The 'Harmony, Reason, Proper, Us' Evil Wind Rises Again

Criticizing "Peaceful, Rational, and Non-violent" (PRN) does not mean denying all forms of peaceful expression, nor does it mean denying the value of public protests, satirical dissemination, non-cooperation, strikes, boycotts, and organizational mobilization. What truly needs to be criticized is the packaging of "non-violence" from a usable tool into the only correct path; the sanctification of "restraint" from a tactical stage into a political belief; and the disguising of "non-retaliation" from a reality of powerlessness into a moral high ground.

The biggest problem with this path is not that it is moderate, but that it often demands that all anti-CCP figures be moderate together; not that the individual does not act, but that it seeks to define the boundaries for the entire resistance movement; not that the individual chooses a low-risk path, but that it stigmatizes and cuts off more intense, more realistic, and more deterrent paths. This has already happened: students in the June Fourth movement, and even Liu Xiaobo, who won the Nobel Peace Prize, went to great lengths to distance themselves from violence. This is a true reflection of this generation of intellectuals' lack of social contact.

This is no longer a difference in path; this is strategic castration.

However, recently this narrative of "complete PRN" has begun to spread again on Chinese social media. We can feel that there are pushers behind this. As for who the pushers are, I believe the veteran readers of Fanzei.net naturally know. We have long said that the CCP's united front system is multi-layered, often dividing and suppressing anti-CCP forces by supporting one side to suppress the other. Just as we always emphasize, violent revolution or armed anti-CCP factions will never suppress and instead encourage non-violent resistance movements, but why do these organizations or individuals who advocate for non-violent resistance often demand that all anti-CCP figures abandon violence and arms?

As Eric from the V-Letter Journey pointed out in the recent "Beijing Dialogue," it is not that non-violence has no value, but that cases of so-called "purely non-violent success" in history are often overly packaged by later theoretical promoters. The fall of Milošević, the Egyptian Revolution, and the ousting of Marcos in the Philippines were not achieved solely through holding signs, marching, singing, and flowers, but included complex factors such as economic collapse, external conflicts, the shaking of the regime's violent machinery, street clashes, and the restraint of armed forces. Erasing all these complex factors and leaving only the propaganda slogan of "non-violent victory" is essentially a political movement of creating gods. The fact that this unauditable rhetoric is used by the PRN faction for worship shows the irrationality and impracticality of the PRN faction. Eric was not unfair in his previous articles when he criticized this behavior as "vase-style protest."

The most common argument used by the PRN faction is that violence causes the movement to lose the support of ordinary people, and only non-violence can expand the mass base. However, what I saw in the "Beijing Dialogue" livestream was that many people supported violent revolution, pointing out that non-violence is completely ineffective against the CCP. I ask these activists who advocate for "complete non-violence": can your rhetoric truly unite the greatest number of resistors? In the June Fourth incident, the university students fasting on the square were indeed the resistors in the spotlight. But how many citizens and workers were not in the spotlight? What were their demands? Did you try to win them over? Could you even win them over?

In the public mobilization stage, it is indeed impossible to push all ordinary people directly toward the highest risk. The first step for many ordinary people to participate is indeed forwarding, mocking, boycotting, striking, refusing to cooperate, and low-risk non-cooperation. But the problem is that a mass base is not built on "never retaliating." A person who has encountered the CCP's iron fist, whose family has been destroyed and whose wife and children have been scattered, and an intellectual who only reads books in school, are likely to think of very different ways of resisting. The cost of resistance a university professor can bear might be the suspension of teaching, being fired by the school, or having their account banned. But the cost of resistance Yang Jia can bear is "I can die."

A mass base comes from three things: common interests, hope of victory, and a decrease in fear of the oppressor. Pure PRN can only solve the first part, and even then only a very shallow part. It can make people feel "I am also dissatisfied," but it is hard to make people believe "we can win." It can create a burst of public opinion heat, but it is hard to create fear in the regime.

This is also the problem repeatedly exposed by public events such as the White Paper Movement, the Little Rocky incident, and the Chongqing cat and dog incident: mass emotions will appear, public opinion storms will erupt, and many people will stand up in a short time, but as long as there is no organization to take over, no disciplined network, and no continuous pressure capability, once the heat of the event passes, the system only needs to delay, divide, arrest a few ringleaders, release a few explanations, and create new hotspots, and the social memory will be diluted. Time and again, public events do not exhaust the system, but rather train the system. The stability maintenance machinery learns from every crisis, knowing how to block, divide, and cool down faster next time.

