Reps. Mike Gallagher and Raja Krishnamoorthi explain the threat from China amid growing concerns about TikTok and the country’s relationship with Russia. FIRST ON FOX: House China Select Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher is expected to warn that the Chinese Communist Party is “desperate to crush religion,” and is using it “as a tool to control people’s minds,” while declaring that the “opposite of Communism is faith in God.” Gallagher, R-Wis., will speak at the National Prayer Breakfast opening dinner Wednesday night.
Gallagher will share a story about a young graduate student from China who opposes the CCP. When asked why the student opposed it, the student answered: “I have faith,” according to Gallagher’s prepared remarks obtained by Digital.
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That student told Gallagher the CCP is “hell-bent on destroying faith.” “If they can stamp out our belief in anything greater,” he said, “life becomes about nothing more than the incentives the party can offer and the punishments it can deliver. This is the Chinese Communist Party’s goal,” Gallagher will say.
Gallagher is expected to explain that the CCP has “the most powerful propaganda and censorship system in history to control everything that is read and said.” “And that is why, as this young Chinese man explained, the CCP is desperate to crush religion. Because the very concept of an individual with dignity and worth must be destroyed, and religion is its most vehement defender,” Gallagher is expected to recall.
Gallagher is expected to point to the millions of Uyghurs and other religious minorities the CCP have sent to “re-education camps.” “The genocide against the Uyghur people includes the largest internment of an ethno-religious minority since the Holocaust,” Gallagher will say.
Gallagher will say that Chinese President Xi Jinping “has no problem with the first commandment, just so long as he and the CCP are playing the role of God.”
Meanwhile, Gallagher is expected to claim that the CCP has “managed, through a secret 2018 deal with the Pope, to control the nomination of Catholic bishops — in practice, tantamount to appointing them.”
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“Avowedly atheist party members in Beijing notify the Vatican of their choices; Francis provides a rubber stamp — a shocking way to decide upon the consecrated successors to Jesus’ apostles,” Gallagher will say. Gallagher is expected to slam the Pope for “capitulation,” saying it has been “a disaster for other faiths in China.”
The Vatican last year accused China of violating an international agreement and appointing a bishop in a diocese not recognized by the Holy See. The installation of the bishop would be one of the most serious violations of China’s pact with the Vatican, which was originally signed in 2018.
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The agreement has been roundly panned by international observers who have accused the Catholic Church of caving to China’s communist government. Despite those critiques, the Vatican renewed the deal with the Chinese Communist Party last month, inviting renewed backlash. But the Vatican also expressed a willingness to continue working with the Chinese government if the Chinese Communist Party sticks to the terms of the 2018 agreement.
“The Holy See hopes that similar episodes will not be repeated, is awaiting the appropriate communication about the matter from the Authorities, and reaffirms its complete willingness to continue the respectful dialogue concerning all of the matters of common interest,” the statement said.
But Gallagher is expected to discuss what the “opposite of communism” is. “Maybe the opposite of Communism isn’t a political-economic system at all, because Communism itself is not a political-economic system. It is a perverted, inverse religion, an all-consuming ideology imposed not by free belief but by force and indoctrination,” he is expected to say.
“Maybe the opposite of Communism is faith in God.” Communism “seeks domination. Faith seeks love,” Gallagher will add. “Communism seeks the obliteration of the individual on the altar of the collective. Faith seeks the dignity of the individual, the respect due to each and every one of us as a child of God,” he’ll say.
Gallagher is also expected to stress that the United States’ long-term “strategic competition” with the CCP is “not a test of different socio-economic systems. It is a struggle for souls.”
In conclusion, House China Select Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher warns of China’s aggressive efforts to crush religion and control people’s minds. He emphasizes the importance of faith in God as the opposite of communism and highlights the CCP’s violations against religious minorities and its influence on the Vatican. Gallagher asserts that the US-China competition is a battle for individual dignity and the respect due to each person as a child of God.
