(Minghui.org) Every year, I celebrate the Fourth of July with my community. The music, food, and fireworks always bring us joy and relaxation, from the young to the old.
As America’s 250th birthday approaches, I anticipate an even bigger celebration. As someone who came from the other side of the earth, I cherish this tradition even more, because the freedoms we enjoy in America do not exist in communist China.
A Nation Based on Faith
The United States was founded on freedom, liberty, and a reverence for the divine. These fundamental values could be seen from the Mayflower voyage to the Declaration of Independence, and from the founding fathers to what the country has brought to the world over the past two and a half centuries.
The Mayflower’s journey in 1620 was a tale of survival. The Pilgrims embarked on the arduous trip to seek religious freedom, and they viewed their lives through the lens of divine providence. The Mayflower Compact brought 102 passengers—religious and not—into a unified civil society.
From the Brooklyn Escape to the Crossing of the Delaware River, America’s first president, George Washington witnessed many miracles first-hand, and he often used terms like “providence” in his speeches. “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports,” he remarked during his farewell address in 1796.
The second US president, John Adams, wrote, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Acknowledging the divine—rather than the government—as the ultimate source of moral authority, the founding fathers wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
A Stark Contrast Across the Ocean
Throughout history, the Chinese civilization held a deep reverence for the divine. This can be seen in proverbs passed down through the generations, such as “Deities are watching you three feet above your head” and “the planning lies with man, but the outcome lies with heaven.” These traditional beliefs were integral to maintaining the moral fabric of society.
Today’s China is a completely different story, however. Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took power in 1949, it has forcibly indoctrinated generations of Chinese with its atheist ideology that dismisses all belief in a higher power as “superstition.” While traditional Chinese beliefs inspired moral elevation and encouraged people to live in harmony with nature, Mao Zedong found “boundless joy” in “struggling against heaven, earth, and man.”
This doctrine has led to countless disasters, including bloody political campaigns targeting land owners, and the Great Famine, a man-made catastrophe that took tens of millions of lives. The CCP then launched the Cultural Revolution to fundamentally eradicate traditional Chinese culture. Heritage sites were destroyed, traditional values were abandoned, and even family members were incited to attack one another. With scriptures burned, monks and nuns forced to return to lay life, moral values and faith were nearly wiped out.
For those who anticipated freedom and liberty finally coming to China, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989 put the last nail in the coffin.
The Need to Safeguard Faith and Conscience
All is not lost, however. After Falun Gong was introduced in China in 1992, the practice inspired a hundred million people to live more moral lives and regain their faith in the divine.
Based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, Falun Gong has not only improved practitioners’ minds and bodies but also benefitted society as a whole. A survey conducted by China’s State Sports Bureau in 1998 found that 97.9% of Falun Gong practitioners experienced health improvements, with 77.5% achieving complete recovery from illness or other physical disorders.
Seeing Falun Gong’s widespread popularity, which was not under the purview of the the Chinese regime, the CCP launched a nationwide campaign in July 1999 in an attempt to eradicate Falun Gong. Jiang Zemin, then CCP leader who started the persecution, vowed to wipe out Falun Gong in three months. He later issued an order to “ruin [practitioners’] reputation, bankrupt them financially, and destroy them physically.”
The CCP has systematically carried out this policy for the past 27 years. With state-of-the-art propaganda machinery, the CCP has fabricated countless lies to defame Falun Gong, both inside and outside China. In addition to arrest, detention, and imprisonment, practitioners in China have also suffered torture, forced labor, and even forced organ harvesting. Several thousands of practitioners have been confirmed to have died as a result of the persecution, though the true number is likely much higher.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” wrote Dr. Martin Luther King. As the CCP extends its religious persecution overseas and targets Falun Gong through news media manipulation and lawfare, its threat to free societies has grown larger than ever.
For decades, the United States has played an instrumental role in defending religious freedom around the world. In enacting the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, the US Congress wrote, “The right to freedom of religion undergirds the very origin and existence of the United States ... From its birth to this day, the United States has prized this legacy of religious freedom and honored this heritage by standing for religious freedom and offering refuge to those suffering religious persecution.”
Following our founders’ vision and upholding religious freedom will lead to America’s continued success and prosperity. When faith and conscience come under attack, it is the duty of every person to defend the fundamental freedoms upon which our country was founded.
Copyright © 1999-2026 Minghui.org. All rights reserved.
Category: News Commentary
