709 China Falling into the Abyss | Yu Jie

Beast Press: After reading Yu Jie's column "Interpretation of Banned Books" on Radio Free Asia, I learned that this column has published a new book "China Falling into the Abyss". Yu Jie mentioned:

"In 2012, I escaped from the brutal animal farms of China as if I were out of Egypt. In the following ten years, I opened a column "Interpretation of Banned Books" on Radio Free Asia in the United States, hoping to introduce readers to those who made the CCP through the Internet and radio waves. Fear of books. These articles have been edited and published into books such as "The Bookshelf of Exiles", "China on the Tip of the Knife", "Nazi China", "The Rite of Dystopia: Dictatorship is a Disease", etc. China" is the latest of them.

When Hong Kong changed from the Pearl of the Orient to a city of police, something that didn't surprise me happened: the Hong Kong Public Library removed books such as "Nazi China" from the shelves in the name of "violating the National Security Law". This move proves that the accusation made by my title, "Nazi China," is worthy of its name.

To a certain extent, my war with the CCP was waged with books as weapons, in addition to the books I wrote myself, but also many more books that I introduced and disseminated with book reviews, each of which was like a gun and A dagger, stabbing the heart of the CCP. Lies are most afraid of the truth. Once everyone uses words to expose the truth and expose lies, the seemingly impregnable CCP regime will collapse like a castle on the beach in an instant.

The Communist Party has controlled the historical narrative, keeping all the evils of its past tightly hidden. In this book, I introduced Tan Song's "Blood Red Land: An Interview with the CCP's Land Reform", Yang Xianhui's "Dingxi Orphanage", Wang Chunjie's "Nine University Presidents in the Cultural Revolution Storm" and Feng Ke's "Cultural Revolution" These works reveal that in Mao’s China, almost every class and ethnic group became a victim of the CCP’s tyranny: landlords died of land reform, peasants died of famine, intellectuals died of anti-rightist and Cultural Revolution, and the Kuomintang only had close ties with the Kuomintang. The people on the side have all become victims of previous political movements, and become pariahs who are better off living than dead.

The book also introduces Su Xiaokang's "Ghost Pushing the Mill", Miyazaki Masahiro's "After the New Crown, China's Final War with the World", and James Griffith's "Wall Country Chronicles", which point out that the CCP's century-old, It has always been ghosts pushing the mill, ghosts hitting the wall, and limited economic and social reforms cannot hide the CCP’s politically consistent nature of dictatorship and autocracy.

"China", a pseudo-state concept artificially invented in modern times, is itself synonymous with "late imperialism". As soon as China said goodbye to the "sick man of East Asia" style of sadness, China entered into the arrogance of self-respect and the arrogance of the center of the world, and regarded itself as a new colonizer with no disadvantage. This book especially introduces Liu Xiaoyuan's "Frontier China", Wang Feiling's "Chinese Order: Central Plains, World Empire, and the Nature of Chinese Power", Liu Zhongjing's "China Depression: A Brief History of Inner Asia Dominating East Asia", etc. The Book of Curses. These works invariably point to a conclusion: the world without China can achieve security and peace, and after saying goodbye to the centralized and unified China, the people living in the land of Zhuxia can also "evolve" into modern citizens-citizens of Shu, Citizens of Shanghai Free City, Citizens of Guangdong, Citizens of Tibet, Citizens of East Turkestan...etc.

The book selects "Torture in Ancient China" by Wang Yongkuan, "The Disaster of Confucianism" by Huang Wenxiong, "On the Chinese Screen" by Somerset Maugham, "British Lessons: A Course in Imperialism in Nineteenth Century China" by He Weiya, William Luo's "Hankou: Conflict and Community in a Chinese City (1796-1895)" and Ma Yang and Ye Wenbin's "Scarcity: What Is China Lack?" " and other works for introduction and commentary. These works either present the true nature of Chinese culture, or satirize the hypocrisy and arrogance of scholars and officials, or study the failure of China's modernization "out of the Three Gorges", and demonstrate from different angles that Chinese culture is a poisonous culture. The Chinese world, including Taiwan, must scrape the bones to get rid of the poison and remove the poison of Chinese culture.

If you pass the above three thresholds, you will come to the last threshold: criticism and reflection on the Chinese people. This is not racism or self-racism, but a phoenix nirvana, a cocoon and a butterfly-like death and life.



The Chinese people are not completely innocent of the situation in today's China where "the top is still the Empress Dowager Cixi, and the bottom is still the Boxers". Writer Tan Song interviewed many survivors of the land reform and recorded tragic scenes. He couldn't help but ask: "Many perpetrators or accomplices in the land reform were villagers in the same village as the landlord. They were not ruthless people at first, but the Communist Party As soon as they are provoked, or once they obtain the privilege of openly committing evil without being punished, the restraint of morality disappears, and the evil in human nature is surging. More ferocious than beasts. Why is the Confucian-based cultural tradition of the Chinese nation so invulnerable to sudden evils? Why are ordinary people so easily transformed into murderers and accomplices? Facing lies, deception, violent suppression and the temptation of interests, human nature is only Twisted, defeated?"

This is a Qu Yuan-style question. In this book, I try to find the answer: in China, the line between perpetrator and victim has long been blurred, and most people have both. Those citizens who besieged Western journalists on the streets of Zhengzhou (most of them are powerless and powerless) dare not point their finger at officials who neglect their duties and waste their lives, but regard the Western journalists who come to expose the truth as thorns in their eyes, thorns in their flesh, and abuse in every possible way. humiliation. Those Chinese netizens who actively spread the rumor that the Wuhan pneumonia virus in China came from the United States are not necessarily professional netizens who received "five cents", but more amateur "self-made five" and willing "patriotic thieves". They are free because they have the freedom to scold America.

Are Communists Chinese? Today's CCP members and their immediate family members make up nearly half of China's total population. Are they all foreigners? With the exception of a very few sober people, almost all Chinese are already "communist" (even if they do not join the party). Therefore, it is also the Communist Party. The Communist Party in the East is more brutal and ugly than the Communist Party in the West. Of course, there are cultural and human reasons behind it.

