To avoid being ridiculed, the CCP once again destroys the results of its religion suppression policies after they are disclosed on Bitter Winter.
by Li Mingxuan
As Bitter Winter reported on May 2, the statue of the “First Guanyin of Shandong” underwent a “facelift” when its head was replaced with that of Confucius. The transformation of the figure, located in the village of Chengdongbu village, under the jurisdiction of Pingdu city in the eastern province of Shandong, cost approximately 400,000 RMB (about $ 60,000). The news about this bizarre-looking “sinicization” folly elicited widespread attention from netizens and overseas media. The authorities decided to demolish the statue two weeks after the report was first published.
According to local villagers, in mid-May, the entrance to the Holy Water Pond Folk Culture Park in Pingdu City Development Zone, where the statue was located, was closed off, with specially-appointed personnel on guard. A notice posted on the gate read: “Construction underway in the park; entry prohibited.”
On May 19, the statue was cordoned off with a safety net. Nearly ten days later, the head of Confucius was first cut off and then, the Guanyin body was also dismantled.
According to sources, officials from the city’s United Front Work Department and the Management Committee came to the park every day to oversee the demolition work; only the workers involved in the process were allowed to enter the site.
Residents also revealed that the Development Zone Management Committee of Pingdu had repeatedly demanded the removal of this “hybrid statue,” but the village committee never agreed to it. Provincial, city, and county officials later put pressure on the village committee, stating that the central government’s policies prohibit superstition; even if the Guanyin statue’s head were changed with that of Confucius, it would still have to be fully dismantled. The three authorities also ordered the closure of the temple in the park.
The village committee was very reluctant to dismantle the “Confucius statue,” which was built at the cost of 2.4 million RMB (about $ 360,000). However, facing the pressure from their superiors, they had to oblige.
The destruction of this hybrid statue is not an isolated case – it appears that the information posted on Bitter Winter is a source of distress to the CCP, forcing it to “burn the bodies to hide the evidence,” as a saying goes. On May 12, the “Chairman Mao Buddha Temple,” a CCP-designated “red education base” to worship communist leaders was razed to the ground one day after Bitter Witter reported on it, to get rid of this oddity.
