Red China: How Much Longer?

By Lee Duigon

We should have noticed there were two big, bright disaster flags flapping in the wind. But then the Chinese Wuhan Communist Death Virus attacked the whole world and swallowed up all the other news, and we lost track of whatever those flags were trying to tell us.

In December there were reports that Hong Kong’s anti-government riots had spread to the mainland. The red regime just couldn’t leave Hong Kong the way it was, and the people there resented it. They were tearing the place apart, and it seemed the government didn’t know what to do about it. Once upon a time, and not so long ago, they would’ve sent in the army and crushed the protesters with tanks. That they didn’t do that, this time, was puzzling. Were they afraid the army wouldn’t obey the order to massacre the people?

And just this month it has been reported that 21 million Chinese cellphone users have dropped out of the picture. Gone missing. The immediate speculation was that the communist government, as is its invariable custom, had lied gigantically about the coronavirus death toll in their country. But 21 million people, in just a few weeks? That’s an awful lot of dead people to have to hide.

The second disaster flag denoted China’s shiny new “social credit system,” surely the most ambitious attempt, ever, to impose total control on the entire population of a major country. The idea was, you had to maintain a certain “trustworthiness” score to be allowed to do various things—like travel in an airliner, eat at a restaurant, buy a new pair of shoes, or just about anything else that in a civilized country would be taken for granted as a part of daily life. With the aid of high technology, the government would keep track of everything you said or did, and reward you or punish you accordingly. Liberals could hardly wait to do that here!

To make the social credit system work, the Chinese government would have to watch its people all the time, with robots and algorithms to keeping a running score. To that end, Chinese law required everyone—yes, we said everyone—to have a cellphone. One of those cool phones that spies on you.

Now, suddenly, 21 million Chinese people are out of cellphone contact. How come? We don’t believe they all died. We don’t even believe that a million of them died.

But I do believe they tossed their cellphones. Oh, yeah. Got tired of the government keeping tabs on them morning, noon, and night, got tired of being told they couldn’t ride the bus because the algorithm said they weren’t trustworthy, weren’t good and docile citizens of the workers’ paradise. Encouraged by the persistence of the Hong Kong protesters, 21 million people got rid of their government-mandated stoolie cellphones.

What’s really surprising is that it was only 21 million of them—but they had to start somewhere. What’s going to happen if another 20 million do it? Or many times 20 million?

Red China has done everything it could think of to turn tyranny into an exact science. For the Muslim Uighurs in the north, it’s concentration camps and forced labor. For the Han Chinese themselves, it’s 24/7 surveillance and a social credit system. For Chinese Christians, it’s bulldozing their churches and making their pastors disappear.

The dictatorship of Chairman Mao taught the Chinese that, to stay alive and out of prison, they had to lie, cheat, and pretend. That was Mao’s legacy, and it’s very much alive today. It’s why impressive new structures get built in record time and almost immediately begin to fall apart.

The people of China deserve better than this. And those disaster flags are still flying, whether or not the communists—both the ones over there and the ones right here at home—continue to ignore them. It may well be this evil regime’s days are numbered.

Whatever takes its place is bound to be better.

I have discussed these and other topics throughout the week on my blog, http://leeduigon.com/ . Stop in for a visit; a single click will take you there. My articles can also be found at www.chalcedon.edu/ .

E-Mail Lee Duigon: leeduigon@verizon.net