In the dark wilderness, there are also sparks. In this book I present the stories of Yu Yingshi, Fang Lizhi, Guan Weiyan, Zhao Ziyang, Ha Jin and Gyalo Thondup (the Dalai Lama's second brother) (their memoirs, biographies or literary works). Some of them died as Chinese people, some of them have long been freed from the shackles of Chinese citizens in terms of nationality, and some of them have made a clean break with the non-existent Chinese nation in terms of race. In any case, they are people who love freedom, run to freedom in different ways, and become lamp bearers in dark times. Yu Yingshi categorically declared that as long as China was still under the rule of the Communist Party, he would never set foot on Chinese soil. The common sense of innate human rights”; Guan Weiyan and Fang Lizhi combined their swords to create the golden age of the University of Science and Technology of China in the 1980s; Zhao Ziyang put down his butcher knife and paid the price of losing power and freedom in his later years; Ha Jin sought “a free life” ”, created a spiritual home with words; Jialo Thondup fought for Tibet’s freedom and independence, and opened a noodle factory after retirement, living a happy life with peace of mind. Their life trajectories were different, but they all had one thing in common: they both loved freedom and had it. Let's read them and let's go with them.

In this book, the author introduces Tan Song's "Blood Red Land: An Interview with the CCP's Land Reform", Yang Xianhui's "Dingxi Orphanage", Wang Chunjie's "Nine University Presidents in the Cultural Revolution Storm" and Feng Ke's "Cultural Revolution", etc. These works reveal that in Mao’s China, almost every class and ethnic group fell victim to the CCP’s tyranny: landlords died of land reform, peasants died of famine, intellectuals died of anti-rightist and Cultural Revolution, and only a little bit of contact with the Kuomintang The people on the border have all fallen victim to previous political movements and become pariahs who are better off dead. Lien Zhan, Hong Xiuzhu, James Soong, Ke Wenzhe, Han Guoyu, Chen Wenqian, Zhao Shaokang, Zhu Yunhan, Huang An, Ouyang Nana and other celebrities from all walks of life, unable to see the lessons from the past, voluntarily become slaves, thinking that when the CCP soldiers come under the city, they will open up to them. If you don’t read books, you will be lucky. I recommend that they read these books carefully, and they will understand that no matter what, long live the mountain, they will still be able to escape the CCP’s liquidation.

The book also selected Wang Yongkuan's "Torture in Ancient China", Huang Wenxiong's "Confucian Disaster", Somerset Maugham's "On the Chinese Screen", He Weiya's "British Lessons: A Course in Imperialism in Nineteenth Century China", William Luo's "Hankou: Conflict and Community in a Chinese City (1796-1895)" and Ma Yang and Ye Wenbin's "Scarcity: What Is China Lack?" " and other works, make introductions and comments. These works either present the "sauce jar" of Chinese culture, satirize the hypocrisy and arrogance of scholars and officials, or study the failure of the "Three Gorges" of China's modernization, demonstrating from different angles that Chinese culture is a poisonous culture. The Chinese world, including Taiwan, must scrape the bones to get rid of the poison and remove the poison of Chinese culture.

Only by completely denying Chinese culture can we "completely westernize" (completely Anglo-beautiful and completely Christianized) as Hu Shi and Liu Xiaobo said, and only then can "be freed by truth" as the Bible says.

The stories of Yu Yingshi, Fang Lizhi, Guan Weiyan, Zhao Ziyang, Ha Jin and Gyalo Thondup (the Dalai Lama's second brother) are also presented in this book (their memoirs, biographies or literary works). Among them, some of them died as Chinese people, some of them have long since gotten rid of the shackles of Chinese citizens in terms of nationality, and some of them have made a clean break with the non-existent Chinese nation in terms of race. In any case, they are people who love freedom, run to freedom in different ways, and become lamp bearers in dark times. Let's read their books and let's go with them.

About the Author

Yu Jie

Born in Chengdu, studied in Beijing.

In 1998, his debut novel "Fire and Ice" was published. It was a whirlwind at the turn of the century, which was as quiet as a dead water. It sold millions of copies. His critical writing and thought like Lu Xun and Bo Yang deeply influenced the young generation of China. people.

He went to the United States in 2012 and became a U.S. citizen by naturalization in 2018. It is committed to subverting the materialist ideology of the Communist Party of China in ideological concepts, deconstructing the unified Chinese imperial tradition, and then promoting the Anglo-American Puritan spirit and conservative values in the Chinese-speaking cultural circle, which is its unique "Right Independence" concept.

Taking writing as his profession and vocation, he is a political critic, prose writer, historian, and human rights defender. He has written more than 60 kinds of books, 15 million words, and his son. His writings cover the fields of contemporary politics, classical literature, modern intellectual history, the history of the Republic of China, the history of Taiwan's democratic movement, Christian public theology, conservative political philosophy, human rights and freedom of religious belief.

He has been selected for the list of "100 Most Influential Chinese Public Intellectuals" for many times, and was awarded "Tang Qing Christian Literature and Art Award", "Asian Publishing Association Best Critic Award", "Civil Courage Award", "Professor Liao Shuzong Memorial Award" and other awards.

Taking Taiwan, the only place in the Chinese-speaking cultural circle that has freedom of speech and freedom of the press, as his spiritual homeland, he is one of the non-Taiwanese who have discussed Taiwan most extensively in recent years. Love Taiwan's food, scenery, friends and bookstores. I believe that words can travel through time and space, and become friends with all the talents in the world.

