Letter of the Chinese Writer Wang Qingmin to Pope Francis and the Holy See(Second Half)

In ancient times, the Chinese knew the importance of saving for a rainy day and the principle of "forethought is forethought and forethought is forethought". But today's Chinese have generally lost the ability to reflect and be alert to disasters. That is why I have emphasized the danger that the climate crisis is likely to cause in the future, and the need for the Catholic Church to intervene in China and to reach out to the Chinese people.

  If a full-blown climate catastrophe is still decades away, an imminent crisis is ever-present. As mentioned earlier, the perverse behavior of the Communist Party of China (CPC), especially Xi Jinping, in the last decade or so has led to tragic disasters for the people and extremely sharp social tensions. People hate each other and are incompatible with each other. Under the CCP's totalitarian stabilization system, peace can still be maintained on the surface, but once the CCP regime collapses or loses control over grassroots society, China could erupt into bloody and violent conflict or even civil war.

   Ethnic tensions between Han Chinese and ethnic minorities, and between different ethnic groups, are also increasing. The tragedy of the "re-education camps" in Xinjiang, in particular, is likely to lead to large-scale ethnic feuds in the future. This further increases the likelihood of civil war in China and mass killings of civilians. The bloody killings in the former Yugoslavia, Chechnya, the Caucasus, Rwanda and Indonesia during the disintegration of States/regime change are bloody examples.

   Nowadays, both the forces inside China and the parties overseas are all harboring evil intentions, more concerned about their own interests, foreign interests in China, and lack of interest in humanitarianism. There are some who are genuinely concerned about human rights in China, but their power is too limited to deal with the situation in China after the collapse of the CCP, and it is difficult for them to help more Chinese people.

 In such a possibility, the Catholic Church is again needed to step forward and play the important role of sheltering, organizing and protecting the Chinese people, minimizing the humanitarian disaster in China after the collapse of the CCP, and assisting the forces of goodness to rebuild the order in China. 140 years ago, the Boxer Rebellion killed foreign missionaries in a bloody manner, and the Catholic Church repaid the grudges with kindness, not to mention nowadays. And during China's 1911 Revolution and the War of Resistance against Japan, the Chinese Christian forces also assisted the Chinese people in favor of humanity and peace in China. I sincerely ask you, when the Chinese Communist Party collapses and there are signs of a humanitarian disaster in China, that the Holy See, the Catholic Church in China, and the Catholic forces of the whole world give their full support to the humanitarian relief of China, to the re-establishment of order, and, above all, to the organization of the scattered Han Chinese people of the Chinese mainland, and to the assistance of the Chinese people in obtaining a new, free and democratic China.

   Of course, I hope that the Catholic Church will help the Chinese people not only in these few specific things, but that the Catholic Church will become a long-lasting and beneficial force for the enlightenment of Chinese citizens, for the formation of civic self-organization, and for friendship and mutual assistance among the people. And the Chinese people, after realizing freedom and democracy and human rights protection, will also feed the Catholic Church and the world.

   The reason why I ask the world to help China is that, in reviewing history and thinking about current international relations, I have come to realize that the Chinese people, from the modern era to the present, have paid great sacrifices and made great contributions to mankind, but have not been rewarded in kind.

   There is nothing more typical than China's enormous contribution to the victory of the international anti-fascist war in the Second World War and the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and the sacrifices it made were tens of millions of lives and the abuse of countless women and children. The number of Chinese military and civilian deaths was 3.5 times that of the Jews (21 million deaths). Although China became a victorious country in World War II, the vast majority of the Chinese people, the Han Chinese people, live in misery to this day after World War II. This is in stark contrast to the high degree of wealth and happiness of the people of Japan, which was the aggressor country, and is all the more unjust.

   Even if we do not seek to punish the aggressor, is it not the minimum requirement and bottom line of human civilization that the victim should be protected and compensated (even if it is limited and far less than the compensation for the damage suffered) so as to avoid re-victimization? The Tao Te Ching of the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu (Li Er) says, "The way of heaven is to make up for what is lacking by what is lost". The Bible also says many times, "God does not show favoritism to different ethnic groups and people. Now that the Chinese people have suffered so much injustice in modern times, should they not be compensated and equalized?

