In 2018, a group of victims of “zero service” formed the “1,000 Citizens’ Suit Group”. (Video screenshot)
On February 24, 2021, Epoch Times received a letter from a reader accusing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities of illegally zeroing out the working years of tens of millions of workers and embezzling their pensions.
The letter exposes that the Chinese Communist authorities have “zeroed out” the working years of citizens, leaving the victims in a desperate situation of “no support for the elderly and no medical care for the sick. Without pensions and health insurance, many people are struggling to survive, and some are even forced to commit suicide on the tracks because they cannot receive their pensions.
On January 8, 2018, thousands of Chinese from mainland China and those who had worked in mainland China and later emigrated overseas publicly signed a joint complaint to the United Nations Human Rights Council against the Chinese Communist authorities for depriving citizens of their working years and appropriating their legitimate pensions. According to the interviewees, the complaints did not receive any response back then.
“Institutional Policy of Depriving Weak Citizens”
On February 24, 2021, the Epoch Times reporter interviewed two representatives who participated in the 2018 Global Chinese Linkage.
Jiang Fuzhen, a Writer from Qingdao, Shandong province, was sentenced to eight years in prison by the Chinese Communist Party for “counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement” after participating in the June 4 Movement in 1989.
Jiang revealed that before he was imprisoned, he had 15 years of service, “but after he was released from prison, his service was cleared. I had no choice but to pay for my own social security, and now I only have a monthly pension of 1,200 yuan.”
Later, Jiang Fuzhen and other victims, who also suffered from zero years of service, jointly sued the Beijing Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. “They (Beijing Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security) did not accept it. At that Time they belonged to what is now the State Council, and first we approached the Petition Office, but were told it was not under their control. We then wrote to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and also wrote to the State Council. We again asked the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security to disclose information and make public the documents that supported the ‘zeroing out of service’ then and now.”
“The year before last we had gone through all the legal procedures and eventually lost the case. (The CCP’s ‘zeroing out of service’) is actually robbing us of our personal property, which is a kind of institutional deprivation. He (the Chinese Communist government) just wants these people to be unable to eat, so that these people will be so busy trying to survive that they will stop thinking about anything else. We are the ones who have been in jail, whether for political reasons or otherwise. They (the Chinese Communist government) think these people have what they call ‘anti-government personality’. This system was originally designed to (deal with) ‘counter-revolutionaries’ and then it was extended to all those who had been in prison.”
“It (the zeroing out of service) is a kind of weak civil power. It keeps you busy so you can’t think about anything else. If the income is high, you will think about other things, about democracy, about freedom. The more disobedient you are, the more you are put in a vulnerable position. It’s a disguised suppression, and this kind of sitting is very hateful.”
“It’s not just people who have been sentenced to ‘zero years of service.’ There are cases of people who have lost their files, and cases of workers who have deliberately thrown away their files, and these people are not recognized for their years of service. (There are also those who have been dismissed by their employers; those who have resigned irregularly; or those who have had a break in the middle (of their service), many kinds of situations, all of which result in ‘zero service’). I estimate that there are tens of millions of people (with zero working experience).”
Another interviewee, Wang Hai (a pseudonym), had also been sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Chinese Communist authorities for participating in a speech in support of June 4. Prior to 1989, Wang Hai had 13 years of service, which was zeroed out.
Wang Hai revealed that he also had to pay for his own social security and medical insurance. “Now the pension is only 1,249 yuan, which is only enough money for one person to eat. If you get sick you can’t guarantee your Life, and it’s even more impossible to support your Family. I can only continue to work because my children are still young and I need to work until I am 80 years old.”
Wang Hai disclosed, “In the 1950s, a reply letter from the then Ministry of Internal Affairs of the State to the Shanghai authorities stipulated that all those sentenced to imprisonment would have their previous years of service returned to zero. At that time, the main reason was ‘political command’ and class struggle. But the relevant policy (in 1992) has changed, the ‘deemed contribution years’ before 1992 and the ‘contribution years’ after the implementation of the individual contribution system in 1992, the two kinds of service have the same legal effect. “
“But they [the Chinese Communist authorities] don’t care, whoever starts it, it’s not just one or two cases, there will be a huge funding gap. These officials are doing more than one thing, and no one cares in order to keep the ‘black hat’. The number of people who are still alive now, who have been deprived of their rights and interests because of their sentences, and who have their working years cleared, is no less than ten million people. This doesn’t include those in the countryside.”
In a letter to the Epoch Times, the reader mentions the fact that retirees’ seniority in the military has been zeroed out. How shameless is this regime to reward this citizen who has given decades of his youth to the country with zero pension? This is a genocide of millions of people who have zero years of service!
The reader also writes, “Justice determines social justice. If justice is not fair, we have to rely on tragedies like Yang Jia to promote social progress, which is the misfortune of a country and society.” “Do not ignore the seriousness and danger of human rights abuses, and imagine what society will reap when the so-called law recklessly pushes law-abiding citizens into a corner.”
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