By Wang Yifeng

(Clearwisdom.net)

Traditional Chinese culture is a precious cultural heritage. It not only carries 5,000 years of long-standing history but is also the cultural heritage from previous human civilization, or in other words, from pre-historic civilizations. Among these very ancient aspects of Chinese culture are Taiji, Hetu, Luoshu, Zhouyi, Bagua, and so on. The palaces of various dynasties collapsed one after another, but the cultures remained. Even when the Central Plains were ruled by different nationalities, what the conquerors had taken was only in the form of land and wealth. In the end, the conquerors themselves were conquered by the Chinese culture. This is the most unique cultural phenomenon in human history.

This miraculous land is called "the Divine Land." According to an ancient story that Pangu separated earth from heaven; Nuwa created human beings with soil; then three emperors, Yao, Shun and Yu, came to the land, and with their extraordinary wisdom, they led the primitive people out of the age of uncivilized ignorance. It was a time when humans and gods coexisted and gods passed their culture to the people. The relationships between humans and gods and between humans and nature were established, and the respect for nature and the worship of gods were rooted in the ancient people.

Emperor Huangdi started the prologue to 5,000 years of the Chinese culture passed on by gods. After Emperor Huangdi united the Divine Land, he established positions of government officials and stipulated rules, and he held ceremonies to worship gods and heaven. The whole land under heaven was in divine order. He led people to build houses and taught people to farm crops and raise silkworms. The calendar was established and writing was created. Emperor Huangdi observed heaven and earth and ruled the land according to the heavenly law. He initiated the 5,000 years of splendid Chinese civilization.

The most thrilling record was that Huangdi succeeded in seeking for the heavenly law. In front of hundreds of thousands of people, he demonstrated the magnificent scene of a human being turning into a god: He flew away into the sky in broad daylight, unfolding to the nation the most holy scene: Gods not only created humans; humans can also obtain the heavenly law and become gods!

During China's Spring and Autumn Period (About 520 BC), sages came to the chaotic world. Under Hangu Pass, Lao Zi left behind the book "Dao De Jing" for the people. The book revealed the mystery of cultivating the "Dao" [Heavenly Law], and its eternal light of truth became the a root of Chinese culture and wisdom, planting seeds for human beings to return to the "Dao." From it, a comprehensive and systematic understanding of life, of the human body and the universe was developed: Humans come from heaven, and thus should return to heaven; the culture of cultivation was thus established and passed on since then.

Confucius (also known as Kong Zi) was born a little later and he went through all kinds of frustration and hardship. With "benevolence, righteousness, ceremony, wisdom, trustworthiness" he established the ethical relations that should exist between the individual and other people, and between the individual and society. The Confucian culture became the Chinese orthodox culture. Afterward, Buddhism was introduced in the western region and then spread to the Central Plains; the Buddha-light illuminated everywhere and all living beings respected Buddha. Cultivating Buddhahood became popular. Even though Buddhism was lost in India, where it had originated, it took root and was carried forward in the land of the Central Plains.

Therefore, "Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism" became the three major orthodox religious systems of China, and the foundation of China's traditional culture. One by one, they presented brilliant cultural epics one scene after another for humanity. Although dynasties changed unceasingly, the culture continues with its indomitable vitality.

As soon as Communism appeared in this world, it declared without any scruples, "There will never be a Savior and we do not depend on gods and emperors. To create humanity's happiness, we depend entirely on ourselves." In other words, it wanted to completely destroy people's belief in gods, a belief that has been passed on for thousands of years, whether in the eastern civilization or the western civilization. It wanted to discard gods and to let the specter of Communism control the people, and to "completely break down the old world" with violent revolution. The people who abandoned their belief, their traditional ethics and morals, under the instigation of communism, would indulge in the wicked side of their nature and to do whatever they like.