In addition, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping and other leaders of the Communist Party of China (CPC), on behalf of the Chinese people, gave up pursuing the responsibility of the war criminals of the Japanese invasion of China and giving up their claims for compensation. Regardless of their motives, objectively speaking, they have made a great contribution to the tolerance, peace and development of the world, at the expense of the hundreds of millions of Chinese people who have suffered from the harm caused by the Japanese invasion and the feelings and interests of the Chinese people abroad. Under such circumstances, both the countries concerned and the world as a whole should, as a matter of reason, show more sympathy and reciprocation (not to mention contempt and bullying) to the Chinese people.

    Between the 1980s and 2015, China also vigorously pursued family planning, reducing the number of births by at least 400 million (the vast majority of which were Han Chinese) through various coercive means. It has made significant contributions to world population control, reducing resource consumption and environmental pollution, and weakening the planet's ecological crisis. This is something that no other country or nation in the world has done. The price has been that the Chinese people have been deprived of their right to free procreation, many women have been subjected to forced abortions and abuses, many families have been bankrupted by fines, and some of those who have fought against the family planning policy have been dismissed from public service and imprisoned.

   Christianity has the greatest respect for life, opposes abortion, especially government forced abortions, and believes that a fetus or even a fertilized egg is already life. Measured against Christian doctrine, the sacrifices and suffering of the Chinese, the Han Chinese, under China's family planning policy are even heavier, amounting to 400 million Han Chinese killed by the population control policy. But these contributions and stoicism, like the "elephant in the room", have been ignored by the international community. This is uncalled for.

  From the 1980s to the present, China, as the "factory of the world," has provided Europe, the United States and the rest of the world with inexpensive products, cheap labor and services, and has enabled the people of the developed countries to live a good quality of life. Which country in the world, including Italy and the Vatican, does not have products made in China? Every piece of "Made in China" goods exported to foreign countries is soaked with the blood and sweat of Chinese people; every Chinese working in foreign countries provides comfortable services for foreigners, especially rich foreigners, with hard work and cheap labor. It is because of the hard work of the Chinese that people in developed countries such as Europe, America and Japan are able to enjoy the richest, easiest and freest life in the history of mankind. The Chinese Communist Party's oppression is mainly directed internally, and other countries are objectively the beneficiaries instead. Therefore, all countries have a moral and practical responsibility to help the hard-working but suffering Chinese people.

   Such a great civilization should not degenerate in this way. Such injustice should also be corrected by the international community, so that the communities and individuals who have suffered the most and paid the most will receive the rights and compensation they deserve. The official and public assistance of all countries in the world to help China to move towards democracy, freedom and the rule of law, to realize the equal rights and dignity of each and every one of its nationals, and to further promote China's prosperity and the balance of its income, are the paths and contents of realizing the equality of communities, the equality of the international community, and the equality of mankind.

  Based on these, I ask Pope Francis, the Holy See, and Catholics from all over the world to come to the aid of the Chinese people and to save China. For the world to help China is not only a requirement of international humanitarianism, but also an obligation of the beneficiaries of the labor of the Chinese people.

  As mentioned earlier, today's China and even the Chinese world, because of the massacres, oppression, and abuses suffered over the centuries in all the settlements, have generally become alienated, selfish, apathetic, and egoistic, and advocate the social Darwinism of the weak and the strong, and there is a lack of dearness and mutual trust among the people, but on the contrary, there is all sorts of hatred and mutual victimization. This is the disease and aftermath of ethnicity caused by internal tyranny and external aggression. It is not the inferiority of racial genes or the ugliness of the national culture, but the internal and external forces that harmed the nation. It is not the fault of the Chinese people. Not only are the Chinese people not the villains and victimizers, they are also the victims who deserve more sympathy and understanding.

  Mainland China, where such values dominate, has a population of 1.4 billion. Such a huge population, under a poor humanistic environment, can easily be utilized by all kinds of evil forces and turned into all kinds of Nazi fascist believers, religious extremists, and hooligans who bully the weak and poison the world in various ways. In that case, both Europe and the whole world will suffer from such ugly values, forces and behaviors, leading to the regression of human civilization.

   It would be of great merit if the Holy See and the Christian forces of the world, through various direct and indirect ways, could give limited but precious help to the Chinese and the Chinese people, so that they can see and feel that there is still true compassion, conscience, justice and love on earth. This will become the key and chain to melt hatred, dismantle conspiracies, arouse conscience, bring about awakening, and transmit love and peace. More Chinese people will regain goodness and morality, and the Chinese, who account for one-fifth of the world's population, will come out of the haze and hatred, and devote themselves to repaying the world, becoming a great and beneficial force for promoting peace and democracy in the world. This is also a mild medicine for the world, which has become full of bitterness and antagonism due to the revival of racism, populism and extremism in recent years.