Preface in China, experience dazzling acceleration and descent - Liu Weiyi / 8

A Fourfold Criticism of Interlocking Self-Orderings: The CCP, China, Chinese Culture and the Chinese People - Yu Jie/14

Volume 1 Rebel

The fire phoenix is incombustible

Yu Yingshi's Memoirs of Yu Yingshi / 24

The reform of killing is of course not the real reform

Lu Yuegang, "The Biography of Zhao Ziyang: The Life of a Reformer" / 35

The birds are silent, the geese are sound

Liu Binyan's Autobiography of Liu Binyan / 47

Those who pursue the truth will inevitably go to rebellion

Li Yaming, editor-in-chief of Guan Weiyan's Oral History Memoirs/57

Pain and freedom in exile

Gyalo Thondup, "The Noodlemaker of Gallenburg: Memoirs of the Second Brother Dalai Lama" / 68

Refusal to patriotism is the greatest courage

Ha Jin "Toss to the End" / 80

Volume Two Out of the Three Gorges

Wuhan is the evil son of the Chinese Empire under the west wind

William Luo, Hankou: Conflict and Community in a Chinese City (1796-1895) / 92

Treat barbarism as barbarism and treat civilization as civilization

He Weiya, "British Schoolwork: A Course on Imperialism in Nineteenth Century China" / 102

There is a sound of wailing from behind the screen

Somerset Maugham "On the Chinese Screen" / 114

Is China a "world state" or a "nation state"?

Liu Xiaoyuan, "Border China's Peripheral and Ethnic Relations in the 20th Century" / 125

Why should China be renamed "Qin-Han Kingdom"?

Wang Feiling, "Chinese Order: Central Plains, World Empire, and the Nature of Chinese Power" / 136

It turns out that the history that the Chinese learn is not history, but myth

Liu Zhongjing, "China's Depression: A Brief History of Inner Asia Dominating East Asia" / 148

The Third Curly Age

The CCP slaughtered landlords more than the Nazis slaughtered Jews

Tan Song, "Blood Red Land: An Interview with the CCP's Land Reform" / 160

In contemporary China, "human cannibalism" will not be recorded in the history books

Yang Xianhui, Dingxi Orphanage / 171

How did universities become slaughterhouses?

Wang Chunjie, "Nine University Presidents in the Storm of the Cultural Revolution" / 183

Can the peasant deputy prime minister govern on behalf of the peasants?

Wu Si, "China's No. 1 Farmer: The Ups and Downs of Chen Yonggui" / 194

The Cultural Revolution is not in the past tense, but in the present tense

Feng Ke, "Cultural Revolution: A History of the People" / 205

Hometown is a foreign land, old people are strangers

Wang Xiaoshuai, "The Hometown of Thin Thin" / 216

Volume 4 beyond this mountain

China will be Germany and Hunan will be Prussia

Pei Shifeng, "Hunan People and Modern China" / 228

How did China pass by freedom in the 1980s?

Paul Theroux, Riding the Iron Rooster: Across China by Train / 239

The celestial kingdom had nothing

Ma Yang and Ye Wenbin, "Scarcity: What is China still lacking? "/250

How do the Chinese get their souls back?

Zhang Yan, "The Soul of China: Religious Revival in the Post-Mao Zedong Era" / 260

Why is social distancing necessary with China?

Masahiro Miyazaki "After the new crown, the final war between China and the world" / 271

China nails jelly to western walls

James Griffith's "Wall Country" How China Controls the Internet / 282

Volume 5 Hell Kingdom

Chinese imaginations are used to torture

Wang Yongkuan, Torture in Ancient China / 294

Thousands of years of Confucian disasters are fierce today

Huang Wenxiong, "Confucianism" / 305

The June 4 massacre is neither the beginning nor the end

Chen Runzhi "6430" / 316

Flooded Zhengzhou shows China is a failed state

Darren Essomeru, James Robinson, "Why States Fail: The Roots of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty" / 326

Harsh government is fiercer than earthquake

Liao Yiwu "Earthquake Asylum" / 337

Wuling pretends to search for a fairyland, and only hears and sings ghost songs in the middle of the night

Su Xiaokang "Ghost Pushing the Mill" / 347

Book Index / 358

preface

The Interlocking Quadruple Criticism: The CCP, China, Chinese Culture, and the Chinese

The historian Yu Yingshi said it well: "You have to be humanistic, and you can resist the Communist Party." The struggle against the Communist Party, which rules China, is a battle of ideas, spirit, and spirituality. The CCP is not only a gangster with 80 million party members and millions of military and police officers, but also the largest cult organization in the world with a complete set of ideology and conceptual order. To defeat the CCP, we need to face an uphill battle of concept against concept and thought against thought.

In 2012, I escaped from the brutal and brutal China like Animal Farm as if I were out of Egypt. In the following ten years, I opened a column on "Interpretation of Forbidden Books" on Radio Free Asia, hoping to introduce readers to those who make China scary book. These articles have been edited and published into books such as "The Bookshelf of Exiles", "China on the Tip of the Knife", "Nazi China", and "Dytopian Rite: Dictatorship is a Disease", among which "China in the Abyss" is the latest 's one.

When Hong Kong changed from the Pearl of the Orient to a city of police, something that did not surprise me happened: the Hong Kong Public Library removed books such as "Nazi China" from the shelves in the name of "violating the National Security Law". This move proves that the accusation "Nazi China" made in my book's title is worthy of its name.

Nazi rule was based on banning and burning books. On May 10, 1933, the Nazis instigated the students to start the first book burning activity. Books on the blacklist were transported to the site in composted ox carts—it felt like they were sent to an execution ground, a deliberate insult to "reactionary books." In some places, books were also nailed to the shackles for public display. The students wore formal uniforms and student union badges, looking excited and solemn. While throwing books into the fire according to the ritual, they recited nine pre-prepared "fire mantras". The mantras also mentioned the names of the condemned writers and detailed the crimes they committed.

The books disappeared temporarily, and the writers were either imprisoned in concentration camps or fled the Third Reich. Swedish author Anders Rydell commented in The Book Thief: "The sheer force of the book burning and its penetration through the media was overwhelming at the time. The burning of books, although not unprecedented, was The book burning incident in Germany eventually became the most striking example of censorship and oppression in history. . . . The book burning incident made the Nazi regime notorious as a "cultural barbarian". The book burning incident spread in 1930 Until the 1940s, the symbol of the destruction of knowledge, during that period, Nazism dominated the language, culture and creativity of the entire nation. Not only that, but they also showed the genocide of the Nazis against the enemy, in addition to the tangible material , but also culture." But most books outlived the Third Reich, which was in ashes, and great books reborn.