The traditional culture pays attention to where a life will finally go and reveres gods. It pays attention to "the shore on another side," or "the next life." The Communist evil specter, on the other hand, wants people to believe only in the present life, to deny the law of cause and effect and retribution, and to only pursue gains in the material world, using whatever means and at whatever cost. Reversing good and evil, the Communist evil spirit was completely incompatible with Chinese traditional culture. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was thereby destined to completely eradicate China's traditional culture by means of continuous violence and brainwashing, and by totally repudiating, strangling, cutting up, distorting, misinterpreting and replacing China's traditional culture, in order to reach its goal of power and complete control.

As early as the period when the CCP was in Yan'an, Mao Zedong (also known as Mao Tse Tung) published the Speech at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Arts, stating, "A basic view of Marxism is that existence determines ideology, which means the reality of class struggle and national struggle determines our thinking and feelings. ... Studying Marxism requires us to observe the world, the society, literature and arts from the dialectic materialistic and historic materialistic points of view." These statements announced that atheism should replace the traditional theism because traditional, "literature and arts were the landlord class' literature and were feudalistic arts; they were the same as literature and arts of the ruling class in the feudalistic period... The new Chinese culture is the anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism culture by the masses of the people under the leadership of the proletariat class." The traditional culture was thus labeled "feudalism" and "ruling class," and only the culture under the leadership of the CCP is the "new culture." What should people do? "Literature is subordinate to politics, and could also greatly impact politics," and therefore all aspects of culture should serve the Communist Party's politics at any time, being directed by the specter of the CCP.

Shortly after the publication of this speech, the notorious "Rectification in Yan'an" started, which was the first round of brutal persecution against the intellectuals in Yan'an. The intellectuals were forced to "criticize" themselves and each other. Since then, unscrupulous "proletariats" have occupied the cultural stage in China.

After the CCP gained control over the country, successive political movements completely destroyed the traditional culture; intellectuals were purged during every single movement. During the "Anti-Rightists" movement in 1957, more than 550,000 intellectuals lost their freedom. Next, the Cultural Revolution further destroyed any leftover tradition; at the same time, the mass execution of intellectuals made everyone frightened and no one dared to even mention traditional culture.

The prevailing belief has been that as long as the traditional culture exists one more day, it is a threat to the CCP's "atheism." Therefore, the CCP is determined to sever people's connection to any traditional culture. Through its repeated means of killing, imprisonment, controlling, criticizing and punishment, and the CCP has punished various groups of people as a warning to others, forcing the frightened intellectuals to fight against each other and to run themselves down. As a result, scholars in Confucianism started to criticize Confucius and experts in Taoism started to attack Lao Zi, and they distorted the original implications of the Chinese traditional culture according to the needs of the CCP. The traditional culture thus became worthless, slapped with the labels of "reactionary," "feudalistic" and "superstitious." In CCP-controlled China, "culture" and "knowledge" became criminal, a situation that had never happened in Chinese history before.

Mao Zedong said, "The legends of three Holy Emperors cheated all the people." Countless legendary stories about gods and cultivation in the 5,000 years of Chinese history were completely denied within the short period of several decades under the CCP's bloody control, forcing people to accept its evil ideology and brainwashing.

Real science is about continuously exploring the unknown and constantly re-thinking and renewing conclusions. The great scientists, Newton and Einstein, were true believers in God. I was educated in China from elementary school through graduate school and have a Masters Degree. After many years of training under the so-called Chinese style "scientific" education, I thought I had a complete understanding of the "truth" of humanity. Only after I arrived in the US did I begin to realize how foolish and biased I was. For many years, scientists have been studying the relationship between mind and matter. In many new areas such as near-death-experiences, reincarnation, outer space intelligence and multi-dimensional space, scientists have made great breakthroughs. New sciences or real sciences are being discovered and established. I personally have met many accomplished scientists, from academic members to Nobel Medical Prize nominees. Many of them are devoted Christians. It dawned on me that science is just a tool for them to understand the world. It is by no means the absolute and the only truth, nor is it a belief system. To some people, science is just a hobby or a job.

But in the CCP's hands, science has become a weapon that destroyed 5,000 years of traditional culture. By the CCP's invention, the Chinese Communist "sciences" could even completely go against any scientific principles if necessary. There is no need to respect the scientific facts. In their dictionary, science must obey politics. The CCP can use science to serve its political agenda.

