Oppose the CCP in the same way as the Kuomintang?

In the past few days, I have been reading a series of articles written by Brother Fide about what enlightenment the movement against Taiwan’s Kuomintang authoritarianism can bring to Hong Kong, and I can’t help but feel a little worried. Taiwanese people have never understood the CCP. Many Taiwanese scholars like to compare the CCP to the KMT’s authoritarian period and feel quite proud of it. Although this argument is completely wrong, considering that Taiwanese people rarely have the opportunity to directly contact the CCP and directly suffer the iron fist of socialism, it is understandable to have such a naive view. However, Hong Kong has been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party for more than 20 years. Since 2019, the Chinese Communist Party has revealed its true colors and directly used its iron fist to smash Hong Kong's civil society, liberal values ​​and the only remaining semi-democratic system. If Hong Kong people who have seen the power of the CCP are as naive as many Taiwanese people and try to learn from the experience of opposing the KMT’s authority to oppose the CCP, then they will be really stubborn.

Anyone who has conducted an in-depth study of the authoritarian period of the Kuomintang in Taiwan and the current CCP at the same time will easily understand that although both are generally referred to as authoritarian rule, they are actually very different. To resist the CCP in the same way that was useful in resisting the Kuomintang is to resort to medical treatment in a hurry and is absolutely useless. The CCP, the most successful pioneer in resisting the Kuomintang, has summed up its experience after expelling the Kuomintang from the mainland to ensure that it will never make the same mistakes as the Kuomintang. Therefore, the CCP has strictly guarded against the loopholes in the Kuomintang's authoritarian rule under its own rule. . Therefore, if you want to copy the method of overthrowing the Kuomintang to overthrow the CCP, you will definitely be blocking the train with your hands and overestimating your own capabilities.

To give an example, during the Kuomintang's authoritarian rule, although there were many authoritarian behaviors, they clung to Sun Wen and were determined to implement the Prime Minister's legacy to the death. Although Sun Wen's thought was divided into three steps: military and political training, political training and constitutional government, Chiang Kai-shek could exploit loopholes and return from constitutional government to military training and strengthen his authoritarian rule in the name of anti-communism. However, we cannot avoid the fact that constitutional government is the ultimate goal. The founding father Sun Yat-sen himself wrote that one person, one vote should be implemented through universal suffrage. Therefore, the concepts of democratic elections, one person, one vote, fairness, justice and openness are actually the key to the Kuomintang’s embrace of Sun Yat-sen. At the same time, it has inevitably become deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Therefore, no matter what political stance Taiwanese hold today, few dare to challenge the core values ​​of democratic elections and one person, one vote.

But the CCP is different. Although the CCP advocated democracy, freedom, equality and criticized the KMT dictatorship every day during the period of resistance to the Kuomintang, and Mao Zedong personally called for the implementation of universal suffrage, this was ultimately just a means to seize power and win over people's hearts. Once the CCP is in power, whoever dares to talk about one person, one vote, democratic universal suffrage, and multi-party politics will usurp the red country and be counter-revolutionary, with only a miserable end. In order to completely eliminate the remaining poison of values ​​such as democracy, freedom, and one person, the CCP also lured the snake out of its hole and called on people outside the party to provide opinions. Some fools like Chu Anping actually raised the idea of ​​taking turns to be the banker. Of course, these people were labeled as rightists and completely eliminated. Since the founding of the CCP, it has always denigrated the system of one person, one vote and the value of democracy and freedom. Therefore, most people who support the CCP today will probably smile contemptuously when they mention democracy, freedom and universal suffrage, saying that you have been brainwashed by the West. This is the fundamental difference between the rule of the CCP and the rule of the Kuomintang. On the one hand, democracy and free universal suffrage are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, but on the other hand, these terms are completely stigmatized and the superiority of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics is promoted. There is no analogy at all.

On this basis, the authoritarian rule of the two parties has also embarked on completely different paths. Chiang Kai-shek complied with the Prime Minister's will. Although he was not necessarily willing to do so, it was more or less a dictatorship and still allowed a certain amount of democratic freedom. For example, in 1950, although the government had been retrained and it was impossible to open the direct election of the president, under the banner of training the people to practice democracy, Chiang still opened the direct election of local counties and mayors. In the direct election of county mayors in 1950, the turnout rate was astonishingly high at nearly 80%. The three important cities of Taipei, Taichung and Tainan were actually taken by independent candidates. At the same time, Chiang also allowed certain private news and publishing organizations to exist and allowed certain critical voices. For example, the famous Free China magazine attacked the Nationalist government and Chiang Kai-shek for more than ten years before it was banned because it opposed Chiang Kai-shek's re-election as president and opposed the one-party dominance of the Kuomintang. Another example is the famous Wenxing magazine, which was also a long-standing position to attack the Kuomintang Chiang Kai-shek. Li Ao, an anti-Chiang hero and anti-Kuomintang celebrity who is famous both at home and abroad, has an international reputation. He has nearly a hundred banned works in his life. During the period of the Kuomintang's authoritarianism, he was never convicted of any crime for his speech. Li Ao was imprisoned twice, once for involvement in Taiwan independence organizations and once for personal debt issues. It can be seen that during the period of the Kuomintang’s authoritarian rule, there was still a certain degree of democracy, and there was still room for many anti-system activities outside the party.

