Investigative Report on the Background of CCTV's "Singing the Same Song" North American Concert Tour
It was reported that the Chinese Central Television (CCTV)'s special concert performance "Singing the Same Song" will tour North America, with performance sites including Toronto, Canada; New York and Los Angeles, USA [1].
The background of "Singing the Same Song" and the performance
"Singing the Same Song" was created in 1990, with lyrics by Chen Zhe and Ying Jie, music by Meng Weidong. In 2000, CCTV, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) made a musical program with the same title and has broadcast it ever since. The theme song of the program is none other than "Singing the Same Song."
"Singing the Same Song" is a tool for CCP's ideological indoctrination
Since its production five years ago, the "Singing the Same Song" music extravaganza has become yet another CCP propaganda program designed to glorify the Party, following the annual CCTV Chinese New Year Gala. In 2004, as an important part of the CCP's political, ideological and "patriotism" indoctrination, the CCP Ministry of Propaganda, the Central Civilization Office, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture, The State Administration of Radio Film and Television, the General Administration of Press and Publication, and the Chinese Communist Youth League (CCYL) jointly recommended "The Triple Hundred" to the whole society, and the theme song in "Singing the Same Song" was selected as one of the 100 songs for patriotism education"[2].
Even early on, "Singing the Same Song?was widely used as a major instrument in praising the CCP and its political and ideological work. On June 28, 2001, a large-scale vocal concert called "Ode to the Party" was held at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the CCP. "Singing the Same Song" was in the program together with other songs such as "Let Me Sing a Song to the Party, " "The Long March Song Suite," "Great China," and "Follow the CCP," among others. It was meant to "Let people experience from the song the difficult yet glorious path that CCP has taken during its 80 years of history"[3]. In Changji College, "Singing the Same Song" was put on the website of its politics and ideology education network for online listening [4].
"Singing the Same Song" is part of brainwashing process in persecuting Falun Gong
Since the CCP started nationwide persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, "Singing the Same Song" has played an important role in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, as well as having become a symbol of accomplishment and celebration by CCP officials and police in the brutal brainwashing and "transformation" of Falun Gong practitioners. According to information provided by practitioners who have suffered brainwashing in forced labor camps [5], in addition to the testimony from practitioners who have left Mainland China [6], this song was an indispensable part both in the process and completion of the brainwashing to force practitioners into renouncing their belief. The flaunting statement from the CCP propaganda office on the effectiveness of brainwashing has validated the affidavits of the victims.
Part of the lyrics from "Singing the Same Song" was used at the end of a special program produced by CCTV on reforming Falun Gong practitioners by Bao Kun, a Lugouqiao community deputy from the Fengtai District of Beijing [7]. In video tape archived at the Beijing Bureau of Reeducation-through-labor Administration, there was footage of prison guards and practitioners singing that song together during a brainwashing session [8]. As part of the brainwashing process, on March 8, 2002, International Women's Day, the All-China Women's Federation organized "March 8th Red Flag Holders" (that is, model female workers) from all over the country to pay a tribute to the police at the Xin-an Forced Labor Camp under the Beijing Bureau of Reeducation-through-labor Administration. One of the programs was "Singing the Same Song" sung by detained practitioners along with those "March 8th Red Flag Holders"[9]. On January 22, 2001, in a forced labor camp in Daxing County, Beijing, more than one hundred Falun Gong practitioners, who were forcibly detained for brainwashing and transformation, were gathered to perform "Singing the Same Song" together [10].
