New Book “Who Are China’s Walking Dead?” Reveals the Twisted World of CCP Officials

He told a story that described the fatal wedge that had been hammered hard and deep between himself and his beloved Party. It was this wedge that drove a terrible fear into him and drove him out of his homeland. But it was not a fear of what the Party might do to him physically. It was a fear of what the Party would do to his mind—what he would become if he stayed on the Party path.

“It was a conflict of values,” he said at the only point during the interview where both his outer guard and inner guard had fallen down. “I had developed my own opinions about the CCP. But of course I didn’t say those things out loud,” he emphasized. I imagined he shuddered at the thought of the consequences of speaking against the Party. But he didn’t flinch.

“For a long time I wanted to make changes from within, I wanted to push forward and promote progress within the system. Later on I realized I was just a tiny ant. I absolutely couldn’t change anything.”

He paused longer. A mixture of guilt and grief were upon his face, but he kept his chin high and his eyes wide. His face was the most open at that very moment of all the officials we had ever met. He gulped silently, but I saw it. He opened his mouth and left it open for many moments, as if it wouldn’t close by itself. He inhaled and exhaled slowly, as if to disguise his heavy breaths. But his reaction was unmistakable.

He swallowed before recalling that final defining moment of leaving the Walking Dead.

“Because I had no way to change anything, I decided that at least I am not going to be an accomplice, so I chose a different path,” his voice cracked ever so slightly and he swallowed again, flushing away any drops of fluid that might form a tear in his eye. “I chose to leave,” he concluded.

He looked at me for a few seconds, his head gently nodding.

His choice had eventually become clear. If he stayed in China he would join the ranks of the Walking Dead. He would betray his conscience, participate directly in the anti-human functions of his departments, and forgo his soul. His alternative was to leave everything he knew and loved, and seek refuge with his Party’s enemy—the West. There he would be scorned by the Party-led Chinese diaspora as an “anti-Chinese traitor” and be interrogated by the authorities who would question his motives, his sincerity, his loyalties. And he would be dependent on translators he didn’t know to present his truth for him in the West.

I watched him curiously as he tilted his head down and wiped his eyes with his fingers. Then we looked at each other. Years of interrogation and intelligence training had earned him the perfect poker face. He was calm and steady and revealed no emotion in his responses. But for a very brief moment his eyes flashed with suspicion—possibly anger—questioning my motives. For a brief moment, our interviewer-interviewee trust was broken. He questioned if I wanted the lights to make his eyes water to make him appear emotional on camera. I reassured him it was not.

I’d been told that he wasn’t willing to do interviews much these days. It had been ten years since his high-profile defection from the CCP, and he was now busy running his own small business. I had been warned and prepped that he might not turn up for the interview. That had happened the last time my contact had scheduled an interview with him and another media. So I was very grateful that he had come and was still sitting beneath our imperfect lighting.

The light brightness was fixed and I thanked him. I knew he was acutely aware of how the CCP uses cameras to twist and turn their subjects, but we had no intention of using such CCP propaganda techniques in our interviews. Facts were all we were after.

The Officer resumed his poker face and I continued my questioning.

“What made you leave China?” I asked.

[ . . . ]

“The reason I left China was because of the suppression of Falun Gong. What I saw in jails and labor camps when I went to interrogate Falun Gong practitioners shocked me too much. Also some filming of Falun Gong practitioners by CCTV when they created some false propaganda harmed me personally, but it also enlightened me.”