   After World War II, the U.S. Marshall Plan contributed to the rapid revitalization of Europe after a brutal war; after the outbreak of the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the end of the last century, Western European countries accepted refugees and participated in peacekeeping operations in the Balkans, which also reduced the number of killings in Southern Europe. Later, European countries also actively promoted post-war reconstruction, making the Balkan Peninsula stable and peaceful today; after the Rwandan massacre, the intervention and help of Europe and the United States also made it possible for the people there to gradually get rid of hatred and despair, and move towards harmony and prosperity. All these show that love and help are useful.

  Only with more love can the injustice and pain suffered be dissolved; with understanding, mutual trust and mutual assistance, the hatred among the various ethnic groups and individuals in the world can be gradually eliminated. Caring for, respecting and helping the victims is the most important and necessary part of the path to lasting humane peace in the world.

  I once wrote something similar to the above paragraphs in a letter to some governments. But they did not respond to my letters. I don't know if I can touch them a little bit, or if I can make them care a little bit more about human rights in China and the safety of overseas Chinese in their foreign policies. Since I am a man of few words, I may not be able to play even a small role. I have been writing and running around with my heart and soul, but the effect is nil. I have also encountered clear rejection and even some humiliating treatment from many well-known organizations and people.

  At a time when government agencies and staff in various countries are generally bureaucratic and indifferent, and secular human rights organizations and their staff are selfish and selective in their focus on human rights issues, I had to turn to the Catholic Church.

   I do not know whether the Catholic Church is willing to read my letter carefully, let alone whether my letter can make any real difference. But I think that the Catholic Church, which has made "God loves the world" its motto, will not be totally indifferent and oblivious, will it?

   I am reminded of the South Korean movie”Crossing”,which reflects the story of North Korean defectors. The main character's family suffered from hunger and illness in North Korea. His wife died of illness and his daughter died in a concentration camp (at the end of the movie, his son also died on the run). The main character, who escapes to South Korea alone, sees an extremely wealthy and prosperous South Korea, and the South Korean government provides the medicine he could only dream of in North Korea for free.

   Thinking back to the poverty of North Korea and the deaths of his family due to lack of medicine, the protagonist, facing the Christian pastor who preached to him, angrily threw down his Bible and said, "Isn't God a loving God? Why is Jesus only in South Korea and not in North Korea? If God exists, why does he allow the country he is in to be such a miserable sight?" The pastor was silent, but just silently picked up the Bible that the protagonist had dropped on the ground and placed it carefully and neatly.

   I have the same question. The Bible says, "He that believeth on my Lord shall be saved (Acts 16:31)." Whether it is God, Allah, Buddha, or any other God-identified deity, isn't it fraternizing with the world? Then why do they tolerate people of different nations, classes, and identities in this world, living lives that are worlds apart? Why do many unfortunate peoples and individuals have to go through sufferings that people in happy countries do not go through?

   For such queries, I know that religious people will have answers accordingly. But I believe that existence is not the same as justification. On the contrary, for injustice and unrighteousness, both atheists and religious people should try to change it. God is in the Kingdom of Heaven, and the human clergy, the angels, enjoy the honor of being God's messengers, but also have the responsibility to help the needy. Every priest and nun is an incarnation of the Messiah.

  That is why I plead with Pope Francis, the Holy See, Catholics in China and around the world, to help the people of China. Although China today is not yet as starved and highly closed as North Korea, it is nonetheless characterized by various tragedies. Only a few decades ago there was mass starvation and killing in China, and in the future the strengthening of authoritarianism and the climate crisis could bring back mass unnatural deaths.

   How many Chinese will die in disasters like the North Koreans? How many will flee like the North Korean defectors? There are already many refugees in China who have gone to the world through the "pipeline", and there may be many more in the future. If we make early preparations and take precautions, we may be able to avoid more tragedies and nip disasters in the bud. Otherwise, not only will the Chinese people struggle with death, but all of humanity will be affected by China's humanitarian catastrophe. Even if there is no catastrophe of mass deaths, it is equally unacceptable and in need of change for Chinese people to victimize each other and be insensitive in a stifling environment.

