Does the Fall of Dictatorship Mean Democracy Arrives? The Endgame Across the Strait: Three Paths After the CCP Collapses @democratictaiwanchannel

In this episode, host Zhang Guocheng travels to San Francisco, USA, for an exclusive interview with Feng Congde, a student leader of the 1989 pro-democracy movement. The interview delves into Feng's triple experience of de-brainwashing—spanning ideology, philosophy, and aesthetics—analyzes the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) united front work and infiltration of overseas pro-democracy movements, and, in response to the current situation where Xi Jinping is turning back the clock, proposes a vision for post-CCP China: adopting the 1946 Constitution of the Republic of China as a provisional constitution, promoting the nationalization of the military, and leveraging Taiwan's democratic experience to achieve a final resolution across the Taiwan Strait.

Video link:

Full transcript:

I think Xi Jinping is the embodiment of the worst of both Chinese and Western cultures, second only to or even exceeding Mao Zedong. Xi Jinping is the best gift God has given to the Chinese people because he is turning back the clock; he is the so-called Chief Accelerator, moving in the direction of regression, so I think the demise of the CCP will be faster. Many friends in Taiwan now, especially those in the Pan-Green camp, say, 'You Chinese, don't expect us in Taiwan to help you with anything.' I say, 'No need, just keep sleeping every day; as long as you don't change the national title, that's fine, because as long as the Republic of China still exists in Taiwan, it is the best model for mainland China.'

Hello, viewers, welcome to the front line of politics and economics. I am your host, Zhang Guocheng. This time, our production team and I have specially traveled to San Francisco, USA, to bring you a series of special interviews. Today, we have come to Mr. Feng Congde's home to interview him specifically. As you all know, he was a very well-known student leader during the June 4th incident. His experiences and his reflections on the future of China are, in our view, very significant for today's Chinese society and for overseas Chinese. From being a Peking University student to joining the pro-democracy movement and living in exile overseas, his journey has been very tortuous. After all these years, I believe his experience and reflections should be of considerable significance to us, so we have specially come to his residence today. Mr. Feng, hello. Thank you, viewers, hello. Thank you, Mr. Zhang. I think it is a great honor to come to your residence today, Mr. Feng, and see you living here. You just mentioned that you have lived here for 18 years, and it feels like this is the most suitable place—making a foreign land your home. I would like to ask a question: you were born in China and experienced the June 4th incident. Looking back, did you ever believe in the Chinese Communist Party? If you never did, why? If you did, when did you stop believing, and what do you think was their greatest impact on you?

I wouldn't say I believed in them, but the environment I was in was one where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) brainwashed everyone. My father was a CCP member, and my eldest brother was also a CCP member, so at that time, I didn't think CCP members were bad people. I wouldn't think my father or brother were bad people. Moreover, in 1989, we truly believed that the People's Liberation Army would not kill the people, right? So, I didn't really like the CCP. My eldest brother once pressured me, saying I should strive to join the Party because my grades were very good. Generally speaking, the CCP tries to pull the more outstanding strata of society into the Party; it wants to control the entire elite layer. But I resisted it very much; I really didn't like those few Party members in my class, so it wasn't a matter of believing in them. At that time, I was actually what was called a 'To-pai' (Trotskyist). The so-called 'To-pai' meant those taking the TOEFL to go abroad. We had four factions back then: the 'Mahjong faction' who played mahjong every day, and the 'To-pai' who took the TOEFL—we wanted to escape the CCP, and in reality, to escape China. It was a struggle back then, because I remember I even wrote a letter to Fang Lizhi's wife, Li Shuxian. She was the district people's representative we elected at Peking University. We specifically elected her because she was Fang Lizhi's wife. I wrote her a letter asking if going abroad to study would make us second-class citizens. At that time, there was that kind of struggle, which, looking back now, was all a result of CCP brainwashing. Therefore, de-brainwashing—taking this brainwashed mind and washing it back—requires a very long process. I have thoroughly experienced it, and I would say there are three stages. The first is historical cognition: completely clarifying what those CCP lies are. The second is philosophical cognition: many of the concepts they instilled in us, such as 'metaphysics,' became a derogatory term in mainland China, rather than the 'metaphysics as the Tao' we understood; those are two completely opposite concepts. The third, which I find most interesting and which I have experienced in recent years, is a change in aesthetics. The shift in aesthetics is the most peculiar, because before, for example, when we saw the flag of the Republic of China, we felt very repulsed, thinking it was traitorous or not anti-Japanese, while the Five-Star Red Flag would make our blood boil. Now it's the opposite; now when I see the Five-Star Red Flag, I feel it's something harmful. And, for example, when I hear Taiwanese people speaking Mandarin, I feel very happy and like it, but when I hear people speaking Putonghua, I don't feel that way; you immediately sense that kind of struggle, that atmosphere emerges. So, I have gone through all three levels, and even my aesthetics have completely changed.