The CCP’s rule also uses books as its enemy. The CCP Customs strictly inspects books brought in by travelers from overseas even more than drugs. The CCP’s Internet police even arrests lawyers who sell legally published used books online. Books are regarded as the number one enemy by Xi Jinping, a fake doctor and semi-illiterate. . In a way, my war with the CCP was waged with books as weapons, in addition to the books I wrote myself, but also many more books that I introduced and disseminated with book reviews, each like a spear and a dagger , stabbed into the heart of the CCP.

The CCP has been founded for a hundred years and has ruled China for more than 70 years. Not only in the Chinese-speaking world, but also on a global scale, anti-communism has become a common sense, a consensus, a self-evident truth, a concept of shared hatred of the enemy, and it can even be said: If you are not anti-communist, are you still human?

However, many Taiwanese politicians who have passed away took the initiative to kneel and lick the CCP, and even Chinese officials dubbed the Kuomintang as a "beggar's party." The Kuomintang has fought against the CCP many times in the past few decades, and has repeatedly lost battles. Failure is not terrible, the terrible thing is that the spine is broken. Lien Chan, honorary chairman of the Kuomintang, sent a congratulatory message to the Communist Party: "The Communist Party of China has been founded for a hundred years and has led the construction of the Chinese mainland for seventy-two years. The process of rejuvenation of the Chinese nation has reached a new peak in the history of 5,000 years!" Together, we will do our best to accomplish the great cause of national reunification, and jointly build the Chinese dream of national prosperity, national rejuvenation, and people's happiness." In the congratulatory message, President James Soong of the People's First Party pointed out: "The Chinese Communist Party has been arduous and unremitting struggle to revive China, putting people's well-being first, and thinking of a community with a shared future for mankind, which has deeply impressed the world." In September 2021, Zhu Lilun won the After taking the position of Chairman of the Kuomintang, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, congratulated Zhu Lilun on his election by sending a congratulatory message. He mentioned that the two parties had a positive interaction on the common political basis of adhering to the 1992 Consensus and opposing Taiwan independence, and hoped that the two parties would look forward and adhere to the common political foundation. , "for the unification of the country". In reply to Xi Jinping's congratulatory message, Zhu Lilun mentioned "opposing Taiwan independence", and did not add the date of the Republic of China. Taiwan's Chief Executive Su Zhenchang pointed out that the opportunity to speak for the country is disappointing. The Kuomintang people have completely lost their party status now. If the two Chiangs saw that their party's backwardness was so subservient and charming, they would not make a big stroke: "Bandit spies, shoot and kill!"

In this book, I introduced Tan Song's "Blood Red Land: An Interview with the CCP's Land Reform", Yang Xianhui's "Dingxi Orphanage", Wang Chunjie's "Nine University Presidents in the Cultural Revolution Storm" and Feng Ke's "Cultural Revolution", etc. These works reveal that in Mao’s China, almost every class and ethnic group fell victim to the CCP’s tyranny: landlords died of land reform, peasants died of famine, intellectuals died of anti-rightist and Cultural Revolution, and only a little bit of contact with the Kuomintang The people on the border have all fallen victim to previous political movements and become pariahs who are better off dead. Lien Zhan, Hong Xiuzhu, James Soong, Ke Wenzhe, Han Guoyu, Chen Wenqian, Zhao Shaokang, Zhu Yunhan, Huang An, Ouyang Nana and other celebrities from all walks of life, unable to see the lessons from the past, voluntarily become slaves, thinking that when the CCP soldiers come under the city, they will open up to them. If you don’t read books, you will be lucky. I recommend that they read these books carefully, and they will understand that no matter what, long live the mountain, they will still be able to escape the CCP’s liquidation.

In China, the Cultural Revolution has not become a sealed history. Bo Xilai's singing of red and black in Chongqing has just died, and the Xi-style Cultural Revolution has made a national debut. This book also introduces Su Xiaokang's "Ghost Pushing the Mill", Miyazaki Masahiro's "After the New Crown, China and the World's Final War" and James Griffith's "Wall Country" and other works discussing everything that is happening in China today, These works point out that the CCP has always been a ghost to push the mill, and the limited economic and social reforms cannot hide the CCP’s politically consistent dictatorship and autocratic nature.

Today, because the CCP is full of evil, anti-communists have become the majority in the world. This is the truth of "disobedience and few help"-Xi Jinping is therefore called the "chief accelerator" of the CCP's end. However, among the anti-communists, most of them are "anti-communist but not anti-China". This group believes that the Communist Party can be distinguished from China—the Communist Party is bad, but China is good, and China is an innocent kidnapped by the CCP. If the "negative assets" of the CCP can be successfully stripped from China, China can immediately become a "positive energy" that lights up the world. In the words of some overseas Chinese groups, it is "to expel the Yellow Russia and restore China", then, once the Communist Party collapses, China will naturally achieve democratization.

I certainly disagree with this view. Thirty years after the fall of the Soviet Communist regime, has Russia democratized? Putin began to dream again of the Russian Empire without the Communist Party but with the Tsar.

In China, Xi Jinping's rhetoric of "the Chinese dream" and "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" is not without a market, but has won the heartfelt support of a considerable number of Chinese people. The CCP and China have long been in close harmony with each other.

"China" has never been a concept "since ancient times", and "China" is not a normal modern nation-state. "China" is a "magic" invented by the modern thinker Liang Qichao. After getting rid of this curse, many Chinese people, driven by the patriotic curse, fell into hell like a group of zombies unconsciously. Even Chinese who have lived overseas for several generations have plausibly stated that they are very "patriotic" and that they love not the country they swore allegiance to, but the distant China. "Patriotism" is like the all-encompassing treasure gourd in "Journey to the West". The other party calls your name. Once you answer, you will be taken into the gourd.