   Also, the Chinese people, especially the Han Chinese, need advocates, platforms to speak out and defend their rights in the world. In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) perverse behavior has worsened China's international image, and the Chinese people have suffered as well. While it is true that some supporters of the Chinese government ("50 cents" and "pinkies") and Chinese people with low moral quality have indeed done some bad behaviors, the vast majority of the Chinese people are innocent, some of them are ordinary people who have nothing to do with the world, while others are the CCP's tyrannical government's The greatest victims. However, they are regarded as victimizers who are one with the CCP and a threat to the world, and they are discriminated against and insulted. How unfair is this?

   Of course there are more than just individuals. The national interests of China as a whole, the sentiments and international influence of the Han and Chinese races, and the situation of overseas Chinese have all deteriorated and been implicated because of the CCP rule. The authoritarian tyranny of the Chinese Communist regime and its ban on freedom of thought and freedom of expression have stifled the creativity and expression of the Chinese people, and prevented them from going international and integrating into the world. Overseas Chinese have also been dragged down by the fact that the mother country of the nation has not only failed to help them, but has also brought all kinds of troubles and tragedies.

   Vested interests in China generally benefit from the existence of the Chinese Communist regime. China's educational and social environment tends to allow its people to "make a lot of money in silence" and to be exquisitely egoistic, while preventing them from participating in public affairs and speaking up for others. China's official and educational system also promotes the so-called "positive energy", encouraging the singing of praises and praises, and opposing the exposure of the dark side. As a result, whether for reasons of profit or brainwashed values, or because of the reality of the situation, Chinese people, and even those who have emigrated overseas, are generally politically apathetic, indifferent to public affairs and the rights of others, and even gloat about the suffering of their compatriots. Chinese officials, on the other hand, 99% of the time speak only for the regime itself and the demands of the powerful and the rich, not for the people to the world.

  And the Chinese political opposition, the Chinese minorities, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Japan and the U.S. and Europe, most of them, as mentioned earlier, are not genuinely concerned about the human rights of the dominant ethnic groups in mainland China, or even colluding (or objectively cooperating) with the CCP to contain China's rise. They only want China and the CCP to be weakened at the same time, the Chinese people and the CCP rulers to fight each other, and they want to find ways to perpetuate this infighting, to keep China in a state of internal attrition, so that eventually China will be destroyed, and they will reap the benefits. They also try to suppress the voices of the Chinese people who support freedom and democracy and defend the interests of the country and the nation, and deprive the Chinese people of their legitimate right to speak.

  In politics, culture, and diplomacy, the CCP regime is similar to the Manchu Qing Dynasty's "closed-door" policy, which prevented free exchanges between China and the rest of the world. Although China is now economically integrated into globalization, it is politically and culturally very closed. This has left China separated from the world by a variety of tangible and intangible barriers, severely hindering communication between more than one billion mainland Chinese and the outside world, and making it difficult for foreigners to gain a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of China. Against this backdrop, it is difficult to get world attention and external help for the various humanitarian disasters that have occurred in China. The lack of external communication, or only officially manipulated communication, also hinders the expansion of Chinese civilization's influence. The poor behavior and image of the CCP regime has also dragged down the Chinese people. China has become an "island" in the 21st century, one of the world's "orphans" like North Korea and Iran.

In addition, Chinese and expatriate Chinese overseas have likewise encountered a lot of injustice and unfairness. The Chinese are the most disunited ethnic group in the world. The Chinese in Indonesia and Malaysia, for example, have been tragically victimized and have yet to be vindicated, and have suffered long periods of discrimination with no hope of ending the injustice. They also suffer from a lack of voice, as well as a fear and reluctance to speak out in the face of violence and an unfavorable social environment.

   The international community has also ignored the Chinese in Southeast Asia. Compared to the international community's attention and intervention to stop genocides from Rwanda to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the sanctions and changes in racial issues from South Africa to Darfur, the greater suffering of the Chinese in Southeast Asia has been ignored by the world. And their home country, China, has turned a blind eye to these injustices. The nations of the world, for their own benefit, colluded with the ruling clique that persecuted the Southeast Asian Chinese and let the evils go unchecked. Many sufferings are silently buried in history, and the victims pass away with their faces in the air.

  As a result, the world's most populous ethnic group, the approximately 1.5 billion Chinese community in mainland China and overseas, has become the world's biggest voiceless and lost cause. The international activism and influence of the world's largest ethnic group is in some ways inferior to that of the Armenians, who number just over 10 million, the Iranians, who number 90 million and have been sanctioned many times, and the 40 million Kurds, who have no homeland of their own.

