Even as a young child living through the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-76), I noticed that some people naturally had more privileges and were treated better than others.

For instance, if a husband became violent toward his wife, his neighbor could report him. Likely he would be publicly shamed and punished. However, should a wife do the same to her husband, people usually turned their eyes away, pretending they didn’t see, lest they be accused of being misogynists because it was politically incorrect to point a finger at a woman.

Before 1949 — the year when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to power — the Chinese culture viewed women as inferior to men. Chairman Mao liberated women from this oppressive environment, granting them equal rights; as he once famously said, “Women can hold up half of the sky.” In reality, however, women didn’t just get credit for holding up half of the sky, but were given permission to do to men the things that men might not have been allowed to do to them in the old days. I once saw a woman beating up a man — presumably her husband — on the street.

From eavesdropping on my parents’ conversations, I was able to vaguely understand at an early age how the adult world operated in my homeland. Each workplace (called a work unit) was overseen by communist cadres who usually came from poor families. The sole qualification for holding a leadership position was their dejected background. They had power to determine the fates of those under them, and they regularly received bribes, openly or secretly. No one dared to question their practices. Without the protection of law and order, treating corruption as a norm was more expedient.

The notion that “some are naturally more fortunate than others” did not only exist in the adult world; I could sense it among my friends in elementary school.

In that era, each family was assigned to an apartment within the boundary of the work unit. Most residential buildings were identical on the outside, but the condition of each apartment was noticeably different. In the first 10 years of my life, my family lived in a one-room apartment facing west; it was cold in winter and hot in summer. Its condition showcased my father’s low social status in his work unit (a college). One of my classmates lived in a much better apartment than ours. My dad told me the fact that her mother was a Hui ethnic minority (Chinese Muslim) had given her family an extra advantage. Another friend who had relatives living in Indonesia was assigned a better apartment, too. The government wanted to prove that the CCP was not just the savior of the Han Chinese (the dominant race) in the mainland, but also the champion of the other 55 minority groups and overseas Chinese; in this case, only the relatives who lived in China could enjoy the benefits.

This all illustrates the background of my childhood. Remarkably, I never questioned my environment, nor did I recognize any injustice in my life. How could I? After all, the atheistic Marxist regime determined morality for me. I thought I had a normal life, only regretting that luck had not visited my family.

However, all that changed one day when I was about seven. That day, my dad took me and my sister to a restaurant.

Fairness: What a Concept!

During the Cultural Revolution, few restaurants were open, and those that were often suffered from dilapidated conditions and were poorly furnished. It was challenging to find a stool to sit on. Usually, a family of a few shared one stool, taking turns to sit on it.

My father and sister and I stood behind a customer who was still eating, waiting for him to finish so we could have his stool.

As soon as he stood up to leave, my dad stepped forward to reach for the stool. Suddenly a teenager rushed over and grabbed it. My dad calmly said to him, “Young man, I came first and I waited for a long time. If you had come earlier than I, it would have been yours. But I think I should have it.” Hearing my dad’s words, the young man looked confused. Withdrawing his hand, he moved away.

I was flabbergasted. It felt out of place, incongruent with the culture around me. Yet it was refreshing, nobler and more dignified than what I was used to. For the first time in my life, I recognized the concept of fairness, independent of power, gender, race, and other factors. That was an incredible discovery!

That event has made a lifetime impression on me. I began to develop a strong aversion toward unfair and unjust practices in my life. Later, it inspired me to look for a place where fairness and meritocracy were acknowledged and exercised, where a person’s fate is not shaped by external random factors outside one’s control, such as race, gender, and political power.

When I first arrived in the U.S. in 1989, I knew this was where I wanted to live, a land of opportunity and equal rights under the law. Here one can achieve the American dream through assiduity and perseverance. Though not a perfect place, it is diametrically different from China during the Cultural Revolution.

Sadly, 30 years later, it increasingly resembles the place I came from.

It’s Getting Pretty Socialist Up in Here

I never expected that the American government would allow eight million people to enter our country illegally and attempt to grant them more rights than citizens — but that is what is happening right now. The Democrat-controlled legislature in California, where I live, just voted to give Illegal aliens taxpayer money to purchase houses while millions of Californians are struggling to make ends meet. What the progressive left has done makes the CCP look like a dwarf in the presence of a giant. Their audacity and madness have outweighed that of the CCP, which ferociously guards the Chinese border and never allowed an outside force to invade their land.

If you think what the left has done here would only create immense injustice in our society, you are mistaken.

The CCP could not care less about the poor people in China. But the party sees the value of the have-nots as a useful tool to help them maintain power. They know the impoverished have neither the means nor the skills to earn a good life. Their well-being entirely depends on the mercy of the regime. This makes them its most reliant and loyal followers — and that’s why they rewarded them with leadership positions. How could a country operate properly under the leadership of utterly incompetent people?

This in part explains why all Marxist countries like China have produced only poverty, decay, and disasters.

The Biden-Harris administration’s attitude toward illegal aliens may sound illogical and puzzling, but it follows the same rationale as the CCP’s foster of cadres. Biden and Harris are not particularly concerned about the pitiful conditions of the illegals, but perceive them as potentially staunch supporters of the Democratic Party, which fully understand their indebtedness and dependence on their saviors.

Will we one day see illegals placed in positions of power over us in the same way as the communist cadres in China? This may not have appeared on Americans’ radars yet, but the prospect is within reach. Should it be the best option for the left to gain and maintain control, they would execute such policies without any hesitation, even at the expense of demolishing this country. Indeed, last December The Washington Post reported that a noncitizen has even been elected to public office in the District of Columbia. If we are so willing to violate our own laws with such flagrance, where on earth are we headed?

This can also be said about the left’s war against white privilege. As Mao’s attempt to liberate women created a new kind of inequality in China, the progressives have made white people the new permanent underclass. American leftists share some of Mao’s essential characteristics. They never intend to reform their societies, nor do they plan to correct offensive practices. Rather, their goal is to eradicate all existing traditions and culture and generate chaos in society — but all this is done under the pretense of righting a wrong. That is how Marxists obtain power.

In accepting the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention in August, Kamala Harris promoted a “new way forward” for the nation centered around “joy.” But the enticing pill she’s selling is venomous, coated with sugar.

The nonpartisan GovTrack ranked Harris the most liberal left-wing U.S. senator before she became vice president — even to the left of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. A true comrade, she must have made Mao giddy in his glass mausoleum. Right now, she is potentially the most dangerous person in the free world, should she become the next U.S. president.

If we swallow her pill in November, we might not be able to find the antidote before dying with excruciating agony and regret.

Chenyuan Snider was raised in Communist China and majored in Chinese language and literature in college. After immigrating to the U.S. and studying at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary and Duke Divinity School, she became a professor at Christian colleges and seminary. She and her husband live in northern California and have two grown children.