Today, when Marxism-Leninism is ebbing, nationalism has given the Chinese Communist regime a shot in the arm. "China", a pseudo-state concept artificially invented in modern times, is itself synonymous with "backward imperialism". As soon as China said goodbye to the "sick man of East Asia"-style grief, China entered into the arrogance of self-respect and the arrogance of the center of the world, and presented itself as a new colonizer who would never be disadvantaged. This book especially introduces Liu Xiaoyuan's "Frontier China", Wang Feiling's "Chinese Order: Central Plains, World Empire, and the Nature of Chinese Power", Liu Zhongjing's "China Depression: A Brief History of Inner Asia Dominating East Asia", etc. The Curse" book. These works invariably point to the same conclusion: the world without China can achieve security and peace, and after saying goodbye to the centralized and unified China, the people living in the lands of Zhuxia can also "evolve" into modern citizens. Citizens, citizens of Shanghai Free City, citizens of Guangdong, citizens of Tibet, citizens of East Turkestan...etc.

Many people have passed the test of anti-communism, and then passed the test of opposing China as an empire, but they have never been able to pass the test of abandoning Chinese culture—the Four Books and Five Classics, Tang Poetry and Song Ci, Calligraphy and Porcelain, Silk Tea, Twilight Drum and Morning Bell, Jin Shengyuzhen. , Yangtze Great Wall, Huangshan Yellow River, Suzhou Gardens, Manchu and Han Banquets are always good, right? They are obsessed with and fascinated by all kinds of Chinese culture. They are like the wife of Lot who was turned into a pillar of salt by God because she looked back at her hometown (the two sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah) in the Bible. The property destroyed by fire, disobeying God's command and perishing, becomes a warning to the people of the future. Those who are immersed in and play with traditional Chinese culture (including some foreigners) are sitting in the prison of Chinese culture and watching the sky, but they don't know that they are embracing a smelly mummy.

Chinese culture, like any other culture in the world, certainly retains God's common grace and general revelation (such as "the old and the old and the old, the young and the young and the young" in line with the biblical "love your neighbor as yourself" "Do not do to others what you do not want to do to yourself", which is also in line with the teaching of Jesus "Do not do to others what you would like others to do to you"), but on the whole, Chinese culture cannot achieve "modern transformation", It is also impossible to discover the living factors and resources that support modern values such as human rights, democracy, and freedom at the level of political economy and public life.

The book selects "Torture in Ancient China" by Wang Yongkuan, "The Disaster of Confucianism" by Huang Wenxiong, "On the Chinese Screen" by Somerset Maugham, "Schoolwork in England: A Course on Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China" by He Weiya, William's "Hankou: Conflict and Community in a Chinese City (1796-1895)" and Ma Yang and Ye Wenbin's "Scarcity: What Is China Lack?" " and other works, make introductions and comments. These works either present the "sauce jar" of Chinese culture, satirize the hypocrisy and arrogance of scholars and officials, or study the failure of the "Three Gorges" of China's modernization, demonstrating from different angles that Chinese culture is a poisonous culture. The Chinese world, including Taiwan, must scrape the bones to get rid of the poison and remove the poison of Chinese culture.

Only by completely denying Chinese culture can we "completely westernize" (completely Anglo-beautiful and completely Christianized) as Hu Shi and Liu Xiaobo said, and only then can "be freed by truth" as the Bible says.

If you pass the above three thresholds, you will come to the last threshold: criticism and reflection on the Chinese people. This is not racism or self-racism, but a phoenix nirvana, a cocoon and a butterfly-like death and life.

The Chinese don't seem to be ready for this, and the Chinese are reluctant to admit the inferiority of their people. Intellectuals from all over the world have written works similar to "Ugly Americans", "Ugly British", "Ugly Japanese", and "Ugly Koreans". The authors were not criticized by the Chinese, but received the respect of the nation. Only the Chinese writer Bo Yang, who wrote "The Ugly Chinese", has been the target of all compatriots for many years, slandering all over the world. And my previous book, "The Despicable Chinese," was also removed from the shelves of the Hong Kong Public Library—probably the name alone violated the Hong Kong National Security Law.

The Chinese people are not completely innocent of the situation in today's China where "the top is still the Empress Dowager Cixi, and the bottom is still the Boxers." Writer Tan Song interviewed many survivors of the land reform and recorded the tragic scenes. He couldn't help but ask: "Many perpetrators or accomplices in the land reform are villagers in the same village as the landlord. Provocation, or once they have obtained the privilege of being openly evil without punishment, the moral restraint will disappear, and the evil in human nature will surging. The beasts are even more ferocious. Why is the Confucian-dominated cultural tradition of the Chinese nation so incapable of sudden evil? Why are ordinary people so easily transformed into murderers and accomplices? Facing lies, deception, violent repression and the temptation of interests, human nature is only distorted , defeat?"

This is a Qu Yuan-style question. In this book I try to find the answer: In China, the line between perpetrator and victim has long been blurred, and most people have both. Those citizens who besieged Western journalists on the streets of Zhengzhou (most of them were powerless "grass people") did not dare to point their finger at officials who neglected their duties and wasted their lives, but regarded the Western journalists who came to expose the truth as thorns in their eyes and flesh. All kinds of insults and humiliation. Those Chinese netizens who actively spread the rumor that the Wuhan pneumonia virus in China came from the United States are not necessarily professional Internet soldiers who received "five cents", but more amateur "five cents" and willing "patriotic thieves". They are free because they have the freedom to scold America.

Are Communists Chinese? Today's CCP members and their immediate family members make up nearly half of China's total population. Are they all foreigners? At the Tokyo Olympics, a number of Chinese athletes wore the badge of Chairman Mao on their sportswear to match the North Korean athletes with the badge of Kim Jong Il. Chinese athletes are proud of their foul language on the field. Chinese netizens recklessly abuse athletes from Taiwan, Japan, the United States, and almost all countries—even their own athletes. Those Taiwanese artists who cheer for Taiwanese athletes have also become street rats and people. People shouting. From this point of view, almost all Chinese people have been "members of the Communist Party" (even if they did not join the Party). It is also the Communist Party. The Communist Party in the East is more brutal and ugly than the Communist Party in the West. Of course, there are cultural and human reasons behind it.