But the CCP is different. To this day, the CCP still only opens strictly controlled nominal direct elections in neighborhood committees and village committees, because everyone knows that it is just a show, and public participation is also very low. Even at the grassroots level of the People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, it is difficult to run for elections in accordance with the system. If a candidate is not a favorite, the CCP will use various methods, including coercion, to prevent his or her candidacy. For example, Ms. Liu Huizhen, who did not want to be a puppet, finally got ten nominations and could run for grassroots People's Congress representative. However, she was put under house arrest by the National Security Bureau and could not participate in any election activities. The CCP’s electoral control is so strict at the grassroots level, let alone at the regional chief level. China has always had an unwritten rule, that is, no matter from the central to the local level, from the top to the grassroots, the top leaders must be members of the Communist Party, and people outside the system cannot get involved. In addition, the CCP is well aware that the Kuomintang allowed its party newspapers such as Liberation Daily and Xinhua Daily to be legally sold in the Kuomintang-controlled areas and allowed many private newspapers to exist. This gave many people the opportunity to vigorously criticize the Kuomintang Chiang Kai-shek and shook the foundation of the National Government in terms of public opinion. Therefore, after they came to power, they did not allow any press, publishing and media organizations that were independent of the party-state to exist, fundamentally blocking this path. Even in the era of the rise of self-media, the CCP still requires self-media not to comment on current affairs without a license. Of course, even the CCP’s mouthpiece, the self-media Eagle of God, cannot obtain this license. Chen Yun, one of the eight elders of the party-state, once said shamelessly: "During the Kuomintang's rule, a press law was enacted. We Communists carefully studied its words, grasped its braids, and took advantage of its loopholes. Now that we are in power, I think we should not The news law is good, so that others don't take advantage of our loopholes. If there is no law, we take the initiative and control it how we want." Chen Qiushi and Fang Bin only took a few videos of the scene in Wuhan and posted them on the Internet where most Chinese people cannot see them. After being captured by the party-state, they still don’t know where they are. It can be seen that the CCP’s degree of control over elections and speech is far incomparable to that during the KMT’s authoritarian period.

After the world-shaking Formosa incident, the Kuomintang authorities allowed open trials, invited lawyers, and allowed free speech. Therefore, people all over the world can see the grace of Formosa newspaper members and their will to pursue democracy, and can also see the wonderful news. Various lawyers defended. Most of these victims later entered the political arena, such as Chen Ju. Even if he made many mistakes and made Kaohsiung a mess, he was tolerated because many people felt that the Taiwanese people owed him a favor during the Formosa incident. Formosa lawyers also gained fame and fortune because of this incident. One of the best, Chen Shui-bian, entered politics and eventually became president. Even though the evidence of corruption was conclusive, there were still die-hard supporters who firmly believed that he was wrongly accused. On the contrary, the CCP never allows public trials of political prisoners. Many people are tried in a low-key manner after being arrested by the CCP, and all information is blocked. Most Chinese people do not even know that these people exist, let alone what they have done. Lawyers who have the courage to defend such political prisoners will also be implicated. The self-employed defense lawyers Lu Siwei and Ren Quanniu in the sensational case of the 12 Hong Kong residents were directly revoked, and their livelihoods were in question. Needless to say fame and fortune.

In other words, under the authoritarian rule of the Kuomintang, if you want to resist the system and pursue democracy, you can participate in local elections, criticize the ruling authorities in private newspapers and magazines, and participate in some activities. If you are unlucky enough to be arrested, you can hire a lawyer to defend you, and you will become famous from then on. Noise, imprisonment has become a kind of justice and sacrifice. Use this method to deal with the CCP? Participate in grassroots elections? As soon as I registered, I was blocked at home by state security. Publish articles criticizing current ills and criticizing the rulers and the ruling party? Sorry, all news media organizations are owned by the party-state. No one will publish it, and they may report it backhand. Publish it online yourself? As soon as I pressed send, I was prompted that sensitive words had been deleted. If I sent it again, I was prompted that my account had been canceled and there was a chance that my water meter would be checked. parade to protest? I called a few like-minded friends on WeChat to take to the streets together, but I was arrested by the police before I even left the house, because all communication software available in China is monitored in real time, and there are cameras everywhere in China. Caught? I found that I couldn’t hire a lawyer to help because no one dared to take the case. Officially appointed lawyers have been urging you to plead guilty and seek leniency. In the end, after going through the process, being tried in secret, and being sentenced and imprisoned, not many people will know what you did from beginning to end and who you are. No wonder, over the years, the more these people opposed the CCP, the stronger the CCP became. Instead, these anti-communists became neurotic because they could not realize their ambitions. This may also be the result of using the experience of resisting the Kuomintang to resist the CCP.

After observing these anti-communist people on the stage for many years, I found that a large part of these people are never willing to understand the CCP, nor are they willing to face reality, nor do they think about how to effectively oppose the CCP’s system today. They only indulge in slogans and the so-called spiritual victory all day long. They fantasize about insisting on shouting slogans and imitating the methods of opposing other authoritarian regimes to oppose the CCP. In the end, they will definitely win. Democracy will win and tyranny will perish. Is there any essential difference between this approach and the Boxers' dream of being invulnerable by drinking a bowl of talisman water and pouring a bucket of black dog's blood on them to break the machine gun magic? The Boxers didn't understand what guns and artillery were at all, they just thought that it was black magic and they had to use black dog blood. These people do not understand the CCP, its organizational form, or its weaknesses, so they imagine that they can win using the old methods. As time goes by, I find that the enemy is getting stronger and my wishes are getting more and more out of reach. I either comfort myself and continue to win spiritually, or I am stimulated and my way of thinking becomes abnormal. Everyone looks like the Communist Party, catching a gangster. Liars also thought he was an anti-communist hope.

It’s time to open your eyes and face reality.