Ren Zhiqiang

12/03/2020

On February 18 I put down my pen on “Memory and Reflection,” and I meant to stop there, especially since I was unwilling to touch the scar of February 19 again.

Four years ago, on February 19, when I reposted a Weibo photo of “CCTV is surnamed Party,” I added this comment: “When all the media have a surname, and do not represent the interests of the people, the people are abandoned into a forgotten corner.” This set off a “ten-day Cultural Revolution”–style mass denunciation across the entire internet, and a Party disciplinary punishment of one year of probation within the Party! So every year on February 19 I resolutely put down the pen in my hand, to guard that day.

But the outbreak of the Wuhan pneumonia epidemic in China this time has precisely verified the reality that when “the media are all surnamed Party,” “the people are abandoned.” With no media representing the people’s interests to announce the truth of the facts, what remains is the result of the people’s lives being harmed together by the virus and the grave illness of the system.

A few days later, it went viral on the media and the internet that on February 23 the Center convened a national conference attended by about 170,000 people, called the largest central conference in Chinese history by attendance. It was said to far exceed the scale of the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference and the Lushan Conference of those years, to carry more important real significance than the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference, and was also called a great conference.

Many people online are using all kinds of means to hype and flatter the great significance of this conference, and especially stress that the most important part of it, the long speech by the Party’s chairman, is an inspiring, wise and correct strategic deployment that pointed the way for the world in epidemic prevention and control. It called for using the power of the nationwide system to meet the great examination, defeat the epidemic, and achieve a great victory for the socialist system with Chinese characteristics. It “embodied” the correctness of the Party Central Committee’s judgment of the epidemic situation, and “demonstrated the remarkable advantages of the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the socialist system with Chinese characteristics.”

For a while, the whole country was cheering and leaping for joy over the great leader’s speech, as if China had entered once again that once-great Great Leap Forward era, an era of red flags fluttering everywhere, of raising high the Little Red Book, of shouting “long live, long live, ten thousand times long live” to the leader three times. Many more people are explaining, from every angle, the essence they have discovered in the February 23 speech, believing that China has entered a new era.

I too was curious and studied the speech seriously, but what I saw in it was exactly the opposite of the “greatness” reported by the news media and the internet. Standing there was not an emperor showing off his “new clothes,” but a clown who, stripped of his clothes, still insists on being emperor. Although he raises one fig leaf after another trying to cover up the reality that he is wearing no clothes at all, he does not in the slightest hide his ambition to be emperor, nor his determination that whoever does not let me be emperor, I will destroy!

The speech is divided into one, two, three, four and a conclusion, so let me also go with one, two, three, four and a conclusion!

1. The first part is “On the previous period’s epidemic prevention and control work”

   Here he praises his own great achievements, including the instruction of January 7. “Personally directing, personally deploying”: there must be correct strategy and tactics, relying on unified leadership, unified command and unified action, on the nationwide system’s guarantee of medical supplies and daily necessities, on maintaining social stability and preventing social disorder, and on strengthening publicity, education and guidance of public opinion. In short, all of it is major achievement attributed to the One Supreme’s decisions made through “enormous political courage” and his personal command.

   Online there is an expert named Li Jin, who has published many books on state-owned enterprise policy and is praised by the media as “China’s number one interpreter of SOE policy and news.” He specially wrote a long article, “The Legend of the ‘170,000-Person Conference’ in the History of the Fight Against the Epidemic,” listing the historical “Seven Thousand Cadres Conference” and the “170,000-Person Conference” together as unprecedented events in Party history that will surely be recorded in the annals. This outrageous flattery of the conference has reached the height of shamelessness!

   China’s historical “Seven Thousand Cadres Conference” can be said to have been a crisis of the Party’s rule, and it put forward the message “do not fear criticism, dare to accept criticism, dare to engage in self-criticism.” It criticized the “anti-rightist deviation” and the “Great Leap Forward,” as well as problems such as concealing output and concealing reports, and pursued the truth. In the end Liu Shaoqi admitted, with a “70-30 split,” that seventy percent was man-made disaster. Mao finally also made a self-criticism at the conference: “Whatever mistakes the Center has made, I bear direct responsibility for them, and indirectly I have a share too, because I am the Chairman of the Center. I do not mean for others to shirk responsibility; some other comrades also bear responsibility, but the first one responsible should be me.” He also engaged in self-criticism, and afterwards did some rehabilitation work, and only then was the crisis weathered.

