[INTERVIEW] 'I take persecution by China as an honor'

A still of Doris Liu's 2017 documentary "In the Name of Confucius" / Courtesy of Doris Liu

Chinese Canadian filmmaker Doris Liu fights for 'a democratic China'

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Doris Liu

Doris Liu's life has made a dramatic turn from a fully committed Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member who indoctrinated university students with the communist ideology to a caused-driven filmmaker, producer and writer fighting against the CCP.

Despite the shift in her attitude toward the party, there's one thing that has remained the same ― her commitment to her home country China and the Chinese people.

Liu said the CCP, and the Chinese public she is fighting for are two separate groups. "I decided to leave China because I wanted to live with freedom and liberty and do something good for China from outside the country," she said in an email interview with The Korea Times.

Liu has been unearthing the truth about the CCP and how they damaged the country, to enlighten her fellow Chinese people.

"It was the truth that awakened me," she said. "I feel that I have more responsibility to safeguard my new home in Canada as well as democracy in general. I came from a country that was ruled by the communist party and know how dangerous communism is."

Her commitment and resolve for truth resulted in the 2017 documentary, titled "In the Name of Confucius," a film that revolves around a former Confucius Institute teacher Sonia Zhao who was unable to keep her job because of the institute's discriminatory hiring practices. The film seeks answer to the question of why the CCP has spent multiple billions of dollars to run cultural and language centers on university campuses around the world.

Highlighting the danger of the Chinese government-funded institutes, "In the Name of Confucius" follows the Toronto District School Board's (TDSB) plan to open the world's largest Confucius Institute, which was later cancelled after trustees voted against the plan in 2014.

Liu zoomed in on the local Chinese community that polarized into two groups regarding TDSB's partnership with China ― supporters and opponents. According to her, proponents were those having links with the CCP, while their opponents were critics of the party, Falun Gong practitioners, Taiwanese, Hong Kongers and Uygurs and other ethnic minorities living in Toronto.

The 2017 documentary resulted in her being put into two contrasting situations.

She became an award-winning filmmaker, honored at several international film festivals, but also experienced coercion and persecution from the CCP for her work.

The CCP has on several occasions tried to stop her film from being screened, and some of the efforts were successful. In 2017, when she was invited by a U.S.-based human rights NGO to screen her film at their annual conference held in Tokyo, she said, the CCP tried to pressure the Japanese government to cancel the three-day conference. Liu said she was told the CCP warned Japan that any screening would damage "Sino-Japan friendship."

The screening of her film was cancelled or rejected at some universities in Australia and New Zealand. Those decisions were made as a result of the CCP's indirect and direct censorship, and the universities' self-censorship, or both.

"Whenever my film or I myself is targeted by the CCP, I take it as an honor and am more determined to continue to do what I've been doing," she said.

Born and raised in China, Liu was a front line "officer" of the CPP's propaganda work. As "a political tutor" on campus, she indoctrinated and brainwashed university students with the party's ideology. The directives came from the CCP committee through provincial and city branches before she was given them by the party secretary at her university.

During a 1999 summer vacation when the Chinese government's brutal crackdown on Falun Gong was at its height, she was called by her superior to come to their office. The unnamed director ordered Liu to monitor her students and their parents to see if they practiced Falun Gong. If she discovered anyone doing that, she was told to report it to the director. She was also told to make sure that no Falun Gong materials were seen in her department.

Feeling tired of the political side of the job, Liu left and found work at a German company based in China.

Her career transition from a CCP field instructor responsible for brainwashing university students to foreign company in the private sector allowed her to have access a sea of information that was off-limits to Chinese citizens.

Liu's access to uncensored information about major political events, including the Chinese government's brutal crackdown on pro-democracy students in Tiananmen Square, was a life-changing experience.

She realized that like other ordinary Chinese people, she was fooled by the CCP and their manipulative actions to remain in power.

"I came to know the truth of the Tiananmen Square massacre and the persecution of Falun Gong," she said. "I was so shocked to realize that all my years before were all based on lies after lies and the CCP was doing nothing more than lying to and killing the Chinese people."

Liu later managed to emigrate to Canada where she found a new life and fought against the CCP.