(Minghui.org) Many countries have taken actions against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for waging disinformation campaigns and turning the coronavirus epidemic into a global pandemic that has infected tens of millions.
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), for example, issued a policy guidance on October 2 focusing on the inadmissibility of applicants who are members of the Communist and/or any other totalitarian party. The United Kingdom and Japan, as well as other countries, have planned to implement similar measures.
“The inadmissibility ground for immigrant membership in or affiliation with the Communist or any other totalitarian party is part of a broader set of laws passed by Congress to address threats to the safety and security of the United States,” explained the USCIS Policy Manual. “Its original purpose was to protect the United States against un-American and subversive activities that were considered threats to national security.”
Immigration lawyer Gary Chodorow said excluding communist organization members is in line with American values and that it was explicitly listed in the 1950 Internal Security Act. In an article on Law and Borders Blog titled “USCIS Policy Manual Update on Immigrant Membership in the Communist Party,” he said the CCP maintains its grip on power by permeating every corner of every citizen’s life.
“The CCP permeates every level of society, pulling strings that control every activity,” he continued. “The CCP has branches inside every state administrative organ, as well as mass organizations at all levels. The CCP branches also exist inside of companies, both private and state-owned.” Even regular people with no political ambitions may be involved in the Party or affiliated organizations, he added.
It was reported that China currently has 92 million CCP members and 80 million active members of the Youth League, a junior organization of the CCP. Together with the pro-CCP internet army, about 200 million people could be barred from entering the U.S.
As expected, this update in the USCIS policy manual triggered intense debate in China.
Hua Chunying, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, said she was “saddened” to see the USCIS policy update. Netizens responded to her remarks with sarcasm.
“You [CCP officials] always paint the U.S. as a terrible place. When did an inability to go there become a bad thing?” one of them wrote.
“No wonder Hua is disappointed by this,” another one wrote. “She has purchased a luxury house in the U.S. and her daughter also studies there!”
These comments are true. It is common for CCP officials to settle down in the U.S. although they had spent their entire life criticizing Western values and defending Party lines. This includes many perpetrators of human rights violations.
Sima Nan, a pro-CCP scholar, has written many articles defaming Falun Gong, a meditation system based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Since the CCP launched the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, Sima has been heavily involved in the brainwashing of detained practitioners in China.
Meanwhile, he tirelessly attacked the U.S. to toe the Party line. On January 20, 2012, he posted the following on the social media platform Weibo, “The U.S. is enemy of the entire world... it exploits all countries... like a huge tumor. Everyone questions the U.S.”
Later that day, however, he boarded a plane to the U.S. to spend the Chinese New Year with his family, who already lived there. After the flight landed, some Chinese on the plane spotted him and asked him why he would come to this place of a “huge tumor” and “enemy of the entire world.”
“Confronting the U.S. is my job and coming here is my life,” Sima replied.
He is not alone. Yuan Mu, spokesperson of the State Council in 1989, openly lied many times by claiming no one died during the Tiananmen Square Massacre. He also made many remarks attacking the U.S. and called on the Chinese people to follow the Party line. Later on, however, his daughter went to the U.S., and he also went there after retirement.
There are many cases of this kind. A professor at China’s Central Party School found in 2010 that 1.18 million CCP officials had their spouses and children living overseas. Dongxiang, a magazine in Hong Kong, obtained internal data from the CCP authorities in 2012 that 90% of CCP Central Committee members had family members who had emigrated overseas.
In addition to the U.S., other countries have also tightened visa approval policies concerning CCP members. According to The Times, The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in the U.K. declared on October 1 that it would expand security checks for overseas applicants who want to study subjects relating to national security, due to concerns related to intellectual property theft.
The Henry Jackson Society, a policy think tank based in London, published a report on the same day titled “Brain Drain: The UK, China, and the Question of Intellectual Property Theft.” The report said hundreds of scientists from China had been studying in research areas that involve knowledge useful to the creation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Japan was also reported to increase scrutiny of visa applications from foreign students and researchers to curb Chinese espionage in the country. The Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported in early October that the Japanese government was planning to implement stricter visa requirements next year to prevent foreign interference and technology theft by international students and academic researchers, especially those from China.
In addition, Japan's National Security Agency and a number of ministries will conduct stricter background checks of visa applicants and include suspicious persons in a system shared with other government agencies, including diplomatic officials abroad. Furthermore, the Japanese Foreign Ministry has requested a budget of $2.8 million USD for measures related to closer inspections in the next fiscal year.
Once implemented, Japan will join countries such as the U.S. and Australia in countering the CCP’s intellectual theft, reported Yomiuri Shimbun.
Leaders of the European Union (EU) have also expressed concerns about the CCP. According to an October 2 report by Barron's, EU leaders scheduled a special summit for November 16 to “discuss Europe's complicated relations with China.” The summit will be held without China and will address increasing worries over Beijing's human rights violations and unfair trade practices.