   This conference may likewise face a crisis of the Party’s rule, but people did not see any critical opinions at the conference, no pursuit or disclosure of the truth of the facts, no investigation of the causes of the outbreak, and certainly no one reviewing responsibility or taking responsibility. Instead it tries to use all kinds of great achievements to cover the truth, as if the epidemic only began with the January 7 instruction. So what happened last December? Why was the information not announced in time? Why was there the January 1 CCTV news about pursuing eight “rumor-mongers”? Why was there the January 3 reprimand? Why was there the epidemic information notified to the United States on January 3? Why is there no mention of the various crises that had already occurred before January 7? Why was the January 7 instruction not made public to society? It still has not been made public! Why were various large gatherings and national conferences still held after January 7? Why were foreign visits still made? Why were drums beaten in Yunnan to celebrate the Spring Festival?…

   All this uses only January 7 and January 20 to try to end and cut off the nation’s and society’s pursuit of the causes of the epidemic’s outbreak and spread. Not mentioning again why the epidemic was not announced in time and so on is precisely because those holding power do not want to bear any responsibility, and also refuse society’s pursuit of these responsibilities. They only want to cover their shame with great achievements, while mobilizing all the media controlled by the Party, using so-called publicity and education and guidance of public opinion, standardizing and perfecting the information release mechanism, publicizing the Party Central Committee’s decisions and deployments, enchanting and moving stories, guiding public opinion toward positive energy and similar means, to resolutely plug up every voice pursuing the truth of the facts. They resolutely plug up voices pursuing responsibility for causing this epidemic, resolutely refuse to acknowledge the role of the whistleblower, and refuse to acknowledge the fact of the system’s and the decision-making’s incompetence!

   But this kind of shame-covering publicity can probably only deceive those who are willing to be deceived by you, and cannot deceive those who believe only in facts and truth.

   No matter how great the achievements of the current prevention and control, they cannot bring back the lives that were lost, the festivals that lost their joy, the broken families that lost loved ones. Nor can they recover the major economic losses caused by the epidemic and families’ pursuit of a happy life!

   The whole speech does not touch at all on the causes of the epidemic, nor on the reasons why the epidemic spread out of control; society did not see “early detection, early reporting, early isolation, early treatment.” It also does not mention the ills of the unified system under the Party’s leadership; does not mention who should bear responsibility for the epidemic’s expansion; and certainly will not examine or review the causes and responsibilities for the various problems that have appeared since last December. Even historical emperors had “edicts of self-blame,” and even the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference had review, self-criticism and admission of error, but this great “170,000-person” conference has only praise and credit, with no cause, truth or responsibility.

   How can this be the “Seven Thousand Cadres Conference”? This can only be waving from Tiananmen Gate to receive the Red Guards!

   Self-congratulation that does not mention cause, truth or responsibility is all “hindsight” that even fools know. The great, wise and correct strategies and tactics should all have been work to prevent the epidemic’s occurrence and expansion, yet they all happened after Professor Zhong’s severe warning, not before Professor Zhong’s outcry. Dare this be called wisdom? Dare it be boasted of as achievement? Dare it be bragged about as “promptly formulating and launching a people’s war of epidemic prevention and control”? These are clearly the various rescues that had to be undertaken after the fact, patching leaks and plugging holes, yet they are hyped as “act when it is time to act, one must act,” truly not knowing that the world still has the word “shameless”!

   The emperor can deceive himself that he is wearing clothes, but even children know the emperor is bare-bottomed, and those who dare not say the emperor has no clothes all know what wearing new clothes is and what wearing no clothes is. When Ceausescu thought the people would still believe his lies, he did not know the ship had already turned around!

2. On strengthening the focus of epidemic prevention and control at present

   The core of this passage is probably in “resolutely stop, according to law, public opinion that maliciously attacks by taking advantage of the situation”!

   The deployment of epidemic prevention and control is telling society that in the present situation the whole Party and the whole country are made one, all on the same boat. It pushes responsibility for the epidemic’s occurrence down onto governments at all levels, telling the whole Party and society that they must unite and work together to achieve victory. All achievements were led by me, and you cannot do without me. If total victory cannot be achieved, then if I die the Communist Party of China dies, and if the Communist Party of China dies, China dies too!