When the CCP needed miracles, their scientists would claim highly exaggerated grain outputs (over 5,000 kg / mu that is over 21700 lb/acre) as fact. They even used some scientific terminology such as "photosynthesis" to fool people. When the CCP said the Chinese culture was superstition, some scientists would write articles to echo the lies. When the CCP criticized the "theory of genetics" as "ideologist," the geneticists became "anti-revolutionists" or "spies." The next day when the CCP found it necessary to change their position, these geneticists would be retrieved back from oblivion and became "famous scientists." Some of these scientists even became CCP accomplices during the persecution of Falun Gong, by labeling Falun Gong as "anti-science."

To serve their political objectives, for several decades, the CCP has been promoting some controversial theories as the truth. They use these theories to brainwash people, including highly educated people. Their purpose is to denounce Chinese traditional culture. The CCP has employed many "political scientists" who are loyal to the CCP. He Zuoxiu, a member of the Chinese Science Academy with no scientific achievement, is one of them. These people have become the CCP's weapon to persecute people. They are degenerated beings in the scientific sector, yet they are still helping the CCP in the name of "science" to defame Chinese culture and bring a bad name to science. As for the real scientists who don't agree with them, they attack and isolate them. The famous hydro-power plant expert Huang Wanli was suppressed and attacked during his entire career because he opposed building a dam on the Yangtze River.

With the long-term influence of the CCP's "science" education by the totalitarian regime, many people have become narrow-minded and hold extreme views. Especially some intellectuals who possess some rough scientific knowledge (even outdated knowledge from the 1950's) and who franticly worship "science" in the name of promoting science, they repeatedly criticize China's traditional culture. They claim the societal ignorance and backward economic system is due to lack of scientific development, not due to the CCP's brutal suppression. Before the 1990's, few parents in China encouraged their children to study social science in college, especially China's traditional culture, such as ancient Chinese language and Chinese philosophy, etc.

Five thousand years of Chinese culture nurtured the Chinese civilization. The CCP realized that it could not completely break with tradition and take full control of people's ideology in a short time. This was especially so for the historical stories and legends that exemplify good and evil, and the beautiful poems that were passed down through the generations in families or through folk art by word of mouth. Even if the CCP were to kill all educated people, it still couldn't terminate all the traditional culture. Therefore, the CCP came up with an evil scheme; they changed the history books by injecting atheistic notions into the traditional culture. Since 1949, one could find the books that annotated Tang Dynasty poems, always portrayed them in the most negative way. The most essential parts of the poems are described as "hypocritical, vicious and combative." Expressions such as "unsatisfactory about the dark reality," "outcry," "passive," "painful," "superstition" and "old society" were overly used in the annotation books. Many poets were Buddhist or Taoist cultivators, and their poems were their own observation and understanding of the universe and life. They wrote down their own enlightenment during cultivation in poetry. They are the essence of our culture. These poems, in the eyes of the CCP, become "romanticism," "fantasy" and "feudalism." Classic novels are twisted with atheist and materialistic view-points.

School books on ancient Chinese language are full of the CCP's concepts such as "class struggle," "exploitation" and "old society." Historical background in all periods is always "dark reality." People who lived in the old time are "miserable beyond their means." This has been the consistent message that the CCP has sent to Chinese people in their "conditional learning with criticism." They used labels of the CCP culture in their explanation of all classic works and marked them with their views of materialist dialectics. All of this adversely influenced the minds of the younger generations.

Traditional culture was systematically destroyed over the past 50 years: burning books, destroying religious scriptures, censorship and simplifying the traditional Chinese characters [calligraphy, writing]. Their purpose is to make people completely forget their true history and their true culture heritage. The simplification of traditional Chinese characters was to completely sever people's connection with the traditional culture, so that people can no longer read the books of their ancestors.

The CCP completely negates all aspects of traditional culture and tampers with the history of China. This leaves people with the misunderstanding that all of China's past was feudal, corrupt and backward.