Therefore, the fatal flaw of the PRN faction is not that they are "too kind," but that they understand resistance as public opinion expression, political struggle as moral display, and overthrowing the regime as enlightening the regime. Fanzei.net has also performed a certain deconstructive correction of this pan-moralized narrative of anti-CCP activity. For example, we actively embrace the CCP's stigmatized label of "fanzei" (rebel) to tell the CCP that we do not care about their moralized narrative of suppression. In the Fanzei.net Manifesto, we explicitly state that we intend to "deal with rogues in a rogue-like manner, or even more rogue-like." Eric also criticized the political fastidiousness of Chinese literati in previous articles, which remains applicable today.

The CCP is not a regime that will be defeated by shame. June Fourth has already proven that it can mobilize heavy armored troops, using machine guns and tanks to suppress unarmed students and citizens. A regime that dares to fire on its own people in the streets of the capital cannot suddenly develop a moral bottom line just because you are more civilized, more polite, and more restrained. Feng Congde pointed out in his theory of "Three Narratives of June Fourth" that the long-term neglect and cutting off of the anti-violence groups of June Fourth is precisely the greatest weakness of the June Fourth commemorative narrative.

PRN also has a more realistic organizational problem: it is naturally easy to be infiltrated, manipulated, and dismantled. Because such organizations usually only have soft constraints and no hard discipline; anyone can enter and leave, anyone can speak, and anyone can use "transparency," "democratic procedures," and "moral questioning" to undermine execution. Eric spoke very directly in his article about the dilemmas of pro-democracy organizations: PRN-style groups "only have soft constraints, and no hard constraints," and facing the free entry and exit of spies and informants, internal calculations, and factional pulling, they have almost no real resistance capability; even without external force, internal strife and attrition will seriously consume the organization. Relatively speaking, Willy's comments on organization in the "Beijing Dialogue" were not as simple as those of an anti-CCP novice. This is why I emphasized at the beginning of this article that the narrative of "complete non-violence" itself is worth the vigilance of anti-CCP figures, because behind this is a logic of united front suppression. I also believe that veteran readers of Fanzei.net will never easily reveal their real names or submit passport information to anyone. I believe the awareness of veteran readers of Fanzei.net is clearly higher than that of this activist Willy.

PRN organizations often attract a large number of intellectual-type participants, and intellectual-type organizations are most prone to falling into route disputes, struggles for status, moral judgments, and mutual disdain among literati. Everyone wants to prove they are more correct, cleaner, and nobler, and in the end, no one truly bears discipline, no one truly obeys strategy, and no one truly builds an underground structure. Meetings, statements, joint signatures, and mutual accusations cycle repeatedly. It seems everyone has a point, but as a result, the entire organization has no teeth.

Even worse, the PRN faction often molds "imprisonment," "arrest," and "persecution" into an unquestionable political golden body. Sacrifice is certainly worthy of respect, but sacrifice does not equal correct judgment, imprisonment does not equal a correct path, and the status of a victim does not equal strategic capability. The CCP is most skilled at utilizing tragic narratives, and also most skilled at creating controllable opposition, controllable heroes, and controllable cracks. If an opposition force only knows how to worship suffering and does not know how to audit organizational capability, secrecy capability, and action results, it will be led by emotion time and again. Relatively speaking, Fanzei.net has always emphasized anonymization and has always urged the broad anti-CCP community not to expose themselves easily, and certainly will not encourage active self-sacrifice for imprisonment. Even if imprisoned, one can still choose anonymization to continue anti-CCP activity after release rather than using their imprisonment status to attract the spotlight. This may bring a certain amount of attention, but it is detrimental to long-term underground organizational activity.

Absolute non-violence factions have another linguistic trap: they like to equate more intense resistance paths with "terrorism," "Xianzhong," "suicide missions," or "recklessness." This is a deliberate confusion. The right to resist is not the indiscriminate killing of innocents, not the random harming of ordinary people, and not an emotionally uncontrolled social revenge. A true resistance path emphasizes organizational capacity appropriate to the stage, discipline, targets, political effects, risk control, and deterrence against the tyranny's machinery. Labeling all non-PRN paths as "violence worship" is essentially doing the CCP's work of cutting off the movement.