I think this is quite an interesting reflection, because we have also been in contact with and know many friends who came out of China. Many have also experienced June 4, 1989, and many often talk about what they did at that time, or offer many critiques, whether of people or events. But for someone like you, looking at it from the perspective of aesthetics, I think that is quite rare. I feel this is the final level; aesthetics really do change. This makes me quite curious: you went to France first, right? Yes. So, after arriving in France, it seems you also changed from your original professional field. Why did such a transformation occur? And what has this transformation brought to you?

I feel it was the ten-month fugitive experience after June Fourth that brought about my complete transformation. It was thanks to a group of practitioners who practiced qigong, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism—actually, there were even Christians among them. I chatted with them, and it eventually grew from just a few people into a practice group of over a hundred. This really surprised me because back in 1989, throughout that entire movement, our thinking had actually been deeply influenced by the CCP and its scholars, such as Su Xiaokang and their River Elegy. They were also rebels against the CCP in 1989, but under their influence, we felt that Chinese culture was backward, traditional culture was terrible, and Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism were nothing more than feudal superstitions, as we called them. As a result, the more than one hundred people I met—first of all, you see, I didn't get caught. Even when I was with Chai Ling, neither of us got caught. They were very capable, very smart, and very courageous; they were full of wisdom. They took their own money and gave it to us to spend because we finally ran out of money. The older brother who led us took the money his mother had prepared for his wedding and gave it to us to use. So this was completely the opposite of our previous understanding of traditional society. At that point, within a few hours, they forced me to recite the Six-Syllable Mantra, pleading with Guanyin Bodhisattva to save us from suffering and distress, because I had asked them to help me break through the border and escape the country. They said we would prepare for a week, and during that week they trained me, constantly chanting and chanting until there was no voice left in my throat. They called it Vajra chanting, chanting to that extent. So within a couple of hours, encountering the People's Liberation Army three times, almost right in their hands—the Communist army's hands—we somehow managed to run away. This thing was extremely miraculous. Ever since then, they began to persuade me, saying, 'You should practice. You study science; you cannot deny this phenomenon. This phenomenon is a fact. How are you going to interpret this fact?' And now I have been interpreting this for how long? Thirty-seven years. So later, when I went to France, I met a big-nosed European who had been a Taoist priest in Taiwan for eight years, a Mr. Shi. I studied Taoism and Traditional Chinese Medicine with him for fifteen years. Thus, my spiritual journey began right here. Therefore, benefiting from China's own organic body, I feel that China's brain broke after the May Fourth Movement, but its body is still there. The organic body of traditional culture in China is still there. You see, Falun Gong later on also rose up all at once; its body of flesh and blood still had blood and flesh, full of emotion and righteousness. However, the intellectuals' brains are broken, and this was deliberately done by the CCP.