   Therefore Hubei must be held, Wuhan must be held, Beijing must be held, the nationwide system must support the heavily afflicted areas, and social stability must be genuinely maintained. In particular, the focus of prevention and control is to raise the effectiveness of news and public opinion work. Let all the people of the country know that doing prevention and control well cannot be done without me, cannot be done without the Party, cannot be done without unified command, cannot be done without everyone’s joint effort to defend the core.

   The tradition of imperial consciousness is that the state is the monarch’s realm, the ministers act on the monarch’s orders, hence one boat, one fate. Without the monarch there is no state, and so there is no position or power for the ministers. Therefore it can only be one boat, one fate: first jointly save this boat, save this monarch, and only then can the ministers and the people be saved.

   In a modern country where the people are masters of the realm, it is not a concept of one boat, one fate, nor is everyone fated together with the ruling party and its leader. In a democratic country, the democratic system can choose who is captain, and can also dismiss and replace the captain. Likewise, it can replace not only the captain but also the first mate and sailors of the entire management system.

   Even in modern China it is the same: there can be no One Supreme, and there can be no ruling party, but there can never be no guarantee of the people’s rights and interests.

   The reality visible in this epidemic is that the Party is protecting the Party’s interests, officials are protecting officials’ interests, and the monarch is merely protecting the One Supreme’s core position and interests. It is precisely this system that has created the situation of heeding only the monarch’s orders while ignoring the people’s circumstances. When the epidemic had already occurred, they dared not announce it to the public without the monarch’s order. They did not dare to announce the facts and truth, and instead used the method of arresting and criticizing “rumors” to restrict and block the spread of truth, which caused the uncontrollable spread.

   At this moment everyone is not on one boat; each strictly guards its own interests, while the people of the country are abandoned behind. But when the epidemic developed out of control, the emperor became a wise commander and deployer, binding the whole Party and whole country onto this boat of command and deployment, making them people who must and can only bear responsibility for the emperor. The emperor can arbitrarily replace any minister who does not devote himself to defending imperial power, and can also demand, in the manner of one boat, one fate, that everyone fight this defensive battle for the Party’s interests and meet this great examination.

   If there had been no mistakes from above, where would the crisis and great examination come from? Since the Party Central Committee already had an accurate judgment of the epidemic situation, since personal command had already taken powerful and effective measures, since all work deployments were timely, then why was there nationwide and worldwide spread of the epidemic? These are not measures and prevention beforehand or during, but after-the-fact remedies. Only when the epidemic spread out of control in large numbers did the crisis appear. If it had been prevention beforehand, where would a great examination come from?

   All current measures are remedies taken after losing the initiative, measures that had to be taken out of necessity to cover up and correct mistakes. The whole world knows that had there been early warning and prevention, there would not have been the 5 million people leaving Wuhan, the various gatherings in Wuhan, the close contact of hundreds of thousands, the tens of thousands of confirmed cases, the thousands of deaths, the Spring Festival when the whole country had to isolate at home, much less the various economic losses of being unable to open for business or resume work!

   The focus of prevention and control is not in those specific tasks, but in the fact that if the ills of this system are not changed, then no matter what nationwide system is used, even if it solves this epidemic problem, the next disaster will still appear. The lesson of seventeen years ago did not bring about a thorough change in this system, and so the epidemic has erupted again today. If the root problem is not solved this time, a greater disaster will surely appear next time.

   The cause of the epidemic may not yet be clear, but after the epidemic appeared, the failure to let the people know in time lies in “if there is no order from above, those below do not act.” It also lies in “the media are surnamed Party,” in the absence of freedom of news and speech, and now a new crime has been added of “malicious attacks by taking advantage of the situation” to be severely punished!

   The truth does not cause instability of social order; on the contrary, it is the absence of truth that causes social chaos.

   When problems have appeared and society demands that the truth be found out, the ruling party tries to tie everyone’s fate onto one boat, so that everyone works together to save this boat. And it tries, by being on the same boat, to shut the mouths of the forces that want the truth found out and the chief culprits held responsible, trying to use “stopping malicious attacks by taking advantage of the situation according to law” to strangle words and deeds that might be unfavorable to the sage ruler.

   Even on the same boat, responsibilities at each level differ. The captain should bear the captain’s responsibility, which the first mate and sailors cannot substitute for. Using the concept of one boat, one body to cover up the responsibility the captain should bear is the real purpose behind it.

   “Sailing together in the same boat” is necessary today for jointly solving the epidemic, but it cannot be used to cover up the captain’s responsibility.

