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Will Deatherage: Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of the Barefoot Lawyer Reports on China. My name is Will Deatherage, the producer. Joining me as always is Chen Guangcheng.
Chen Guangcheng: Hello everyone, I’m glad to see you here again. Thank you, Will.
W: Well, this week we’re reporting on a few developments in Communist China that seem to indicate the Communist Party is getting a little bit nervous, particularly about young people and foreign websites, right, Guangcheng?
G: Yeah, yeah. So [the] CCP now spends a lot of people and money to try to stop the Chinese people from climbing the firewall.
W: And can you describe, just as a reminder really quick to our listeners, about what the firewall is?
G: Yeah, the CCP used technology to build the firewall around China to stop Chinese people from visiting foreign countries’ websites. And [it] even stops people from foreign countries [from] influencing the Chinese people too. We call it [the] “Internet Berlin Wall.” It means the Great Firewall is like the Berlin Wall surrounding mainland China.
So now, for me, in my experience, because a lot of Chinese people are awake now, the CCP’s propaganda doesn’t work. No one believes them. So I think the CCP wants to stop that situation. So the government asked all the companies [to] stop using VPNs.
VPNs allow people to climb the firewall and visit foreign websites. Now, if they find some people still using that to climb [the] firewall, the CCP [will] try to punish them.
W: So Guangcheng, the CCP is asking its businesses to not use VPNs anymore, is that right?
G: Yeah, but I think they will fail. And the CCP asked the education department to do that too.
Yeah, they put the flyers in the universities, in the high schools, middle schools to remind people, “Don’t use [a] VPN, don’t try to climb the firewall, believe the Communist Party, believe the government.”
Yeah. So someone took [a] picture in Henan Zhengzhou City’s university building. It is a picture of a poster in the college dorm.
W: So Guangcheng, why is the CCP being so aggressive about VPNs right now?
G: The CCP thinks the propaganda doesn’t work now. More and more people know the truth. More and more people know how to use the special apps to climb the firewall to get free information. So the CCP’s propaganda doesn’t work.
W: What about young people? Because I can’t imagine, in any country, young people would like that kind of restriction, right?
G: Yeah, more and more young people, they know the truth. Of course, [they] still have some young people who get the information from the central TV, the CCP’s mouthpiece. Maybe they still believe the Communist Party. But if young people visit foreign websites, if they get the free information, you know, they will not believe the CCP’s mouthpiece anymore.
W: Right.
G: Yeah. So this is why the CCP is so worried about that.
W: So Guangcheng, what else is the CCP concerned with about young people using foreign websites, especially in universities? Why is the CCP going into the universities?
G: Yeah, just around 5 years ago since, you know, the Coronavirus happened, right? Now a lot of people don’t want to work hard because in mainland China, you know, there is no justice. Even the people who work hard, they still cannot get good pay. All the opportunities, especially the good opportunities; the CCP official’s families took them.
The normal people, the regular people cannot get that. So they don’t want to work hard. In Chinese, we call this “lying flat.” Yeah. So now the young people join hands and said, “Let’s lie flat.” Yeah, [that] means there is no point to working.
So because mainland China’s economic situation [is] getting worse and worse, if the young people are lying flat, that will make the situation get worse and worse. So the CCP [is] very worried about that.
So the CCP said, “Oh, the young people are lying flat just because the Western countries influence them. Foreign forces influence them.” The CCP always uses that word, you know, “foreign forces.” If there is a political or economic failure, the CCP will blame Western governments.
Yeah, even because the CCP’s one-child policy killed a lot of babies, and now the CCP tried to make people have more babies, but the people, of course, they don’t want [to] do that, right?
The people said, “Before you made a one-child policy and killed a lot of babies. Have you forgotten?” So now the CCP said, “Oh, the young people don’t want to marry, don’t want to have more babies just because the ‘foreign forces’ influence them.”
W: So they’re just blaming everything on us. Even though it’s because of the CCP, right?
G: Yeah. But the problem is just a few people still believe them. More and more people don’t believe CCP’s propaganda, you know. So this is why [the] CCP now tries to prevent the people to use, like, VPNs.
W: Do you think they’ll be successful, the CCP?
G: I don’t believe that will be successful. More and more people still try to use different ways to get free information. That’s why [the] CCP now tries to force them to stop [using] VPN. If the police know who [is] using VPN, they will go to their house to threaten them.
But I think freedom is very important for everyone. I believe Chinese people will try to use a different way to get free information. The CCP will fail.
Well, we’ll continue tracking the situation for sure on our website at humanrights.catholic.edu. Guangcheng, thank you so much for all the information about these developments, and hopefully things will get better, right, Guangcheng?
G: Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Will. Thank you, everybody.
This summer, a new documentary follows Chen Guangcheng as he travels to California to meet artist Chen Weiming at Liberty Sculpture Park, where powerful works of art confront the reality of human rights abuses under the Chinese Communist Party. Through their encounter, the film highlights the cost of speaking truth under authoritarianism and the enduring role of art and witness in the fight for freedom. Stay tuned for its release this summer.