Then you mentioned just now that the intellectuals' brains are broken, which is one way of putting it. We now see that in the overseas Chinese community, there seem to be many, many different interpretations of a single event. Some people say that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) plays a role behind all this. That is to say, in the past people thought: if you speak well of the Communist Party, you are speaking for it; if you speak badly of the Communist Party, you are a liberal or a democrat. But will the CCP turn around and exploit the conflicts in the middle, making some people appear to curse the CCP very fiercely on the surface, but in reality, what they promote or advocate is actually detrimental to democracy and freedom, or even causes division? Have you observed such a thing? Yes, very obviously. The overseas democracy movement nowadays—I directly call it the official-line democracy movement; I feel that it has almost been controlled by the CCP. Its control methods include organized infiltration, sending in undercover agents, participating in the middle, or transforming certain people. Take Tang Baiqiao, for example, who used to be our best friend—he has now been arrested by the FBI, hasn't he? Wang Shujun—I even lived with him for three months; they are all like that. This is organized infiltration, but I think what is even more serious is ideological infiltration. This is why in recent years, when I began to sum things up, looking at the entire June Fourth [Tiananmen] incident, I later found that it's not just the entire June Fourth incident, but the CCP's entire process of founding the regime has been accompanied by what it calls a United Front narrative. It brainwashes key figures among the opposition, or uses this kind of organizational penetration, so that the voices spoken appear to come from the opposition, but are actually lies of the CCP. This was most obvious in 1989, because after reading 70,000 documents in recent years, I can now truly make this generalization: a massive amount of their lies—not just through the Chinese circles, but Westerners are equally deceived. I will give the most obvious example: the Tiananmen Papers. America's top three China experts were all deceived. They simply repeated the CCP's lies, writing ghost stories like 'only two hundred people died in June Fourth' right into those books. And their real purpose was to severely crack down on what I call the brave faction—the group of people who truly oppose the CCP and are truly in the democracy movement—making their voices very faint, and even stigmatizing them. Chai Ling, for example, is the most obvious case; she was jointly stigmatized by these three networks: the intelligence network, the United Front network, and the CCP overseas propaganda. When these three networks are combined, Chai Ling was doomed. I—over the past decade or so, my ex-wife... but people say, 'You're not bad, you're having bad luck and helping your ex-wife defend herself.' I said, of course. Actually, I told him very honestly, and he wasn't all that happy when I said this: I wasn't doing it for her, I was saying it because she was our commander-in-chief, and by demonizing her, the entire movement was demonized. And this is what the so-called Western scholars do. But now it is very clear: the CCP's United Front tactics dispatched by Zhou Enlai are too powerful. Dispatched by Zhou Enlai! But that was decades ago, and I didn't even know it. I saw a meeting like that: a person with an American face, but speaking Beijing dialect better than I do. I even accepted an interview for that Tiananmen documentary. That documentary basically says: Look at you student protesters, you so-called student leaders, you just want to let others die while you yourselves escape—the main tone turned into this exact thing. This is what I call the United Front narrative; this is the most powerful aspect of the CCP. People don't believe the CCP's lies directly, but it gets Western scholars, Western human rights circles, journalists, or so-called democracy movement leaders to tell these lies. For example, this time at National Chengchi University in Taiwan, I specifically brought out this data to analyze that even our most famous democracy movement leaders say that only 300 people died in June Fourth. This is too terrifying; both books were written this way. It is too terrifying.

I think, of course, having experienced the June 4th movement, such an important event, one naturally believes in it. After all these years, one should still care about China. Now, everyone sees that the CCP is about to hold the Fifth Plenary Session, and people are discussing the issue of Xi Jinping's re-election. Indeed, since June 4th, Xi Jinping's time in power seems particularly long compared to previous leaders. What is your opinion on Xi Jinping? For example, if he continues to lead like this, will he face opposition? Will he encounter problems that cannot be solved? I think Xi Jinping is the embodiment of the worst of Chinese culture, a guy whose imperial arts are second only to, or even exceed, those of Mao Zedong. He is actually very formidable. On the surface, he looks foolish, with people calling him a 'primary school Ph.D.,' but you have to realize he started from a negative position. Within the CCP, he was essentially purged; starting from his father, he was considered part of the 'five black categories.' To climb from a negative position to the highest office, he possesses a very strong, dark energy. He is the most skilled at conspiracies and schemes. I think it is a good thing; such a villain who commits every evil and is most proficient in power struggles—but as we say, things turn into their opposites when they reach the extreme. He will lead China down the path of North Korea. I feel his mindset is completely different from ours; he thinks that being poor and miserable like North Korea is the most stable way for the CCP regime to survive, so he has been moving in that direction. Mao Zedong was the same; he didn't care if tens of millions starved to death, so he doesn't care if China's economy is ruined. However, because we are in the internet age, where information is so developed and logistics are so smooth, Wall Street is also increasingly feeling the need to get rid of him. In this way, people from the middle-upper to the lower classes domestically will all feel that he is acting perversely, so there is severe tension. This tension—because I study medicine, I can see it from his body—he is extremely, extremely nervous. Look at him getting off the plane this time; he had to be supported by his wife to get off. His body is under such stress, the pressure is immense. Because he came to power through conspiracies and schemes and has destroyed many people, he absolutely cannot step down. Therefore, he must have a lifetime tenure, staying in power until he dies. Once he gives up power, his entire family and his entire so-called system will be finished. So they will definitely carry out these current so-called great purges. This perverse behavior creates immense tension. To summarize, I have always said this: Xi Jinping is the best gift God has given to the Chinese people, because he is driving in reverse. He is the so-called Chief Accelerator, moving in the direction of reversing history, and I think the demise of the CCP will be faster. Because he is also a fool in this regard; Deng Xiaoping was smarter, knowing to 'hide one's strength and bide one's time.' By abandoning that, he is directly confronting the world's only superpower, the United States. Now, you see both parties in the U.S. are absolutely pointing their spears at him, having defined the CCP as a criminal group, an international criminal group. I don't know why Trump still welcomes investment from such a criminal group. The international stage these past few years has been very funny and very interesting. I think we are very lucky to be able to see these performances.

