The Iron Curtain Has Fallen - China 2022 October

1. The return of the Iron Curtain 

Recently, I often receive phone calls from some old friends in China who have not been in contact with me for many years, telling me that he has finally recovered, and I deeply sighed and sighed. This is a typical scene during this special period. After the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the situation in the country drastically deteriorated. At present, China has become an insane madhouse for the Xi family, isolated and unreasonable. In particular, at the conference, Xi Jinping forcibly took away his predecessor and mentor Hu Jintao in full view of the public. Afterward, he led all Xi's cronies to appear in China in full satisfaction, and all kinds of scandals made the world stunned. In our homeland, turbulent currents are rampant now, barbarism is in power, everything went silent, and there are many prisons erected because of the Zero COVID policy. 

In view of this, people can't help but think of Germany in 1933, Central and Eastern Europe in 1946, China in 1949, 1962 and 1989, East and West Berlin after the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961, and Hong Kong in 2020, after the National Security Law. 

The former British Prime Minister Churchill delivered a speech entitled "Pillar of Peace" at Westminster College in the United States on March 5, 1946, which resounded in Chinese ears: "From Szczecin in the Baltic Sea to Adriatic Trieste, on the Asian Sea, an Iron Curtain across Europe has fallen." 

 1) Germany: 1933 

Familiar scenes flashed across the screen of history: On January 30, 1933, Hitler officially took office as Chancellor of Germany, and Germany entered the Nazi era. On the same day, Einstein and his wife Elsa successfully escaped from Germany and embarked on a trip to visit the United States. Einstein's escape was a major landmark event for the scientific community around the world. As we all know, Germany used to be the most scientifically developed country in the world. In 1933, the year Einstein fled, there were only five people in the United States who won the Nobel Prize in Natural Science. Thirty-one people have won the Nobel Prize, six times as many as in the United States. But after that? The appearance of geotechnical technology is no longer the same.

German philosopher Cassler was equally aware of the Nazis as Einstein. In the spring of 1933, shortly after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, Cassiller said: "I suppose this regime will last ten years, but the evil it inspires may last a hundred and fifty years." On May 2, 1933, the fourth month after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, Cassiller resigned from the position of President of the University of Hamburg and fled Germany in time. He first taught at Oxford University in England, and then went to Sweden and the United States to teach. Died in New York in 1945. 

Freud, the founder and thinker of psychoanalysis, lived in Vienna, Austria. When news of the book burning in the Third Reich reached his ears, he said, "They've come a long way! In the Middle Ages, I'd be the one they'd burn, and now they're satisfied with just burning my books." Freud believed that the Nazis would only burn books, not people. But soon, Hitler shattered his illusions. On March 11, 1938, German troops invaded Austria. Fortunately, the international community reached out to him. The U.S. embassy sent a car parked near his home, and once Floyd's life was threatened, the car would intervene and save in the name of the United States. Under international pressure, Nazi Germany agreed to Freud's departure, but he had to pay more than 30,000 marks of "reich evasion tax". On June 4, Freud and his family left Vienna by train and settled in London, England. 

Of course, a large number of German citizens and intellectuals were not as lucky as Einstein, Cassiller, and Freud. They stayed in Germany with a bleak fate, many Jews went to concentration camps, and many died, including Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Fritz. Haber et al. 

2) China: 1949, 1962, 1989 

In 1949, on the eve of the CCP's entry into mainland China, should we leave or stay? China's intellectual elites face a fate similar to that of the German intellectuals in 1933. Hu Shi, Fu Sinian, Qian Mu, Zhang Ailing, Zhang Junmai, Mou Zongsan... left the country. And most of the intellectuals—Chen Yinke, Chen Yuanchu, Anping, Luo Longji, Zhang Bojun, Fu Lei, Laoshe, Zhang Dongsun, Pan Guangdan, Wu Wenzao, Fei Xiaotong, Liang Shuming, Shen Congwen...with a little unease and fear—stayed behind. They never thought that there was blood and tears in front of them, parting life and death, madhouse! Once you slip up, it becomes an eternal regret, and when you look back, it is already a hundred years away. This is especially true for Chen Yinke, Chu Anping, Luo Longji, Zhang Bojun, Fu Lei, Lao She, Zhang Dongsun, Pan Guangdan, and Wu Wenzao. As Pan Guangdan summed up, the fate of intellectuals in communist China has four steps: surrender, give in, live, and die. 