In the dark wilderness, there are also sparks. In this book I present the stories of Yu Yingshi, Liu Binyan, Guan Weiyan, Zhao Ziyang, Ha Jin and Gyalo Thondup (the Dalai Lama's second brother) (their memoirs, biographies or literary works). Among them, some of them died as Chinese people, some of them have long since gotten rid of the shackles of Chinese citizens in terms of nationality, and some of them have made a clean break with the non-existent Chinese nation in terms of race. In any case, they are people who love freedom, run to freedom in different ways, and become lamp bearers in dark times. Let's read them and let's go with them.

Fire Phoenix Incombustible Ashes: Yu Yingshi's Memoirs of Yu Yingshi

In 1973, Yu Yingshi took a leave of absence from Harvard University for two years and was going to be the dean of New Asia College in Hong Kong. Before he left, he wrote a farewell poem to his teacher, Yang Liansheng, in which two lines were: "The phoenix is hard to burn after the catastrophe. Ash, the resident parrot swirled a few times.”

The allusions to these two poems come from a passage of Buddhist scriptures quoted by Hu Shi many times. Seeing that China was in a "time of fire", Hu Shi couldn't bear to stand by and was willing to imitate the parrot who dipped his wings in water to try to put out the fire. strength". Yu Yingshi recalled that he was "very excited" when he read Hu Shi's article, and he has been convinced since then. He also showed the same demeanor as Hu Shi. As Pan Guangzhe, a researcher on Hu Shi, said, as a "dignified intellectual", Yu Yingshi's life journey "is definitely not comparable to those of those who study hard for the sake of writing and hiding famous mountains". Compared with many scholars and celebrities who "cherish feathers" and love the huge cultural and academic market of China, Yu Yingshi loudly criticized the CCP's tyranny, condemned the June 4 massacre, established the Princeton China Society to help Chinese exiled cultural people, and supported Taiwan's Sunflower The student movement and the Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong issued stern statements condemning the "China Times", a lie-making machine controlled by the Want Want Group, whose moral courage can be called "one man against one country".

Yu Yingshi's memoir is a "Freedom of Mind". Although it is only the "first half", it is already exciting enough. As a witness to the overwhelming era, Yu Yingshi has personally experienced the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Civil War between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and the Communist Party's sweeping across China. He went from Qianshan in Anhui to Shenyang, Peiping and then to Hong Kong, and finally left for the United States. Although he did not walk through most of China like the exiled student Wang Dingjun, but because of the drastic changes in China's political situation, he chose to devote himself to writing, teaching and educating people in the United States on the other side of the ocean. There are birds in the sky and fish in the pond. , reconstructed "cultural China" and "academic China".

In the Chinese cultural circle, Yu Yingshi is one of the few intellectuals who separates Chinese culture from national and ethnic identity, and takes freedom as the highest belief. In his memoirs, the author speaks candidly about the estrangement between himself and another master of archaeology, Zhang Guangzhi. This estrangement originated from Zhang Guangzhi's "heart to the motherland" - Zhang Guangzhi achieved first-class academic achievements in the United States, but his other The feelings of the motherland are very strong, and he refused to participate in the US delegation and hoped to go back in "personal capacity". "This clearly expressed the hope that 'domestic' would accept him as his own family living in 'foreign'", but his request was met by the "motherland". Indifferent refusal. Yu Yingshi sarcastically said that compared with the rigid suspicion of the CCP authorities, Zhang Guangzhi's long-term affection is like two sentences in the novels of the Ming and Qing Dynasties - "I originally had my heart for the bright moon, but the bright moon illuminates the ditch." On the contrary, Yu Yingshi dignifiedly declared that "I have no nostalgia" and "Where I am, Chinese culture is there", and categorically rejected the olive branch offered by the CCP. Mencius said, "The rich and the noble cannot be promiscuous, the poor and the lowly cannot be moved, and the mighty and the military cannot be subdued. This is called a great man."

Yu Yingshi has a kind of "warm feeling" and "sympathy" for Chinese history and culture. Of course, he was influenced by his teacher Qian Mu. More importantly, he lived in Guanzhuang Township, Qianshan County, Anhui Province for nine years in his youth and witnessed the development of Chinese agricultural civilization. The last ray of light. This is a traditional village that has not yet undergone modernization. "There are no electric lights, only oil lamps, and no modern equipment such as running water and cars. The villagers still live a primitive rural life. At that time, our country was basically an autonomous country. Society rarely has any relationship with the government. People and families are connected with each other. Geographical and blood ties have woven a big net of people in a township. Everyone is relatives and friends, and they rely on family rules and regulations. Maintain the order of life." According to Yu Yingshi's observation, there is no "class contradiction" and "class hatred" instigated by the Communist Party in this traditional village. The landlord and the tenant farmers live in peace, and some tenants are the landlord's elders, and the landlord will kowtow to him during the New Year and festivals. That kind of life and social form, although not a paradise, is also rough and simple. After the establishment of the Communist Party of China, intellectuals who grew up under the rule of "almighty totalitarianism" did not have the opportunity to experience this rural life of "what is Dili to me", and no longer have an emotional attachment to traditional Chinese culture. And Imagination, like Liu Xiaobo and I, naturally take the standpoint of "completely westernized" and "completely anti-traditional".

Would it have been a different life if the train hadn't broken down that day?

In Yu Yingshi's memoirs, there is a detail of "listening to thunder in a silent place": In the summer of 1950, Yu Yingshi, a young man who had already visited his father in Hong Kong, decided to go north to finish his studies after the half-year leave from Yenching University. Unexpectedly, after the train entered China, it broke down at a small station called Shilong and repaired for four or five hours. These few hours made Yu Yingshi rethink the plan to go north. Considering that his elderly father needed help and care in Hong Kong, he returned to Hong Kong instead. Yu Yingshi did not claim to be "prescient", had a profound insight into the evil nature of the Communist regime, and followed Confucius' teaching of "in perilous state", returning to Hong Kong was the reason for the family; but in any case, this seemingly accidental turn , forever changed Yu Yingshi's life.