  Even the Tigrayans, an Ethiopian ethnic minority of only 7 million people on the fringes of the world, can organize protests of hundreds of people in faraway Canada. Whereas Chinese overseas and Chinese living/traveling abroad, thousands of times more than Tigrayans, rarely have similar protests of more than a hundred people against the situation in their own country.

   The recent Gaza conflict involving 6 million Palestinians and 10 million Israelis has attracted worldwide attention, and the issue of Palestinian human rights is a perennial focus of the world's attention. While the world's Muslims and Arabs are in active solidarity with Gaza, the world's Jews are in full support of Israel, and other communities are also concerned and taking sides.

   But the serious human rights abuses in China, which in many ways are no less serious than the suffering of the people of Gaza, and which involve hundreds of millions of people, have received little international attention, and even less international help for change in China. This is clear evidence of the loss of Chinese attention and voice.

   This is something too perverse, yet taken for granted and undeserved by the Chinese and the rest of the world. China has a long history of civilization, once as glorious as Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt and Ancient India, and more powerful than the Roman Empire and the Sabbath Empire. China's thought and culture, material inventions and spiritual creations have made remarkable contributions to human civilization. In the anti-fascist war, China, with the largest number of casualties (21 million dead, 35 million dead and disabled) and the heaviest national losses of any country in the world, helped the Allies win a victory that determined the history of human civilization.

   Today, China is suffering from world isolation; the Chinese people are living in such misery. How can it be that China and the Chinese people have no voice in the world? How unfair and absurd is this? Just because China is under the rule of the Communist Party of China (CPC), should its people and even overseas Chinese not have equal rights with other ethnic groups? Should they be denied the right to speak? Are all protests involving ethnic groups and international issues naturally unjustified?

  The answer to these questions should of course be in the negative. In reality, however, the Chinese people seem to have become "second-class citizens" of the world, persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party while their voices are stifled by other countries and ethnic groups, and their claims are denied regardless of right or wrong.

Their claims to rights are denied without regard to right or wrong. The recent discrimination in a Japanese restaurant, the dispute over a pianist in a British shopping mall, and the encounter of Chinese liberal journalist Wang Zhian in Taiwan, as well as the reactions of various parties in the aftermath of these incidents, are all vivid examples. What is more extensive and far-reaching is that the Chinese people will be discriminated against, restricted and compressed everywhere in the international arena in terms of economy, public opinion, ideology and culture, and foreign relations, and the country and the nation will shrivel up and decay under the combined effect of the dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party internally and the oppression of external forces.

   I am saddened by this. But in the face of the widespread "reverse nationalism" of China's political opponents, there is nothing I can do. I cannot change them.

   But the more than one billion Chinese Han Chinese and overseas Chinese should not be left without a home or a place to belong to, should not lose the right to speak, should not live like lonely ghosts, should not be left without a place to speak out, and should not be the object of the world's vigilance and trampling just because of the large number of people in the country.

    If the Catholic Church can develop more in China, and if the Han Chinese people and overseas Chinese, in general, become Christians or establish a close, friendly, and mutually supportive relationship with the Catholic Church, they will have a place to belong, an ethnic identity, and a platform to speak out.

  The various ethnic groups in various countries prevent the construction of the Han nation and stigmatize the Han and Chinese. But if these Chinese, Han Chinese, overseas Chinese, become your members, become Catholics, become Christians of various Christian denominations, and speak out about their history, situation, and demands as Catholics/Christians, perhaps there will not be so much resistance, and they will be able to integrate into the world's mainstream society, and in particular, to integrate closely with the developed, democratic, and progressive Western countries, which are predominantly based on the Christian faith. In this way, the suffering sons and daughters of China will have a place to return to, and will no longer be "orphans of the world". They have become God's people, glorious Christians, how glorious and secure.

    In recent years, I have been thinking about the future of the Chinese people, the Han Chinese people, and the Chinese people of the world, especially the future of the middle and lower Han Chinese people. Communism is bankrupt; Han nationalism is hostile to the whole world and suppressed by various forces inside and outside China. Even if China realizes freedom and democracy, the Han Chinese will still be hostile and under siege because of their huge population and enormous potential; the road to freedom and democracy is far away, and even if it is realized, it will not be able to really improve the lot of the lower and middle classes and satisfy their material and spiritual needs; social democracy/democratic socialism, which seems to be beautiful but lacks feasibility, and there is no really strong force to realize it; secularism values and identity, lack of cohesion and solidarity; Islam is relatively closed and fundamentalist, while Buddhism and Taoism lack discipline and organization ......

