U.S.-China talks, Yang Jiechi’s aggressive speech shocked the world. Yang emphasized that the Chinese Communist Party leaders have the heartfelt support of the people. But the Washington Post opinion piece asks rhetorically, if that is the case, why is the CCP acting so fearful and why are they detaining people like Wang Bingzhang, Zhang Zhan and Huang Zhifeng?
During high-level U.S.-China talks last week, Yang Jiechi denounced U.S. human rights and said the United States “has no right to speak to China from above” and should mind its own business instead of speaking out against human rights and democracy in China.
Yang also stressed that the Chinese Communist Party leaders “have the heartfelt support of the Chinese people, and any attempt to change the Chinese social system is futile.
In response, WaPo editorial page editor and columnist Fred Hiatt said in a March 21 opinion piece that Yang’s comments made him wonder, “If China [the CCP] is so confident in the superiority of its own model, why is its leader acting so fearfully?”
He also asked why a popular popular government would lock up a man like Wang Bingzhang.
Wang, a former democracy advocate living in North America, was kidnapped by Chinese Communist Party agents at a conference in Vietnam in 2002 and secretly brought back to mainland China. The Communist Party held him in secret detention for six months before sentencing him to Life in prison in a one-day closed-door “trial.
Nearly 20 years later, Wang is still being held incommunicado in a remote Chinese prison, Hiatt said. If the Communist rulers are loved by the people, why are they afraid to let the 73-year-old out of prison?
“I also want to know why such a ‘beloved’ regime is so afraid of Zhang Zhan?” Hiatt asked.
Zhang Zhan, a mainland rights lawyer and citizen journalist, was sentenced to four years in prison late last year by the Chinese Communist Party for “provoking and provoking trouble” after he went to Wuhan to report on the real situation in the city, which was sealed off by the New Coronavirus (NCCV) outbreak.
Zhang’s defense attorney said the case was a crackdown on citizens’ freedom of expression.
Zhang traveled to Wuhan, the site of the outbreak, in February 2020, where she photographed local hospitals overwhelmed by the Epidemic. She subsequently posted several videos via social media, according to the group Chinese Human Rights Defenders. In another video, she travels to what is purported to be a Wuhan funeral Home and documents the crematorium roaring into action at night.
Zhang Zhan has also been outspoken in her criticism of official measures to combat the epidemic through text, arguing that authorities have failed to take into account the rights of the people at the bottom and have covered up the seriousness of the situation.
She was arrested by the authorities last May, and she subsequently went on a hunger strike and was forcibly intubated and fed.
During the U.S.-China summit, Yang Jiechi declared that China (the Communist Party) “has made decisive achievements and important strategic results in the fight against COVID-19. If it is as Yang claimed, then why is the CCP worried about Zhang’s report, Hiatt asked rhetorically?
“Likewise, why do the CCP rulers fear the 24-year-old Huang Zhifeng?” Hiatt continued to ask.
Huang was sentenced to 13-and-a-half months in prison by a Hong Kong court last December for helping to organize and participate in the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Hiatt said Wong Chi-fung, like Chow Ting, Lam Long-yin and other young people in Hong Kong, are being persecuted in Hong Kong today simply because they support free and fair elections in Hong Kong. And the Chinese Communist Party would never take such a risk in mainland China. And now, the Chinese Communist Party has also banned free and fair elections in Hong Kong.
In China, Hiatt said, hundreds of lawyers, journalists and human rights defenders have been jailed for expressing the “wrong” opinion; business tycoons have lost business for holding the “wrong” view; and social media apps would not be allowed if the Communist Party’s Secret Police could not spy on or listen in on every conversation. Social media apps would not be allowed in China if the Communist Party’s secret police could not spy on or listen to every conversation.
What he wants to say to Yang Jiechi, Hiatt said, is that if you are right about China, then let “Wang Bingzhang, Zhang Zhan and Huang Zhifeng be released” so that they can speak their minds and your people can organize rallies and vote.
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