[Editor’s note: Chinese General Zhu Chenghu’s statement that China would launch a nuclear war against the United States on conflict over Taiwan on July 15, 2005, sent a shockwave to the whole world. Although Zhu’s claim is the first of its kind in public, he is not alone in voicing such a threat. Two transcripts of a top Chinese military official’s speeches published on Chinese websites prior to Zhu’s public statement echoed the same view. The two related speeches, “The War Is Approaching Us” and “The War Is Not Far from Us and Is the Midwife of the Chinese Century,” were believed to be given by Chi Haotian, former Vice Chairman of China’s Central Military Committee and Defense Minister. The speeches argued for the necessity of a biological and nuclear war to destroy Japan and cripple the United States and prepare it for a future massive Chinese colonization.
Independently verifying the authorship of the speech is not possible. However, it is worth reading because it indeed represents the general mentality of the military officials in the hawkish camp in China and is believed to set out the CCP’s strategy for the development of China.
“The War Is Approaching Us” was first posted in January 2003 on websites such as www.mwjx.com and then on www.chinaren.com on October 11. It was most recently published on April 23, 2005, on www.boxun.com. “The War Is Not Far from Us and Is the Midwife of the Chinese Century” was published on February 15, 2005, on www.peacehall.com. Below are the transcripts of the two speeches by Chi Haotian.]
The War Is Approaching Us
By Chi Haotian
Dear Comrades,
It is with a heavy heart that I use this title, but it is used because China’s advancement into modernization has been continuously interrupted due to attacks and direct invasions by external forces. The most typical example is the so-called “Golden Decade” during 1927 to 1937. From today’s perspective, this decade was not at all golden. During this time, the Northeast region of China fell to enemy occupation on September 18, 1931. The East Hebei Province puppet regime was also established during that time. Comparatively speaking though, economic growth was pretty fast; the construction of infrastructure made some progress, and army development was also improved. China started to gain a little bit of hope. But this was something that the Japanese could not tolerate. They were not satisfied with the three Northeastern provinces they occupied, wasting no time in launching a comprehensive invasion of China, a nation compelled to fight the war painstakingly on scorched earth for eight years. Although winning the war, China lost Outer Mongolia and was vitally wounded. The property loss was more than US$600 billion. After eight years of war, the original poor and weak China was in worse economic shape than ever. In other words, Japan’s invasion, especially its comprehensive war on China, greatly slowed down China’s modernization.
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Disallowing China’s development and hindering the advance toward modernization had always been the luxury of those countries in power, especially considering Japan’s unchangeable national policy. We have suffered the most painful history lessons regarding this. There is often cooperation between countries, but the most fundamental basis for the relationship between countries is competition, conflict, and at times extreme conflicts; that is, war. Cooperation is temporary and conditional, while competition and conflicts are absolute. They are the true subject of history. That’s why the so-called peace and development spoken of today is incorrect (at best it is simply an expedient measure). In saying this there is no concrete supporting evidence for this statement, and neither does it conform to any factual or historical experiences. Not to mention that China and Japan are sworn enemies both geographically and historically, with even the split between China and the Soviet Union in the 1960s providing evidence to show that any country regards the pursuit of its own national interest as its only criterion for action. No country leaves any space for morality. Over the past, China and the Soviet Union shared the same ideology and faced the same enemies, and China’s low levels of science and technology were not adequate to pose a threat to the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, China and the Soviet Union were split and intensely battled with each other. There may be many reasons contributing to this, but one fundamental reason is that the Soviet Union did not want to see an ever-growing, stronger China existing alongside it. Even though China was only beginning to grow, and would require a long time to reach a condition of strength, the Soviet Union still could not tolerate it.
If China and the Soviet Union, both a weak and a strong country sharing the same ideology and common enemies, could split up, then it is more than obvious that the incantations about “peace and development being today’s main focus,” which lead China’s political, military and foreign strategies, is a hallucination—fragile and dangerous.
My statement that peace and development as today’s main focus is completely incorrect, one-sided, and a harmful theory that benumbs people flows from the following reasons.
1. Attacking China’s Modernization Has Always Been a National Policy for the Great Powers
We can obtain an historical rule from the experiences and lessons of China’s modern history, as well as from those of the 50-year history of the People’s Republic of China: Attacking China’s modernization (including launching a comprehensive war) has always been a national policy for the great powers. For the past 160 years it’s been this way. For the future 160 years, it will still remain this way.
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2. Development Attracts Danger and Threats; Without the “Right to War” There is No Right to Develop
Development invites danger and threats, and this has been the general rule throughout world history. There were only several exceptions in Chinese history. For example, the Han Dynasty could start to develop with the “door closed” after it had defeated all the other competitors within the geographic limits at that time. It then developed the ideology of “world harmony.” Because it was not a matter involving the populace, the military, the economy or culture, there were no competitors, and no other races could compete with the Han race or even have the potential for competition. During the Warring States era (403-222 CE) in ancient Chinese history, one country’s development meant a threat to another country, and this was the universal rule in world history. It is also the core and foundation of Western diplomacy, the father of which was the French cardinal Richelieu, being the first person in the field of Western diplomacy to walk out of medieval “ignorance.” He began the tradition of modern diplomacy, which is fully oriented around national interests, discarding all moral and religious restrictions. The diplomacy policy set by Cardinal Richelieu benefited France for over 200 years, making possible the domination of Europe. Richelieu planned the 30-years’ war that caused so much suffering to Germany, and divided it into small feudal regions. This chaos remained until Bismarck reunited Germany. This process of German reunion demonstrates the above rule, as without Bismarck’s “right to war,” there would have been no national reunion; not to mention the right to develop.
