China fears religious freedom more than US aircraft carriers and nukes: Amb. Sam Brownback

On Capitol Hill today, lawmakers exposed the Chinese Communist Party's attacks on religious freedom, emphasizing why the regime's violations pose a threat to Americans. One witness urges US leaders to handle it as a matter of national security. ENTD's Molina Weissup brings us the highlights. >> The CCP fears the power of faith because it is a source of values and moral authority it cannot control. In search of global dominance, the Chinese Communist Party has sought to deprive people of their own spiritual consciousness. Witnesses at today's hearing expressed why this strikes at the heart of American values and threatens US world leadership. >> Their intimidation and surveillance of individuals in the US is a direct assault on US rule of law. >> America being able to defend its value abroad also shows America's strength. And if it's not able to defend something that is so critical and so so core to American values, then they see that as weakness. While the attack on faith has been present since the CCP's inception, the severity has only worsened over time. In 2022, Chinese leader Xiinping escalated attempts to eradicate the meditation discipline Fallon Dafa, also known as Fallen Gong, with a special focus on the United States. >> The Chinese Communist Party fears fallen gong more than anybody. much more fearful of that, as I said, than it of our aircraft carriers or nuclear weapons. They they fear their own people. Well, why? Well, because they are afraid of losing control. They're not acting like a confident country. The Fallen NPA Center reports that the regime is attempting to change public opinion and turn US institutions against Fallen Dafa through carrying out nearly 200 violent threats against its adherence not limited to Chinese diaspora. Attacks have gone so far as CCP proxies attempting to weaponize the US legal system to target a US-based dance company by the name of Shin Yun. It was founded by fallen offer practitioners to expose the persecution and to revive traditional Chinese culture. I asked the chairman of the commission as well as witnesses what's at stake if Americans don't take this threat seriously. >> 95% of Americans would find that offensive. Wait, you got communist Chinese intimidating American citizens over Xiinping wanting to shut down religion here. Every human being has in his heart or her heart a sense of freedom, human dignity if they want to practice religion. You hear about how many Christians are in China. I didn't know it was that big of a number. And that is something that these dictators fear. And they oppress it. And they oppress it aggressively with billions of dollars that they spent in the most high-tech surveillance systems the world has ever seen. So if they're so scared of religion, we should be backing it. We will change China or China will change the world. And that's the level and scale of battle we're at now. >> Ambassador Brownback is urging US leaders to treat this as a matter of national security and to use tools like economic sanctions to fight for spiritual freedom. Reporting from Washington DC, Molina Weissup, NTD News. to talk more on China's oppression of religious freedom. Joining us now is international religious freedom advocate David Curry, president at David Curry and Associates. And we have Dr. Welen Gilre, deputy director of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting. So, thank you both for joining us here uh to set the stage. I just want to play a quick clip um clip here from today's hearing on China's war on religion. Listen, >> China fears religious freedom far more than they fear our aircraft carriers or our nuclear weapons. They're far more concerned. They spend billions of dollars annually harassing everybody up and down this line here. >> You know, David, I'll start with you today. And that clip really resonated. I I mean uh Ambassador Brownback later went on to say that the Chinese regime is more afraid of losing control than anything else. So do you think this is the main reason for its war on religion? >> Absolutely. Uh he's he's absolutely right. Ambassador Brownback is correct because the Communist Party fears anything which challenges its preeminence in the hearts and minds of its people. And of course they have they have desires to to have larger territory to try to control the world with their ideology. Their ideology is preeminent in their mind. So a 100 million Christians in China are oppressed for their faith. Not because they're bad citizens, but because their ideology is that the communists are not the most important thing in their world, but their faith is. And you could go right down the list. They persecute Muslims, weaguer Muslims, uh others as well as you as you heard in this report. So they are threatened by any ideology that challenges them or any personality. You remember Jack Maw and some of these entrepreneurs who got too big, they'll get cut off at the knees. So it's a it's a challenge around ideology and preeminence in China. >> Okay. So Weldon, let me go to you now. Your reaction to the clip and what David