Under the shadow of totalitarianism, some stay silent and obey, while others dare to fight and are reborn. Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Ke worked hard to start a Beijing business and establish a factory in Jiangsu. Then came the epidemic, and the government shut her down. She left her hometown for Canada, seeking freedom. Her story is one of suffering and resistance of this time, highlighting the awakening of Chinese people breaking free from iron rule.
The start of the entrepreneurial dream
In 2002, Zhang Ke, with a loan of 10,000 yuan, founded a small electrical cable factory in Beijing. After many setbacks, she persevered to build a modern, high-end cable manufacturing company. Her professionalism and determination have won her many large clients at home and abroad. The company’s scale grew, with the asset value exceeding 10 million yuan.
Zhang Ke recalled: “At that time, I thought if I worked hard, through technology and my integrity, I could gain a foothold in China and develop sustainably. Next, I was hit with the harsh reality that was hard to accept.”
Following an order from the Beijing municipal government, Zhang Ke had to move her factory to Tianjin Binhai New Area. However, the Tianjin factory was surrounded by pollution, the building was poor, and the air smelled of chemicals. They called the Environmental Protection Bureau to deal with this issue, but the Tianjin local government said they could not call again to complain about air pollution.
Feeling deflated, she was invited to move to a “state-level high-tech development zone” in Jiangsu. This filled Zhang Ke once more with hope. She relocated the factory to Jiangsu again, ready for a comeback to production. However, the situation was even worse: the water flowing out of the pipes had turned blue from chemical pollution, and this was water drawn from a 300-meter-deep well.
Encountering the iron fist of socialism
At the end of 2019, Zhang Ke’s new factory was complete, but it had not yet been fully put into operation, and suddenly, the pandemic broke out. China entered a nationwide lockdown, domestic and foreign orders were canceled, and businesses almost reached a standstill.
“I don’t want to give up because it’s what I’ve worked so hard for all my life,” Zhang said. She lived in the factory by herself, trying to get the operation running. To avoid being infected, employees no longer came to work. However, she operated the equipment herself to meet customer orders and keep paying taxes. The epidemic brought economic difficulties and increased ruthless and unethical treatment by the government.
Hell on Earth under the lockdown
In 2022, Zhang Ke moved to Shanghai to attend a scriptwriting class, but unexpectedly ran into an unprecedented two-and-a-half-month lockdown in Shanghai. “The whole of Shanghai has become an isolated city; people are completely cut off from each other, food is scarce, the sick cannot get medical treatment, and residents are quarantined as if they were in a Nazi concentration camp.”
She recalled some of the horrific videos that went viral on WeChat: an elderly man being violently dragged out, a crying child being roughly thrown into a quarantine vehicle, and some residents who had jumped from rooftops in despair due to hunger.
What saddened her the most was to witness the loud banging and screams from the starving residents of apartment buildings in Shanghai who collectively would bang pots and pans, making desperate cries for help against living under a strict lockdown for nearly a month. “I will never forget that sound; it was the despair and deepest helplessness of mankind.”
Zhang Ke was fortunate to live in a rented rural cottage on the outskirts of Shanghai. The landlord was an elderly man. There are large rice fields and vegetable greenhouses nearby. Local farmers cannot export their vegetables and are highly anxious watching them rot in the fields.
She contacted a WeChat group administrator as well as the building manager of the residential building to organize a temporary food delivery operation. She purchased vegetables from farmers at her own expense, drove her SUV and filled it with vegetables in the early morning hours, and risked arrest to deliver the vegetables to a sealed-off community 3 kilometers away.
Every delivery was thrilling. On one of her food deliveries, when her car was only 1.5 kilometers from a residential building, it was stopped at a checkpoint on the main road. Several law enforcement officers in white uniform asked coldly: “Do you have a pass?” Zhang Ke calmly replied: “I am here to deliver vegetables. These residents have nothing to eat.”
The law enforcement officer responded coldly: “If you don’t have a pass, turn your car around immediately!” If you don’t leave, we will arrest you!” Zhang Ke said angrily: “You are starving people to death by doing this! If anyone starves to death, you are murderers!”
This was not enough to change the officer’s mind. Zhang Ke had to turn around and leave, looking helplessly at the vegetables in the car.
The CCP’s new tactics
Zhang Ke said the Communist Party of China (CCP) began to adopt a covert and cruel method of avoiding any responsibility by “Leaving no trace for law enforcement.” So by issuing verbal orders and omitting written evidence, victims found it impossible to seek legal protection or appeal. Let’s look at some examples.
