Featuring the author Frank Dikötter, Chair Professor of Humanities, University of Hong Kong; with comments by Harry Wu, Founder, Laogai Research Foundation; moderated by Marian L. Tupy, Policy Analyst, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, Cato Institute.
Following a bloody civil war and the defeat of Chiang Kai-shek in
1949, Mao Zedong hoisted the red flag over Beijing’s Forbidden
City. Due to the secrecy surrounding the country’s records, little
has been known about the early years of the communist rule. Drawing
on previously classified documents, secret police reports, and
eyewitness accounts, Dikötter bears witness to a shocking,
largely untold history. People of all walks of life were
brutalized, imprisoned, and executed. Others were forced to write
confessions and denounce their friends. “The Chinese Communist
party refers to its victory in 1949 as ‘liberation,’” Dikötter
writes. “In China the story of liberation and the revolution that
followed is not one of peace, liberty, and justice. It is first and
foremost a story of calculated terror and systematic violence.”
Harry Wu, a human rights advocate who saw the communist takeover
and later spent 19 years in various Chinese forced-labor camps,
will comment on the book and life under Mao’s tyrannical regime.
