A Chinese Dissident Reflects on Life Under Communist Rule as CCP Undergoes Power Struggle

For decades, the Chinese Communist Party has ruled with an ideology of struggle, hate, and deception. The latest power struggle and purges among China's leadership are a sharp contrast to America's model of governance. It's for this reason that many Chinese dissidents have fled to the U.S. in hopes of a better life and freedom from communist rule. Joining us now is Sean Lin, a survivor of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, which took place in China in 1989. He's also the executive director of the Concilium Institute. Thank you so much for joining us, Sean. Thank you for inviting me, Arlene. Now we're hearing a lot about the CCP and Chinese leader Xi Jinping right now, but what was it like living under a regime like this, where purges and power struggles are its MO? Well, CCP ruled China by terror and lies. So I think when we live in China, when we see the power struggle inside the Communist Party top echelons, you know, you feel a deep fear and you feel like it's a totally black box. You don't know what's going on in the leadership. And as a common folk, you feel, I don't want to get in touch with the politics. I want to stay away. And then you know that brutality can extend from their own party to the common folks. You know, if they can treat their own people in such a terrible way, and even party, you know, top military officers don't know where they have futures and their status is so vulnerable. So then for the general public, everybody will feel, oh, one day the CCP power, you know, crash on you, on yourself. How can you survive? So I think this deeply plant a terror in people's hearts. So it's existing even without your own awareness. You just feel it about it. Now, here in the U.S., there's a big emphasis on the individual and that through merit and hard work, you can move up the ladder. Now, how do you make it in China living under the CCP? Well, first, you have to toe the party line. So the Communist Party always have different political movements, and every few years, every 10 years, maybe a big one, you know, from Great Leap Forward movements, to Cultural Revolutions, to Tiananmen Massacre, to persecution of Falun Gong, to persecution of Uyghur groups. Every few years, they have different political campaigns. Every political campaign will force the public to toe the party line, to, you know, follow the top leaders. So in this way, you know that you need to obey the party rule. Otherwise, you don't have a chance to survive. And now it's digital dictatorship. So you know, you understand you're being watched by the big brother all the time. You know, to do self-censorship. So this is actually even worse, I think, than the Cultural Revolution time. So people, I think, learn to self-censorship, and then also kind of self-impostication to see, to tell yourself, I'm having a better life, I have better economic income, things like that. Try to deceive yourself. Well, you talk about what's happening in China right now, and what's happened in the past. And the regime leader, Mao Zedong, once said, battling with heaven is endless joy, fighting with the earth is endless joy, and struggling with humanity is endless joy. So talk to us about a system that operates this way. And does it have the effect of demoralizing people, or has it had that effect on you? Yeah, I think that statement from Mao Zedong clearly indicating that the ideology of the Communist Party is against traditional Chinese value, against Chinese spiritual life. So their purpose is to wipe out Chinese traditional belief, their spiritual life, so that Chinese people live in a spiritual void. And then Chinese Communist Party can instill those atheisms, their doctrines, their ideology into Chinese people's minds. So you fight with heaven, you fight with God, basically. So in this way, if they want to persecute any group, even though it's totally a war against God, people who don't have spiritual belief would still follow the government's order. So this is a very, very evil tactic the Communist Party has been implementing in China. And so I think it brings so much disaster when people lose their spiritual life. It's like a house loses its foundation, so people just can commit all kinds of crimes when they lose their spiritual life, and they lose their morality standard. So now, of course, you see so many tainted food, so many counterfeit products, IPs, all kinds of bad behaviors when Communist Party ruin Chinese people's spiritual value, moral standards, and then many bad things can happen. Now, I understand that after you came to America, you went back to China at one point, and you were actually detained there for some time because of your faith. So could you tell us what happened, comparing your experience in China to your life in the United States? Yeah. So, originally, I came to the United States for a graduate study in the 1990s, and then I started to practice Falun Gong when I was in the United States as a graduate student. So in the year 2000, when I went back to China to see my dying father, and I was arrested at a custom, and because of my practice, my belief in Falun Gong. So I was detained, and then later house arrested. So fortunately, I was rescued back into the United States due to the rescue campaign in the United States. So it's a big contrast. You know, in China, when you're detained, when you're house arrested, you know you have no future, because if you violate the political doctrine of the Communist Party, you don't have a future. They took your passport already. I actually think I won't be able to come back to the United States at all. I wasted several years of graduate school in the United States. And then when I finally, you know, got on the plane to come back to the United States, even the moment that you step on the plane, I feel my body suddenly become lighter. It's very weird feeling. It's just like your body feel lighter. And then when you landed in Atlanta at a time, you know, when you step out, I really feel, you know, what does it mean by breathing the fresh air of the freedom? It just feels different. A very, very interesting feeling. And you know, now, of course, you know, you live in the United States for a long time, you understand the freedom much better. And I think a lot of times in the United States, we sort of took for granted the freedom that we enjoy. It is so precious. And people in China, so many people, you know, crave for freedom. And so this is a very sad situation in China. The Communist Party can rule China for such a long time. Now finally, Sean, NTD and the Epoch Times have reported extensively on how the Communist China's ideology is being spread internationally. So now as someone who used to live there, what has been your reaction to hearing this? Well, for the Communist Party ideology to spread in the Western world, many people think that it will be due to some, what is called the useful idiots, those people in the intellectual circles who are following the Communist ideology or believing the socialist or democratic socialism ideologies. But I think this term may be too simple, you know, it's not just simply an idiot. And actually, I think there's a big force behind it. So that it's systematically spreading this ideology in the Western world. So I think it's more in the perspective of a long march in the system. So the scholars who believe in this kind of ideology, they are in the education system, they are in the government, they are in the media, they are controlling the language in the society, control different international policies. So in this way, it's severely influenced the society. And the Communist Party is very good at elite capture. So they can influence the decisions, the policymaking process in the United States or in the Western world. So I think this is a large, it's a long term, large schemes that's been working for a long time. And I think the United States need to wake up seriously. Well, we appreciate you bringing that information to us, helping us to understand better how life is in Communist China. Sean Lin, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you, Arlene.