Another narrative liked by non-violence advocates is that a regime brought about by violent revolution will inevitably be another violent dictatorship. However, as Eric pointed out, the democratization of almost all mainstream Western democratic countries today was achieved through war or accompanied by violent resistance, assassinations, and violent street protests and demonstrations. Taiwan's democratic transition was relatively peaceful, but there were still violent factors such as Huang Wen-hsiung's assassination of Chiang. Moreover, these violent factors often played a qualitative role. Britain

The 5,000 coal miners in the Newport Uprising who petitioned with real guns and the riots in many places where prisons were set on fire made the nobles realize that 'if they are not given the right to vote, they will take our heads.' The modern democratic and free genes of the Netherlands were entirely forged with real guns and real swords from the brutal rule of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty. To resist religious persecution and excessive taxation, the Dutch shed blood for a full few generations before establishing the United Provinces of the Seven Netherlands. Although the Netherlands passed a democratic constitution drafted by Thorbecke in 1848, limiting the king's power, this was not due to the king's benevolence. It was because the entire of Europe (France, Germany, etc.) was erupting in bloody street violence at the time, and Dutch King William II publicly admitted that he had 'turned from a conservative to a liberal overnight' – he compromised out of fear of the bloody revolutions in neighboring countries. Before Japan passed the Universal Suffrage Law (limited to males) in 1925, several large-scale riots broke out in Japan. For example, the Rice Riots of 1918, which involved tens of millions of people nationwide, saw citizens set fire to government offices and the homes of wealthy merchants. The military and police opened fire, causing dozens of deaths and thousands of arrests, directly leading to the fall of the cabinet at the time and forcing the ruling class to compromise with mass democracy. In 1854, Australian gold miners, in protest against the colonial government's tyrannical taxation system and to fight for suffrage and the abolition of property restrictions, built barricades, raised the 'Eureka Flag' (the symbolic totem of the Australian democratic movement today), and engaged in fierce battles with British colonial troops. This conflict resulted in the deaths of at least 22 miners and 6 soldiers. This bloodshed thoroughly shook the colonial government and directly led to the reform in Victoria in 1856, granting universal suffrage to white males. In 1847, seven Catholic cantons in Switzerland, which were conservative and opposed to the establishment of a unified democratic federation, formed an illegal alliance. To establish a modern, democratic federal state, Swiss progressives decisively launched a civil war. Although the scale of this war was not large, it still caused nearly a hundred deaths and hundreds of injuries. It was through this 'real gun and real sword' civil war that Switzerland passed a new constitution in 1848, establishing its modern democratic system. In 1931, due to escalating labor-capital conflicts, Norwegian police and military used force to suppress demonstrating workers, even deploying warships and aircraft for deterrence. It was this series of bloodshed and resistance from the lower classes that forced the Norwegian ruling class to reach the famous Hovedavtalen (Basic Agreement) in 1935, laying the foundation for Norway's modern parliamentary democracy and welfare state. The legitimacy of the modern Italian Republic directly stems from the Italian Resistance Movement at the end of World War II. At that time, thousands of Italian partisans (including civilians, workers, and women) engaged in desperate armed struggle against the remnants of the Nazis and fascists in northern Italy, with over 40,000 partisans sacrificing their lives in combat. It was not until 1946 that the Italian people abolished the monarchy through a referendum and established a democratic republic. The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was a typical 'real gun and real sword' conflict. The young Spanish Second Republic (democratic government) was subjected to a military coup by General Franco, triggering an extremely brutal civil war. In this war to defend democracy against fascist dictatorship, over 500,000 people lost their lives. During Franco's nearly forty years of dictatorial rule in Spain (1939-1975), facing all-around military pressure and white terror, the resistance never truly laid down their arms. After the civil war, hundreds of thousands of Republican remnants, anarchists, and communists retreated into the mountainous regions of Spain (such as the Pyrenees, Galicia, and Andalusia), forming anti-fascist guerrilla groups known as the 'Maquis.' They firmly believed that through continuous armed harassment, combined with the efforts of the Allies in World War II, Franco could be overthrown. By the 1960s, as the mountain guerrilla warfare failed due to lack of external aid, the resistance shifted its battlefield to the cities, transforming its form of resistance into highly organized underground armed groups and precision assassinations. Among the most famous resistance organizations were the Basque 'ETA' and the leftist 'GRAPO.' When the oppressors have already responded to peaceful demands with massacres, continuing to treat 'peaceful, rational, and non-violent' as the only legitimate path is self-deception. When dealing with violent perpetrators, it is best to use the language they understand. On the scales of democratization, the bloodshed and violence of the resistance are the only bargaining chips that can contend with the state machinery in the hands of the rulers. The moral ceiling of the rulers often depends on the determination and destructive power of the resisters who are willing to shed blood. Without the resisters' real guns and real swords, bloodshed, and sacrifice on the streets, in the