The fact is, in 1840, a period claimed by the CCP to be the most corrupt time in Chinese history, China's GDP [Gross Domestic Product] was No. 1 in the world, and was about one third of the world's overall GDP. In the early years of the Republic of China established by Sun Yat-Sen [in 1911], China's GDP was 27% of the world's total. In 1922, China's GDP still amounted to 12% of the world's total. When the CCP took the power, since it inherited some economic base, China's GDP was 5.7% of the world's total. Yet last year it was reduced to 2.1%. Therefore, the current China under the rule of the CCP, is truly a poor and backward country. The time period when China has been under the CCP's rule is the darkest period in Chinese history. The number of unnatural deaths alone has surpassed 80 million.

Nevertheless, due to the CCP's destruction, eradication, degeneration and distortion of the traditional culture, and the long-term brainwashing, the Chinese people have no way to know the true facts about traditional culture. In the 1980s, a "Chinese culture reflection movement" began in China. However, it could not truly reflect on the CCP's crimes. Instead, the movement blamed the traditional Chinese culture for the national disasters and regression that were actually caused by the dark despotic and the evil spirit possession of the CCP. It labeled traditional Chinese culture as being "congenitally deficient" and blamed it for the nation's decline, a decline that was caused by the CCP's persecution of that very culture. Even amid painful thinking, people are still unable to jump out of the thinking mode, logic and ideas the CCP has imposed on their minds during the complete destruction of the Chinese culture. They think that China's reformation depends on abandoning the Chinese traditional culture. In fact, what really needs to be abandoned is the CCP itself.

Without a doubt, Western science has brought enormous abundance in material wealth; the Western democratic elections have also effectively restrained despotism and corruption of power. Nevertheless, the failure of "Science" and "Democracy" to prosper in China is exactly not due to the Chinese traditional culture but due to the evil and unscrupulous nature of the CCP. This is clear at a glance if comparing the situations in Taiwan and South Korea. In addition, didn't all the countries ruled by the Communist party before the Cold War adopt democratic elections after the Communist party collapsed? Therefore, there is no inevitable relation between the Chinese traditional culture and despotism.

Some movies that demonstrate the ignorance and gloominess of China have won international awards. This has misled many, especially the younger generation, to think that these movies represent traditional Chinese culture. Actually, that is the exact manifestation of people abandoning the tradition, and instead portraying barbarianism, cold-bloodedness, moral degeneration, and a gloomy mentality.

Ever since the 1990s, money has become the top priority. The CCP still applies tyrannical methods towards intellectuals who have a conscience. While depriving the interests of disadvantaged groups, the CCP in the meantime steps up the buying of the intellectual circle. The social morals slide down comprehensively, and the corruption of the intellectuals synchronizes with the society's corruption. In the Falun Gong issue, the Chinese intellectual society's general degeneration testifies to the CCP's destruction of Chinese intellectuals' spirit and conscience over the past 50 years-- they are cowardly, astute and shameless, ignorant to traditional culture, narrow-minded and lacking courage, and indifferent to others' lives. These characteristics show incisively and vividly in yet another nationwide public opinion "denouncing" movement, only that this time it's cooperation on their own initiative.

The CCP's extermination of the Chinese traditional culture has brought grave disaster to the Chinese nation and people. Formerly a nation of etiquette, China has become a hoodlum's country - morality degenerates, cheating becomes natural, and people stop at no evil for money. Under the rule of the CCP, China's ecological environment and natural resources are in great danger, and there are frequent disasters everywhere. The distorted human nature and inflated desires, with the CCP adding fuel to the flames, makes the social system on the verge of collapse. People with insight have been using all means to warn people. The only way of saving oneself is to thoroughly discard the CCP. It is "anti-humanity," "anti-universe" and "anti-human nature." We must eliminate its poison, rediscover the righteous belief in gods from the Chinese traditional culture, get rid of the CCP evil spirit's control, and move toward the light.

(To be continued)

January 8, 2005

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/1/10/93144.html