3. Modernization Under the Saber: China’s Only Choice
The concept of a “China Threat” is definitely correct, and this is a fairly typical Western thought. The Chinese-type thought of, “I close my door to develop my own economy—does this bother anyone?” is not only just foolish, but also does not match up with “international common practice.” During the Warring States era there was no room for gentleness and softness in the harsh field of national interests—whoever had the slightest fantasy would be cruelly punished by history. The development of China is definitely a threat to countries like Japan and others. China may not view it in this way itself, but it is impossible for China to change this kind of deep-seated, international common view held by the big powers, which include Japan. So the base point for our thoughts should be and must be, “The development of China is a threat to countries like Japan.”
By “right” it is meant that every nation and race should have its living rights and its development rights. For example, China needs to import oil for its economic development, and to import raw materials such as lumber, in order to protect its environment from deforestation. This is very reasonable. But big powers have their own “reasons,” and a country like China will need to consume 100 million tons of oil in 2010, and 200 million tons in 2020. Will these big powers tolerate this?
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The source of the majority of wars throughout history has been the struggle for basic living resources (including land and ocean). The subject of the conflict will change in the current information era, but the nature of it will remain the same. Developed, advanced civilizations like Israel have fought for over 50 years and are now still fighting with the Palestinians for insignificant areas of land (including the fight for water resources). In order to fight for our very reasonable development rights (unless Chinese are satisfied with the current poverty, and are prepared to give up the right of development), China needs to be prepared for war. This is not decided by us; not by the goodwill of kind people among us, but actually, this is decided by “international common practice,” and the big powers around the world.
The 20-years’ policy of peaceful development has reached its end. The international environment has undergone a fundamental change; the big powers have already planned to once again stop China’s progress toward modernization, so China needs to develop, needs to protect its own right to development; and therefore China needs to be prepared for war. Only by being prepared for war can China win space and time for its further development.
Twenty years of pastoral-style development has come to its end; the next program should be and must be, “modernization under the saber.”
4. Diplomacy Determines Internal Affairs
At the present time in China, even the most hawkish of hawkish persons would not necessarily advocate war, although we have sufficient reason to do so; for instance, for the unification of the country and the maintenance of rights in the South China Sea. It would be for the right to development, which is extremely cherished since the Chinese have rarely enjoyed it in the past 160 years. But, when this right to development is threatened more and more over time, it is time for us to pick up arms to guard this national right.
It is fitting that internal affairs determines diplomacy, but do not forget that in this Warring States era, diplomacy among major nations also determines internal affairs. This is not just a theoretical viewpoint, it has been an historical experience of the People’s Republic of China. In the 1970s China’s defense spending surpassed expenditure for science, education, culture, and health added together (causing Chinese people to live in poverty). I certainly don’t want the same today; in fact, what is needed the most in China is investment in education. But would the world powers permit it? Wouldn’t one wish to invest more in science, education, culture, and health?
Some have said that, according to the so-called deciphered Soviet documents, it was shown that the Soviet Union did not have comprehensive plans to invade China. Even if the deciphering of these documents was correct, this still cannot explain the reality of that piece of history. Just as a chess game is mutually interactive, because China made sufficient spiritual and material preparations under the leadership of the CCP, it enormously increased the risk and cost for the Soviet Union to invade China. It caused history to completely turn in another direction. The weak figure can only attract aggression. Those who view this from this angle are the true defenders of peace.
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5. Evil as Result of Begging for Goodness: Is There Peace for China in the Coming 10 Years?
In order to interrupt the advancement of modernization in China, to deprive Chinese people of the right to development, the world powers have many cards to play. The most obvious three cards are the “three islands,” with the most effective one being Taiwan. If war in the Taiwan Straits erupted, the power to make decisions would not be in our hands, nor in the hands of those who advocate Taiwanese independence, but in the hands of the United States and Japan. If such a war erupted, it would not be simply a war of unification, as the deeper implication is that the United States and Japan are determined to deprive China of its right to development. This will once again interrupt the modernization process in China. Just like in the historical Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, where Japan comprehensively invaded China, Japan not only made China cede territory and pay indemnities, but in essence interrupted Chinese modernization, while also depriving the Chinese of civil rights.
Therefore, we must look at a Taiwan Straits war on the level of a strategic decisive battle. But based on our present military force, it is out of the question to talk about this aspect from the viewpoints of the United States and Japan, especially that of the United States, because China only has a few intercontinental missiles, and the United States is fully determined to develop National Missile Defense (NMD).
To prevent delaying the eruption of the Taiwan Straits war, this war would first have to be elevated to the level of “a symmetrical strategic decisive battle” using the formula of “fish dead net broken.” If we failed to win the Taiwan Straits war, the results would be worse than those following the Sino-Japanese War. Therefore, there must be no war, or we will have to comprehensively destroy Japan and cripple the United States, and this could only be achieved with a nuclear war.
Evil as a result of begging for goodness—this would signal the final end of our present policy. Goodness as a result of asking for evil—only with the power that is capable of totally extinguishing Japan and crippling the U. S. can we win peace; otherwise the Taiwan problem cannot be prolonged for more than 10 years, and there will be war within 10 years!
6. Hegemony Is the Characteristic Signifying the Existence of a World Power
What is a world power? A nation employing hegemony is a world power! One would be slaughtered by others at will, and one’s destiny (including the right to development) would be controlled by others, much as a puppet is controlled. The hegemony in this Warring States era is an objective fact; it “is not to be diverted by human will.” The question is, whether you realize it or not; whether it is active pursuit or a passive act. All problems in China, including the three islands problem; the strategic industry development problem; the benefit adjustment of the domestic various social classes problem—in the end are all problems involving the fight for Chinese hegemony.