3. On coordinating the advancement of epidemic prevention and control with economic and social development

   The culture of the ruling party of New China is accustomed to unifying two completely opposed situations under one proposition. For example, “people’s democratic dictatorship” in the Constitution: “democracy” and “dictatorship” are originally two completely opposed systems, yet they can be merged into one special phrase that cannot be reasonably explained. The Chinese dictionary explains that before the founding of the People’s Republic of China, it took on the task of the democratic revolution; after the founding, in essence it is the dictatorship of the proletariat, at which point there is no longer democracy and only dictatorship remains!

   In Central documents one often sees the phrasing “both ◊◊◊◊, and ◊◊◊◊.” Whenever “both” and “and” are linked together, the two definitions are usually opposites, which is probably an art of cutting with both edges.

   The former half of the speech stresses the focus of prevention and control, the latter stresses the key work of economic and social development, hence the deployment and arrangement of both focusing on epidemic prevention and control and grasping economic development well.

   In a democratic country, where information is entirely open and public and the economy self-adjusts by market means, a small government could at no time and under no circumstances use non-market means to regulate the economy and people’s freely chosen way of life. Even when the epidemic is dangerous, the government can put forward requirements for prevention and control, but has no need to put restrictions on market behavior that the people choose.

   But in a dictatorial country, a non-market country, totalitarian macro-policy regulation becomes an obstacle to the market economy. This unified, commanded regulation includes both all the strict requirements of subordination to epidemic prevention and control, and at the same time the demand to resume work precisely, while it is difficult to obtain true epidemic prevention information, and enterprises must also bear the responsibility for key epidemic control and guarantee that no cases appear, which makes it harder still. The epidemic cannot turn entrepreneurs into immortals!

   The epidemic is a risk involving human feelings, lives and hard-to-control danger. Business operation likewise has all kinds of risks, and involves employees, shareholders, upstream and downstream, and so on. Under fully marketized conditions, entrepreneurs would make a reasonable assessment of these two different risks, work out countermeasures, and make appropriate choices.

   But under non-market conditions, reasonable arrangements are hard to make. Perhaps upstream and downstream cannot cooperate because of the epidemic and various regulations, perhaps your production resumption cannot satisfy upstream and downstream requirements because of various regulations. Especially when politics comes first, no one makes judgments on market demand and information any longer but can only obey political responsibility. Who dares cross the line? When even full resumption of normal production is hard to deliver, how can there be talk of expanding and maintaining employment?

   Cutting with both edges inevitably produces a dilemma, but this has become a feature of the ruling party’s culture. That is why the medical staff who rushed to the front line, who should have been the main force saving lives, were infected in large numbers and became patients in need of treatment themselves. Many lives were lost, and outstanding medical talent was lost.

   Why did Zhejiang also have the region with the second-most patients in the country, yet not a single case of infection among medical staff? The reason and the difference lie precisely in that one follows a fully administrative management approach, in which subordinates absolutely obey superiors, politics comes first and information cannot be made public. The other follows a marketized approach, in which information is made public and each acts flexibly, first respecting the people’s interests and rights!

   Economic and social development really does face enormous pressure, and work stoppages and extended holidays themselves bring society many problems, but trying to use the planned-economy approach of the nationwide system cannot effectively solve these problems. This is precisely why Wuhan issued Order No. 17 before the conference and withdrew Order No. 17 after it. The former perhaps wanted to increase the possibility of resuming work, while the latter focused on epidemic prevention and control, leading to the conflict of orders changed morning and evening once again.

   Whether to rely on the Center or the state for overall planning, or on the market’s self-regulation, is still the main contradiction in China’s economic development. Some provinces and cities dare to have the government pay for chartered cars, trains and planes to receive migrant workers entering the area and to support enterprises resuming work. This may be a market need, with the government giving support and supplementing it, but it is by no means an arrangement of coordinating epidemic prevention and development.

   Originally, epidemic prevention is the responsibility the government should fulfill, while enterprise matters are the market’s self-regulation, but coordination that cuts with both edges muddles the two kinds of responsibility together! Enterprises have also become the responsible parties for epidemic prevention, bearing responsibility that should have been borne by the government, and have also had their hands and feet bound by politics coming first!

   Singapore, Japan, South Korea and other neighboring countries all had epidemics, but each country adopted measures suited to its own national conditions. Government bore the government’s responsibility, society bore society’s obligations, and enterprises took charge of their business operations. Each performing its own function, these countries, without overall coordination, affected neither national development nor the normal life of their citizens.

