On the afternoon of Sunday, January 24, a joint rally was held in Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York to protest the Chinese Communist Party‘s arrests and crackdowns on pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong and China, and to call for resistance to the Communist Party’s infiltration of the United States and its commitment to end its dictatorial rule.
The U.S.-wide protest against the CCP, sponsored by the China Democracy and Human Rights Coalition, made eight demands, including that all government officials, including members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, stop all business activities directly or indirectly related to the CCP; stop exporting computer and telephone chips to China; stop the CCP’s Internet surveillance of U.S. citizens and The U.S. should protect national security by immediately shutting down huawei, Tencent and the Confucius Institute; the U.S. should release the names of the assets, accounts and businesses of Chinese Communist Party officials in the U.S.; the U.S. should review upcoming and existing investments by Chinese companies in U.S. businesses; and the U.S. and China must have reciprocal media rights, among other things.
Jin Xiuhong, president of the Seattle-based Coalition for Democracy and Human Rights in China, told VOA that despite the cold, rainy weather Sunday, dozens of people attended the rally in downtown Westlake Park. The event also received positive responses and participation from many Americans.
We had many American friends in our group, including politicians and legal experts,” said Kim Soo Hong. We thus also increased our knowledge, for example, that democracy means that 51 people win over 49 people, but that does not mean that the 49 people who are in the minority are also deprived of their basic rights, which are the five rights guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution: freedom of belief, freedom of speech, freedom of publication, freedom of assembly, and freedom of petition.”
Jin Xiuhong said it felt like the day’s events allowed the demands of Chinese people in the U.S. against the one-party dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party and its infiltration of the U.S. to converge on the American public: “People of all races who passed by on the street, some applauded us, gave us thumbs up, people who were driving rolled down their windows and honked their horns to show their support, some came over to talk to us, and some even volunteered to speak a few words. It felt like we were getting echoes of them here because they were like-minded with us and saw that if we didn’t stop the Chinese Communist Party from entering the United States, Americans would also lose their freedom and the United States would fall to the level of China.”
That same afternoon in Los Angeles, dozens of people also gathered in front of the Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles to call on the new U.S. administration to take the issue of human rights in China seriously, while not feeding the Chinese Communist Party’s spying activities overseas.
Zheng Cunzhu, vice chairman of the National United Headquarters of the Chinese Democratic Party, said, “We do not want the Communist Party’s authoritarian and totalitarian ideology to infiltrate the world like a virus.”
Mr. Shih, who attended the rally, told Voice of America, “Since I was a child, I have known the evilness of the CCP, controlling beliefs and ideas, and wanting everyone to be like it. It is a rogue, and it makes everyone a rogue. We can see the essence of the CCP and its evil face by the phenomenon of Chinese society. Being in the United States, it is all the more important for us to tell the world what we know about the Communist Party, including the brutalization of the people and the persecution of minorities and the deception of the international community.”
With the new U.S. administration in power, there is widespread agreement among democracy advocates that human rights remain the most important issue in China and a fundamental divide between the U.S. and China; and that the U.S. administration should continue to be premised on human rights when dealing with the CCP.
Mr. Xing said, “There is no such thing as human rights in mainland China, including the current Epidemic that has led to a great suppression of everyone’s human rights and an even greater suppression of the desire for freedom and democracy by the Chinese Communist Party. I hope that the CCP, a dictatorial organization, will collapse and the people will be rescued by the tide of freedom and democracy, and that everyone will unite against the CCP, an evil organization.”
Critics argue that the trigger for the troubled U.S.-China relationship was last year’s New Crown virus. If the Chinese Communist Party had not blocked news and tried to cover up the truth at the beginning of the outbreak in Wuhan, the world would not have been so devastated a year later.
Mr. Yan, who was in Los Angeles for the protest, said, “(The Chinese Communist Party’s information) is so opaque that it can cover up the truth, and there could be a more serious virus in the future, causing more harm. Therefore, people around the world should wake up now to resist and confront the CCP and overthrow this regime, or else the world will not know how much damage it will suffer in the future.”
On the same day in New York in the eastern United States, at minus 4 degrees Celsius, several organizations participated in a link-up protest, including the China Coalition for Democracy and Human Rights, the China Democratic Front, the China Democratic Party National Committee, the New York Rock Church, the U.S. East Branch of the China Democratic Party, the Chinese Federal Party, and the Anti-Attack Justice Organization in a nationwide link-up. Rally participants pulled banners and gathered in front of the United Nations building to denounce the Chinese Communist Party’s infiltration, corruption and division of the United States.
Jin Xiuhong, who is in Seattle, told Voice of America that it is clear that Americans are becoming more aware, “They are very grateful to us and say they appreciate that you Chinese are here to remind us how evil the communist regime is. Before, we didn’t know, we just knew that we had freedom and didn’t feel that our freedom would be lost. When we thought about it, we realized that our jobs and our skills were lost.”
Jin Xiuhong also told Voice of America that some American friends pointed out how vicious it is that the CCP can arrest and detain dissidents at will and steal and sell their organs, and that “if Americans enjoy their rights every day without realizing it and don’t act hard to protect them, one day it will be too late when we lose our rights. So, they came to support us today, and they thought it was necessary. They also said that we are getting closer to you now. It’s all about taking to the streets for our most basic human rights.”
Human Rights Watch previously noted “China’s Global Threat to Human Rights,” stating that “the Chinese Communist Party fears its own people …… The Chinese government sees human rights as a fundamental threat. And its counterattack becomes a fundamental threat to the international human rights system …… If allowed to run amok, Beijing‘s actions could take us to an anti-utopia where everyone is immune to Chinese censorship and the weak international human rights system is no longer a check on government oppression.”
China typically responds to international condemnation with “unfounded and unworthy of refutation.”
Data from the Pew Research Center between June 10 and August 3 of last year show that perceptions of China continue to slide; in polls conducted in 14 developed countries, including the United States, Canada, Germany and France, those who had “little favorable” and “very little favorable” perceptions of China combined were at 70 percent. In the polls conducted in 14 developed countries, including the United States, Canada, Germany and France, the combined percentage of those who have “little favorable feeling” and “very little favorable feeling” toward China is above 70 percent; the percentage of those who have “favorable feeling” is below 26 percent, except for Italy (38 percent) and Spain (36 percent).
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