  Thus, conversion to Christianity became the optimal choice for Chinese Han Chinese and overseas Chinese. Catholicism, which is dominated by the Holy See, is the sect of Christianity that has the most complete system of religious theories, the largest scale, and the widest influence among the various sects of Christianity. And Pope Francis, nowadays, is quite friendly to China and also holds the values of progressivism. Obviously, the Chinese people should embrace Catholicism and accept God's grace.

   This requires not only the active participation of the Chinese people, but also the openness of the Catholic Church. From Mr. Matteo Ricci's visit to China, to the Christian people's repayment of grudges with kindness after the Boxer Rebellion, these deep kindnesses and friendships will not be forgotten. We will not forget these deep friendships. On the other hand, the Chinese, the Han Chinese, adopted a policy of "de-Christianization" for the sake of their own ethnic interests and values during the Republic of China period, which led to the isolation of the country and the people under the Japanese invasion and the Chinese Communist Party's tyrannical rule, and this was our mistake, a big mistake. I have already mentioned this, but I would like to mention it again here and apologize to you for the "de-Christianization" policy back then. I am not a politician or a descendant of the decision-makers of those years, but as a Chinese, I have the responsibility to express to you my sincere apologies and the remorse of an atheist.

  It is written in the Bible, "O Lord, thou art by nature good, and willing to forgive, and hast abundant charity to all that call upon thee (Psalm 86:5)." I suppose that both God and the Pope, as well as the good priests and nuns, will forgive the Chinese and their descendants who were once alienated from Christianity.

   I am an atheist, a secularist, and a nationalist. But I care more about the well-being of my compatriots and the rise and fall of the nation than I do about ideologies and beliefs, and I don't want to see the people suffer or the country crumble.

   I also gradually figured out that due to interests and competition, the Han Chinese, the world's largest ethnic group. It is guarded and rejected by the whole world, resolutely besieged and suppressed by other ethnic groups within China and by foreign countries (especially neighboring countries and regions). No country or nation in this world is willing to support the independence and freedom of the Han people, an ethnic group of 1.5 billion people. On the contrary, all countries have their own self-interested reasons for suppressing it, suppressing its nationalistic sentiments, not allowing it to build a credible community, and doing whatever they can to achieve their repressive goals.

   But can't the 1.5 billion Han Chinese in mainland China and overseas Chinese have a real organization, a community? Is a large number of people the original sin? Must they live like lonely souls and wild ghosts with no one to turn to, oppressed by the Chinese Communist Party and stigmatized by other ethnic groups and enemy countries? Are Chinese people, Han Chinese, only to be the world's "human batteries", to be utilized and consumed as production tools? This is obviously not right.

   If all Han Chinese people become Christians, so that they can be happy and live in safety, peace and dignity in the future, then of course I would like to see that happen, and I don't care whether it is achieved by converting to a religion or by adhering to secularism. Nor do I care whether their primary identity is that of a religious believer or a member of an ethnic group.

   The Yongli Emperor in the late Ming Dynasty wrote to the then Pope Alexander VII, promising to return all of China to God. The relationship between Christianity and China has had its ups and downs over the centuries as China has gone through many trials and changes. When Catholicism/Christianity flourished in China, the people of China enjoyed more prosperity and happiness, culture, religion and science developed better, and friendly relations were maintained with the civilized and developed countries of the world; when the Chinese were alienated or even hostile to Catholicism/Christianity, the country suffered disasters, and normal exchanges with the outside world were cut off ("closed country"), and the country was isolated from the civilized world. When the Chinese were alienated or even hostile to Catholicism/Christianity, the country suffered catastrophes, and was cut off from normal communication with the outside world ("closed and locked"), antagonized by the civilized world, and its people were killed by brutal rulers or invaders in despair. Perhaps it is the destiny of generations of people on this land that the Chinese land should become the territory of the Catholic Church and that the Han Chinese people should become the people of God. Otherwise, all kinds of calamities will befall them.

