The Daily Signal - ‘China Is in a Challenging Moment Right Now,’ Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation President Says

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

More than 100 million people.  That’s how many people “communism as an ideology has killed,” says Andrew Bremberg, president of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.  “I just want that to sink in. That is an incredible number to try to fathom or … imagine,” Bremberg, a former ambassador, says, adding:  And that includes not just [Josef] Stalin and the tens of millions killed under Stalin’s brutal regime at the [Union of Soviet Socialist Republics], but also Mao Zedong, the … deadliest mass murderer ever, in terms of his leadership of the Chinese Communist Party that saw the murder of upward, conservatively upward of 60 million people.Bremberg joins today’s episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which received The Heritage Foundation’s Innovation Prize earlier this year; its China Studies Program; and whether it’s possible for the U.S. to move away from or lessen its economic reliance on China. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Communism as an ideology has killed more than 100 million people. I just want that to sink in. That is an incredible number to try to fathom and imagine. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, September 5th. I'm Samantha Sherris, and that was Ambassador Andrew Bramberg, president of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Ambassador Bremburg joins today's show to tell us a little more about the victims of communism Memorial Foundation. if it's possible for the U.S. to move away from or lessen its reliance on China, and if so, how we do that, and much more.

We'll get to my conversation with Ambassador Brimberg right after this. As conservatives, sometimes it feels like we're constantly on defense against bad ideas. Bad philosophy, revisionist history, junk science, and divisive politics. But here's something I've come to understand. When faced with bad ideas, it's not enough to just defend. defend. If we want to save this country, then it's time to go on offense. Conservative principles are ideas that work, individual responsibility, strong local communities, and belief in the American dream. As a former college professor and current president of the Heritage Foundation,

my life's mission is to learn, educate, and take action. My podcast, The Kevin Roberts Show, is my opportunity to share that journey with you. I'll be diving into the critical issues that plague our nation, having deep conversations with high-profile guests, some of whom may surprise you. And I want to ensure freedom for the next generation. Find the Kevin Roberts Show, wherever you get your podcast. Today, I have the honor of welcoming Ambassador Andrew Bremberg to the Daily Signal podcast. Ambassador Bremberg serves as the president of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which was awarded the Heritage Foundation's Innovation Prize earlier this year for its China Studies program. Thank you so much for joining us today, Ambassador.

Thanks for having me. So to kick us off, can you tell us a little bit about the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation? Absolutely. We are an education nonprofit that was actually chartered by the Congress back in 1993, when we thought all the victims of communism were in the past, basically. And since then, we've strived to educate Americans about the history and victims of communism. throughout its century of totalitarian brutality. Of course, not only under the Soviet Union that dominated central and eastern Europe

for the latter half of last century, but unfortunately, as we see today, the resurgent, even more deadly Chinese Communist Party that is really becoming much more aggressive, not only in terms of human rights violations in his own country, but its diplomatic approach in the region and around the world. Absolutely. And as I mentioned in my intro, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation was awarded the Heritage Foundation's Innovation Prize for your China Studies program. Can you tell us a little bit more about the China Studies program itself?

Yeah. So our China program is led by Dr. Adrian Zenz, who is the, I would say, the top world expert on what is happening in Xinjiang in the northwestern region of China. their ethnic minority practices and issues around forced labor. So that's his area of specialty. And in leading our program, he has done groundbreaking research over the last several years documenting how the policies put in place by the CCP, particularly in Xinjiang, constitute a genocide. You and your listeners may recall right at the end of the Trump administration, Secretary of Pompeo made a legal determination that a genocide was happening in

Jing-Jang, and actually Secretary Blinken, when he took over, reaffirmed that decision. So this is a bipartisan observation that, in fact, a genocide is taking place. And the largest area of body of research they used for that determination was the work done by our foundation by Dr. Adrian Zenz. So since then, the continued work has just been, you know, amazing to see. Last year, we began publishing what we're called the Xinjiang police files. The largest hack of its kind had taken place of Xinjiang police stations in Western China. And we were not the hackers, but we were the recipients of this, you know, tens of thousands of files.

If you imagine, what would you get if you hacked a prison? And we started releasing that last year, including the first photos ever from inside the detention camp. previously undisclosed speeches by senior government and senior party leadership that they clearly show they were acutely aware and in fact directing the activities taking place in Xinjiang, as well as, and this is just so surreal, personally identifiable information, including biometric information on hundreds of thousands of individuals that had been processed in Xinjiang, you know, examined for detention, and put together. So this year, as part of the work with the innovation grant, we launched what's called the Shingheng Person Finder. So we were able to take all the data we had gotten from this hack, put it in a searchable format, and allow individuals to search for their family members and loved ones and find out what was the status, at least as of the end of 2018, of their family members.