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To have hegemony we cannot have continued internal struggle; we must have internal stability and unity. England, as an example, was able to realize “changing the working class to nobility” long ago because of the huge benefits from overseas colonies. The enormous indemnity that Japan extracted from China not only benefited the Japanese upper levels, but also greatly benefited their lower levels. Times have changed, and national sentiment is different, but the essence is the same. Not only must we look at the military and diplomacy from the point of hegemony, but we must particularly regard the internal stratum and adjustment problems of class interests from the angle of hegemony. Those upper-level people who squeeze and exploit our country’s lower-level people cannot represent the national welfare in this Warring States era. They are decadent, degenerated, unpromising, and should be restricted and eliminated. Only mature and wise upper levels can represent the national welfare in the implementation of “the concession policy” and the lower-level leaders jointly, to catch overseas benefits (this problem is more complex, and will be discussed in detail later. China has enormous opportunities for benefits overseas; it is just that we have not yet actively exploited them.)
Translated by The Epoch Times and authorized for publication in Chinascope.
http://english.epochtimes.com/news/5-8-5/30974.html
War Is Not Far from Us and Is the Midwife of the Chinese Century
By Chi Haotian
Comrades,
I’m very excited today, because the large-scale online survey sina.com that was done for us showed that our next generation is quite promising and our Party’s cause will be carried on. In answering the question, “Will you shoot at women, children and prisoners of war,” more than 80 percent of the respondents answered in the affirmative, exceeding by far our expectations. [1]
Today I’d like to focus on why we asked sina.com to conduct this online survey among our people. My speech today is a sequel to my speech last time, [2] during which I started with a discussion of the issue of the three islands, [3] mentioned that 20 years of the idyllic theme of “peace and development” had come to an end, and concluded that modernization under the saber is the only option for China’s next phase. I also mentioned we have a vital stake overseas. Today, I’ll speak more specifically on these two issues.
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The central issue of this survey appears to be whether one should shoot at women, children, and prisoners of war, but its real significance goes far beyond that. Ostensibly, our intention is mainly to figure out what the Chinese people’s attitude toward war is: If these future soldiers do not hesitate to kill even non-combatants, they’ll naturally be doubtlessly ready and ruthless in killing combatants. Therefore, the responses to the survey questions may reflect the general attitude people have toward war.
Actually, however, this is not our genuine intention. The purpose of the CCP Central Committee in conducting this survey is to probe people’s minds. We wanted to know: If China’s global development will necessitate massive deaths in enemy countries, will our people endorse that scenario? Will they be for or against it?
As everybody knows, the essence of Comrade Xiaoping’s [4] thinking is “development is the hard truth.” And Comrade Jintao [5] has also pointed out repeatedly and empathetically that “development is our top priority,” which should not be neglected for even a moment. But many comrades tend to understand “development” in its narrow sense, assuming it to be limited to domestic development. The fact is, our “development” refers to the great revitalization of the Chinese nation, which, of course, is not limited to the land we have now but also includes the whole world.
Why do we put it this way?
Both Comrade Liu Huaqing, [6] one of the leaders of the old generation in our Party, and Comrade He Xin, [7] a young strategist for our Party, have repeatedly stressed the theory regarding the shift of the center of world civilization. Our slogan of “revitalizing China” has this way of thinking as its basis. You may look into the newspapers and magazines published in recent years or go online to do some research to find out who raised the slogan of national revitalization first. It was Comrade He Xin. Do you know who He Xin is? He may look aggressive and despicable when he speaks in public, with his sleeves and pants all rolled up, but his historical vision is a treasure our Party should cherish.
In discussing this issue, let us start from the beginning.
As everybody knows, according to the views propagated by the Western scholars, humanity as a whole originated from one single mother in Africa. Therefore, no race can claim racial superiority. However, according to the research conducted by most Chinese scholars, the Chinese are different from other races on earth. We did not originate in Africa. Instead, we originated independently in the land of China. The Peking Man at Zhoukoudian that we are all familiar with represents a phase of our ancestors’ evolution. “The Project of Searching for the Origins of the Chinese Civilization” currently undertaken in our country is aimed at a more comprehensive and systematic research on the origin, process and development of the ancient Chinese civilization. We used to say, “Chinese civilization has had a history of 5,000 years.” But now, many experts engaged in research in varied fields including archeology, ethnic cultures, and regional cultures have reached consensus that the new discoveries such as the Hongshan Culture in the Northeast, the Liangzhu Culture in Zhejiang Province, the Jinsha Ruins in Sichuan Province, and the Yongzhou Shun Emperor Cultural Site in Hunan Province are all compelling evidence of the existence of China’s early civilizations, and they prove that China’s rice-growing agricultural history alone can be traced back as far as 8,000 to 10,000 years. This refutes the concept of “5,000 years of Chinese civilization.” Therefore, we can assert that we are the product of cultural roots of more than a million years, civilization and progress of more than 10,000 years, an ancient nation of 5,000 years, and a single Chinese entity of 2,000 years. This is the Chinese nation that calls itself, “descendents of Yan and Huang,” the Chinese nation that we are so proud of. Hitler’s Germany had once bragged that the German race was the most superior race on Earth, but the fact is, our nation is far superior to the Germans.
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During our long history, our people have disseminated throughout the Americas and the regions along the Pacific Rim, and they became Indians in the Americas and the East Asian ethnic groups in the South Pacific.
We all know that on account of our national superiority, during the thriving and prosperous Tang Dynasty our civilization was at the peak of the world. We were the center of the world civilization, and no other civilization in the world was comparable to ours. Later on, because of our complacency, narrow-mindedness, and the self-enclosure of our own country, we were surpassed by Western civilization, and the center of the world shifted to the West.
In reviewing history, one may ask: Will the center of the world civilization shift back to China?