The Chinese sages said that "a gentleman does not stand under a wall of danger". Now that the dark night in China has come again, the compatriots and friends on the other side of the ocean, what kind of wisdom will they gain from the bloody history? Is it to do everything possible to flee, over the ocean to a different continent, or bet on a fluke, repeating the mistakes of Chu Anping and Luo Longji, and trapped in death? 

1962: Thousands of hungry people in mainland China fled to Hong Kong 

1989: The fleeing after the June 4 massacre 

.......

[Translated by Google from Chinese]

Zhang Jie: Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - The Great Escape in Xi Jinping's New Era

張傑：飞跃疯人院—习近平新时代的大逃亡

 一、 铁幕再临 

最近，我常收到 一些多年未曾联系的国内老朋友从美国打来的电话，告诉我他终于润出来了，唏嘘感叹不已。这是这段特殊时期典型景象。中共二十大后，国是日非。当下，中国变成一座孤绝于世不可理喻的习家疯人院。特别是在大会场上习近平前恭后倨竟在众目睽睽之下强行架走其前任与恩师胡锦涛，之后志得意满率领清一色习氏亲信粉墨登场君临中国后，丑行种种，令全球瞠目结舌。我们的故国，现在浊流横行，野蛮当道，鸦雀无声，清零式的监狱遍地。有鉴于此，人们不由想起了1933年的德国，1946年的中欧和东欧，1949年，1962年和1989年的中国，1961年柏林墙矗立后的东西柏林，以及2020年后被国安法凌驾的香港。 

此时，英国前首相丘吉尔1946年3月5日在美国威斯敏斯特学院发表了题为“和平砥柱”的演说响彻中国人耳边：“从波罗的海的什切青到亚得里亚海边的的里雅斯特，一幅横贯欧洲大陆的铁幕已经降落下来”。 

 1）德国：1933 

似曾相识，一幕幕场景闪过历史的荧屏：

1933年1月30日，希特勒正式就任德国总理，德国进入纳粹时代。就在同一天，爱因斯坦携妻子爱尔莎一道，成功逃离德国，踏上了去美国访问的旅途。 

爱因斯坦的逃离对全世界的科学界来讲是一个重大标志性事件。大家知道，之前德国是全世界科学最发达的国家，在1933年，也就是爱因斯坦逃离的那一年，美国总共才有五个人获得过诺贝尔奖的自然科学奖，而德国这时候已经有三十一个人得过诺贝尔奖了，是美国的六倍。然而此后呢？地缘科技之貌，已不可同日而语了。 

与爱因斯坦同样对纳粹有清醒认识的人还有德国的哲学家卡西勒。1933年春天，希特勒当上德国总理不久，卡西勒说：“我猜想这个政权将持续十年，但是它激起的邪恶可能持续一百五十年。” 

1933年5月2日，希特勒当上德国总理后的第四个月，卡西勒辞去汉堡大学校长职务，及时逃离了德国，他先是在英国牛津大学讲学，后又去了瑞典和美国授课，1945年在纽约逝世。 

2）中国：1949， 1962， 1989 

1949年，中共入主中国大陆前夕，走还是留？中国的知识精英面临与1933年德国知识人相似的命运抉择。 

胡适 傅斯年 钱穆 张爱玲 张君劢 牟宗三……离开了这个国家。 

而多数知识人——陈寅恪 陈垣 储安平 罗隆基 章伯钧 傅雷 老舍 张东荪 潘光旦 吴文藻 费孝通 梁漱溟 沈从文……带着略微不安和惶恐——留下来了， 他们何曾想到，前面竟是是血泪交织，生离死别的疯人院！一失足成千古恨，再回头已是百年身。特别是对陈寅恪 储安平 罗隆基 章伯钧 傅雷 老舍 张东荪 潘光旦 吴文藻而言，更是如此。诚如潘光旦所总结的，知识人命运在共产中国有四步曲: 投降、屈服、活命、死亡。 

先贤云，君子不立危墙之下。如今，中国暗夜又一次降临，大洋对岸的同胞朋友们，不知会从血雨腥风的历史中获得何种智慧？是千方百计飞越疯人院，还是心存侥幸，重蹈储安平、罗隆基们覆辙，困于死地？

1962年： 中国大陆千千万万饥民的逃港潮，灾民饥民的大逃亡

1989年：六四大屠杀后的逃亡潮

.......