"Singing the Same Song" brings back extremely painful memory for the Falun Gong practitioners who experienced persecution in the brainwash camps. According to a report by the NGO "China Mental Health Watch," a human rights group based in the USA, psychiatric health experts did some preliminary surveys among some Falun Gong practitioners who had been tortured in forced labor camps in China. The survey showed that even after living in a democratic and free country for a while, some after two to three years, they still have symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), including nightmares, insomnia, disturbing memories of the torture, reaction to events and objects around them that bring back the memories, and induced withdrawal and self-protection reaction. [11]
Transformation through brainwashing is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s most significant method and objective in the persecution of Falun Gong. Among the Falun Gong practitioners who were injured or killed during the persecution, most of them were persecuted because they refused to be "transformed." The "transformation" quota passed down from the central leadership of the CCP forces Falun Gong practitioners to face the genocide-style persecution of "either be transformed and suffer spiritual death or refuse to be transformed and suffer physical death." A report from the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) exposed in detail the policy, implementation, and consequences of transformation through brainwashing [12]. During the first few years of persecuting Falun Gong, the CCP's massive amount of propaganda on transformation and effectiveness of the transformation clearly demonstrated to the worldwide community that it is truly a persecution targeting faith and belief. Because of this, Liu Jing, director of the ?10 Office?of the Central Committee of the CCP and Deputy Minister of Public Security, during an internal speech in June 2005, formally proposed to "Avoid the word transformation" in order "to create a better external environment for our reform and open up."[13]
"Singing the Same Song" is a tool of the unified war of global ideology based on cultural format deployed by the CCP
On October 26, 2005, Chen Weiyuan, editor of State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs wrote in his article "What the 'Chinese-French Cultural Year' Had Brought to Us," "The success of the Chinese-French Cultural Year is quite an inspiration for our overseas propaganda work. Taking the approach of cultural exchange in overseas propaganda will have a far-reaching and lasting effect and will be well received by the target nation" Culture is a "soft" component of our nation's power. Cultural diplomacy is a "soft" dissemination of our nation's will. Compared with economical diplomacy and political diplomacy, cultural diplomacy is able to have our target audience unknowingly accept (our propaganda). Such cultural infiltration through subtle influence cannot be underestimated [14].
The research group of "The research on efficient foreign propaganda?of Xinhua News Agency believes "The main targets of foreign propaganda should be the middle and upper class in the target countries, including politicians, people in business circles and intellectuals because they control either the political or the economic power and have the influence on the policy and pubic opinion of those countries. Based on our unique characteristics, our media outlets responsible for foreign propaganda should focus on the mainstream media in the target countries; we should strengthen the communications and collaboration with them. Especially, we should make friends with the dignitaries of foreign media. We should have intimate relationship with them, and execute well our foreign propaganda with their help."
"Moreover, overseas Chinese and Chinese students studying abroad are another group of people deserving attention from our overseas propaganda" Presently, there are over tens of millions of overseas Chinese and Chinese students studying abroad; many of them have become part of the mainstream society, sometimes were even quite influential elites. Foreigners generally learn about China through overseas Chinese. Therefore, overseas Chinese will provide the bridging and proliferation effect.[15] Thus is the clear and naked exposure of the intention of the CCP foreign propaganda to strategically infiltrate foreign nations, attempting to unify the whole world with their ideology.
"Singing the Same Song" is exported overseas as an important part of the CCP's strategic effort to ideologically infiltrate foreign countries with Party culture and indoctrination
In early 2005 during the American inaugural performance of "Singing the Same Song," local Chinese Americans were invited to sing together with the singers on stage. In the Silicon Valley performance, more than 20 engineers sang "My China Heart" with singer Zhang Mingmin [16]. During this year's tour in the U.S., they intend to invite more than 100 local Chinese Americans to sing "I and My Motherland" on stage.
CCP did not just use "Singing the Same Song" to brainwashing more than 1 billion Chinese in Mainland China, the song is also an important tool used to extend and continue the brainwashing, instigate "patriotism," and incite extreme nationalism among overseas Chinese.
