Falun Gong founder claims COVID targets CCP amid China’s rebound.
The Resurgence of COVID-19 in China
More than three years since the first outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, which became ground zero in the worldwide pandemic, the virus is seeing a resurgence in the communist country.
As the fast-spreading Omicron variant dubbed “Eris”—named for the Greek goddess of strife and discord—takes hold in China, the country is again seeing a spike in deaths among members of the regime’s top echelons, despite their special access to medical care and drugs denied to ordinary citizens.
Among those who have died in the latest wave are dozens of Chinese officials, senior executives, prominent academics, and scientists, some in their 20s and 30s. The spike in deaths seems reminiscent of that seen in late December, when the country was grappling with another huge upsurge in cases that saw hospitals and crematoriums pushed beyond the breaking point.
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Recent obituaries of prominent figures published by Chinese media, state-owned entities, and major Chinese universities have highlighted their CCP affiliations, using titles such as “outstanding Communist Party member.”
Li Hongzhi, founder of the spiritual practice Falun Gong, told The Epoch Times on Aug. 26 that the virus is directed at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), along with those who blindly follow the Party, defend it, and give their lives to it.
In January, Mr. Li said that more than 400 million people in China had died of COVID-19, and that the Party has been covering up the true situation of the pandemic since it broke out more than three years ago.
At the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, Mr. Li described plagues as an inevitability when moral values deteriorate.
“When humans become corrupt in their hearts, they will generate karma, fall sick, and suffer calamities,” Mr. Li wrote in an article titled “Rationality.”
“But a pandemic like the current ‘CCP Virus’ (Wuhan Pneumonia) has come with a purpose and with a target. It has come to eliminate the followers of the evil Party and those who go along with the evil CCP.”
Mr. Li’s advice is that people “stay far away from the evil CCP and don’t align with the evil Party because what lies behind it is the red demon. Its behavior and actions are thuggish, and it stops at no evil.”
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a discipline rooted in traditional Chinese beliefs on moral and spiritual development. Composed of meditative exercises and a set of moral teachings centered on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, the discipline is practiced in more than 100 countries worldwide.
The practice gained an estimated 100 million adherents in China by 1999. The communist regime, fearing this popularity, launched a violent persecution of the faith that has caused the deaths of an untold number of practitioners.
Historical Precedent
Over the past 3 1/2 years, the world has learned to live with the virus while China’s ruling regime aggressively pursued its draconian “zero COVID” campaign aimed at eliminating every potential case.
Eris, now a dominant variant driving up infection rates in the United States and elsewhere, so far appears no more dangerous than previous strains, according to health experts.
While officials in China have played down the public health risk and on Aug. 28 dropped COVID-19 testing requirements for inbound international travelers, some observers have taken the deaths of Chinese elites as a sign that the situation in the country might not be as rosy as authorities are seeking to project.
The death toll in China vastly exceeds that of any other country during the pandemic, noted Heng He, a U.S.-based analyst of Chinese politics.
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