Comrade He Xin put it in his report to the Central Committee in 1988: If the fact is that the center of leadership of the world was located in Europe as of the 18th century, and later shifted to the United States in the mid 20th century, then in the 21st century the center of leadership of the world will shift to the East of our planet. And, “the East” of course mainly refers to China.
Actually, Comrade Liu Huaqing made similar points in the early 1980s. Based on an historical analysis, he pointed out that the center of world civilization is shifting. It shifted from the East to Western Europe and later to the United States; now it is shifting back to the East. Therefore, if we refer to the 19th century as the British Century, and the 20th century as the American Century, then the 21st century will be the Chinese Century.
To understand conscientiously this historical law and to be prepared to greet the advent of the Chinese Century is the historical mission of our Party. As we all know, at the end of the last century, we built the Altar to the Chinese Century in Beijing. At the very moment of the arrival of the new millennium, the collective leadership of the Party Central Committee gathered there for a rally, upholding the torches of Zhoukoudian, to pledge themselves to get ready to greet the arrival of the Chinese Century. We were doing this to follow the historical law and setting the realization of the Chinese Century as the goal of our Party’s endeavors.
Later, in the political report of our Party’s Sixteenth National Congress, we established that the national revitalization be our great objective and explicitly specified in our new Party Constitution that our Party is the pioneer of the Chinese people. All these steps marked a major development in Marxism, reflecting our Party’s courage and wisdom. As we all know, Marx and his followers have never referred to any communist party as a pioneer of a certain people; neither did they say that national revitalization could be used as a slogan of a communist party. Even Comrade Mao Zedong, a courageous national hero, only raised high the banner of “the global proletarian revolution,” but even he did not have the courage to give the loudest publicity to the slogan of national revitalization.
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We must greet the arrival of the Chinese Century by raising high the banner of national revitalization. How should we fight for the realization of the Chinese Century? We must borrow the precious experiences in human history by taking advantage of the outstanding fruition of human civilization and drawing lessons from what happened to other ethnic groups.
The lessons include the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as well as the defeat of Germany and Japan in the past. Recently there has been much discussion on the lessons of the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, so I will not dwell on them here. Today I’d like to talk about the lessons of Germany and Japan.
As we all know, Nazi Germany also placed much emphasis on the education of the people, especially the younger generation. The Nazi party and government organized and established various propaganda and educational institutions such as the “Guiding Bureau of National Propaganda,” “Department of National Education and Propaganda,” “Supervising Bureau of Worldview Study and Education,” and “Information Office,” all aimed at instilling into the people’s minds, from elementary schools to colleges, the idea that German people are superior, and convincing people that the historical mission of the Arian people is to become the “lords of earth” that “rule over the world.” Back then the German people were much more united than we are today.
Nonetheless, Germany was defeated in utter shame, along with its ally, Japan. Why? We reached some conclusions at the study meetings of the Politburo, in which we were searching for the laws that governed the vicissitudes of the big powers, and trying to analyze Germany and Japan’s rapid growth. When we decide to revitalize China based on the German model, we must not repeat the mistakes they made.
Specifically, the following are the fundamental causes for their defeat: First, they had too many enemies all at once, as they did not adhere to the principle of eliminating enemies one at a time; second, they were too impetuous, lacking the patience and perseverance required for great accomplishments; third, when the time came for them to be ruthless, they turned out to be too soft, therefore leaving troubles that resurfaced later on.
Let’s presume that back then Germany and Japan had been able to keep the United States neutral and had fought a protracted war step by step on the Soviet front. If they had adopted this approach, gained some time to advance their research, eventually succeeded in obtaining the technology of nuclear weapons and missiles, and launched surprise attacks against the United States and the Soviet Union using them, then the United States and the Soviet Union would not have been able to defend themselves and would have had to surrender. Little Japan, in particular, made an egregious mistake in launching the sneak strike at Pearl Harbor. This attack did not hit the vital parts of the United States. Instead it dragged the United States into the war, into the ranks of the gravediggers that eventually buried the German and Japanese fascists.
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Of course, if they had not made these three mistakes and won the war, history would have been written in a different fashion. If that had been the case, China would not be in our hands. Japan might have relocated their capital to China and ruled over China. Afterwards, China and the whole of Asia under Japan’s command would have brought into full play the oriental wisdom, conquered the West ruled by Germany and unified the whole world. This is irrelevant, of course. No more digressions.
So, the fundamental reason for the defeat of Germany and Japan is that history did not arrange them to be the “lords of the earth,” for they are, after all, not the most superior race.
Ostensibly, in comparison, today’s China is alarmingly similar to Germany back then. Both of them regard themselves as the most superior races; both of them have a history of being exploited by foreign powers and are therefore vindictive; both of them have the tradition of worshipping their own authorities; both of them feel that they have seriously insufficient living space; both of them raise high the two banners of nationalism and socialism and label themselves as “national socialism;” both of them worship “one state, one party, one leader, and one doctrine.”
And yet, if we really are to make a comparison between Germany and China, then, as Comrade Jiang Zemin put it, Germany belongs to “pediatrics”—too trivial to be compared. How large is Germany’s population? How big is its territory? And how long is its history? We eliminated eight million Nationalist troops in only three years. How many enemies did Germany kill? They were in power for a transient period of little more than a dozen years before they perished, while we are still energetic after being around for more than 80 years. Our theory of the shifting center of civilization is of course more profound than the Hitler’s theory of “the lords of the earth.” Our civilization is profound and broad, which has determined that we are so much wiser than they were.
Our Chinese people are wiser than the Germans because, fundamentally, our race is superior to theirs. As a result, we have a longer history, more people, and larger land area. On this basis, our ancestors left us with the two most essential heritages, which are atheism and great unity. It was Confucius, the founder of our Chinese culture, who gave us these heritages.