barricades, and on the battlefield, the 'equality for all' and 'universal suffrage' written in modern democratic systems will forever be mere scrap paper in the eyes of the rulers. Whether it is the high-welfare Nordic countries (Norway), the model of direct democracy (Switzerland), the homeland of immigrant gold diggers (Australia), or the representative of East Asian transformation (Taiwan, Japan), the underlying logic of their democratic processes is written with the word 'bloodshed.' The most dangerous aspect of the 'peaceful, rational, and non-violent' faction is precisely that it transforms the enemy's brutality into moral demands on its own people. When the CCP opens fire, they immediately judge whether the resisters are 'going too far'; when the CCP arrests people, they demand that the resisters continue to exercise restraint; when the CCP suppresses across borders, they demand that the resisters do not use foul language; when the CCP has no bottom line, they demand that the resisters have a bottom line to the point of self-harm. In this way, the cost borne by tyranny becomes lower and lower, while the moral shackles borne by the resisters become heavier and heavier. This eventually leads to an absurd situation: dictators can escalate violence indefinitely, while resisters must forever prove their 'civilization.' This is not civilization; it is foolishness, confusion, and harmlessness after domestication, the consequence of which is the ruin of one's own civilization. In fact, the Chinese people have walked step by step to their current state of enslavement precisely in this way. What we need is to re-embrace the orthodox Chinese way of resistance that we have abandoned – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Of course, criticism and rationality do not mean blindly believing in violence. Violence itself is not magic, nor is armed struggle victory. Fierce actions without political goals, organizational discipline, mass support, or strategic judgment will only become isolated incidents and may even harm the cause of resistance. The real issue is not 'violence or non-violence,' but whether there is the ability to make various means serve the same political goal: to weaken the CCP's control, dismantle the CCP's violent machine, protect resisters, expand mass participation, and create expectations of victory. Therefore, the correct target of criticism is not 'non-violent tools,' but 'absolute non-violence dogma.' Non-cooperation can be used, satire can be used, overseas protests can be used, boycotts can be used, public dissemination can be used, underground organizations must also be built, secure networks must exist, and the capacity for counteraction must become part of strategic imagination. A mature resistance movement will not lock itself into a single path, let alone allow a certain book, a certain theory, or a certain overseas organization to define the boundaries of resistance for the entire nation. If the 'peaceful, rational, and non-violent' faction merely says, 'I personally mobilize low-risk non-violent actions,' there is no problem. But if they further say, 'Everyone can only do this, otherwise they are undermining the movement,' then the CCP has already won half the battle, because at this point they are already on the CCP's side. This is precisely what the CCP hopes to see: resisters automatically disarming their deterrence, automatically cutting off radical forces, and automatically turning themselves into performative dissent that does not truly harm the regime. Just as during the June Fourth incident, three young men from Hunan, Yu Dongyue, Lu Decheng, and Yu Zhijian, threw ink at the portrait of Mao Zedong on the Tiananmen Gate Tower, and were subsequently controlled by student pickets and handed over to the public security. This incident itself shows that the absolute non-violent logic within the movement can, at critical moments, become a mechanism for suppressing more radical actions. The outcome of the June Fourth movement has already proven to everyone that non-violent resistance cannot avoid violent treatment from the CCP, and the extremeization of non-violent resistance will, at some extreme, become an inhibitor of the movement's development. The Chinese anti-CCP movement has wasted too many years. Too many people are indulging in statements, petitions, conferences, commemorations, awards, media interviews, and moral posturing, yet are unwilling to face the most brutal question: how can a totalitarian regime with an army, police, state security, grid-like surveillance, digital censorship, and transnational suppression capabilities be overthrown by a group of people who are only willing to accuse and unwilling to deter, only willing to suffer and unwilling to counter, only willing to curse and unwilling to sharpen their knives? The answer is simple: it cannot. 'Peaceful, rational, and non-violent' can be a tool, but it cannot become a cage. Non-violence can be a phased strategy, but it cannot become a religion. Resisters can exercise restraint, but they cannot be required to give up violence forever. Even a beacon of civilization like the United States has to rely on absolute military strength to deal with a theocratic regime like Iran. Facing the even more evil CCP, why do 'peaceful, rational, and non-violent' resisters believe that the CCP will be converted? A movement that truly aims to overthrow the CCP must shift from 'proving its civilization' to 'building real strength'; from 'waiting for the world's sympathy' to 'making the enemy pay a price'; from 'beautiful magical damage' to 'naked physical damage.' Otherwise, the so-called non-violent anti-CCP movement will ultimately become the CCP's favorite kind of anti-CCP: seemingly righteous, but actually safe; seemingly moving, but actually harmless.

is not actually fatal; it appears to stand on the right side of history, but in reality, it will forever remain outside the gates of history.

What is true civilization, and what is true peace? We Chinese know:

Embracing the feminine, holding to the masculine, letting the world be its own guide. (Tao Te Ching, Chapter 4)