You just mentioned Xi Jinping, and it seems you are very pessimistic about the future of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Do you think that if we remove the factor of Xi Jinping, the CCP would be spurned by the Chinese people? Or would it implode on its own due to the problems within its system? Or which will happen first, being spurned or imploding? Or will they happen simultaneously? I think the possibility of them happening simultaneously is greater. Being pessimistic about the future of the CCP is actually being optimistic about the future of China. Because I think that looking at the historical development of the whole world, generally speaking, there is a superpower—like the Roman Empire in the past, or the British Empire, and now it is the American Republic. As a superpower, they generally do not like having a number two challenging them. Xi Jinping has committed this taboo. Generally speaking, the number one will unite with the number three to take down the number two; this is the international landscape, a basic law of its equilibrium. Since the CCP is now on the path of confrontation with the United States, the entire American political spectrum, Wall Street, the American public, and even the entire West have realized after the COVID-19 pandemic that this CCP virus is now endangering the whole world. After that, I think the whole world is awakening, so the days of the CCP are counting down. It is just like when the Soviet Union was the number two, the United States had to deal with them. So you don't know which day it will be, but suddenly one day it will collapse. I think we are now at a point where we need to ask: What about Taiwan? What about the mainland? What about Tibet? What about Xinjiang? And what about the entire political system of China? What about the military? I think we already need to have some contingency plans. People like Miles Yu in the United States are already preparing in some think tanks, saying that first of all, when the CCP fails, how to control the nuclear weapons, large-scale biochemical weapons, and weapons of mass destruction within its military.

I think these are things that everyone is realizing they need to prepare for, rather than being like the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union, which actually turned into a massive disaster for the Soviet Union and Russia. I think China's conditions are much better than those of the Soviet Union, and I agree with this, because in the Soviet era, firstly, they had very little foreign trade, and then the degree of openness of their society was quite serious. China, after all, has had decades of reform and opening up, and people's reception of such information, the degree of acceptance of modern society, international trade, and foreign exchanges are, I believe, much better and much closer than they were back then in the Soviet Union. And there is another point, I don't know if you agree, I have always felt that many people say China is not suitable for nationalization (democratization) because the level of the Chinese people is not good enough. Personally, I feel there is no need to be so pessimistic; not only is it not comparable, but this is completely a fallacy, completely a fallacy, because Taiwan is right there to see clearly. Taiwan possesses Chinese culture—although Taiwan's culture is indeed more diverse than the mainland's, it is actually adopting the constitution formulated in Nanjing in 1946. Therefore, in the future, as long as we bring this constitution back to the Chinese mainland, along with the entire codification of the Six Codes, move everything back to the mainland, and nationalize the military. In fact, as I just said, China's conditions are much better than those of the Soviet Union. Although the gene of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the ruling party's gene, came from the Soviet Union, do not forget that China also has its own gene ranging from the Xinhai Revolution to the National Revolution and the 1946 Constitution. That is what I have always simply summarized as using this Republic of China-ization to counter a possible Putinization. If the mainland undergoes Republic of China-ization, Taiwan will be safe. Mere democratization alone might not necessarily ensure this, because Russia is in such a situation, still fighting Ukraine, having fought Chechnya previously, and having several wars in between. Therefore, if a strongman suddenly emerges from the CCP, or if they turn around, or under the banner of a democratic party, suddenly transforming into democrats—Putin is just like that, the process from Yeltsin to Putin—this is what I call Putinization, and this is still dangerous. In other words, if a strongman similar to Yuan Shikai emerges in the mainland in the future, democracy might still collapse. However, if we start gradually building consensus from now on, with overseas opposition factions of all kinds, including regional groups like Tibet, and form a basic consensus so that when the time comes we first implement the 1946 Constitution as a provisional constitution for basic constitutionalism, and then under three principles recognize the right to self-determination of surrounding regions, this problem can be solved. Because the Soviet Union failed to properly resolve the independence issue of its surrounding regions, the Soviet Union suddenly collapsed, and the entire politics and economy became a complete mess overnight. However, the Republic of China existed on the Chinese mainland for 38 years, whereas the Soviet Communist Party's provisional government only lasted seven or eight months before that, so those conditions are completely incomparable. Moreover, Taiwan is still surviving to this day, and the orthodox lineage of state and law all reside in Taiwan, so there is a direct comparison. Of course, the Chinese people are fully capable of democratization; that argument is completely a fallacy. So my brief summary is that there are currently many fallacies, which can actually be grouped under the so-called theory of democratic prerequisites—that is, practicing democracy in China still requires certain conditions, such as the civic quality of the population, claiming that the Chinese quality is not good enough, or culture, such as needing to fully convert to Christianity. I think these all help prolong the life of the CCP, and this is part of the CCP's united front narrative, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Some people might foolishly follow along in thinking and speaking this way, but I feel the CCP is more purposefully promoting all kinds of democratic prerequisites. I think China does not need any conditions at all; the civic quality of the Chinese people today is not inferior in the slightest compared to the Americans of 250 years ago, nor is it worse than the Indians of 70 years ago.