These two heritages determined that we have a stronger ability to survive than the West. That is why the Chinese race has been able to prosper for so long. We are destined “not to be buried by either heaven or earth” no matter how severe the natural, man-made, and national disasters. This is our advantage.
Take response to war as an example. The reason that the United States remains today is that it has never seen war on its mainland. Once its enemies aim at the mainland, their enemies would have already reached Washington before its Congress finishes debating and authorizes the president to declare war. But for us, we don’t waste time on these trivial things. Comrade Deng Xiaoping once said, “The Party’s leadership is prompt in making decisions. Once a decision is made, it is immediately implemented. There’s no wasting time on trivial things like in capitalist countries. This is our advantage.” Our Party’s democratic centralism is built on the tradition of great unity. Although fascist Germany also stressed high-level centralism, they only focused on the power of the country’s executive, but ignored the collective leadership of the central group. That’s why Hitler was betrayed by many later in his life, which fundamentally depleted the Nazis of their war capacity.
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What makes us different from Germany is that we are complete atheists, while Germany was primarily a Catholic and Protestant country. Hitler was only half atheist. Although Hitler also believed that ordinary citizens had low intelligence, and that leaders should therefore make decisions, and although German people worshipped Hitler back then, Germany did not have the tradition of worshipping sages on a broad basis. Our Chinese society has always worshipped sages, and that is because we don’t worship any god. Once you worship a god, you can’t worship a person at the same time, unless you recognize the person as the god’s representative like they do in Middle Eastern countries. On the other hand, once you recognize a person as a sage, of course you will want him to be your leader, instead of monitoring and choosing him. This is the foundation of our democratic centralism.
The bottom line is, only China, not Germany, is a reliable force in resisting the Western parliament-based democratic system. Hitler’s dictatorship in Germany was perhaps but a momentary mistake in history.
Maybe you have now come to understand why we recently decided to further promulgate atheism. If we let theology from the West into China and empty us from the inside, if we let all Chinese people listen to God and follow God, who will obediently listen to us and follow us? If the common people don’t believe Comrade Hu Jintao is a qualified leader, question his authority, and want to monitor him; if the religious followers in our society question why we are allowing belief in God in churches, can our Party continue to rule China?
Germany’s dream to be the “lord of the earth” failed, because ultimately, history did not bestow this great mission upon them. But the three lessons Germany learned from experience are what we ought to remember as we complete our historic mission and revitalize our race. The three lessons are: Firmly grasp the country’s living space, firmly grasp the Party’s control over the nation, and firmly grasp the general direction toward becoming the “lord of the earth.”
Next, I’d like to address these three issues.
The first issue is living space. This is the biggest focus of the revitalization of the Chinese race. In my last speech, I said that the fight over basic living resources (including land and ocean) is the source of the vast majority of wars in history. This may change in the information age, but not fundamentally. Our per capita resources are much less than those of Germany’s back then. In addition, economic development in the last 20-plus years had a negative impact, and climates are rapidly changing for the worse. Our resources are in very short supply. The environment is severely polluted, especially that of soil, water, and air. Not only our ability to sustain and develop our race, but even its survival is gravely threatened, to a degree much greater than faced Germany back then.
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Anybody who has been to Western countries knows that their living space is much better than ours. They have forests alongside the highways, while we hardly have any trees by our streets. Their sky is often blue with white clouds, while our sky is covered with a layer of dark haze. Their tap water is clean enough for drinking, while even our ground water is so polluted that it can’t be drunk without filtering. They have few people in the streets, and two or three people can occupy a small residential building; in contrast, our streets are always crawling with people, and several people have to share one room.
Many years ago, there was a book titled Yellow Catastrophes. It said that, due to our following the American style of consumption, our limited resources would no longer support the population and society would collapse, once our population reaches 1.3 billion. Now our population has already exceeded this limit, and we are now relying on imports to sustain our nation. It’s not that we haven’t paid attention to this issue. The Ministry of Land Resources is specialized in this issue.
But the term “living space” (lebensraum) is too closely related to Nazi Germany. The reason we don’t want to discuss this too openly is to avoid the West’s association of us with Nazi Germany, which could in turn reinforce the view that China is a threat. Therefore, in our emphasis on He Xin’s new theory, “Human rights are just living rights,” we only talk about “living,” but not “space,” so as to avoid using the term “living space.” From the perspective of history, the reason that China is faced with the issue of living space is because Western countries have developed ahead of Eastern countries. Western countries established colonies all around the world, therefore giving themselves an advantage on the issue of living space. To solve this problem, we must lead the Chinese people outside of China, so that they could develop outside of China.
The second issue is our focus on the leadership capacity of the ruling party. We’ve done better on this than their party. Although the Nazis spread their power to every aspect of the German national government, they did not stress their absolute leadership position like we have. They did not take the issue of managing the power of the party as first priority, which we have. When Comrade Mao Zedong summarized the “three treasures” of our party’s victory in conquering the country, he considered the most important “treasure” to be developing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and strengthening its leadership position.
We have to focus on two points to fortify our leadership position and improve our leadership capacity.
The first is to promote the “Three Represents” theory, [8] stressing that our Party is the pioneer of the Chinese race, in addition to being the pioneer of the proletariat. Many citizens say in private, “We never voted for you, the Communist Party, to represent us. How can you claim to be our representatives?”
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There’s no need to worry about this issue. Comrade Mao Zedong said that if we could lead our allies to victory and make them benefit, they would support us. Therefore, as long as we can lead the Chinese people outside of China, resolving the lack of living space in China, the Chinese people will support us. At that time, we don’t have to worry about the labels of “totalitarianism” or “dictatorship.” Whether we can forever represent the Chinese people depends on whether we can succeed in leading the Chinese people out of China.
The second point, whether we can lead the Chinese people out of China, is the most important determinant of the CCP’s leadership position.