   Although the epidemic has not ended and the subsequent changes in it cannot be determined, the division of labor and the bearing of responsibility are very clear. These countries do not pursue the leader’s great victory, only the happiness of the people’s lives, and would never make the people pay with blood and life to win a victory and bear mistakes that should be borne by decision-makers.

   The state has issued a series of policies of tax cuts, interest cuts and fee cuts for resuming work, to support the self-rescue and development of small and medium-sized enterprises, and many people regard this as a heavenly favor. But they do not know that if the epidemic had been effectively made public at the start and prevented and treated accordingly, how could there be today’s losses and predicaments, and why would there be any need to rely on various policy supports to survive? Rather than call this the government’s favor to enterprises, it is better to call it the evil consequence of government inaction, compensation that should rightfully be borne.

   In the epidemic prevention work in Wuhan, what one sees more is not the Party and government walking in front, but various civil organizations and private enterprises walking in front and selflessly contributing a great deal, offering their share of strength for human lives. Without this civil support and assistance, the government would long since have been unable to get to where it is today!

   Although the Center has allocated hundreds of billions in funds to support epidemic prevention and treatment, had it not been for the earlier mistake of irresponsibly concealing the epidemic, how could there be the subsequent developments and the investment made out of necessity? Government investment is remedying the errors of its own decisions, while private investment is for protecting the people’s interests from the harm of government errors. These are two completely different meanings, which cannot be placed side by side or explained as the same, still less can the government’s responsibility and the private sector’s dedication be muddled together.

   But in the eyes of the One Supreme, all of it comes from the great personal command and personal deployment!

   This difference in understanding reflects, more importantly, a difference in the quality of character!

4. Strengthening the Party’s leadership

   This is the most important part of the whole speech. It quotes Emperor Taizong of Tang, “Strong winds reveal the sturdy grass; in turmoil one knows the loyal minister,” which lays bare the sage’s intent in a single sentence. The emphasis is not on me being above, but on organizations at all levels carrying out the sage’s decree, letting the Party flag fly high, and especially using this epidemic to discern loyal ministers.

   If you charge to the front, you will certainly be used by me; if you retreat to the rear, you will certainly be killed by me, “absolutely not tolerated”! At the critical moment you must rush up, and cadres will be examined by the critical moment and entrusted with heavy responsibilities.

   The responsibility for this epidemic lies in the weak links of the major epidemic prevention and control mechanism and the public health emergency management system, not in any failure of duty by the Party’s leadership, and this is used to shirk the Party’s leadership’s relevant responsibility. It is precisely this: on one side shouting to strengthen the Party’s leadership, shouting about the merit of the “two personals” this time, while on the other, even as the Party’s leadership is strengthened, pushing responsibility onto the weak links under the Party’s leadership, as if this could evade society’s pursuit of responsibility for failing to release and announce the truth about the epidemic in time. But this exactly exposes the root of this system’s disease. All these problems in the Party organization in the speech have their root in a ruling party that is not supervised by the people and not bound by law, a system loyal only to imperial power and to defending the core, the inevitable result of a responsibility relationship that speaks first of being responsible to the Party and puts the people last.

   The most successful part of China’s reform was “separating the Party from government, and government from enterprise.” What the contract responsibility system first had to break was precisely the Party’s leadership, the Party deciding everything. The contract system is meant to let the people have the say themselves, be responsible for themselves, and at the same time responsible to the people. First hand over to the state, then to the collective, and what is left is your own. If the Party’s leadership were insisted on, how could there be contracting? The simplest principle here is that if you want to lead, you must bear responsibility. Just as the outbreak of this epidemic happened precisely under “east, west, south, north, center, everything obeys the Party’s leadership,” all responsibility here is not a matter of some weak link but the responsibility of the Party’s leadership. The contract system cut up the Party’s leadership but made clear who bears responsibility, and that is why reform succeeded.

   When this country once again returns to a management system where the Party leads everything but the Party never bears responsibility for problems that appear, then not only will epidemic outbreaks that should not have occurred appear, but the epidemic will also expand to the point of affecting economic development and the people’s health and happiness, and perhaps even more serious other problems will appear under the Party’s leadership.

   From the complete repudiation of a series of Deng’s speeches in spirit to the revision of the Constitution, it is all proof that this ruling party is trying to re-establish a one-party-dictatorship party-state system. This one-party dictatorship also violates the spirit of the Constitution, kicks the people out, and has the Party replace people’s democracy. What one sees afterward is precisely the Discipline Inspection Commission leading the Supervisory Commission, the Party’s Cyberspace Administration leading the state system and able to arbitrarily make regulations that go beyond national law. So this country is long past being a matter of the Party’s leadership; it is a country of the Party only, with no interests or rights of the people!