Indeed, because I studied politics, I found that in politics, often when you want to reject something, you don't directly say no; instead, you set up many conditions and thresholds. Then, these conditions and thresholds cannot be resolved, and before I want to resolve them, the matter is put on hold. According to what you just said about the precondition theory of democracy, it seems to echo a common saying in other areas of politics, for example, saying someone is not fit to run because they lack this condition or that condition, or saying a system cannot be promoted because this condition or that condition is missing. But in reality, what a politician should do is first solve those conditions or face those conditions head-on, rather than using these conditions as excuses, just like the common saying nowadays that there are always more methods than excuses. Listening to what you said, I believe everyone can gain a certain amount of inspiration from it. I would also like to ask another question, because you have been saying that if the Chinese Communist Party really collapses and falls apart, everyone needs to have a contingency plan. So what do you think—of course, this is just a preliminary discussion—what should that contingency plan be? I think the most important contingency plan, as I just mentioned, is that during the process of the CCP's collapse, at the fastest possible speed, especially since a roundtable conference might be formed at that time to decide the political and military direction after the CCP's collapse, we must quickly implement the Constitution of the Republic of China of 1946 as a provisional constitution. In this way, the political architecture—just like when our computer changes its operating system, if Microsoft doesn't work, we use Apple's computer operating system—changing the operating system means we can no longer use the CCP's constitution. Then, using the 1946 Constitution as a provisional constitution means it can be amended later, but for now, we temporarily use this, because Taiwan uses it very well, which proves that it is completely practical in Chinese-populated areas and is used very well. Using it first can prevent many people's confused ideas about us making a completely new constitution from scratch, because the cost of making a new constitution would be very serious, considering the past experiences of various countries, especially during the Xinhai Revolution regarding how Yuan Shikai came to power, right? If this kind of cost is too high, especially at that time, surrounding regions will take advantage of the chaos to declare independence, and how should this matter be resolved? Because this kind of taking advantage of the chaos to lead to independence connects to what I call the so-called Putinization; Putin came to power just like that. Before he attacked Chechnya, his poll numbers were only 3% supporting him, and after he attacked Chechnya, it was 80%. This kind of military strongman, this kind of military oligarchic dictator, will come to power this way, and democracy will collapse just like that. In Russia today, you don't even know if it's a democratic country; it has a little bit of elections, but it looks much more like an authoritarian country, and it has regressed all around. China must not repeat this path, because walking this path will seriously lead to wars everywhere, going to fight, for example, Xinjiang, especially southern Xinjiang wanting independence, and even the Taliban running in to propagate independence, Tibet also having some young Tibetan independence groups, they also want independence, and Taiwan is already independent, so what happens then? All these problems will provoke the original military bosses of the CCP, who will wave the banner of national reunification and nationalism—because the CCP's nationalist education is so severe right now, young people are almost all brainwashed like this—and they will all come to support a yellow-faced Putin who has suddenly transformed, a Chinese Putin coming to power this way, and then democratization will be finished. Moreover, Taiwan will be in very, very great danger, and at that time it is truly even more likely; right now Ukraine is still fighting, and that is just how it will be.