said. Why is it that it looks like the CCP and religion cannot coexist? >> Yeah. I mean, at its core, at its roots, [clears throat] communism is is based on an atheistic ideology that uses control, uses fear and intimidation to carry out its control. So um you know for me it was very telling I think ambassadors Ambassador Brownback's comments that they fear religious freedom and those that exert religious freedom within their own country the Chinese Communist Party fears them more than they fear nuclear weapons that they fear weapons. I mean this is what Mao referred to as the paper tiger in the 1940s was weapons. But I I think what we're seeing now is in in ironically to me is a paper tiger. You have a country in Xiinping uh that and and a and a system an evil system with the Chinese Communist Party that is a paper tiger. They they're weak. Uh they've lost control. And I think one of the reasons that religious freedom poses such a threat is because they can tell the real story of what the Chinese Communist Party is. and the Chinese Communist Party. It's not the Chinese people. It's not the traditions of China. It's not the culture of China. It's not the religions of China. And I think that that poses a huge threat because it exposes them for what they really are. >> And Welen, I I think you touched on something really important here. And what you said was echoed in in that hearing. And I just have a clip here um from uh that hearing and I like to play it right now. The CCP is no longer satisfied with just controlling churches and mosques. It now seeks to control the entire inner life of its citizens. Its goal is nothing less than to eliminate all independent faith and replace it with the absolute loyalty to the CCP and Siginping's thoughts. So, Walden, what is it about the CCP's ideology or its rule or or anything else um that has it that has made it able to carry out atrocities against religious believers for so many decades now? >> Well, I think one thing you have a you have a completely opaque system. I mean, take take what my my interest is, which is forced organ harvesting. I mean, killing innocent prisoners of conscience, primarily fallen gong practitioners throughout China, but also weaggguers, probably Tibetans, Christians, a lot of those that were represented in the meeting or the hearing today. Um, why why why are they such a threat and and why has the Chinese Communist Party uh gone after them but really stayed kind of under the radar? I think one thing is after Dong Xiaoing opened to the west and opened the economy to the west, it remains an opaque system and Americans traditionally the last few decades have taken the policy that that we should uh engage with the Chinese Communist Party whether that's financially, government, the World Trade Organization or uh you know our medical systems. this this thought of of engagement to build them up economically and give them legitimacy um has actually backfired. I mean, we we've seen this the last really 10 years. This has come to light that this policy of engagement with an evil system has largely backfired. And I think that engagement is what allowed a lot of these crimes to go under the radar. Whether it's the 1989 um massacre of pro-democracy students in in in Canon Square, um whether it's the persecution of fallen gong, whether it's Tibet, a lot of these have gone under the radar because I think the the American people and the American government and American institutions have tried to uh in good faith believe that these would stop if the Chinese Communist Party had some kind of legitimacy. But it's only further exacerbated the the hor horrific human rights abuses that they've carried out. >> Okay. So David, your thought >> can I add to that? Yeah. Uh he the Dr. Gilk is absolutely right. But here's the other X factor and that is there's never in history been a government that has control of all the information pieces the way they do in China. They can control the internet. They can monitor what you see. They can see where you go and they track you with facial recognition like has never been seen before. So they can literally put people under house arrest or contain them in ways that has not been possible before on a mass level. So you add that with the the points excellent points that was just made and I think you have a really toxic mix. So, so much so to the point that the that we know more about what's happening in China than than the Chinese themselves do. So, it's very difficult for them to gather some kind of momentum to respond when they don't know themselves. Even though they're closest to the problem, they know least about it. So, David, do you think at all the general public is becoming more aware of the brutality uh and danger the CCP poses to the rest of the world? I I think you have seen a more bipartisan response to this than we saw, let's say, 10 years ago. I think Democrats and Republicans both recognize there's something sinister about this that had that that wasn't maybe seen widely before. I think what is unclear is how they're going to respond because the to to to really respond properly, we're going to have to make an effort