Why do I say this?
Everyone knows that without the leadership of our Party, China would not exist today. Therefore, our highest principle is to forever protect our Party’s leadership position. Before June 4, we realized vaguely that as long as China’s economy is developed, people would support and love the Communist Party. Therefore we had to use several decades of peacetime to develop China’s economy. No matter what -isms, whether it is a white cat or a black cat, it is a good cat if it can develop China’s economy. But at that time, we did not have mature ideas about how China would deal with international disputes after its economy is developed.
Comrade Xiaoping said then that the main themes in the world were peace and development. But the June 4 riot gave our Party a warning and gave us a lesson that is still fresh. The pressure of China’s peaceful evolution makes us reconsider the main themes of our time. We see that neither of these two issues, peace and development, have been resolved. The Western oppositional forces always change the world according to their own visions; they want to change China and use peaceful evolution to overturn the leadership of our Communist Party. Therefore, if we only develop the economy, we still face the possibility of losing control.
That June 4 riot almost succeeded in bringing a peaceful transition; if it were not for the fact that a large number of veteran comrades were still alive and at a crucial moment they removed Zhao Ziyang and his followers, then we all would have been put in prison. After death we would have been too ashamed to report to Marx. Although we have passed the test of June 4, after our group of senior comrades pass away, without our control, peaceful evolution may still come to China like it did to the former Soviet Union. In 1956, they suppressed the Hungarian Incident and defeated the attacks by Tito’s revisionists of Yugoslavia, but they could not withstand Gorbachev 30 some years later. Once those pioneering senior comrades died, the power of the Communist Party was taken away by peaceful evolution.
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After the June 4 riot was suppressed, we have been thinking about how to prevent China from peaceful evolution and how to maintain the Communist Party’s leadership. We thought it over and over but did not come up with any good ideas. If we do not have good ideas, China will inevitably change peacefully, and we will all become criminals in history. After some deep pondering, we finally come to this conclusion: Only by turning our developed national strength into the force of a fist striking outward—only by leading people to go out—can we win forever the Chinese people’s support and love for the Communist Party. Our Party will then stand on invincible ground, and the Chinese people will have to depend on the Communist Party. They will forever follow the Communist Party with their hearts and minds, as was written in a couplet frequently seen in the countryside some years ago: “Listen to Chairman Mao, Follow the Communist Party!” Therefore, the June 4 riot made us realize that we must combine economic development with preparation for war and leading the people to go out! Therefore, since then, our national defense policy has taken a 180 degree turn and we have since emphasized more and more “combining peace and war.” Our economic development is all about preparing for the need of war! Publicly we still emphasize economic development as our center, but in reality, economic development has war as its center! We have made a tremendous effort to construct “The Great Wall Project” to build up, along our coastal and land frontiers as well as around large and medium-sized cities, a solid underground “Great Wall” that can withstand a nuclear war. We are also storing all necessary war materials. Therefore, we will not hesitate to fight a Third World War, so as to lead the people to go out and to ensure the Party’s leadership position. In any event, we, the CCP, will never step down from the stage of history! We’d rather have the whole world, or even the entire globe, share life and death with us than step down from the stage of history!!! Isn’t there a ‘nuclear bondage’ theory? It means that since nuclear weapons have bound the security of the entire world, all will die together if death is inevitable. In my view, there is another kind of bondage, and that is, the fate of our Party is tied up with that of the whole world. If we, the CCP, are finished, China will be finished, and the world will be finished.
Our Party’s historical mission is to lead the Chinese people to go out. If we take the long view, we will see that history led us on this path. First, China’s long history has resulted in the world’s largest population, including Chinese in China as well as overseas. Second, once we open our doors, the profit-seeking Western capitalists will invest capital and technology in China to assist our development, so that they can occupy the biggest market in the world. Third, our numerous overseas Chinese help us create the most favorable environment for the introduction of foreign capital, foreign technology, and advanced experience into China. Thus, it is guaranteed that our reform and open-door policy will achieve tremendous success. Fourth, China’s great economic expansion will inevitably lead to the shrinkage of per-capita living space for the Chinese people, and this will encourage China to turn outward in search for new living space. Fifth, China’s great economic expansion will inevitably come with a significant development in our military forces, creating conditions for our expansion overseas. Even since Napoleon’s time, the West has been alert for the possible awakening of the sleeping lion that is China. Now, the sleeping lion is standing up and advancing into the world, and has become unstoppable!
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What is the third issue we should clinch firmly in order to accomplish our historical mission of national renaissance? It is to hold firmly onto the big “issue of America.”
Comrade Mao Zedong taught us that we must have a resolute and correct political orientation. What is our key, correct orientation? It is to solve the issue of America.
This appears to be shocking, but the logic is actually very simple.
Comrade He Xin put forward a very fundamental judgment that is very reasonable. He asserted in his report to the Party Central Committee: The renaissance of China is in fundamental conflict with the Western strategic interest, and therefore will inevitably be obstructed by the Western countries doing everything they can. So, only by breaking the blockade formed by the Western countries headed by the United States can China grow and move toward the world!
Would the United States allow us to go out to gain new living space? First, if the United States is firm in blocking us, it is hard for us to do anything significant to Taiwan and some other countries! Second, even if we could snatch some land from Taiwan, Vietnam, India, or even Japan, how much more living space can we get? Very trivial! Only countries like the United States, Canada and Australia have the vast land to serve our need for mass colonization.
Therefore, solving the “issue of America” is the key to solving all other issues. First, this makes it possible for us to have many people migrate there and even establish another China under the same leadership of the CCP. America was originally discovered by the ancestors of the yellow race, but Columbus gave credit to the white race. We the descendents of the Chinese nation are entitled to the possession of the land! It is said that the residents of the yellow race have a very low social status in the United States. We need to liberate them. Second, after solving the “issue of America,” the Western countries in Europe would bow to us, not to mention to Taiwan, Japan, and other small countries. Therefore, solving the “issue of America” is the mission assigned to CCP members by history.
