05 December 2011

By Scott Tompkins | ResonateNews.com

LONG BEACH, Calif. — A petite Chinese woman who once stood up to tanks in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square is now battling what some are calling the greatest holocaust in human history — the forced abortions of some 400 million children in the last 31 years under China’s one-child policy.

Chai Ling, who herself had three forced abortions, was a featured speaker at the Call2All Global Congress on Christian missions here Friday.

“The worst part of this policy is that many are aborted simply because they are girls,” she said.

Ling has written a book titled “A Heart For Freedom” which details her story of student activism in China, her studies at Harvard and Princeton, her success as a business executive, her conversion to Christianity two years ago and her personal struggle against China’s “gendercide” through an organization she founded called All Girls Allowed.

Ling cited statistics saying there are 35,000 coerced abortions each day in China and 85 percent of Chinese women have had at least one abortion.

“Women are undervalued and under tremendous pressure in Chinese culture,” she said. “So it’s no wonder 180,000 women commit suicide there every year. That’s 56 percent of all female suicides in the world.”

Ling fled to Hong Kong in 1990 and was granted political asylum in the United States. She is now married and has three children. She was honored Friday at a Call2All luncheon along with Pastor Peter Xu who spent 15 years in Chinese prisons because of his faith. She said she committed her life to Christ partly as a result of reading the book “Heavenly Man,” which recounts the life story of Chinese underground church leader, Brother Yun.

“Did you know that it was Pastor Xu who discipled Brother Yun?” Call2All President Mark Anderson asked at the luncheon.

“No,” she replied.

“Then please meet your spiritual grandfather,” said Anderson.

Xu and Ling embraced in a moment that electrified the crowd. Another dramatic moment for Ling came hours later after she spoke at the Call2All plenary session. Anderson called forth former Youth With A Mission president John Dawson and prayer movement leaders Lou Engle and Cindy Jacobs to pray for her.

What happened next demonstrated how much the missions and prayer movements have become intertwined in recent years.

Dawson prayed with fatherly tones about the significance of women in the future of China evangelism. Engle travailed in prayer, thundering out a prophecy about God raising her up like Moses in Egypt to set free people God loves, so they might carry the Gospel back to Jerusalem. This was a reference to a movement of Chinese Christians — including Pastor Xu — who seek to share Christ with the Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist worlds in a return to the place where Christianity was born. Jacobs referenced the Bible’s book of Revelation as she spoke of a great spiritual war with the dragon over the future of the nation.

The 600-plus Call2All delegates who represented more than 40 nations shook the Long Beach Convention Center with their prayers.

Chai Ling’s relentless campaign against “gendercide” and the Chinese “one-child” policy has brought her worldwide notoriety. She is frequently called upon to speak at human rights hearings and for media interviews.

In a recent USA Today column she again challenged the painful personal and national implications of China’s social engineering.

“The one-child policy has led to an undeclared war on baby girls,” she said. “For the cost of a $12 ultrasound, young couples determined to have a boy are practicing gender-selective abortion. Other couples abandon their baby girls or refuse to report them to authorities, leaving them without basic social services such as health care and education.”

All Girls Allowed not only lobbies governments and human rights groups on behalf of China’s women and children, it also sponsors scholarships for abandoned Chinese girls.

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