Over the past few days news headlines have included numerous mentions of the giant Chinese tech company, Huawei, and President Trump's announcement at the close of the G20 meeting in Japan that the United States would ease previous restrictions allowing US companies to once more sell services and products to Huawei. As the media has reported, Chinese negotiators have been nearly apoplectic demanding all sanctions against Huawei be lifted since Trump's signing of his Executive Order "Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain" on May 15.
For many months I have been researching Huawei's role in bringing about an ever-more-draconian dystopian society across China. In February 2018 the Chinese Communist Party removed all restrictions and term limits governing the Presidency of China. Since that time, the largest nation in the world has moved swiftly from authoritarianism and is fast becoming a totalitarian, dictator-driven nation under Xi Jinping. At Xi's behest, Huawei, and other Chinese tech firms, were already in the process of wiring every nook and cranny across China to make it a surveillance state like no other the world has ever seen. Now, with the advent of a restrictive social credit system, Beijing is employing a vast array of surveillance technology, powered by artificial intelligence and using advanced forms of facial recognition to first track and then grade every citizen's
lifestyles and activities to bring about government-induced cultural conformity.
Huawei, however, has also been busy outside of China and has marketed their technology and hardware worldwide. The catch is that they are so skilled at surveillance and snooping that their masters in the Chinese Communist Party have benefited dramatically from the spying ability stealthily incorporated in Huawei phones, servers, computers, and various gear shipped far and wide. Now combine the vast volume of data they are capturing, the super-computing algorithms at their disposal, and the will to hinder or eliminate any group they see fit and behold, you truly have a dictators dream. And what groups have received great attention from Chinese officials?
The answer is religious groups who refuse to conform.
Though I began writing
"Precursor to The Beast" last December, it sat unfinished until I began work to complete it last month. It was my plan to release it several days ago but as sometimes happens, I believe God held things up in His perfect timing. That became evident as I watched President Trump's impromptu news conference late Saturday night from Osaka when he announced the change in US policy concerning Huawei.
You may be saying, "If this company is spying with equipment it produces then I'm glad President Trump is restricting them in the US. But why is Huawei important to me? I don't own any of their gear. How could this company - or even China itself - constitute a threat to the cause of Christ or our ability to carry out missionary evangelism?
I believe every evangelical Christian needs to be aware of what can only be called a far-reaching, consorted, and sinister plan that, given the right circumstances, could unmask missionaries and christian leaders in many places not at all friendly to the Gospel and imperil their ministries and possibly their lives. This is not hyperbole or paranoia but instead the reality that we are now living in the world George Orwell imagined. Please carefully considering the scenario that I unfold through
"Precursor to The Beast" parts one and two.
We are tasked with spreading the eternal Gospel - the "good news." But I can realistically think of no ideology that stands in such stark contrast with Christianity as does that of Red China. May we be alert and wise as we enter this next phase of the end-times. Like the men of Issachar, who understood the perils of their day and knew, regardless of how they were opposed, exactly how to proceed (1 Chron. 12:32).
