A Prayer for Cardinal Zen and China
At the apex of the free trade era, it was a common rationalization by its free world acolytes that prosperity would ultimately transform communist China into a human rights respecting democracy. Whenever someone dissented from this position and recited the litany of totalitarian abuses of the barbaric Beijing regime, one was dismissed as lacking in an appreciation of diplomatic nuance and strategic foresight and instructed to be patient.
As one opposed to a trade policy eviscerating our economy while simultaneously bolstering that of a predatory, mercantilist regime bent upon our subjugation and destruction, I was often on the receiving end of these “free traders’” suggestions for my edification. One encounter from my early days in Congress left an indelible mark; and I have often repeated it, for it encapsulates the hubris and greed of the purblind proponents of trading with communist China.
Talking with a high-ranking Republican House member, I asserted, “It is suicidal to trade with communist China.”
They endeavored to correct me: “There is no need to be provocative.”
“It is what they call themselves,” I reminded them.
The high-ranking leader patronizingly shook their head. “There are no communists anymore.”
Over the more than a decade since that exchange, the now 95 million members of the Chinese Communist Party have done their utmost to prove the House leader wrong.
The Beijing regime’s repressive domestic policies and aggressive foreign policies are evident to all whose personal fortunes necessitate them averting their gaze. Their human rights abuses and crimes against their own captive people, such as their ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs, and their intimidation and incursions against other nations, such as Taiwan and India, each and all reaffirm China is, in fact, ruled by avowed, active, and evil communists.
Like every communist regime, Beijing’s tyrants know that its intrinsic illegitimacy to govern is revealed and magnified by two organized, existential threats.
One threat is free and independent labor unions. Their existence undermines a communist regime’s bogus claim to speak for workers as “the vanguard or the proletariat.” After all, why would workers need a communist regime to speak for them when they can speak for themselves – and dissent. There are no true free and independent labor unions in communist China.
The second threat is from religion. Spawned from the cesspool of Rousseau via Marx, communist regimes coercively implement the former’s “civil religion,” which compels the populace adhere to and prioritize the oppressive government’s propagated party line above any other beliefs. Any other belief – especially those that even remotely dissent from the party line – constitutes a destabilizing force the illegitimate and inhuman regime must quash. This is why there is no freedom of religion in communist China, merely state-controlled shells of religious denominations.
Both free and independent labor unions and religious organizations preserve and promote the ultimate threats to communist regimes: namely, the concomitant freedoms of speech and conscience. This is why tyrants always target free speech and, ergo, freedom of conscience for extermination (or for “repressive tolerance” in Marcuse’s euphemistic academic parlance).
A recent, despicable act of repression once more shows the soulless, ideological consistency of China’s communists in stamping out any threats that could abet the end of its reign of terror.
Per The Standard:
“Four trustees of the ‘612 Humanitarian Relief Fund’, which assisted Hong Kong democracy protestors in paying their legal fees, were arrested… Hui Po-keung, a prominent cultural studies scholar… The other three arrested trustees of the fund include retired cleric Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, veteran barrister Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee and gay rights activist and pop singer Denise Ho Wan-see. They were arrested on Wednesday evening [May 10th].”
A fifth trustee, democracy activist Cyd Ho Sau-lan, is already serving a 14-month jail sentence for involvement in “illegal assemblies” – read, “pro-democracy protests.”
According to the communist regime’s lackies, the trustees were arrested for “collusion with foreign forces” – read, “free people in free nations” – under a diktat introduced to crush pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong that prescribes up to life sentences for dissidents. The alleged collusion involved the dissidents’ activities as trustees of 612 Fund, the mission statement of which states:
“Established on 15th June, 2019, the Fund aims to provide humanitarian and relevant financial support to persons who are injured, arrested, attacked or threatened with violence during Anti-ELAB protests, including but not limited to the actions on 12th June. We primarily provide legal, medical, psychological and emergency financial assistance.”
Though, after Hong Kong’s totalitarian rulers demanded the identities of its donors and recipients, the 612 Fund had already been dissolved to protect them, this was not enough to appease the communists, any more than did the blacklisting from employment of the individual trustees under their insidious “social credit system.” For the diktat also punishes “sedition” – read, “freedom seeking” – including the freedom of religion.
As The Catholic News Agency observed about the oppressive arrests, “Before the law’s implementation, many Catholics, including Zen, warned that it could be used to silence the Church in Hong Kong.” Recent reports state that the Cardinal has since been released on bail, likely because the regime has already made its two most repressive points: dissent will be crushed; and China will remain ruled by communists. It is as warned: “If God is dead, everything is permitted.” Any doubters need only ask the atheists of the Chinese Communist Party.
Yet, we in our own way can assist these courageous dissenters from Chinese communist oppression. We can seditiously collude with foreign forces and our fellow citizens to humbly pray for the persecuted 612 Trustees and all those suffering under the totalitarian yoke of the Chinese Communist Party. So doing, we affirm our faith that with God, all good is possible – including the end of communist oppression. Any doubters need only ask the atheists of the former Soviet Union.
As he describes himself: The product of a misspent youth, the Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter (M.C., Ret.) is a guitarist, author, occasional radio co-host, and recovering politician. He is a former U.S. Congressman from Michigan having represented that state’s 11th Congressional district from 2003-2012.