   Not only do the Chinese (especially the Han Chinese) have a friendly relationship with the Christian Church, but the Chinese also have a long history of friendship with the Westerners (those of European descent, including those of European descent who are now living in Western and Northern Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.). In contrast to the long history of invasion, massacres, oppression, and importation of all kinds of brutal and barbaric values and behaviors by China's Han neighboring ethnic groups, Westerners have always been friends of the Chinese people. Whether it is the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the wars between the Manchus and the British and French, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the Boxer Rebellion tragedy, the Xinhai Revolution, the building of the Republic of China, the War of Resistance Against Japan, and all the way up to the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

When China was invaded and ruled by foreigners and subjected to the tyrannical treatment of autocrats, Westerners stood by the Han civilians and the vulnerable sufferers on every occasion, and contributed greatly to the overthrow of oppression, the expulsion of foreign enemies and the liberation of the Chinese people, especially the Han people. Although Western countries and white ethnic groups, such as those in Europe and America, have also committed such evils as colonialism and racial oppression, and inflicted great harm on the people of the Third World. However, in recent decades, the West has been the beacon of the civilized world and the region that is most solicitous of human rights and fraternity. And Chinese Han Chinese/Overseas Chinese have long been similar to the West in their pursuit of rationality, civilization, and technology. Han Chinese/Chinese can be said to be the "Westerners of the East", and Westerners are the eternal friends of Han Chinese/Chinese.

   I am certainly not a racist, nor do I believe in white supremacy. However, based on universal values and human rights progress, the West has been a beacon of civilization in recent centuries. Human rights in China and most of Asia, on the other hand, are abysmal. This is an objective and obvious fact that only dictators and liars deny.

   Now Chinese Han Chinese and overseas Chinese are once again facing desperate situations and disasters, and perhaps once again need more help from the West. And since the identities of Westerners and Christians are highly overlapping, I hope that white Westerners, Christians, will continue the salvation spirit of Christianity and Western civilization to help the suffering and defenseless Chinese people.

   I also hope that the Western Christian world can establish a closer relationship with Chinese civil society, so that the Chinese people, who are on an "island" and are being oppressed by the Chinese Communist regime and foreign anti-Chinese forces (not anti-communist or non-anti-Chinese forces), can establish a friendly, extensive, and inextricably linked relationship with civilized and progressive international forces, so that the Chinese people will never again be isolated and alone. So that the Chinese people will never again suffer in isolation, loneliness and solitude, but will live happily with all ethnic groups in the world family.

   The past is not admonished, but the future can be pursued. I sincerely implore His Holiness Pope Francis, the Holy See, the Catholic Church in China and around the world, and other branches of Christianity, to help, save, and protect the Chinese people, the Han Chinese people, and the Chinese around the world. The lack of faith and the emptiness of the heart of the Chinese people are in need of a virtuous faith to fill them. And traditional Chinese Confucianism, Mohism, Taoism, and Legalism can in fact be integrated and coexist with Christian values, promoting the improvement of these doctrines of thought and making Christian values richer and more inclusive.

   More than 9 million square kilometers of non-Christian land, more than a billion atheists who have not converted to religion (or only plainly pantheistic believers), is the very fertile ground for evangelism and the potential to make Catholic power and Christian civilization flourish again in the 21st century. From the corner of Jerusalem, to the old Roman Empire being all Christian, to the pioneering in Latin America and Africa ...... Today there is only one place, China, that has yet to be widely converted. And the rapid growth of Catholicism/Christianity in South Korea and the sudden increase in the number of Christians (which has grown more than tenfold in the last 30 years) shows that evangelization in East Asia can be successful and have great rewards. The Chinese people are more spiritually empty and in need of the shelter of organizational strength, and your arrival is as good a match as any.

   Of course, how exactly to convert the Chinese people to Catholicism in general, and how Catholicism can help the Chinese people. This is another complex topic that cannot be discussed in detail in this letter. Especially with the Chinese Communist Party's strong ban on religious and civic self-organization, how to promote the development of Catholicism in China and how to give the Catholic Church in China greater autonomy is extremely difficult. But the matter lies in how much attention and effort is put into it. As the Chinese thinker Mr. Lu Xun said, "There is no road in the world, but when there are more people walking through it, there is naturally a road." Thorns can be removed, and roads can be opened up.

