Stripping Away the CCP s Legal Facade

On September 19, 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party held a hearing on the CCP government's use of regulations to suppress dissent. (Video screenshot/U.S. Congress official website)

People News - The law is intended as a societal mechanism to uphold justice, punish wrongdoing, promote goodness, and fairly resolve disputes. Its fundamental purpose is to maintain social stability and foster fairness and justice through enforceable institutional constraints.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s approach to law, however, is entirely different. The CCP claims that its laws possess "socialist characteristics," meaning that laws are tools for the ruling class to maintain its rule—an instrument for the rulers to control the ruled. At its core, the law serves the interests of the ruling class. In other words, the CCP believes that laws exist to serve the Party; they are tools for the Party to "discipline" the people. Since the Party oversees everything, it naturally dictates the law as well. The Political and Legal Affairs Commission is a bizarre entity exemplifying the Party's control over the law.

"Rule of law" in the CCP's context is merely a refined instrument of authoritarian governance. When the Party wields the law as a cudgel to strike at you, it creates the illusion that you are indeed guilty. After all, why else would you be punished? Why not someone else? Because you are guilty. At this point, those who sympathize with you, wish to help you, or seek to fight for your cause, are either intimidated or obstructed by the CCP's legal apparatus.

When the CCP cloaks itself in the veneer of law, its goal is to divide and undermine others. In the past, the CCP used class struggle and classifications to fracture society, labeling 5% of the population as enemies. Today, it plays the legal card: if you are arrested, you must be a bad person; if you are convicted, you must be a criminal. By exploiting modern legal systems to persecute its people, the CCP has become a master of its craft, particularly in its campaign of repression against Falun Gong practitioners.

Using law to persecute domestic citizens is merely a tactic to maintain its rule. However, its "legal warfare" strategy fully exposes its ambition to export authoritarianism abroad. On this front, the CCP has an extensive strategic plan. For instance, in 2019, through the "Fugitive Offenders Ordinance" and the "Hong Kong National Security Law," the CCP completed its authoritarian takeover of Hong Kong, effectively tearing apart Deng Xiaoping's "one country, two systems" policy.

The CCP is currently laying the groundwork for legal warfare against Taiwan. It manipulates interpretations of United Nations Resolution 2758 in an attempt to distort international law and legitimize Taiwan’s incorporation into mainland China. Simultaneously, the CCP has enacted the Anti-Secession Law and issued the Opinions on Punishing “Stubborn Taiwan Independence” Elements for Crimes of Splitting the State and Inciting Secession (commonly referred to as the “22 Anti-Taiwan Independence Articles”). These measures aim to intimidate both the Taiwanese authorities and those opposed to the CCP.

Regarding Hong Kong and Taiwan, except for its reliance on Resolution 2758, the CCP primarily uses self-fabricated legal statutes to advance its external expansionist strategies. However, its ambitions go far beyond these regions. The CCP is also engaging in legal warfare against the United States. It exploits loopholes in the U.S. legal system to target overseas individuals and organizations it deems adversarial. The goal is to export transnational repression and undermine the U.S. legal framework, as exemplified by the Li Rui Diary case. Moreover, the CCP has established over 100 overseas “110” offices across more than 50 countries on five continents in recent years. These are used to conduct transnational crackdowns and suppress dissenters abroad. Such actions should alarm the international community.

Recently, the CCP launched a so-called legal campaign in New York targeting Shen Yun Performing Arts and Falun Gong. This represents a new strategy in its transnational persecution efforts, exposing its ambition to challenge U.S. democracy and the rule of law. The United States has long been regarded as the CCP’s primary adversary, and for 25 years, Falun Gong has been its primary target of repression. By weaponizing the U.S. legal system to attack Falun Gong, the CCP aims to kill two birds with one stone.

The CCP’s lawsuit against Shen Yun, coupled with distorted reporting by The New York Times, is filled with extremist prejudice, the ignorance of atheism, and the malicious insinuations typical of Party culture. These reports include false statements and exaggerated claims, disguised as impartial and objective under the guise of advocating for human rights. In reality, they serve the CCP’s hidden political motives with sinister intent.

Such malicious narratives are tailored to accommodate the CCP’s demands for transnational persecution. They represent yet another iteration of the CCP’s “if you want to convict someone, you’ll find the charge” bandit logic. Under this perspective, anything that deviates from communist ideology is intolerable to the CCP, making dissenters targets of distortion, defamation, and stigmatization.

This is the CCP’s standard playbook. What is evil is revered as good and supreme. Dictatorship is glorified as "whole-process democracy." Brutal suppression of human rights is claimed to mark the "best period for human rights." Ruthless Party infighting is framed as the “great and upright” self-revolution. CCP diplomats brazenly lie to the international community, branding Xinjiang’s concentration camps as vocational training centers. By this logic, prisons could be rebranded as “closed luxury communities.” Re-education camps for detaining Falun Gong practitioners are euphemistically labeled as “legal training centers.”

Conversely, what is righteous can be twisted into evil, and what is white is painted as black. The CCP portrays the strength and justice of the United States as reactionary hegemonism and an unyielding intent to destroy China. When citizens appeal for justice and protection of their rights, the CCP does not address their grievances impartially but instead detains them under the vague charge of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble." Taxpayers’ oversight and criticism of the government are framed as malicious attacks on the Party and socialism. Netizens who cry out for justice or expose the truth about the CCP online are accused of "spreading false information" and "disrupting social order." Legitimate religious beliefs are demonized as feudal superstition, and believers praying or holding Mass are prohibited as "illegal gatherings."

Under such authoritarian logic and distorted perceptions, even the universal principle of good being rewarded and evil punished is labeled by CCP proxies as "threats and intimidation." The security measures at Fei Tian Academy, designed to protect faculty and students from harassment by CCP agents, are twisted into accusations of restricting students’ personal freedom. School guidelines advising students to limit phone usage to avoid distractions are misrepresented as measures to control students.

Shen Yun Performing Arts, a legally registered nonprofit organization in the United States, seeks to revive China’s traditional culture free from Party influence through world-class stage performances. It has gained widespread recognition from the international mainstream. Over nearly two decades, Shen Yun has grown entirely through its own efforts, without receiving a single cent from the U.S. government. Fei Tian Academy and Fei Tian College students are fully covered for tuition, accommodation, meals, and even spending money. When students travel for internships and performances, their airfare, high-end hotel stays, meals, and costumes are also fully funded, and they even receive stipends for their work. This represents an enormous financial commitment. Furthermore, Shen Yun contributes to local infrastructure projects and community service, earning praise from U.S. local governments. The CCP, however, turns a blind eye to these facts and maliciously accuses Shen Yun of pursuing commercial profits and engaging in illegal labor practices. Such accusations reveal the CCP’s ulterior motives and deep malice.

What is especially concerning is that this strategy of distorting facts, applying labels, and weaponizing legal tools has expanded into the international arena. The CCP exploits the inclusiveness and fairness of U.S. law to package its agents as victims while ignoring the CCP’s own violent threats, terrorist intimidation, and rampant defamation against Shen Yun and Falun Gong practitioners abroad. These so-called appeals for labor justice are, in fact, part of the CCP’s broader strategy of legal warfare and transnational persecution. 

(First published by People News)