I sometimes think how cruel it is for China and the United States to be enemies that are bound to meet on a narrow road! Do you remember a movie about Liberation Army troops led by Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping? The title is something like “Decisive Battle on the Central Plains.” There is a famous remark in the movie that is full of power and grandeur: “The enemies are bound to meet on a narrow road, only the brave will win!” It is this kind of fighting to win or die spirit that enabled us to seize power in mainland China. It is historical destiny that China and the United States will come into unavoidable confrontation on a narrow path and fight each other! The United States, unlike Russia and Japan, has never occupied and hurt China, and also assisted China in its battle against the Japanese. But, it will certainly be an obstruction, and the biggest obstruction! In the long run, the relationship of China and the United States is one of a life-and-death struggle.
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One time, some Americans came to visit and tried to convince us that the relationship between China and United States is one of interdependence. Comrade Xiaoping replied in a polite manner: “Go tell your government, China and the United States do not have such a relationship that is interdependent and mutually reliant.” Actually, Comrade Xiaoping was being too polite; he could have been more frank, “The relationship between China and United States is one of a life-and-death struggle.” Of course, right now it is not the time to openly break up with them yet. Our reform and opening to the outside world still rely on their capital and technology, we still need America. Therefore, we must do everything we can to promote our relationship with America, learn from America in all aspects, and use America as an example to reconstruct our country.
How have we managed our foreign affairs in these years? Even if we had to put on a smiling face in order to please them, even if we had to give them the right cheek after they had hit our left cheek, we still must endure in order to further our relationship with the United States. Do you remember the character of Wuxun in the movie the “Story of Wuxun”? In order to accomplish his mission, he endured so much pain and suffered so much beating and kicking! The United States is the most successful country in the world today. Only after we have learned all of its useful experiences can we replace it in the future. Even though we are presently imitating the American tone “China and United States rely on each other and share honor and disgrace,” we must not forget that the history of our civilization repeatedly has taught us that one mountain does not allow two tigers to live together.
We also must never forget what Comrade Xiaoping emphasized “refrain from revealing the ambitions and put others off the track.” The hidden message is: We must put up with America; we must conceal our ultimate goals, hide our capabilities and await the opportunity. In this way, our mind is clear. Why have we not updated our national anthem with something peaceful? Why did we not change the anthem’s theme of war? Instead, when revising the Constitution this time, for the first time we clearly specified “March of the Volunteers” is our national anthem. Thus we will understand why we constantly talk loudly about the “Taiwan issue” but not the “American issue.” We all know the principle of “doing one thing under the cover of another.” If ordinary people can only see the small island of Taiwan in their eyes, then you as the elite of our country should be able to see the whole picture of our cause. Over these years, according to Comrade Xiaoping’s arrangement, a large piece of our territory in the North has been given up to Russia; do you really think our Party Central Committee is a fool?
To resolve the issue of America we must be able to transcend conventions and restrictions. In history, when a country defeated another country or occupied another country, it could not kill all the people in the conquered land, because back then you could not kill people effectively with sabers or long spears, or even with rifles or machine guns. Therefore, it was impossible to gain a stretch of land without keeping the people on that land. However, if we conquered America in this fashion, we would not be able to make many people migrate there.
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Only by using special means to “clean up” America will we be able to lead the Chinese people there. This is the only choice left for us. This is not a matter of whether we are willing to do it or not. What kind of special means is there available for us to “clean up” America? Conventional weapons such as fighters, canons, missiles and battleships won’t do; neither will highly destructive weapons such as nuclear weapons. We are not as foolish as to want to perish together with America by using nuclear weapons, despite the fact that we have been exclaiming that we will have the Taiwan issue resolved at whatever cost. Only by using non-destructive weapons that can kill many people will we be able to reserve America for ourselves. There has been rapid development of modern biological technology, and new bio-weapons have been invented one after another. Of course we have not been idle; in the past years we have seized the opportunity to master weapons of this kind. We are capable of achieving our purpose of “cleaning up” America all of a sudden. When Comrade Xiaoping was still with us, the Party Central Committee had the perspicacity to make the right decision not to develop aircraft carrier groups and focus instead on developing lethal weapons that can eliminate mass populations of the enemy country.
From a humanitarian perspective, we should issue a warning to the American people and persuade them to leave America and leave the land they have lived in to the Chinese people. Or at least they should leave half of the United States to be China’s colony, because America was first discovered by the Chinese. But would this work? If this strategy does not work, then there is only one choice left to us. That is, use decisive means to “clean up” America, and reserve America for our use in a moment. Our historical experience has proven that as long as we make it happen, nobody in the world can do anything about us. Furthermore, if the United States as the leader is gone, then other enemies have to surrender to us.
Biological weapons are unprecedented in their ruthlessness, but if the Americans do not die then the Chinese have to die. If the Chinese people are strapped to the present land, a total societal collapse is bound to take place. According to the computation of the author of Yellow Peril, more than half of the Chinese will die, and that figure would be more than 800 million people! Just after the liberation, our yellow land supported nearly 500 million people, while today the official figure of the population is more than 1.3 billion. This yellow land has reached the limit of its capacity. One day, who knows how soon it will come, the great collapse will occur any time and more than half of the population will have to go.