So I think the most important thing is to form these two key consensuses among the opposition in advance: first, to implement the 1946 Constitution as a provisional constitution as soon as possible; and second, to nationalize the military as soon as possible. I think the nationalization of the military requires several steps. As Yu Maochun and his colleagues at the Hudson Institute suggested in their report last year, the first step is to control nuclear weapons. This might require the U.S. military or a UN force—perhaps a UN force led by the U.S. military would be more legitimate—to take the lead in controlling the CCP's weapons of mass destruction. This would first eliminate the threat to the whole world and also eliminate the threat within China, leaving only, for example, local police to maintain public order. In this situation, I think my vision for the second step is: the first step is to establish the 1946 Constitution as the provisional constitution, and the second step, simultaneously, is for the UN force to control the CCP's military. I also hope that at that time, I believe there will be a large number of people in Taiwan with experience—people with Taiwanese experience in party, government, and military affairs—who will go to mainland China to serve as consultants and instructors to train people within China. According to Mr. Xin Haolian, he mentioned a few years ago that we should 'remove the Party and keep the administration,' stripping away the Chinese Communist Party system while keeping the administrative system within the party, government, and military. But how should that be done? This requires Taiwan's experience, because Taiwan's democratization is indeed far ahead, more advanced, and more mature than ours. And since you are using the 1946 Constitution, how should we use this 1946 Constitution now? Might the form of your seven constitutional amendments be different when applied in mainland China? I think these are things that can be better and more maturely studied overseas, especially in Taiwan, and this work should start now.

As you just mentioned, if many people from Taiwan really go to the mainland as consultants to pass on democratic experience, wouldn't that be Chiang Kai-shek's old wish of 'counterattacking the mainland'? It's not quite the same; this is a 'civil counterattack,' not a military one. I think Mr. Chiang Ching-kuo was more correct when he said, 'The collapse of the Communists lies with the Communists, and the restoration of the nation lies with us.' I think these eight characters basically established the direction that the overseas opposition should take. We can't do anything about the CCP's collapse. Look at the collapse of the Soviet Union; many people asked what the democracy movement should do, and I said it was useless. What use is the democracy movement? It has already been controlled by the CCP and has become a government-run democracy movement. When the Soviet Union collapsed, did we hear about the Soviet democracy movement? No, it collapsed on its own because, as I just said, Xi Jinping's perverse acts and his turning back the clock will lead him off a cliff. But what about when it comes to restoring the nation? That is our business. We need to prepare in advance, and then we need to act quickly when the time comes. I think hearing Mr. Feng Zhongde's views today is indeed very thought-provoking, especially regarding the 1946 Constitution. Because when I was a child, there was a very famous writer in the Soviet Union named Solzhenitsyn. Yes, Solzhenitsyn came to Taiwan, and of course, there were public speeches and many seminars. I remember him saying at that time that we in Russia—the Soviet Union—did not have what China has, which is a piece of territory where you can implement and conduct a competitive comparison. So everything was lost, and the White Army was quickly wiped out. In other words, the road ahead will definitely be very bumpy. He came in the 1980s, before anyone expected the Soviet Union to disintegrate, but he said that even if the Soviet Communist Party collapsed, there would be no model to follow. That is why he was so smart; he immediately saw this key point. Now many friends in Taiwan, especially those in the Pan-Green camp, say, 'You Chinese, don't count on us in Taiwan to help you.' I say, 'No need, you just need to sleep well, as long as you don't change the name of the country.' Because as long as the Republic of China still exists in Taiwan, it is the best model for mainland China. If the mainland realizes the orthodoxy, national tradition, and legal tradition of the Republic of China as I just mentioned, it will soon surpass the United States in a few years. Really, if you take Taiwan's development status and multiply it by the mainland's population, I don't know how many times higher it would be than the United States. So we only need—of course, if there are Taiwanese friends willing to pass on more Taiwanese experience to the mainland, we would certainly be very happy and welcome it. Even if possible, the best plan would be for the National Army to accept the Communist Army, but I don't see such ambition in Taiwan's civil society or government. I hope that after the situation changes, this ambition can emerge, because this ambition is very important. It is indeed a good thing not only for the Chinese nation but for the entire Han and Chinese region, and for the whole world.

