Stop Raising Communist China’s Flag
Udumbara
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Philadelphia conducted a flag-raising ceremony on Sept. 30. The flag was not of the United States. It was not to show support for Ukraine, Taiwan, India, or other countries struggling to maintain their freedom and territorial integrity in the face of military incursions from nearby dictators. It was the communist flag of China, controlled by a genocidal regime that is history’s greatest threat to the United States of America and to democracy.
Philadelphia apparently has an indiscriminate policy of raising the flag of any country recognized by the United States, as long as local constituents sponsor the event. In this case, the Pennsylvania United Chinese Coalition and the Greater Philadelphia Fujian Hometown Association were involved, according to Congressman John Moolenaar (R-Mich.).
Moolenaar is particularly knowledgeable about the threat from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as he chairs the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the CCP. He wrote in his letter that Philadelphia was partnering with “local organizations that appear to be civic associations in name only and, more troubling, have ties to the CCP.”
Flag raising and city-to-city relationships are arguably appropriate for friendly countries, such as Ireland and Japan, as a celebration of local constituent diversity. But the same types of events and relations are used by the world’s most powerful authoritarian regimes, including the former Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s, to normalize their repressive policies. In the case of communist China, the repression includes genocide of the Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Falun Gong practitioners. This is nothing to celebrate or normalize with honors by the city hall.
So why would Philadelphia—the birthplace of American democracy, the city of the Liberty Bell, and home to one of the worst illegal drug epidemics in America—ever raise the repressive flag of communist China?
The answer is more likely found in the CCP’s influence in Pennsylvania than in an effort to celebrate the true diversity, including that of Taiwanese, Uyghurs, and Tibetans, of Philadelphia’s population. The lack of their representation at the event speaks volumes. Additionally, the CCP’s influence at local levels in Philadelphia extends beyond Chinese civic organizations to encompass elite institutions.
According to Moolenaar, the Pennsylvania United Chinese Coalition and the Greater Philadelphia Fujian Hometown Association have “ties to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) government, and especially the CCP’s United Front system.”
Philadelphia’s failure to respond reasonably to Moolenaar’s letter indicates that legislation is needed to, at the very least, end the most blatant of CCP influence operations: the cringeworthy waving of communist China’s flag by city hall officials across America.
There is some light at the end of the city hall tunnel, however. Moolenaar introduced a bill to ban the nation’s capital, at least, from continuing with its sister-city relationship with Beijing. This is a great first step, and suggestive of the need to end all sister-city relations with China, and cease all flag-raising events that support the CCP, until the regime in Beijing fully cooperates on counternarcotics, makes major human rights and democracy improvements, and completely ends threats against the territorial integrity of its neighbors.
