LET’S NOT INVITE CHINA INTO OUR LIVES.
By Paul Merkley.
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Two closely-linked phenomena, virtually ignored by our media, ought to be being raised to the top of the list of themes needing urgent discussion by the public and by our governments.
The first is the fact that the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist government of China is now undertaking a massive, unprecedented “social credit” programme which amounts to taking official account of all of the activities of every Chinese person – even the most seemingly trivial activities – for the purpose of achieving complete, totalitarian control of the behavior of the citizens of China.
And the second is that everyone doing business in China – including all those who belong to our world – is being required to submit himself to a version of this same Orwellian thought-and-activity control as the cost of doing business with the world’ most populous country.
But, let’s first back up to take note of the awesome expansion of the internet – by far the most revolutionary development in human communication of the past century. In the year 2000 there were some 738 million users of the Internet in the world—virtually all of them here, in our part of the world. By 2005 there were more that three billion. By 2015 there were 3.2 billion, a number which, obviously, includes many hundreds of millions beyond the perimeter of our world. (See, “3.2 Billion People Now Using Internet World,” time.com/money/3896219/internet-users-worldwide.) These billions of new customers for the internet providers are mostly subjects of governments in Africa and the Far East – that is to say, that they depend upon their governments to do the diplomacy necessary to support their access to and their full enjoyment of internet services.
According to Michael Pisa, a policy fellow at the Washington-based think-tank, Center for Global Development, these “developing countries” are being drawn into Beijing’s orbit of influence on account of their imagined need for Beijing’s internet capabilities. Most concerning of all is the expectation that those countries could be attracted to China’s restrictive internet model rather than to any of the models that operate among us precisely because the Chinese model provide ways and means to support surveillance of the populations of these nations and likewise to stifle dissent – while always proclaiming loudly their intent to advance democracy and liberty among their people.
“Third World governments” (as we used to call them) have always been most keen on putting to use the newest ways to monitor their citizens’ activities and to suppress dissent. According to a recent Report from Freedom House, “Beijing [in 2019]. took steps to propagate its model abroad by conducting large-scale trainings of foreign officials [from at least 36 countries], providing technology to authoritarian governments, and demanding that international companies abide by its content regulations, even when operating outside of China.” s Hidden Camps
(“Spread of China’s State-Controlled Internet Model Raises Concerns,” The Epoch Times, February 6th, 2019.)
At the same time as it has been so aggressively campaigning to enlarge its share of the wealth of the world, the Communist Party of China his been conducting a massive internal purge within the ever-more exclusive gang of trusted buddies of Xi Jin-ping – the President-for-Life – as it proceeds towards establishment of the most thorough totalitarian experiment of all time.
China is extending and perfecting beyond limits that we once thought possible the capacity of its government to oversee the activities of its citizens. Already, surveillance systems in Tianjin identify jaywalkers and display their faces on street-side billboards as proof of the State’s capacity to know in every moment of time what the citizen is doing. Over 176 million video surveillance cameras now monitor China’s streets, buildings and public spaces. Using these omnipresent eyes-in-the-sky, China’s government is busily amassing a “social-credit” system that seeks to track everyone’s activity in every moment of time in all public space. The day is fast approaching when it will not be possible so much as to visit a pal for a friendly drink without having this deed noted, counted into one’s “Social Credit” record sheet, and evaluated for what it does or does not contribute to the good of the Party.
The truly scary part of this story is that Governments in Africa and Latin America are welcoming and adapting to their own needs China’s surveillance capabilities. With China’s hi-tech geniuses looking helpfully over their shoulders, these nations are becoming better-equipped for the work of surveillance of their own citizens. Likewise, Chinese surveillance equipment, once installed by Third World governments, remains of use to China in its ongoing task of gathering facts about the activities of its own citizens and those of third-party-governments.
Human Rights Watch has called out companies that are gathering and codifying the most basic facts about DNA sequences and (we are told) are now supplying these to Chinese police services. Facial recognition technology is now just one of these new sciences generated by companies which are funded largely from government contracts.
US Vice President Mike Pence has noted all of this and spoke out in October about “an Orwellian system premised on controlling virtually every facet of human life.”
At the same time, we note that Xi Jinping, China’s President for Life and the Communist Party’s Supreme leader is actively re-shaping the educational system in his Country so as to include larger and larger portions of propaganda about the glorious History of the Communist Party of China. Simultaneously, “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” is taking over the schooling at all levels and occupying the minds of all citizens.
But most worrying to us outsiders is the growing evidence that the Communist Party of China it aiming to establish a similar role for itself in the ongoing training of Europeans and Americans who come to China to serve their European and America companies. In the Government of China is taking measures to ensure that within the curriculum established by Western governments for the training of their own staffs there should be found place for a portion of propaganda on behalf of the Communist Party of China—including the study of its history and the study of Xi Jin Ping Thought. In November, the Delegation of German Industry and Commerce spoke out its concerns about the Chinese government’s pro-active efforts to “promote the development of the Communist Party of China within [Western] companies.”
For decades now, we have been hearing the mantra that opening up China to trade with the world would have a liberalizing effect: that China’s government would soon learn about the benefits of laissez-faire and step away from its statist behavior; above all that China would get over its fascination with the project of micro-managing the lives of its people.
But in fact the opposite is happening. The government of China is becoming more repressive, not less so, with every day.
Of particular concern to Christians in Canada are well-attested reports of a six-fold increase in government persecution of Christians in Christian in the last few years. (“China’s Christian persecution of highest level since Mao,” www.washingtontimes.com/news, June 6, /2018.)
President Xi has pronounced that all religion must be guided by the Party. This will result in “the Sinicization” of Christianity – by “bending Christianity to the will of the Chinese Communist party.” Pictures have emerged showing contrite Christian worshippers covering up the crosses in their church assembly halls with giant posters of Mao Dze-dong and Xi jin-ping. (“Christians In China Must Replace Jesus With Pictures of Xi jinping,” Newsweek, November 14, 2017.)
At the same time, the Communist Party of China is improving its ability to monitor the lives of all of its citizens. By 2020, 600 million CCTV cameras – nearly one for every two Chinese citizens—will be in place. CCTV cameras now monitor 24/7 the entrances of ever church building in the land.
A particularly brazen aspect of this anti-religious campaign has been an effort to take possession on behalf of the State of the text that sustains our faith. Before long, online sales of the Bible will be prohibited in China. Chinese people will only be allowed to purchase the version of the Holy Bible commission and published and distributed by the Communist Part of China!
These are only some of the ways in which Christian faith is being forced to submit to the demands of the State. The cult of Xi-Jin-ping, now fully established within the Party, the schools, the military and other aspects of public life. is about to be imposed with full force over the already-circumscribed life of the Church.
Do our political leaders not recognize that by entering into scientific, commercial or political collaboration with the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist regime of china we are hurrying the collapse of our own institutions?
Any serious student of the history of the Early church will know that a similar act of submission – this one to the cult of the Emperor Nero — was imposed upon all followers of Jesus Christ. This was the trap in which the authorities caught the Apostle Paul and beheaded him publicly in Rome in 64 or 65 AD. And it is precisely the trap that is set for Chinese Christians in this hour.
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The Bayview Review 