because, again, many of your listeners may not be aware, you know, in this region of Xinjiang, upwards of two million people have been detained. And typically, while it's known that they've kind of disappeared, what's actually happened to them is usually not, you know, disclosed. This is something the government keeps, you know, hidden in secret. So these files provided countless individuals of the first verifiable information on the status of their family members in years. Thank you so much for explaining that. I will certainly make sure to include a link to the Xinjiang police files in our show notes for our listeners who are interested in, you know, learning more and taking a further, deeper look into that report. As you mentioned, you know, both the Trump

administration under Secretary Pompeo and now with Secretary Blinken, you know, recognizing that there is a genocide taking place in China, is enough being done from your perspective, you know, from our leaders to address this genocide that's going on? Unfortunately not. While steps have been taken, and I always want to commend positive steps, it's far short of what is necessary. So we helped advocate and work with members of Congress and the current administration to pass the Uyghur forced labor prevention act. This was done at the end of 2021 that put a requirement on any imports into the United States that were coming from Xinjiang would basically be presumed to have been made by forced labor and be barred. Unfortunately, the implementation of this new law has been spotty. And the companies listed that would bar importation of different products is woefully insufficient.

There are many known companies that produce their materials or raw materials in Xinjiang that aren't included. And of course, there is attempts by US importers to get around these restrictions and to continue to import products that are obviously made by. forced or slave labor. I'll just add to that. This is an area of our continued research already this year. We've already published one scholarly paper and another one we expect to be coming led by Dr. Zenz that closely examines the actual forced labor practices taking place in Xinjiang, the one already published this year, compared it with the other kind of more publicly known and

understood forced labor practices that had taken place years ago in Uzbekistan and showed how the approach taken by many in the United States, our own CBP potentially, but also in European countries, basically don't adequately take into account what it looks like for people to be subjected to forced labor in a scenario that's government sponsored, right? When we think of forced labor, we typically think of the kind of sweatshop by a company that's maybe breaking the law and getting away with it. But that's a very different reality when faced with a regime that engages in forced labor mostly as a tool. of domestic, you know, civil and political control. Now, as we're talking more about the Chinese Communist Party, you brought up, you know, the resurgent, more deadly, you know, Chinese Communist Party.

And I wanted to just take a step back and just have you talk about how many people has communism killed. Well, thanks for that. Yes. So we try to broadly educate our audiences, both, you know, online, in person and visitors to our museum. I should just add last year. we launched, opened our new Victims of Communism Museum that's downtown in Washington, D.C., just two blocks north of the White House. And in all of our material, we try to educate people, because many, unfortunately, are not aware that communism as an ideology has killed more than 100 million people.

I just want that to sink in. That is an incredible number to try to fathom and imagine, and that includes not just Stalin and the tens of millions killed under Stalin's brutal regime at the USSR. but also Mao Zedong, the most deadliest mass murderer ever in terms of his leadership of the Chinese Communist Party that saw the murder of upwards, conservatively upwards of 60 million people. So that's the scope of the ideology that we are dealing with. And while many of us were either perhaps weren't even born or were children when the wall fell and it appeared as though communism was over back in 1980s. to 1991, unfortunately, we've seen under Xi Jinping quite clearly that the Chinese Communist Party has no intention of kind of migrating away or liberalizing its approach to communist ideology. And in fact, as we've seen under Xi, and particularly just in the last three years, an increasing

return to its kind of Maoist, most kind of brutal communist roots. I'm so glad that you brought up the museum because that is something that I did want to highlight for our listeners. This museum was open last year, so definitely recommend checking it out if you're ever in the D.C. area. Just to go back to the work of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, if you could speak to, you know, some of the people, some of the victims that you've met through, you know, the different work that you've been able to do and the foundation has been able to do. Oh, wow. I mean, it's been incredible. the first temporary gallery exhibit that we hosted at our museum when we opened last year was of the Tiananmen Square Massacre from 1989.

That exhibit was really emotionally very powerful. We had Chinese Americans, you know, and Chinese dissidents that had fled China after 1989, many of whom had been arrested and released and then made it to the United States come together to help put together an incredible exhibit of their own personal effects. tents from the square, you know, banners that as college students, they, you know, were waving, as the tanks rolled in and killed thousands of thousands of people. So that was an incredible. Working with the Uyghur diaspora and the Uyghur community has been really, you know, heart-wrenching. These are individuals, most of whom, you know, either had been studying, working, traveling out of China, out of the region, but had most of their family members still in Xinjiang and the heart-wrenching stories that we've seen of what's happened to their family members. It's just been pretty, truly incredible. One individual, our website, we have a video that tells her story. Her name is Noreman.

