Cultural Revolution survivor Janice Trey was a forced child laborer in a Chinese labor camp in the first grade. Today she chairs the board of The Epoch Times, and in this Surviving Communism conversation she tells Jenny Beth Martin what the Chinese Communist Party did to her family, her food, her faith and her future, and what she sees of the same methods in America now. Born in a remote camp where the Party had sent her parents, both engineers, for being educated, she cut sugarcane, hauled fertilizer heavier than she was, and had to fill a bag with dropped crops every evening or lose her seat in class the next day. The camp's one television was switched on twice, for two funerals. From there the conversation widens: why the Party took the heart out of the Chinese character for love, why her mother asks every doctor when he trained, Confucius Institutes and paid newspaper inserts on American soil, why Falun Gong practitioners are targeted for their organs and what the Falun Gong Protection Act now before the Senate would do, and Tiananmen Square explained for young Americans who were never taught it. Janice Trey is chairman of the board of The Epoch Times and NTD, the newspaper's immediate past CEO, and a former executive at five Fortune 500 and Global 500 companies, with two master's degrees earned after she came to the United States following the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Learn more at teapartypatriots.org and jennybethshow.com.
Guest: Janice Trey is chairman of the board of The Epoch Times and NTD and the newspaper's immediate past CEO, a role she held until she found her successor. She was born in a forced labor camp during China's Cultural Revolution, where the Chinese Communist Party had sent her parents, both engineers, because they were educated. She came to the United States to study after the Tiananmen Square Massacre, earned two master's degrees, and served as an executive at five Fortune 500 and Global 500 companies. For nineteen years she and her husband, Dr. Torsten Trey, have worked to expose what the Party does to prisoners.
Key topics:
• Born in a forced labor camp: her parents were engineers sent to the countryside because they were educated
• First grade, second grade, third grade: cutting sugarcane, hauling fertilizer, and a bag of dropped crops that decided whether she could go to school
• One television for the entire camp, used twice: Mao Zedong's funeral and Zhou Enlai's funeral
• The grandfather who owned a bank, lost everything to the Party, and started over as a warehouse guard in Hong Kong
• A Christian school in Hong Kong at age ten, and the first time she heard a hymn instead of a song praising Mao
• Why communism sets children against parents and students against teachers, and why Trey says it survives on chaos
• Her mother's one question for every doctor: when did you train? If the answer is 1966 to 1976, she leaves
• Erase and replace: how the Party simplified Chinese characters and took the heart out of the word for love
• Seventy-seven years, a new target every era: landlords, the educated, the students of 1989, and Falun Gong since 1999
• Confucius Institutes in American schools, and the Party money Trey says the Department of Education found in US education
• Lawfare and paid inserts: China Daily in American newspapers, and why Trey says the New York Times coverage of a lawsuit against Shen Yun was orchestrated
• Wang Huning's America Against America: the playbook Trey says has guided three Chinese leaders
• Why Falun Gong practitioners are targeted for their organs, and the Falun Gong Protection Act now waiting on the Senate
• The one-child policy, and the difference between communism and totalitarianism
• North and South Korea, Taiwan and the mainland, Hong Kong: same people, different systems
• COVID, drones and power grids: why Trey says the Party sees the United States as an adversary by its existence
• Tiananmen Square, June 4, 1989, explained for young Americans who were never taught it
• The American dream from a labor camp to the boardroom, and the scorecard question Trey leaves for every American
• Calls to action: ask your senator to pass the Falun Gong Protection Act, and get out the vote at iwillsaveamerica.com
Timestamps:
00:00 — Cold open: the Surviving Communism series
00:40 — Jenny Beth Martin introduces Janice Trey
02:03 — Janice Trey's story in a minute, and the two Epoch Times books
04:26 — Born in a forced labor camp during the Cultural Revolution
05:17 — A forced child laborer from the first grade: sugarcane, fertilizer, and the bag that decided school
06:50 — One television for the whole camp, switched on twice
07:48 — Comparing the textbooks of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong
08:09 — How she got out: the grandfather's bank and a Christian school in Hong Kong
10:51 — Why the Party separates children from their parents
12:42 — Shadows of communism in America: chaos and protests that are not organic
14:16 — Mao worshipped as a god, and a classmate's father shot for owning land
16:53 — Her mother's question for every doctor: when did you train?
17:43 — Erase and replace: the heart taken out of the word for love
19:19 — No church permit in Beijing until the Olympics
20:10 — Taking possessions: the bank, the Catholic school, the herbal doctor
21:31 — Food rationing, the famine and the iron pots
22:55 — Seventy-seven years, a pattern: landlords, the educated, 1989, Falun Gong
25:23 — Confucius Institutes teach Party propaganda
26:19 — Party money in American education
27:46 — Lawfare: the Shen Yun lawsuit
30:19 — The New York Times coverage and the bots
33:07 — America Against America: the playbook
34:02 — China Daily inserts in American newspapers
35:01 — The Great Firewall, and how Jiang Zemin rose
36:36 — Jiang Zemin and the persecution of Falun Gong
38:20 — Why practitioners are targeted for their organs
39:30 — The Falun Gong Protection Act, and what to ask your senator
41:21 — Jenny Beth Martin recaps the bill: live bodies, not dead bodies
43:52 — The one-child policy and totalitarianism
45:25 — Why communism must erase and replace faith
45:55 — North and South Korea, Taiwan and the mainland, Hong Kong
48:29 — COVID, drones and power grids
51:38 — China's Stealth Invasion, and a secure messaging tool
54:16 — Tiananmen Square explained for young Americans
57:52 — A voice for the voiceless
01:00:01 — The American dream: from a labor camp to the boardroom
01:02:41 — What is your scorecard?
01:03:35 — Freedom is one generation from extinction; go vote
01:06:30 — Close: Dr. Torsten Trey is next, and iwillsaveamerica.com
Links mentioned:
jennybethshow.com
teapartypatriots.org
iwillsaveamerica.com
theepochtimes.com