IIlegal evictions during the lockdown
During the epidemic, the authorities forcibly seized entire residential buildings as quarantine sites and evicted residents without providing any official documents. Victims could neither pursue legal responsibility nor obtain compensation. Law enforcement officers relied on police support to enforce orders and used violence and beatings to drive out residents.
Crackdown on protesters
Some citizens with legal knowledge tried to question the mandatory nature of nucleic acid testing and cited Chinese law to defend them. However, law enforcement officers only relied on verbal instructions from their superiors to suppress them and did not give any written punishment decisions.
Hidden deprivation of medical services
In the hospital, doctors were told that when the cost of treating certain diseases is very high, the patient must be rejected if the patient holds a medical insurance card. The treatment cost is too high, and the medical insurance cannot afford it. However, the hospital had no official documents to qualify their actions, and all orders were given verbally. Medical staff were forced to struggle to weigh up their conscience and the reality of what was in their power; this created unsolvable doctor-patient conflicts.
Zhang Ke believes that this kind of traceless governance is because the CCP is very aware of its viciousness and brutality. They cover the mouths of the people so that the people cannot make a sound for help when they are being violently tortured. The CCP tries to leave no trace of their evil deeds to avoid being held accountable by the people after knowing the truth. They hide oppression in the dark corners of society, leaving victims with nowhere to turn for help.
Overthrowing the Great Firewall
“Overthrowing the CCP’s Internet firewall is the starting point for opening people’s minds and changing everything.”
Zhang Ke knows that information blockade is one of the CCP’s most terrible weapons. When Shanghai was locked down, Shanghai locals’ information on WeChat could not be transmitted outside Shanghai. Sometimes, even Shanghai residents could not know what was happening around them, let alone in other cities and regions.
“When people cannot see the truth and accept lies, the people become lambs to be slaughtered.”
Zhang Ke repeatedly emphasized: “When you see others suffering, you cannot just stand by and watch.”
“During the lockdown in Shanghai, I saw that many people lived in high-end buildings worth tens of millions of yuan, but when there was no food supply during the lockdown, they threw a large amount of banknotes and jumped off the building to commit suicide. I wasn’t hungry during the lockdown, but I saw videos of many people starving to death without food. This is simply a Nazi concentration camp. How can I remain indifferent when I watch lives starving to death?
“I am lucky today, but who can guarantee I will be fortunate in the future? If we don’t rise against the CCP, and if we don’t overthrow the CCP, the clutches of the CCP will fall on everyone’s head, and the great famine of the 1950s, which starved tens of millions of people to death, may happen again. The CCP’s brutal Nazi nature has no bottom line and is anti-human. Overthrowing the CCP is not only for the Chinese people but also for the people of the world to no longer be threatened by the CCP’s various threats.”
She said that in China, under totalitarian rule, the people have been trained to be indifferent and ruthless. This is not the fault of the Chinese people but is caused by the CCP, a regime that has dehumanized people.
She thought of her own experience of petitioning: “Many petitioners seek justice for the injustice they have suffered but are intercepted, imprisoned in jails, and even have their organs forcibly harvested. Bystanders feel, it has nothing to do with them, but this is wrong. When a society lacks justice, everyone lives in hell, and everyone will become a victim.”
She also hopes that Chinese overseas will stand up and speak out. “Every protest, every speech, supports the people at home. Let the people at home know they are not alone, and thousands are standing with them.”
Rise from the ashes
After the lockdown in Shanghai, Zhang Ke had her eyes wide open. She said: “I have seen the brutality of the CCP and the fact that Chinese people today have no human rights at all, and of course, no property rights or the right to speak. I feel that living is torture.”
She also wanted to know what the industrial development trends of various countries would be like after the pandemic, so she attended an industrial fair in Montreal.
While attending the exhibition in Montreal, she finally did not need to climb over the Internet wall. When browsing the news online, she saw information about the China Democracy Party and felt she had found like-minded compatriots. So she decided to come to Toronto to participate in the protest, and then resolutely joined the Canadian Committee of the China Democracy Party and the democracy movement of China.
At December’s “End the Chinese Communist Party’s Tyranny” rally held in Toronto in 2024 during International Human Rights Day, Zhang Ke and hundreds of rallies shouted the slogans “The Communist Party step down!” and “ Free China!” Zhang Ke was inspired to see many groups standing together to call for human rights in China.
“Overthrowing the Chinese Communist Party and letting the Chinese people regain their freedom is my biggest goal for the rest of my life. I have nothing to fear because justice and freedom will surely come!” said Zhang Ke.
Translated by Chua BC and edited by Jessica
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