Coincidentally, in 1952, the writer Eileen Chang went from Shanghai to Hong Kong, then to the United States, and never returned to China. Why is Eileen Chang so resolute about China? There is a small detail that can be seen: on July 24, 1950, the first Shanghai Literary and Art Congress was held, and more than 500 people from the literary and art circles attended. Xia Yan named Zhang Ailing as one of the representatives to attend the meeting. Zhang Ailing not only attended the meeting this time, but also dressed up to attend. When she entered the venue, she found that only she was wearing a cheongsam, and the others, men and women, all wore blue or gray tunic suits. Zhang Ailing is reluctant to wear gray or blue Communist Party cadre uniforms, and even more unwilling to perform yangko dances. She cannot stand this ugly and lowly Communist Party culture aesthetically. Later, in her novel "Yangko", which is full of insight beyond the times, she wrote: "Even if I can wait, the times are hasty, destruction is already underway, and even greater destruction is to come."

At that time, the opposite of Yu Yingshi and Zhang Ailing was Wu Ningkun, a young scholar who was writing a doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago. Lu Zhiwei, President of Yenching University, sent a telegram urgently to hire Wu Ningkun to teach at Yenching University. Wu Ningkun did not hesitate to give up half of his doctoral dissertation and returned to China from San Francisco on the Cleveland President cruise ship via Hong Kong in July 1951. Li Zhengdao, who received his doctorate from the University of Chicago a year ago, went to see him off. Wu Ningkun, who was full of longing for the new China, asked Li Zhengdao why he did not return to the motherland and contribute to the construction of the new China. Li Zhengdao replied that he did not want to be "brainwashed". Wu Ningkun was confused and did not understand how to wash his mind. It was not until after he returned to the motherland that he was forced to be involved in a vigorous thought remolding movement and was finally sent to a labor camp that he gradually understood what "brainwashing" was. More than 30 years later, Wu Ningkun's Chinese dream was completely shattered, and he went to the United States to settle down after untold hardships, and his memoir "A Drop of Tears" was written by Yu Yingshi. The lives of the two who have passed by each other have formed a contrast that is full of emotion.

Some go out, some go in, some go north, and some go south. Sometimes, life really needs what Schmidt called "decision", whether it is "freedom by truth" or "voluntary slavery", the world's difference often starts in the line. Lin Wing-kee, the person involved in the Causeway Bay Bookstore incident, experienced a turning point similar to Yu Yingshi's "turning back". After Lin Wing-kee was detained in China for several months, CCP security personnel released him to Hong Kong to bring back the bookstore's hardware materials. He took the MTR with his computer to return. When he was only half an hour away from the border, he was moved. He exited the gate at Kowloon Tong Station and smoked outside the station. He thought that the time for a cigarette could make a decision. But he drew the second and third. Lam Wing-kee in the smog remembered many things, and remembered that this was not only about the five people, but about the freedom of speech and the press of Hong Kong people. Throwing the third cigarette butt into the orange trash can, Lam Wing-kee decided not to go back to China to be monitored. Instead, he asked Legislative Councillor Ho Chun-yan to help him and hold a press conference to publicize the incident under the eyes of all Hong Kong citizens. Overnight, Lin Rongji became a hero in the hearts of many people.

If you have illusions about the Communist Party, you will end up badly. A friend from Hong Kong left a message on my Facebook, talking about the fact that he just signed the joint declaration in the 1980s and he started immigration. A friend praised him for his foresight. He replied: "Vision? Wrong! The lesson of blood and tears! In 1948, my father's company bought a plane ticket and let him go to Hong Kong. He thought that the Japanese were only like this for more than three years. Could the Communist Party be so bad? The Japanese? The result? You can imagine. I went through criticism and imprisonment, and finally returned to Hong Kong.”

For Yu Yingshi, Hong Kong is not the end of the journey, but an important station leading to freedom. In the era of turmoil, without Hong Kong, he could not have completed his studies at New Asia College, let alone be recommended by New Asia College as a visiting scholar at Harvard University.

Why are young people easily brainwashed by the Communist Party or leftist ideas?

Yu Yingshi wrote in his memoirs: "The rise of communism was the biggest historical event in China in the twentieth century, which not only determined the fate of the whole of China, but also changed the individual lives of all Chinese people, including me. At the age of 1949, he began self-imposed exile, and he lived a 'stateless' life for more than 20 years, and he was completely blessed by this event." Many people write memoirs, only about their greatness , glory, and the right side, deliberately avoiding one's own failures, shame and remorse, so writing memoirs becomes a kind of false self-improvement movement. The most valuable part of Yu Yingshi's memoir is that he frankly admits that he was also brainwashed by the Communist Party ideology in his youth.

The rural life in his childhood made Yu Yingshi have a bad impression of the Communist army. In his hometown, the New Fourth Army kidnapped and massacred 300 villagers like kidnappers. When he was fourteen years old, he witnessed the corpse of his clan brother being killed by the New Fourth Army, and he buried a shadow of fear in his heart. Then, he read the writings of Hu Shi, who had contacts with his father, and the magazine "Observation", and laid a liberal background in his mind. But even so, during his studies at Yenching University, he still failed to resist the invasion of the overwhelming leftist ideology. For a time, he was full of communist theories and was even absorbed into the Communist Youth League.

This thought process, Yu Yingshi has rarely mentioned before. In his memoirs, he reflected on two reasons why he agreed to apply for membership in the group: First, "a big weakness in character, often because of his overall consideration, he could not categorically refuse other people's requests, so that the other party would always feel that there was an opportunity"; The second is "vanity, believing that one has a high potential for 'serving the people', and a kind of self-indulgent mentality inevitably grows." During this period, he contracted a religious fanaticism and "left-leaning infantile disease". In this memoir, Yu Yingshi wrote a story that has never been told to anyone: in late December 1949, a fellow Christian from Anhui visited and told the local Communist Party cadres how to kill people for money. . However, Yu Yingshi sharply refuted the other party's statement of facts, causing the other party to leave in a panic. In the book, Yu Yingshi sincerely reflected: "At that time, I was like drinking a mad fountain, completely unable to control myself, not only irrational, but also distorted to the extent that there was little left of human nature. . For sixty years, every time I think about this, I feel ashamed. If this incident has taught me anything, it is that I realize that there are all kinds of evil hidden in people's hearts. It will definitely be swallowed up." This kind of confession is similar to Augustine's "Confessions", and what Yu Yingshi called "the evil deep in people's hearts" is exactly what the intellectual historian Zhang Hao called "dark consciousness".