to make sure through uh through breaking through the great firewall of China, making sure the Chinese have information to literally just the facts of what's happening so they can make up their own minds. We're going to have to make sure that we are clear about China's role in the UN and other international bodies where they are setting some of the internet rules and and the AI rules and all of these kind of things. So, they've they've been very strategic about in infiltrating these world bodies to try to make sure that nobody has the ability to censure them or to to change their philosophy even though they're trying to change everyone else's. So hard to know if we will have the will to respond properly, but I think we must. >> Yeah, I think uh on on the point of AI, there's a lot of concerns that within China as the technology becomes more and more advanced that the CCP could use it to further repress uh the Chinese people. So, I have another clip here to play for you guys before I ask you the next next question. The the Chinese Communist Party fears fallen gong more than anybody. And I've puzzled at that for the longest time. Why? But it's it's the most indigenous of all of them. It's like sewing wheat on the Kansas soil. It just grows. They got to 90 million adherence in seven years. Well, that scares the pants off of the Chinese Communist Party. So, we should really be working with them. So Walden, this next question goes to you because your organization has detailed how the Chinese regime forcibly harvests organs from living fall &ong practitioners as an execution method. Um, is there some action the American government can take to stop this shocking crime? >> Well, we're trying, you know, we have two pieces of legislation that are currently in the Senate waiting to be uh voted on against for harvesting within China. I I mean I think this ties back to the the the whole purpose of this round table discussion which is how are we involved as the United States? How are we involved as US doctors, US medical institutions, US uh health care systems and and that is that we have largely built up the transplant system within China beginning in the early 2000s after its crackdown on falling gong to really be weaponized as a tool of the Chinese regime to kill falling gong practitioners now to kill weaggguers probably in the last eight years um and to also profit off of that. So um I think this is why the fallen gong story remains so essential to understand. Uh you know the basic tenets of of fallen gong of truth and compassion and tolerance and also a lot of the teachings as as ambassador Brownback was alluding to are really uh rooted in traditional Chinese culture. the 5,000 years of culture, not the 76 years of Chinese Communist Party regime, which is largely a foreign ideology that has infiltrated almost like a cancer within the the the Chinese uh within Chinese society, within the minds of the Chinese. So I I do think the the you know the Ambassador Brownback really pointing out the importance of fallen gong as part of the story and how big of a threat they are is because those [clears throat] nobody survives forced organ harvesting but those that have survived to tell their stories, fallen gong practitioners that have been tortured and uh dehumanized and humiliated by the Chinese Communist Party, they really again get at what the Chinese Communist Party really is better than just about any other group can. >> Okay, David, any reactions you have so far? >> Well, I I I think he makes a good point. The Fallen Gong, it's an ancient Eastern spirituality, which China sees as a grave threat. Even though they're very peaceful, there's there's no chance that it's a political movement. Although they certainly have have, you know, sort of made it a political enemy, you might say. They the Chinese Communist Party does not like any ideology which challenges its preeminence. And even though there are only a handful of uh 5 million Muslims, weaguer Muslims, they've been attacking them. The fallen gong, they're attacking them even though they're very peaceful. uh you have 100 million Christians as I said these are these are this is a massive country with a lot of people but anything which challenges their ideology is going to come under attack. >> Okay Walden we got to wrap up now. Uh so if you have any final thoughts real quick uh you'd like to share right now. >> Yeah I mean I guess my final thoughts are understand who the victims are. I I mean I think if you understand who the victims are, you understand what the Chinese Communist Party is. And I, you know, my last few comments was understand forced organ harvesting because I really do think it tells you about the character or lack thereof that the Chinese Communist Party and its leaders. Um and and again understand uh uh if you understand the story of uh the Chinese regime's crackdown on religious freedom, I think you really do understand um the spirit and and really the evil of the Chinese Communist Party. >> Well, okay. Well done, David. Such an important conversation today. Thank you for having us. >> It was a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on.