She is a Uyghur and had not heard from her family in years. Of course, she had known kind of generally what had happened, but actually just last year when using our search tool, in examining the kind of hacked Xinjiang police files, she was able to confirm exactly when and where her family had been detained. So it's been horrific to see the personal stories. Just this spring I testified in a house around the plight of political prisoners in China

and that the US needs to do much more standing up for political prisoners than ensuring their release. And I would just also add, This has been a focused area of our research as well has been the issue of organ harvesting. This is a topic many people are not familiar with, and when they hear about it, kind of want to not even think about it because it sounds so horrific. But this is a practice that the Chinese Communist Party has been engaged in for years, where mostly either religious or ethnic minorities or political prisoners are taken and their organs are harvested. And while this was a practice that the regime kind of grudgingly admitted to, they might have been engaged in the past. They've since said they are not.

And one area our research has focused on recently has been to demonstrate in the data that this is obviously a lie. One paper, one of our fellows just published last year, went through, you know, Chinese medical journals. So these are their own medical journals that their doctors are publishing talking about how they've perceived. storm surgeries, what they've done. And when made clear in the journal publications was that their practices had turned transplant surgeons into executioners, that the methods they were using to harvest organs were, you was clear by the methodology. They weren't waiting for someone who had maybe had died, you know, from a disease or a car accident, but they were in fact executing these prisoners. As we've been discussing, I mean, just the human rights record

alone of the Chinese Communist Party is atrocious. And then we look at the communist regime's aggression toward Taiwan, its role in the COVID-19 pandemic. And yet it's the world's second largest economy. Is it possible for the U.S. to move away from or lessen its reliance on China? And if so, how do we do that? Yeah, without a doubt, it is certainly possible and is definitely in our interest to do so. I mean, we have to recognize it will be a challenge, but China is in a challenging moment right now. As they have clamped down on their own citizens and in their own economy, they are struggling economically. So kind of now is the time to make those important decisions to basically de-leverage our relationship with them and make it on a much more

sustainable path. We were never economically integrated with any country like the Soviet Union or anything like that to the degree we are with China. And we certainly can make those changes. And I think some of that work has been done. We're really proud of the work we've done to help support the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and what they're doing right now. And they've made recommendations that really go to this. And I think that's going to be an important place for U.S. foreign policy going forward. But I just want to touch on you. You mentioned both COVID and the experience dealing with China and COVID and human rights. When I was posted, as the U.S. ambassador to the UN in Geneva. That was the front line for the WHO, and unfortunately,

the terrible lies that the Chinese government was telling their own citizens, other countries, and the international community. And in both those cases, dealing with them in the context of the WHO and in the context of the Human Rights Council. This is something that not just the United States needs to take a leadership role in addressing, but other countries need to kind of wake up and realize this is a regime that you can't trust and is lying to you. It's lying to you about what they did and didn't know with regards to, you know, the origins of the COVID virus coming, how it came out through Wuhan. It's lying about their human rights record. And this is something that, you know, countries don't hold them accountable for it. Now, I should say, you know, sure, the challenge

of the Chinese Communist Party can be, you know, a little scary to some people. But, you know, they're, they're not 20 feet tall. They, they are imperfect individuals running their own regime and they respond to pushback. And it's a failure of U.S. leadership and of other countries' leadership to ensure that we push back when they misbehave. And just one quick example of that that I think was a real loss was, you know, China had agreed when Hong Kong was turned over back to mainland China that would abide by a system called one country but two systems, implying explicitly that Hong Kong would maintain its sense of self-governance. And of course, we saw at the height of the pandemic in 2020, when the world is on fire dealing with this virus

that China helped get out, that's the moment it chose to implement this national security law and crush any semblance of kind of democratic self-rule in Hong Kong. And the concern is, you know, you mentioned Taiwan as well, what is the message China heard from the United States or from other countries in response to such a blatant violation of its own international legal commitments. And it was largely silence, or, you know, as I joked sometimes, a sternly worded letter. And that's the type of leadership had changed. We need to see both the United States and around the world that when a communist regime like China that understands, you know, the language of power acts out that way, there need to be consequences to those actions so that we can deter,

much more dangerous actions that could ever lead us to any sort of actual military confrontation or hot war. So I just want to make that point. I think the diplomacy and the window for that right now with China is so important right now that we need to be showing them that certain actions will just not be tolerated. Absolutely. Ambassador Brimberg, just before we go, I wanted to ask how our audience members can follow along with the work of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation? Great. Yes. Please check out our website at Victims of Communism.com. We also have the Xinjiang Police Files, which has its own website, as you mentioned. And then you can

follow us on all the social media platforms, particularly, I guess, Twitter or now X, which is at VO communism. Awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your insight and thank you so much for joining the show today. Great. Thank you. And that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to my interview with Ambassador Andrew Bremberg, president of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. If you enjoyed our interview and want to hear more, make sure you subscribe to the Daily Signal, wherever you get your podcasts, and help us reach even more listeners by leaving a five-star rating and review. We read and appreciate all of your feedback. Thanks again for listening. Have a great Tuesday, and we'll be back with you all this afternoon

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