The New Evil Empire’: Victim of Communist Tyranny Reminds Us What is At Stake and Why U.S. Should Undermine P.R.C.

(Washington, D.C.): Last Sunday, the Washington Post published an essay by American University Prof. Gao Zhan that was at once a tremendously courageous account of her recent ordeal at the hands of the Communist Chinese government and a gripping reflection on what her personal experience has taught her. Even more moving, however, were Dr. Gao’s insights into the lack of freedom that is the daily lot in life of the people of the PRC.

As it happens, yesterday’s New York Times reports that the Bush Administration is pursuing a program that is designed to help counter one facet of the Chinese Communists’ repression: Beijing’s assiduous efforts to use the Internet as an instrument of control over its increasingly restive population. If true, this is a most welcome development on at least two counts.

First, it suggests that President Bush understands what his predecessor manifestly did not — namely, that the Internet is not necessarily a vehicle for expanding freedom. Whereas President Clinton contemptuously wished “Good luck” to anyone who sought to control access to or use of the Internet, George W. Bush appears to appreciate that determined authoritarians can and do monitor the information superhighway to find out who is traveling it and their destinations. Those in China who are discovered defying the Party by using the Internet to express prohibited thoughts, to gain access to unapproved web sites or to associate with others who harbor what are perceived as “counterrevolutionary” sentiments can then be dealt with by the same brutally effective techniques used on Prof. Gao, if not much worse.

Second, the Times story signals a laudable willingness on the part of the Bush Administration to use instruments at its disposal to change and, if necessary, to topple the Chinese Communist regime. As it happens, by doing whatever the United States can to help liberate the people of China from this odious dictatorship, it will not only be assisting them in a cause every bit as moral as Ronald Reagan’s campaign to undermine an earlier “Evil Empire.” It may also be taking the only step that will avoid the conflict between this country and the PRC that the Communists there insist is “inevitable.”

My handlers warned me not to utter a word about my experience, and by speaking, I am aware that my relatives could face consequences.

I fear retribution from the Chinese government that has just persecuted me, because I could be subjected to an even dirtier blemish, since my tormentors are very good at that. I fear for my future because my good name has been smeared by a false charge, and many Chinese, including former friends in China and even in the United States, believe that I am indeed a spy as a result of the much-distorted reports by the Chinese media and brainwashing by Chinese propaganda.

I have to admit that, in a sense, I am as fearful now as I was in the Beijing detention facility, though for different reasons. For all those months, I feared my interrogators’ fabrication of false evidence against me. I feared losing face among friends and acquaintances who love and admire me, because of the notorious nature of the false charge of espionage. I feared having to assume the moral responsibility if the stress of my alleged crime caused my parents’ health to decline. I feared that I might never be able to return to the United States to rejoin my family. On the day that I learned of my 10-year sentence, I feared the worst: that my absence would break up my family…

It wasn’t until after my release that I fully understood the broader nature of that fear and its consequences. It is the same fear that results in the poisonous collective silence in China and even in Taiwan, and in the Chinese people’s tolerance of an oppressive regime. That understanding prompts me now to openly denounce my fears and my silence, as well as the silence of others…

People may have good reason to remain silent in the face of violent intrusion into their personal liberty. But Hitler didn’t kill 6 million Jews overnight. It was the initial silence of Germans, including Jews whose lives were yet to be taken, that helped bring about the Holocaust. Prior to the recent rash of detentions, mostly in Beijing, there were “hundreds and thousands” of innocent scholars, journalists, dissidents and students harassed, according to the testimony of Yale professor Kang Zhengguo at a congressional hearing last month on China’s detention of scholars. They were hustled away from their homes or from the airport “for a chat” — as was I, initially.

It is only since my release that I have understood the extent of the Ministry of State Security’s ruthless detentions. Before, I didn’t pay much attention. I am learning more through the stories of former detainees who are just now “coming out” of their psychological closets, such as Kang himself.

Kang was detained and interrogated for three days a year ago while visiting family members in China. His crime: endangering state security by mailing foreign journals to friends in China. He remained silent for a year and decided to speak out after my case hit the news. The events Kang described in his testimony before the House Committee on International Relations — the long hours of interrogation, isolation, vague threats if he spoke about his ordeal after his release, psychological and emotional torture — bear a surprising similarity to my own experience.

About a dozen other U.S.-based, Chinese-born scholars detained in years past have come out recently via the Internet. But much to my disappointment, they are using aliases. And some of the family members of current detainees who waited too long to ask for public help have now started to seek legal assistance or media attention from outside China. My attorney, Jerome Cohen, known for his masterful and pioneering expertise in Chinese law, was approached recently by several people whose loved ones are being detained in China. One, a sixty-ish businessman/intellectual, has remained captive for more than 17 months awaiting indictment or release.

Too often, families try to secretly plea-bargain their way out under the Communist Party’s instruction of “leniency for those who confess.” Apparently, it often doesn’t work, especially when there is nothing to confess.

Indifference is the by-product of silence. When detainees and their families are silent, the indifference of those who are in no imminent danger is hardly surprising. And silence and indifference, like a virus, are contagious. I believe I was stricken with that virus — until my own detention…

Fear, silence and indifference join hands in the making of tyranny. The more we fear threats of retribution from an oppressive tyranny, the more relentless and ferocious the tyranny becomes. We must put fear in perspective. What is it that causes so much fear in the minds of the Chinese people?

It is the Chinese government’s conduct that people fear the most. Its wanton assumption of the guilt of its own people; its arbitrary exercise of its “independent legal system”; and its abusive use of state machines in crushing individuals and their families who have different voices — all have contributed to destroying people’s sense of security. After all, it is the Chinese political and ideological system’s lack of respect for each individual life that has deeply ingrained this fear in the minds of the Chinese people…