Much will be written about ex-Chinese Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin in the coming days following his death, aged 96.
In announcing Jiang Zemin’s death, state media outlet Xinhua described him as a great Marxist and a great proletarian revolutionary, among other leftist template titles.
Xinhua said Jiang Zemin died of leukemia and multiple organ failure in Shanghai at 12:13 p.m. on November 30.
Many in the media are currently talking about how the former soap factory manager opened China up to global capitalists, ushered in economic reforms, and oversaw China’s 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization.
Meanwhile, some on social media have just referred to him as “The Toad,” as someone who was uncouth among world leaders and who liked to show off in front of the camera.
In much of the coverage, there have been broad, sweeping generalizations about Jiang Zemin, much of it omitting his darker side. For his crimes — where would one start?
Jiang Zemin’s corruption
Indeed, like other corrupt Chinese Communist Party leaders, Jiang Zemin and his family are believed to have made vast fortunes and amassed assets sourced through dubious means, something considered par for the course in the life of a Party leader in China. But such things seem trifles given the weight of the other crimes he committed.
Jiang Zemin came to power following the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, and for many, he is known for his human rights abuses — especially for instigating the brutal persecution of the millions of Chinese who practice the peaceful meditation practice of Falun Gong.
“More big news from #China. It was another era but let’s not forget that Jiang Zemin laid the foundation for much censorship and brutality we see under Xi, building the GFW [Great Fire Wall] and, of course, launching the violent suppression of people who practice Falun Gong,” tweeted Sarah Cook, the research director for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan at U.S.-based Freedom House.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, has undergone persecution in mainland China for more than 20 years. Along with its meditation and slow-moving exercises, its practitioners follow three main principles: Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance.
The practice began in northern China during the early 1990s. Easy and free to learn, it quickly spread through China and beyond its borders.
But Falun Gong’s popularity among the Chinese people (many CCP members included) was something Jiang Zemin could not tolerate, and he launched the persecution to “eradicate” the practice on July 20, 1999.
Jiang Zemin steered the persecution through the Political and Legal Affairs Commission and the secretive “6-10 Office” (established on June 10, 1999), while bypassing procedures defined by the Chinese Constitution and laws. The 6-10 Office has been described by some as like “Hitler’s Gestapo,” and Jiang Zemin granted it wide-ranging powers to use “every means necessary” to wipe out Falun Gong.
Human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng described, in his book A China More Just, how he was shocked by the extent of the 6-10 Office’s operations. “The immoral act that has shaken my soul most is the 6-10 Office and policeman’s regular practice of assaulting women’s genitals,” Gao wrote after his 2005 investigation.
Jiang Zemin has also been said to have used the persecution as a political tool, where he’d favor and promote those Party members — such as Bo Xilai and Zhou Yongkang — who would enthusiastically carry out his orders to persecute Falun Gong.
Jiang Zemin also “once instructed Luo Gan, the former leader of CCP’s Political Judicial Committee, to handle Falun Gong with three fundamental approaches: “Destroy their reputations, cut them off financially, and eradicate them physically,’” according to a submission to the United Nations in 2020 by the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG).
“Therefore, under these ruthless policies, Falun Gong practitioners and their families suffered tremendously, and their basic living conditions were jeopardized as long as they did not renounce their belief in Falun Gong,” the submission said.
Indeed, untold numbers of people have died or have suffered and continue to suffer persecution, some of whom we have covered in previous articles.
One of the most notable known examples of horrific persecution has been the repeated reports that practitioners have been targeted for live organ harvesting in the country’s organ transplant industry, beginning not long after the persecution began.
“Forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale… Falun Gong practitioners have been one — and probably the main — source of organ supply,” an independent tribunal led by international war crimes prosecutor Sir Geoffrey Nice QC in London found in its full judgment released in March 2020. The tribunal also found that genocide was being carried out against Falun Gong.
When Jiang Zemin left the top job as Party leader in 2002, his faction continued to exert influence over communist politics, including the persecution that is tragically ongoing.
For his role in such tyranny, Jiang Zemin will ultimately be remembered like other cruel communist despots — Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot — who have the blood of millions on their hands.
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