well, regardless of rain or snow or sleet or hail, we are gathered here on the Boston Common and we know that China has just marked a grim milestone: It has been 60 years since Chairman Mao established the reign of thuggery that is today's Mainland Chinese government. That is why they gathered in Beijing this week, to have one of those military parades that seems just like North Korea. The military parade in Beijing makes it look like Communist Parties are all the same, and that they use large military parades to wow the gullible and distract the world from their deeper, systemic problems.

The deeper systemic problem is this: Nobody believes in communism anymore. In fact, why is there a Communist Party in charge of China? --All across Eastern Europe, and in the Soviet Union, the Communist Parties all collapsed between 1989 and 1991. I said that military parades make it look like Communist Parties are all the same. Hopefully, they ARE all the same. If so, then the collapse of China's Communist Party is inevitable.

It may be that when a system is completely rigged, and has no elections and no functioning justice system -- that this leads to social pressures, which cannot be reconciled because there is no recourse within the system. China has a building pressure of domestic discontent. The Communist Party has a debt of blood on its hands. Some Chinese people know the record of history, including how many of their countrymen have met with untimely and premature deaths at the hands of the CCP.

Today, we stand here with a solemn understanding that enormous suffering continues in China. That crackdowns are still in progress today. That families are split, and that loved ones are kept in the Laogai camps. The Western world is getting to know that word, Laogai: it represents an evil system known as "reform through labor." These are prison camps, where the prisoners are worked to produce manufactured goods. These are a dark and ugly secret behind the face of China's peaceful rise in the world economy. Incarceration and forced labor imply force; that is
the opposite of a peaceful rise. The peaceful rise is one big lie!

Any dictatorship is only maintained by hurting people. It is mistaken for the United States to make its peace with tyrants and to have an easy, breezy countenance for evil. And in the United States, while Barack Obama sounded like a promising candidate offering change -- well, I describe his administration as "Clinton Lite: Less peace, less prosperity, but the same Clintonian taste." Now, why would I say that at this time? --Well, Obama recently postponed a meeting with the Dalai Lama, so that he can visit Mainland China first. When Obama puts human rights in the back seat to business as usual with Communist China, well -- that *is* the Clintonian policy on human rights.

And yet today, we also stand here with more. We have more than suffering; we have more than lamenting. We have hope, and we have determination.

It's because we have another milestone that we mark here today. The bigwigs of the West -- such as Washington and its media -- don't really have this story. They don't know their Jiuping from their Tuidang. And yet, it is time for them to get this story, and to learn those vocabulary words. Due to a shamefully silent news media, the related news has gone unreported, so I'm sure that Washington is foggy over these matters. Here and now, let me work to dispel their fogginess.

In 2004, a book was produced, called the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. That book is an expose about the actual history of the Chinese Communist Party. For Chinese people, it has been an eye-opener. The evil of that Party is laid bare in the pages of the Nine Commentaries. This is where we get the word Jiuping (pronounce "Joe-ping"). Jiuping means "nine commentaries." Jiuping, the book, made its way around China, being smuggled in and passed hand-to-hand. It is classic underground literature, with every story that might inconvenience the Communist Party.

As the book began to get around China, there also came to be a wave of revulsion at the history revealed within. The impulse was there for people to quit the Communist Party -- to resign their membership. In 2005, my group the China Support Network joined the Global Coalition for Quitting the CCP: a coalition with many other Chinese dissident and human rights groups. This coalition put into place the Tuidang campaign. Tuidang means "quit the party." If everyone quit from the Communist Party, then imagine what's next -- they could have a meeting and no one would go. That is the general idea of this campaign; to isolate the evil-doers and constrain their ability to continue their evil ways.

Quitting the party happens in every conceivable way -- by letter, phone, and fax -- but most commonly, it happens on the Web, where the Tuidang campaign has accumulated an enormous database of resignations from the Party. Resignations tend to be accompanied by personal stories, where the ex-Communist might inform the world about evil they have witnessed, or injustices or persecution which befell their family.

That database has continued to accumulate resignations. In 2005, I spoke at the rally to salute the first one million people to quit the Communist Party. Pretty soon, we were having rallies for 2 million, 3 million, 5 million, and 10 million resignations. It is true also, that my group encouraged a rock group, NoManZero, to release the song 'Bye Bye CCP.' That song, and its music video, are now featured at the website of the China Support Network.

To make a long story short, we are here today because we have collected 60 million resignations in the Tuidang database! --That means 60 million ex-Communists; people who formerly joined the party and have now renounced it. The ranks of the Communist Party are growing thinner and thinner. It is like the air is going out of their tires. This campaign is taking a substantial bite out of the Chinese Communist Party, and we're not done yet!

It is time to salute the former Communists. They are people who have looked at the situation. They have seen the error of Communist ways. They want something better for their country and for their fellow Chinese. And, they have gathered up their courage and registered their displeasure with the status quo. Washington DC needs to get the memo: The Communist Party is headed for a fall, and is on its way to the ash heap of history. If a U.S. administration was wise, instead of reinforcing business as usual, it would instead help China to transition away from Communism by adding pressure for human rights.

China must end the Tiananmen crackdown. China must end the Falun Gong crackdown. China must end the Tibetan crackdown. And, China must end the Uighur crackdown. That means they must release the prisoners whom they've taken in the course of those crackdowns. Right now, my group focuses on four high-profile prisoner cases. Zhou Yongjun, Liu Xiaobo, Wang Bingzhang, and Gao Zhisheng must be released. But really, our focus on them should not be taken to exclude all of the other prisoners of conscience who are today laboring in China's Laogai camps. For another note about human rights, China must abolish the systems of Laogai and Laojiao. They are hideously evil tools of state repression.

In conclusion, I congratulate you, the campaigners. This is a grand and historic movement, celebrating the milestone of 60 million responses. Chinese people are answering the call and distancing themselves from the Communist Party. That is why, in addition to suffering and lamenting, we also stand here with courage, with determination, and with hope that China will soon experience a bright future with freedom, democracy, and human rights. To everybody here, thank you once again!