Good afternoon. My name is Stephen Gregory and I am the Opinion editor for the English language edition of The Epoch Times. I would like to welcome you all.

On November 19, Daijiyuan, which is the Chinese language “The Epoch Times,” began publishing in cities around the world a remarkable series of “Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party.” We are here today to discuss these Nine Commentaries, their reception inside and outside China, and the future of China and the Chinese Communist Party.

In Chinese “Nine Commentaries” is “jiuping” (the approximate pronunciation is “joeping”). The jiuping give an uncensored history of the Chinese Communist Party, a history that discusses the nature of this Party, how it has set itself against all of the traditional forms of human civilization, and the enormous crimes it has committed.

The time is ripe for this calling to accounts of the Chinese Communist Party. In the one month since the Commentaries were first published we have seen around the world a rapidly escalating series of events that I would like to call the “jiuping phenomena.”

Consider the reception of the jiuping in Hong Kong. About two weeks ago in Hong Kong Daijiyuan printed a special edition that had all 9 commentaries. On the first day they printed 30,000 copies; they distributed all 30,000 within two hours time. The next day, Daijiyuan printed 30,000 more copies. People were waiting to take them, and they were all gone in less than 2 hours. So, the next day, Daijiyuan printed 60,000 copies. The demand was even higher, and all the papers were gone very quickly. So, Daijiyuan then printed 250,000 copies. Incredibly, there were all snapped up in less than four hours time. At this point, Daijiyuan began to run out of paper. Nevertheless, it has found ways to keep printing, and in the last two weeks has distributed 600,000 copies of the jiuping. Hong Kong has 6 million residents, which would suggest one in every ten Hong Konger now has a copy of the jiuping. However, Hong Kong also has 40,000 tourists from mainland China everyday. And everyday these tourists are taking the jiuping back to China.

Panel at the first English Jiuping forum in Washington, D.C. Speakers are: Michael Ledeen, Michael Horowitz, William J. Murray, Ethan Gutmann, and Professor Chu-cheng Ming (Epoch Times)

On December 10, Xinhua, China’s official media voice, ran a front page story explaining that Meng Weizai had not resigned from the Communist Party. Xinhua does not run newspaper articles discussing resignations from the CCP, much less front page articles. Meng Weizai is the former director of the Bureau of Art. But he is old and long since retired. Why should anyone care about what Mr. Meng is doing in his retirement? In fact, Meng Weizai is not alone. For instance, Olympic medalist Huang Xiaomin has also publicly announced her resignation from the Party. And it is not only celebrities who are doing this.

Daijiyuan has a special website devoted to the Jiuping. On that website a Party member may publicly announce his or her resignation from the Party. Every day between 100 and 200 Party members have announced their resignations, and the numbers are growing. And these are just the tip of the iceberg. These are the Party members who are both sophisticated enough to know how to defeat the block on the Jiuping website the Party has tried to put in place, and brave enough to step forward publicly. For every Party member who succeeds in posting their resignation on the Jiuping site, how many dozens, or hundreds or thousands more silently agree? Xinhua carried a front page article on Meng Weizai to try to send a message to the Party membership.

Of course, Xinhua’s story has only attracted attention to what it wants to deny. This is the dilemma faced by the P.R.C.’s Central Propaganda Department. We know from sources inside the government that they have no idea how to respond to the Jiuping. They are panicked, and they fear a chain reaction, what in an old Jane Fonda and Gene Hackman movie inspired by Three Mile Island was called the “China Syndrome,” a meltdown that can’t be controlled.

The Propaganda Department has reasoned that if they issue a written order to the cadres not to read the Jiuping, then they will call attention to them. So, they have issued oral orders that instruct the cadres 1) to continue to follow the CCP leadership, and 2) not to read the articles from the “overseas attacking group.” But no matter whether the orders are written or oral, the effect is still the same, and now everyone in the CCP wants to know what the Party fears.

In fact, the Party has always depended on terror and lies to assure its rule. When its terror is no longer feared, and its lies are exposed, the Party is without resource.

In publishing the Jiuping, The Epoch Times is doing what it has done consistently since its first issue about four years ago. It has told the truth, and in telling the truth it has served the best interests of its readers. When SARS broke upon China, the Chinese people learned their only reliable source of information in Chinese about the epidemic was The Epoch Times. When the P.R.C. tried to take away Hong Kong’s tradition of rights and Constitutional government through the Article 23 laws, The Epoch Times reported on the P.R.C.’s intentions. For the past four years, The Epoch Times has been the Chinese people’s only honest and reliable source for the most important story in China today: the systematic and comprehensive persecution of 100 million Falun Gong practitioners and their families.

With the Jiuping, The Epoch Times has given the people of China a great gift. After 55 years of lies and terror, the people of China now have the chance to know their true history. For the first time, they can share with one another the tremendous losses they have suffered under the Chinese Communist Party. For the first time, they can step back from the Communist nightmare and consider the beauty and significance of the ancient civilization that the Communist Party has worked so hard to destroy.

On the Jiuping website ordinary Chinese post messages telling the stories of what they and their families have suffered. Government officials have posted secret documents, helping detail further the story told in the Jiuping. The people of China simply want the chance to mourn and to have the disasters they have known acknowledged. This is only natural.

And this is the reason for the “Jiuping phenomena.” A totalitarian party can force people to deny their past and all the best instincts of their nature. But no Party can ever eliminate nature, and the voice of nature is now being heard in China once again, and China’s true history is being rediscovered.

The western world needs urgently to understand what is happening right now in China. To help us in this we have a distinguished panel of speakers. Our speakers are: Michael Ledeen, the Freedom Scholar of the American Enterprise Institute; Michael Horowitz, a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Hudson Institute’s Project for Civil Justice Reform and Project for International Religious Liberty; William J. Murray, the Chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition; Ethan Gutmann, the author of Losing the New China: a Story of American Commerce, Desire and Betrayal; Professor Chu-cheng Ming of the Department of Political Science at National Taiwan University, a well-respected scholar of, and author of several books on, the Chinese Communist Party.

The Epoch Times's Nine Commentaries on the CCP.