(Minghui.org) At numerous memorial sites of former Nazi concentration camps, the words “Never Again” appear, in various languages. They serve as a testimony of humanity’s determination to end such atrocities as the Holocaust and uphold basic human rights.
And yet, as we enter the 27th year of the suppression of Falun Gong by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), we are witnessing another human rights catastrophe —the most severe, and longest human rights abuse in recent Chinese history—unfolding. What has happened, and what are the implications for those of us in China and in the free world?
Chiang Kai-shek, the leader for the Republic of China, was once an advocate of communism in his early years. After spending three months in the Soviet Union in 1923, however, his opinion totally changed. “A reign of terror is holding the people in submission in Communist-held areas,” he later explained during an interview in 1949.
Unfortunately, Chiang’s prediction about the CCP came true when the Party took power that year and the situation has worsened since then. During the Land Reform Movement in the early 1950s, the Party executed landlords and confiscated their land and other assets; through the Three-anti and Five-anti Campaigns in the same decade, the Party persecuted or killed businessmen for their capital and personal assets.
Material exploitation was only the first step. Several years later, the CCP launched the Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957-1959) to deprive people of their freedom of thought. Shortly after the CCP’s man-made famine (1959–1962), the Party initiated the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) to wipe out traditional values rooted in millennia of Chinese history.
After the Cultural Revolution ended, there were discussions in Chinese society about how to prevent a similar catastrophe from happening again. This was doomed to fail, since the root cause of these tragedies—the CCP—was still in power. That was why, 12 years later, the CCP brutally suppressed the democratic movement in 1989, and then began persecuting the traditional meditation practice of Falun Gong starting in 1999.
The 1989 disaster and the persecution of Falun Gong are not surprising, because, similar to Marxism and the Soviet Union, the CCP’s ideology is based on the concepts of class struggle, hatred, and lies. The regime cannot tolerate freedom of thought or traditional values such as the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance promoted by Falun Gong.
The political campaigns that unfolded after the CCP took power are bitter fruits growing on the same branch. For example, substantial evidence has revealed that former CCP leader Jiang Zemin planned to suppress Falun Gong long before the persecution actually started in 1999. His follower Luo Gan began investigating Falun Gong back in 1996, but failed to find any justification for a suppression.
In April 1999, Luo and other officials again intensified their campaign of defamation against Falun Gong, and arrested dozens of practitioners in Tianjin. When about 10,000 practitioners peacefully gathered outside the National Appeals Office in Beijing on April 25, 1999, requesting their release, Jiang secretly mobilized soldiers in preparation for a violent crackdown.
Information received by Minghui indicates that, although the State Council had established a procedure for making major policy decisions, Jiang disregarded established procedure and bluntly decided to pursue the persecution of Falun Gong as a “political task,” without any legal basis. In fact, during an internal meeting, no minister was willing to take either responsibility or blame for the suppression. Under pressure from Jiang, officials agreed to shift the responsibility to Wu Shaozu, Minister of Sports, who was absent that day.
Jiang ordered the establishment of the extrajudicial agency, the 610 Office, in June 1999, to direct the nationwide suppression before officially launching the persecution in July 1999. Seeing officials reluctant to participate in the massive human rights abuse against peaceful and law-abiding citizens, Luo and other officials then rolled out the staged Tiananmen Square Self-Immolation Incident in early 2001, to instill hatred against Falun Gong throughout all levels of government and the general public.
As a result, over the past 27 years, tens of millions of Falun Gong practitioners have been discriminated against. A large number have been detained, imprisoned, and tortured. Others have lost their jobs, had their families torn apart, or their children denied an education.
There are similar human rights catastrophes throughout history. Roman emperor Nero, for example, started the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD to target Christians. Similarly, evidence has confirmed that the so-called Tiananmen Square self-immolation of 2001 was a hoax set up by the CCP to slander Falun Gong, as explained in the award-winning documentary False Fire. But a large number of Chinese people still do not know the facts and continue to blindly participate in the persecution.
In fact, ruling China is not the ultimate goal of the CCP. “They [communists] have a world to win,” declared Karl Marx in The Communist Manifesto back in 1848. The CCP has carried out this mission loyally and ruthlessly. After destroying traditional ideology, culture, democracy, and faith throughout China, the CCP has now exported the persecution overseas. From ideological control and public opinion manipulation by influencing other countries’ traditional media and social media, to political and economic influence, the CCP has increasingly endangered the United States and other countries in the free world.
In 2022, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China stated, “The information in Freedom House’s database of physical incidents shows that China’s ruling regime conducts the world’s most sophisticated, comprehensive, and far-reaching campaign of transnational repression. The Chinese government’s use of transnational repression is part of Beijing’s broader campaign to extend its influence abroad, which includes media influence, economic investment, and military expansion.”
Going back to the 1949 interview, Chiang explained why he spent his entire adult life countering the CCP: “This fight against communism in China is not only a fight for Chinese freedom from the present Communist menace but it is a fight for the peace and security of the free world.”
Unfortunately, the carnage continues today. Historians have estimated that the CCP has taken about 80 million lives over the course of its many political campaigns. Information received by Minghui shows that at least 124 people have died in 2025 alone as a direct result of the CCP’s suppression of Falun Gong. Thousands are confirmed to have died since the persecution began—though due to the difficulty in getting information out of China, the number of deaths is likely much higher.
Many people in the free world may still view the persecution as solely a Chinese or Falun Gong issue. However, when the Red Terror’s flame continues to burn for decades and now endangers the world, nowhere remains a safe haven. It can be likened to the COVID-19 pandemic we have recently experienced.
A German pastor once wrote about the Holocaust during World War II:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
“Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
“Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
“Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”