"Being inside" can only be "outside". The most thorough anti-communists are often those who were once bewitched by communist ideology. This misstep in his youth made Yu Yingshi reflect on the radicalism of modern China all his life. In this sense, Yu Yingshi also has "sympathetic understanding" and "comprehension sympathy" for Wang Jingwei's choice back then. "National fans" and "Jiang fans" who believe in "national righteousness" are crazy about it. In this memoir, Yu Yingshi also pointed out that Wang Jingwei, Zhou Fohai and others were determined to seek peace, even regardless of everything, and went to the Japanese occupied area to establish a puppet regime because they estimated that the continuation of the war would provide the CCP with an opportunity to expand its power. China was sent into the arms of the Soviet Union. Wang Jingwei was originally a leftist leader of the Kuomintang and had the deepest relationship with the CCP. Zhou Fohai was also one of the founding leaders of the CCP. Chen Gongbo once participated in the CCP. Estimates of the war to seize power in the country are quite accurate.

Based on the painful lesson of being brainwashed by the CCP in his youth, Yu Yingshi insisted on his anti-Communist stance throughout his life. On the other hand, the cultural and academic celebrities of the same generation as Yu Yingshi, such as Chen Yingzhen, Jin Yong, Yu Guangzhong, Li Ao, Jao Tsung-I, and others, almost all flirted with the CCP in their later years.

"I am not a Neo-Confucian": Confucian culture is the container for communism to enter China

Yu Yingshi is often mistaken for a member of the Neo-Confucianism. In this book, he affectionately describes the years of studying under Qian Mu's school, and the "joyful pleasure" between teachers and students is like a scene in The Analects, but he does not admit that he belongs to the Neo-Confucianism. Unlike Qian Mu, who firmly believed that Sinology could be used to fight communism, Yu Yingshi was a liberal. His research object was, of course, Chinese history and culture, but the method he used was the rigorous Western modern academic training he received at Harvard. In fact, during his stay in Hong Kong, he systematically read Western politics, social thought and thematic studies in the mid-twentieth century in the libraries of the US Information Service and the British Council. It is the values of the world that have truly become my deep-seated belief in life.”

Yu Yingshi has a lot of nostalgia and affirmation for the way of life of Chinese folk autonomy, but he has a penetrating criticism of the Confucianism of the superstructure. He made it clear in a speech in recent years: "I dare not speculate about the modern fate of Confucianism, but from historical observation, we can clearly see that the new trend of Confucianism is roughly to withdraw from the public sphere and move to the private sphere." In other words, it is difficult for Confucianism to achieve "modern transformation" in terms of public life and the construction of democratic institutions, and Confucianism can only undertake part of the effect of "cultivating one's self-cultivation" in the field of private life.

In this memoir, Yu Yingshi even devoted a chapter to discussing the compatibility between Confucianism and communist ideology. Why did communism enter China like mercury, driving hundreds of millions of Chinese into a frenzy? Communism takes advantage of the common and common weaknesses or dark sides of human nature, and especially for certain cultural traditions. For example, in the Russian tradition, the French tradition and the Chinese tradition, communism is particularly easy to take root and sprout; but in the Anglo-American tradition, the Japanese tradition and the Islamic tradition, it is not so easy to survive. What is the reason for this?

Yu Yingshi pointed out that the traditional Chinese thought with Confucianism as the main body had a kind of "introduction effect", which made the intellectuals in the late Qing Dynasty easily accept the consciousness of communism (or socialism). The first is that Confucianism pays special attention to the concept of "evenness", and Confucius' "not suffering from poverty but suffering from inequality" is the earliest manifestation. The concept of "equalization" was also passed on from Confucianism to Taoism, and from upper-level culture to lower-level folk culture. The idea of egalitarianism has a long history in China on the one hand, and it is pervasive on the other hand. It has laid a psychological foundation for Chinese intellectuals to accept communism, and thus has a hit-and-run effect. Second, another Confucian value that has a great influence is the sharp contrast between "public" and "private." Scholar-bureaucrats have always emphasized that "public" is good, while "private" is evil. The concept of "Great Harmony" in "Book of Rites·Liyun" has always received special attention. In modern times, Kang Youwei, who advocated reform, wrote the Book of Great Harmony, and Sun Yat-sen, who advocated revolution, also preached the four characters of "the world is for the public." This constituted a background for intellectuals in the late Qing Dynasty to accept the ideal of communism. The so-called "last Confucian" Liang Shuming accepted the Communist Party because his concept of opposing private property from the Confucian tradition coincided with that of the Communist Party. But in the end, Liang Shuming finally discovered that without the protection of private property, all human rights and freedoms were not protected. will be gone.

In addition, there is another important ideology that Yu Yingshi did not mention, which was also shaped by Confucianism, that is, "the unification of the world", and the collectivism and "feelings of family and country" derived from this. It is for this reason that in early 2012, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Implementing the Project of Inheriting and Developing Chinese Excellent Traditional Culture", threatening to "completely revive traditional culture by 2025". ". It can be seen that after the bankruptcy of Marxism-Leninism and the ideology of the Communist Party, traditional culture has become a quick-acting life-saving pill for the CCP. However, whether it is Zhang Guangzhi mentioned in the book, or Chen Yingzhen, Jin Yong, Li Ao, Xu Zhuoyun, Wang Gengwu, etc., these characters who have written the same life as Yu Yingshi have never been able to see this point, and have not been able to get rid of this kind of "big problem" like Yu Yingshi. Unification" and "Greater China" ideology. They are immersed in the fantasy of Confucian culture and the idea of unification, "one day a slave, a lifetime slave", which is truly sad. In contrast, Yu Yingshi is Yu Yingshi, which highlights the double height of mind and soul.