400 million quitting the Chinese Communist Party?

I'll believe it when I see it, but the news is that 400 million Chinese nationals, while living overseas, have renounced their membership in the CCP (Chinese Communist Party).

NEW YORK—Chinese entrepreneur Chen Quanhong had one message he wanted to tell to the world: “Tuidang.”

It’s a Chinese phrase—and it means “quit the Party.”

The words were emblazoned on a yellow flag Chen was carrying at a parade in Washington on July 21 to highlight the Chinese communist regime’s myriad human rights abuses.

Chen is now one of 400 million Chinese who have renounced their ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliate organizations.

In June, the business owner from China’s eastern Shandong Province made a statement formally breaking his ties with the Party, participating in a nearly two-decades-long grassroots movement that has sought to expose the communist regime’s history of deceit and killing, and give people an opportunity to disassociate from the entity.

“In China, I was no different from a worm trampled upon by the authoritarian power, not daring to stir a bit,” Chen told The Epoch Times. “Only when I came to America did I begin to feel like a person, because finally there’s no fear from the communist party.”

I assume tuidang would be, in Korean, toedang/퇴당/退黨 (pronounce it twae-dang, not toh-dang; the oe in Korean romanization is pronounced "weh" or "wae"): "leave the party." I can't imagine what it'd be like to formally announce something so disloyal (nor can I imagine the repercussions for relatives still trapped in China), but I guess Chen is committing himself to a life in America. Might be nice for him to become an American citizen. We could use more people like him—people who appreciate the dangers and pitfalls of rampant leftism, people who can testify as to how horrible the ideology actually is, people who can set our wayward youth straight when it comes to how twisted and corrupt and untenable this way of thinking and living can be. The article continues:

The Washington parade was the first one of its kind Chen had joined in his 50-plus years of life. It came ahead of a major milestone for the Tuidang movement: 400 million people renouncing their Party affiliations. The number tipped over that mark on Aug. 3.

“400 million—this number is greater than some countries’ entire population,” Yi Rong, the president of the Global Tuidang Center in Flushing, New York, told The Epoch Times. “With such a large group abandoning the CCP and steering clear from its crimes, it will spur a positive change in Chinese society.”

As more people join the quest for freedom, a “new China” free of communist control appears ever closer to reality, she added.

That number is certainly more than the US's (legal) population. Awesome if true. That's a huge roster, and by rights, it should be bigger news. And it's heartening to see that entities like the Global Tuidang Center really exist. Amazing. I can only wish these brave souls well. And I can only be thankful that America is still free enough to give these good people the space to cry freedom and to hope for a new China. Of course, whether a new China is in the offing is, I think, still up in the air. China's population is very close to 2 billion. And most of them are scared to leave the CCP while they're still inside China.