We must prepare ourselves for two scenarios. If our biological weapons succeed in the surprise attack [on the United States], the Chinese people will be able to keep their losses at a minimum in the fight against the United States. If, however, the attack fails and triggers a nuclear retaliation from the United States, China would perhaps suffer a catastrophe in which more than half of its population would perish. That is why we need to be ready with air defense systems for our big and medium-sized cities. Whatever the case may be, we can only move forward fearlessly for the sake of our Party and state and our nation’s future, regardless of the hardships we have to face and the sacrifices we have to make. The population, even if more than half dies, can be reproduced. But if the Party falls, everything is gone, and forever gone!
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In Chinese history, in the replacement of dynasties, the ruthless have always won and the benevolent have always failed. The most typical example involved Xiang Yu the King of Chu, who, after defeating Liu Bang, failed to continue to chase after him and eliminate his forces, and this leniency resulted in Xiang Yu’s death and Liu’s victory (during the war between Chu and Han, just after the Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.) was overthrown). Therefore, we must emphasize the importance of adopting resolute measures. In the future, the two rivals, China and the United States, will eventually meet each other in a narrow road, and our leniency to the Americans will mean cruelty toward the Chinese people. Here some people may want to ask me: what about the several millions of our compatriots in the United States? They may ask: aren’t we against Chinese killing other Chinese?
These comrades are too pedantic; they are not pragmatic enough. If we had insisted on the principle that the Chinese should not kill other Chinese, would we have liberated China? As for the several million Chinese living in the United States, this is of course a big issue. Therefore in recent years, we have been conducting research on genetic weapons, i.e. those weapons that do not kill yellow people. But producing a result with this kind of research is extremely difficult. Of the research done on genetic weapons throughout the world, the Israelis’ is the most advanced. Their genetic weapons are designed to target Arabs and protect the Israelis. But even they have not reached the stage of actual deployment. We have cooperated with Israel on some research. Perhaps we can introduce some of the technologies used to protect Israelis and remold these technologies to protect the yellow people. But their technologies are not mature yet, and it is difficult for us to surpass them in a few years. If it has to be five or ten years before some breakthroughs can be achieved in genetic weapons, we cannot afford to wait any longer.
Old comrades like us cannot afford to wait that long, for we don’t have that much time to live. Old soldiers of my age may be able to wait for five or ten more years, but those from the period of the Anti-Japanese War or the few old Red Army soldiers cannot wait any longer. Therefore we have to give up our expectations about genetic weapons. Of course, from another perspective, the majority of those Chinese living in the United States have become our burden, because they have been corrupted by the bourgeois liberal values for a long time and it would be difficult for them to accept our Party’s leadership. If they survived the war, we would have to launch campaigns in the future to deal with them, to reform them. Do you still remember that when we had just defeated the Koumintang (KMT) and liberated mainland China, so many people from the bourgeois class and intellectuals welcomed us so very warmly, but later we had to launch campaigns such as the “suppression of the reactionaries” and “Anti-Rightist Movement” to clean them up and reform them? Some of them were in hiding for a long time and were not exposed until the Cultural Revolution. History has proved that any social turmoil is likely to involve many deaths. Maybe we can put it this way: Death is the engine that moves history forward. During the period of Three Kingdoms, [9] how many people died? When Genghis Khan conquered Eurasia, how many people died? When Manchu invaded the interior of China, how many people died? Not many people died during the 1911 Revolution, but when we overthrew the Three Great Mountains, [10] and during the political campaigns such as “Suppression of reactionaries,” “Three-Anti Campaign,” and “Five-Anti Campaign” at least 20 million people died. We were apprehensive that some young people today would be trembling with fear when they hear about wars or people dying. During wartime, we were used to seeing dead people. Blood and flesh were flying everywhere, corpses were lying in heaps on the fields, and blood ran like rivers. We saw it all. On the battlefields, everybody’s eyes turned red with killing because it was a life-and-death struggle and only the brave survived.
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It is indeed brutal to kill 100 or 200 million Americans. But that is the only path that will secure a Chinese century, a century in which the CCP leads the world. We, as revolutionary humanitarians, do not want deaths. But if history confronts us with a choice between deaths of Chinese and those of Americans, we’d have to pick the latter, as, for us, it is more important to safeguard the lives of the Chinese people and the life of our Party. That is because, after all, we are Chinese and members of the CCP. Since the day we joined the CCP, the Party’s life has always been above all else! History will prove that we made the right choice.
Now, when I am about to finish my speech, you probably understand why we conducted this online survey. Simply put, through conducting this online survey we wanted to know whether the people would rise against us if one day we secretly adopt resolute means to “clean up” America. Would more people support us or oppose us? This is our basic judgment: If our people approve of shooting at prisoners of war, women, and children, then they would approve our “cleaning up” America. For over 20 years, China has been enjoying peace, and a whole generation has not been tested by war. In particular, since the end of World War II, there have been many changes in the formats of war, the concept of war and the ethics of war. Especially since the collapse of the former Soviet Union and Eastern European Communist states, the ideology of the West has come to dominate the world as a whole, and the Western theory of human nature and Western view of human rights have increasingly disseminated among the young people in China. Therefore, we were not very sure about the people’s attitude. If our people are fundamentally opposed to “cleaning up” America, we will, of course, have to adopt corresponding measures.
Why didn’t we conduct the survey through administrative means instead of through the Web? We did what we did for a good reason.
First of all, we did it to reduce artificial inference and to make sure that we got the true thoughts of the people. In addition, it is more confidential and won’t reveal the true purpose of our survey. But what is most important is the fact that most of the people who are able to respond to the questions online are from social groups that are relatively well-educated and intelligent. They are the hard-core and leading groups that play a decisive role among our people. If they support us, then the people as a whole will follow us; if they oppose us, they will play the dangerous role of inciting people and creating social disturbance.
What turned out to be very comforting is they did not turn in a blank test paper. In fact, they turned in a test paper with a score of over 80. This is the excellent fruition of our Party’s work in propaganda and education over the past few decades.
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Of course, a fe