   This passage also tells all Party members: you are all on the same boat today, but if you do not strive to save this boat of the party-state, I will throw you off the boat and leave you with no place to be buried! Wanting to be a “deserter” too, no way! The knife of intensified accountability is already at your necks!

   At the end of the speech, three requirements were put forward, and a famous ancient poem was quoted to encourage the whole Party to resolve to rush to the front line and implement, and implement again, these instructions that the Party leads everything.

   I am only curious that the emperor re-mentioned that in January 2018 he had said “major infectious diseases like SARS must also be guarded against at all times and prevented with strict precautions,” and to “at all times maintain the caution of treading on thin ice, the acuity of seeing a falling leaf and knowing autumn has come… and offer opinions and suggestions at the first moment.” But why was this sentence not applied to himself this time? The emperor claims he issued an instruction on January 7 this year, which shows he had long known the epidemic’s special nature and danger, otherwise why would any instruction be needed? But why did this acuity of seeing a falling leaf and knowing autumn fail to make the instruction public, and even fail to reveal the slightest public news of the epidemic to society? China notified the United States of the epidemic situation on January 3; why did the caution of treading on thin ice fail to announce to the Chinese people at the same time the information notified to the United States on January 3?

From the beginning of the whole text to the end, all I can see is the use of every kind of lie as a fig leaf, trying to cover up the fact that he is wearing no clothes at all. In trying to prove his own wisdom and greatness, he has put himself in a predicament where he cannot make his story hold together. The more he hypes, the higher the fig leaf flies, and the more his inner fear and his naked ambition to defend imperial power are exposed. Perhaps these slogans and ancient poems will greatly inspire many people, but clever people can see that behind these beautiful decorations is that he is not prepared to bear any responsibility for this epidemic outbreak and leadership errors, and on the contrary is prepared to celebrate with the “victory” in epidemic prevention won at the cost of the whole nation’s efforts and lives, preparing to welcome the fruits of battle with the whole nation shouting “long live.”

The ruling party of China concealed the reasons for the early outbreak of the epidemic, and relying on the nationwide strength of the subsequent citywide lockdown, won the trust of the WHO and gained international praise. But the Chinese people who have lived through it cannot be deceived again. People living in democratic countries with freedom of speech may not know the pain of lacking freedom of the press and freedom of speech, but the Chinese people know that the outbreak of this epidemic and all the pain it has caused that should never have occurred come from this system that strictly forbids freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

No matter how many weak links there are in China’s management system, if there had been freedom of speech, then when citizens knew the truth of the facts in advance they would have actively taken all kinds of self-protection, and there would not have been such serious loss of control and spread. For example, wasn’t the WeChat message of Li Wenliang, who was treated as a rumor-monger, precisely warning friends and relatives to guard strictly against the spread of the epidemic! If this had not been treated as a rumor, and instead had become a government warning to society, then why would the January 7 instruction and everything that happened afterward have been needed? Perhaps relying on the spread of speech freedom among the people alone, the great victory of epidemic prevention would long since have been achieved, and the huge price paid afterward would not have existed at all!

No matter how one hypes the Party’s leadership and the “two personals,” none of it can explain to the Chinese people the January 1 CCTV broadcast arresting and criticizing “rumors,” and none of it can change the whole society’s pursuit of those who bear responsibility for the outbreak. Perhaps not today, but sooner or later these debts that the party has incurred to the people must be repaid!

I cannot cheer for the February 23 speech; on the contrary I see in it a greater crisis, and this crisis will ferment faster amid the voices cheering for the speech. When shameless and ignorant people try to be content living in the stupidity of the great leader, this society will find it hard to develop and sustain itself amid the mob. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future the ruling party will also awaken from this ignorance, and launch another “Down with the Gang of Four” movement, another Deng Xiaoping–style reform, to rescue this nation and country once again!

At the conference of the public security system studying the February 23 speech on the 24th, the signal given was politics first. The whole country’s public security system must act for “politics first.” Take up the knife, shoulder the gun, resolutely eliminate all forces of malicious attack by taking advantage of the situation, and spare no cost to maintain social stability!

Are you willing to become that cost? Can the cost wake you from the dream?