Because I have another analysis, which is that many of us had this same worry back in 1989. We actually had a chance to topple the Li Peng government. At that time, I used a 'blank school' plan—it was already designed to turn one Tiananmen Square into one hundred Tiananmen Squares. But there was one hurdle we couldn't overcome: what would happen if the Li Peng government collapsed? We were completely ignorant back then; we hadn't even heard of a command center. But the biggest fear at the time was the brainwashing by the CCP. They used that 'hijacking' theory: 'Only we, the Communist Party, know how to fly this plane. We have hijacked you now, so just be content as slaves. Otherwise, the plane will crash, and the entire nation will be finished, right?' They used this to scare us, claiming that without the Communist Party, there would be warlord chaos. We were truly afraid of that back then. But now, after thinking about it carefully, I see it completely differently. A hundred years later, Wall Street does not want to see warlord chaos in mainland China. A hundred years ago, different foreign powers supported different warlords, which led to chaos. But today, Wall Street and the entire Western world hope that China will be a unified, large market. Because of globalization, the flow of people, and especially the economy, logistics, and capital, no one wants to see China fall into such chaos again. It does not align with the hopes of the vast majority of the world's population. I think only the most deep-seated racists would not want to see Chinese people or Asians suddenly prosper and surpass us white people. Such thinking hardly exists in the West anymore. Therefore, the conditions for China's democratization are better now than ever before. It just depends on when Xi Jinping drives this car off the cliff. When that time comes, we must immediately use the 1946 Constitution to stabilize the overall situation. This is what I have been saying since I took over as president of the Chinese Democracy Education Foundation the year before last: we must restore this foundation to its original status as an overseas community organization and push harder for the narrative of the Republic of China. We must not forget this. Don't think it's wrong just because it was turned into a 'democracy movement' group in recent years. The so-called 'democracy movement'—it seems like China's democratic movement has only been around for 40, at most 50 years—that idea is completely wrong. You have to start from Sun Yat-sen. Don't forget, there was the Xinhai Revolution before that, and especially the 1946 Constitution later on. China was once very close to constitutionalism, but it was interrupted by the violent armed group that is the Soviet-backed CCP. But Solzhenitsyn was right, and there is a great model on the other side of the strait; its persuasive power is truly strong. That is why the CCP is so afraid of things like individual travel to Taiwan. Once young people from the mainland arrive in Taiwan, they immediately realize that Taiwan is far better than the mainland in every aspect—culture, the 'gentleness, kindness, respect, and frugality' of the people, the relationships between people, and all aspects of life. Why can't the mainland change and improve? So, there are two models: either the CCP wants to head toward the direction of North Korea or Putin's Russia, but I think the vast majority of ordinary people still believe that the Republic of China model in Taiwan is the future and the example.

I think our gathering today is very rare, especially coming from Taiwan to San Francisco and then to Mr. Feng's residence to hear your explanation. I think after hearing this, our audience at home and abroad, and even the entire Chinese community, will feel very inspired and encouraged. Because much of what you just said is actually very realistic, such as Taiwan's democratic development, social development, and economic development—this is rooted in the Constitution of the Republic of China there. Of course, it has some problems, but no country's constitution is perfect. The U.S. Constitution has issues with slavery, too. You can't say it's not usable just because it's an 80-year-old constitution; the U.S. is still using a constitution that is over 240 years old. Moreover, the Constitution of the Republic of China was originally created in mainland China, so if mainland China were to restore its implementation, it would be perfectly justifiable in terms of constitutional law. Another key point is that the Grand Justices in Taiwan have provided so many supplements to the clauses, especially regarding the protection of civil rights. Adding these experiences together, they are truly precious to the mainland and should all be brought back to the mainland. I think hearing this perspective today is something very worth reflecting on together. I am also very happy to invite Mr. Feng Zhongde to our program today, and I believe there will be many more opportunities to ask for your guidance in the future. Thank you, Mr. Feng, and thank you to all our viewers for watching. We will conclude our program here for today. We welcome your criticism and advice, and please like, share, subscribe, and hit the notification bell. We will see you next time. Thank you.