  There is a good breakthrough now. Due to the economic recession and deteriorating social environment caused by the bad policies of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in recent years, Chinese people are now traveling to foreign countries on a large scale for political asylum. The popular Chinese term for this is "Run". Many Chinese have flown to the Pope's native Latin America, from where they have traveled long distances to the United States by car and on foot. Others have traveled from China or Southeast Asia, transited through Eastern Europe, such as Serbia, and then traveled on foot, by car, or by air to Western and Northern Europe. They often dumped their families' money or even borrowed money for the journey to escape, as a way to pay for the journey. And they were often traumatized, poor, unorganized and helpless. Many of them were also women with children in exile, who were subject to even more humiliation and danger. They are in dire need of reliable, comprehensive help that does not require dignified repayment.

   Because of the lack of a reliable community for both Chinese and overseas Chinese, these people face all kinds of insecurity and hardship even if they manage to reach the United States and Europe. The poor social security conditions in the United States, in particular, make it easier for many Chinese exiles who have just entered the United States to suffer and be cheated. Some evil organizations and ill-intentioned people will even take advantage of them and lead them astray. This makes these people, who have just escaped from the "tiger's mouth" of dictatorship, enter a new "wolf's den".

  If Pope Francis, the Holy See, and the Catholic Church were to give targeted care and help to these Chinese refugees fleeing mainland China, it would be like seeing a lighthouse in the dark night, finding bread in hunger, or finding a sweet spring in the desert for these exiles, especially women and children. If the Catholic Church had made a statement clearly expressing its concern for the Chinese refugees, and if the priests and nuns had organized them, they could have been saved from harm. Those who are rescued and organized will not be deceived and led astray in the United States, and will be spared all kinds of avoidable trouble and harm.

  Further, as you spread the gospel, you can teach them knowledge, logic, and reason, including all kinds of common sense as modern citizens. You should sow the content of civic education in developed countries to these newly arrived Chinese refugees, so that they can acquire knowledge, a sense of civic responsibility, morality and conscience. All of these things, which are prevalent in normal developed countries, are missing from Chinese education. But Chinese society values order and has traditionally valued education, merely distorted by the Chinese Communist Party's ride-along hijacking. Chinese people are hardworking and studious, if you are willing to educate and pay for it, you will surely be well rewarded.

   And these people who receive help can spread the word to more people to join the Catholic Church (or not become believers but establish ties with the Catholic Church). They will also become a useful force to help the rescuers, to connect China with the free world, and to promote social change and human rights progress in China. And the Chinese people's strengths of hard work, simplicity, innovation and creativity, when freed from the shackles and distortions of the Chinese Communist Party's yoke, will be restored to a splendor that will amaze the world.

   I also know that today Pope Francis and the Catholic Church have been doing just that to help the Chinese people. There are also tens of millions of Catholics and other Christians in China who have basked in God's grace. But it is still not enough in relation to the wider population and the deep suffering, the crisis ahead. That is why I have written this letter, to tell of the various concrete sufferings of the Chinese people, of the unspeakable mysteries, and to express the hope that the Holy See will pay more attention to the affairs of China, so that the Chinese people in the darkness will see hope and be given a life preserver.

   Perhaps you think that some of my statements have over-exaggerated the suffering of China and the helplessness of the Chinese people. In particular, the international isolation faced by the Chinese, the Han Chinese, may seem exaggerated to outsiders. But if you are willing to take a closer look at China's domestic reality and Chinese diplomacy, and cross-check, analyze, and draw inferences from the various statements, thoughts, public and private words and deeds of people from all walks of life in China and from all walks of life in other countries about China, you will understand that what I have said is true and has not been exaggerated. The Bible says, "Nothing that is covered up will remain uncovered, and nothing that is hidden will remain hidden (Mathew 10:26)." It is only that the Chinese people are generally insensitive or have turned away from their country and nation, so people are generally silent. This is one of the specific manifestations of the social crisis in China that I stated earlier. If you know the situation of the rural population in areas such as Hebei Province, which has the highest relative concentration of Christians in China, you will know that what I have said is not false, and that the reality is even more saddening than what I have described.

 The Bible says, "Do not let charity or honesty leave you; it will be tied around your neck and engraved on your heart (Proverbs 3:3)." The reason why I paint a colorful picture of the suffering and injustice of my countrymen is because I am sensitive to the suffering of my compatriots, and I have personally experienced humiliation and despair, and seen all kinds of lies and insidiousness. Therefore, I am more emotionally attached to the accusation of ugliness, and I am also more eager to change the reality of injustice and unrighteousness.