Sabotaging NTDTV Chinese New Year Global Gala is CCP's Predetermined Policy
New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV) started organizing its "Chinese New Year Global Gala" in 2004, and received very warm response from the overseas Chinese community. Its impact also reached Mainland China. The communist authorities see NTDTV and other independent media that dare to speak out and refuse to be bribed as the largest threat to the regime and its global campaign of strategic ideological indoctrination. Meanwhile, NTDTV's Chinese New Year Gala shakes the monopoly of the much criticized and continually degenerating "Spring Festival Gala" by state-run Chinese Central Television (CCTV). On December 16, 2003, China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television sent an urgent, secret, encrypted telegram to the provincial-level Radio Film and Television bureaus all over the country and passed down the directives from "leader from the Central Committee of the CCP" that, in regard to the NTDTV Inaugural Chinese New Year Global Gala in preparation, "try to knock off, and if not possible to block it, try to minimize its impact, guard against its interference to the 'Spring Festival Gala.'" [17]
In January 2004, political news consul Zhou Xiaomei from the General Consulate of China in Los Angeles wrote letters to some well-known people in the United States and asked them not to accept any interviews by NTDTV regarding the Chinese New Year Global Gala [18]. On February 9, 2004, Wang Lili, group leader of the CCP's Central Bureau of Discipline Supervision and Investigation in the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, emphasized in a speech given at the CCP's 2004 annual work meeting that the Inaugural Chinese New Year Global Gala by NTDTV in New York and other cities is "to confront the CCTV's Spring Festival Gala"[19]. During October 19 to 20, 2004, Bureau 26 of the Ministry of Public Security (a working bureau set up specifically for the persecution of Falun Gong), called a meeting in Shenzhen of the directors of 610 Offices of the Public Security Bureaus of nine provinces and cities, to arrange for special case investigations of the three big media: The Epoch Times, New Tang Dynasty Television, and the Sound of Hope Radio Network. [20]
Based on the background provided above, there is no coincidence about the time and location of the CCTV "Singing the Same Song" performance. Not only is the New York show scheduled at the same venue as the NTDTV Gala, but also on consecutive dates.
Related Organizations and Groups
Organizer: China Central Television, Sino International Culture Co.
Sponsor: Chamber of Commerce of Wenzhou, Zhejiang in the USA
Producer: New York Columbia Production and Performance Company
Reference
(Back)
[1] Duoweinews.com reported on December 23, 2005(Back)
[2] Xinhua.net reported(Back)
[3] In the 23rd Issue of 2001 Weekly Watch compiled by the USTC president office (the general 500th Issue)(Back)
[4] "The Same Song" online video and audio section, ideology and politics network of the Changji College(Back)
[5] March 18, 2003 report on Minghui Net.(Back)
[6] "Victim exposed 'Singing the Same Song'", The Epoch Times, January 6, 2006] http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/6/1/6/n1180071.htm (Back)
[7] CCTV Special News Report on June 18, 2001(Back)
[8] "Reporter's Diary--Tracing 'Falun Gong' Practitioners" by Xinhua News Agency reporter Chen Chang, 2001 ?2003, MingJing Net: (Back)
[9] March 9, 2002, China-Woman Net (Back)
[10] CCTV's Special News Report (Back)
[11] Falun Dafa Information Center, "A open letter from 'China Mental Health Watch'to the World Health Organization (WTO)" (http://chinese.faluninfo.net/fdi/gb/2004/1/8/32509.htm) (Back)
[12] "World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong" (WOIPFG) April 28, 2004 "The Destruction of Mind and Body Through Brainwash - Investigation Report" http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/node/123 English: http://www.upholdjustice.org/node/60 October 9, 2004 "Investigative Report on Brainwashing Classes and Brainwashing Methods" http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/node/403 English: http://www.upholdjustice.org/node/136 (Back)
[13] Reference: Speech Records by Liu Jing June 30, 2005(Back)
[14] China.net: October 26, 2005(Back)
[15] "World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong" (WOIPFG) Report on the CCP's Foreign Propaganda System, Ideology Infiltration and Spreading Hatred http://www.upholdjustice.org/node/185 (Back)
[16] NETEASE February 4, 2005 (Back)
[17] "World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong" (WOIPFG) Data Bank. (Back)
[18] "World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong" (WOIPFG) Data Bank. (Back)
[19] February 9, 2004, speech by Wang Lili at the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television of PR of China 2004 annual work meeting. (Back)
[20] "World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong" (WOIPFG) Data Bank
