Pianist with Communist Roots Plays at White House State Dinner
Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

President Barack Obama’s relationship with the communist People’s Republic of China has come under fire recently — due to his hosting of President Hu Jintao in a lavish, taxpayer-funded gala banquet in the White House last week, raising concerns about Obama’s loyalties and his ongoing relationship with communist, totalitarian regimes the world over.

Most notable about the banquet — and which was largely ignored by the mainstream media — was the choice of a song sung at the White House, to the applause of both Obama and Hu.

Aside from Obama’s hosting a leader who is actively working to destroy American prominence and leadership in finance, industry, and the military, he also hosted Chinese pianist Lang Lang, who is the darling of the communist regime and a source of artistic national pride for the totalitarian state. Lang has been an uncompromising supporter of the regime and the rule of President Hu, and has performed for him on several occasions.

At the banquet in honor of President Hu, he performed and sang the anthem “My Motherland” — the theme song from the Chinese film Battle on Shangangling Mountain, a Communist Chinese propaganda movie attacking America and elevating PRC nationalist spirit — in the White House, in the presence of the President of the United States, who complicity smiled along as Lang glorified Red China, while damning America, just as Obama’s (former) pastor, Dr. Jeremiah Wright, invoked damnation upon America.

Like Obama, Lang Lang’s ascendancy was aided by Oprah Winfrey, who promoted the careers of both on her television show. Winfrey invited Lang to perform on her show on May 18, 2009, along with his American protégés on her “Most Talented Kids” segment.

Lang Lang studied to become a piano virtuoso at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-run Beijing State Central Conservatory of Music, and at the age of 14 was the invited soloist of the CCP at the inaugural concert of the China National Symphony, which was broadcast on China Central Television (CCTV), China’s state-run television network, and attended by then-President Jiang Zemin.

Jiang was known for being a communist hardliner who was placed into power because his predecessor was believed by the CCP power apparatus to be “too conciliatory” towards the Tiananmen Square protesters in 1989 (Liu Xiaobo was one of these protesters).

He was also known for pursuing close relations with Russia (culminating in President Hu’s signing of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Charter), and for contributing to the canon of Marxist political thought with his Theory of Three Represents, which stresses the need for economic development and state entrepreneurship for the success of a communist state. Jiang also orchestrated Lang’s visit to Russia, where he was awarded by Russian President Boris Yeltsin and performed with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. 

Lang Lang’s musical ascendancy was also facilitated by his close relationship with Chinese National Maestro Li Delun. Li was best known for his pivotal role in incorporating classical music into the collective conscious of Chinese society during the Cultural Revolution, and thus utilizing classical music for the sake of developing the communist state. He was also awarded the Presidential Friendship Medal by Yeltsin.

Li Delun is featured in a probing and fascinating analysis of the unique history of the manipulative love-affair and use of Western classical music by the Chinese communist power matrix, Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese, written by musical historian Sheila Melvin. Lang Lang’s mentor is described as being a close friend of Mao Zedong’s wife Jiang Qing, who was a great aficionado of classical music, and he was a member of her close circle of musician comrades.

Chinese classical musicians such as Lang Lang are now perceived by China as being of crucial importance to the state’s fierce program of introducing some Western economic and cultural elements. China, since the days of Deng Xiaoping, has realized that pursuing market growth and projecting onto the world the illusion of reform away from Maoism constitutes the ultimate public relations tactic toward achieving global dominance.

Casting aside the unpalatable superficial elements of Red China earlier in the 1950s and 1960s in favor of the illusion of Westernization through such mechanisms as classical music has served to increase affection for the communist regime throughout the West, including the United States, a tactic which to date has been successful for China and disastrous for America. This significant role of classical music in carrying out the grand deception of communist China has been well documented in Richard Curt Kraus’s book Pianos and Politics in China: Middle-Class Ambitions and the Struggle over Western Music.

Lang Lang has been instrumental in carrying out this agenda. National Review columnist Jay Nordlinger describes him as the “court musician” for Hu and Obama, and he has long-standing connections with the CCP’s youth movement, the All China Youth Federation (ACYF), and the United Nations.

His communist connections extend to other family members as well. An article in the Sydney Morning Herald brilliantly refers to Lang Lang as having a “destiny decided before he was born,” a masterfully insightful description, granted the nature of communist regimes such as China, and the reality of Lang Lang being born into a communist family. His father, Lang Guo-Ren, is described by Xinhua News as being “the driving force behind his son’s achievements,” and was previously the Performance Ensemble Conductor for the Shenyang Air Force, as well as a state policeman in the Special Police Units (SPU), also known as the “teijing,” which is the police unit directly responsible for cracking down on political dissidents and protesters.    

In his autobiography, Journey of a Thousand Miles: My Story, Lang Lang describes his upbringing on a People’s Liberation Army Air Force base, and says that his father’s role in the Chinese Air Force helped imbue him with nationalistic fervor and affection for the PRC regime.  

The ACYF is one of China’s most influential organizations led by the CCP, and included among its former leaders Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin. It endeavors to:

…[H]old aloft the banners of patriotism and socialism; Encourage young people to study Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory and to study the socialist market economy; Promote China’s socialist modernization drive, push the development of the socialist market economy, improve the socialist democracy and legal system and promote the reunification of the motherland and defend the peace and development of the whole world, and work hard to help young people become well-trained.

Lang was named a National Council Member of the ACYF in 2005, and the ACYF describes his involvement at the 2006 World Cup in Munich as follows:

On June 7, the World Cup opening ceremony concert [took] place in the Munich Olympic Stadium. Chinese famous pianist Lang Lang, also ACYF NC member, participated in the grand occasion. His presence received great attention from the media. No Chinese team for the World Cup, but Cultural Ambassador Lang Lang is with us, so ran a local Chinese newspaper headline with a detailed report on the concert.

The ACYF website closely follows Lang’s musical escapades, and identifies him as having “flamboyant charisma” and beams with pride at him for “scaling new heights.” It also boasts of his performance at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, where he served as a “Cultural Ambassador” for the purpose of encouraging Western tourism and commerce in Shanghai, and provides a video of his laudatory interview with the state-run China Central Television (CCTV).  

Lang Lang is also an iconic example of the connection between global communists and global governance.

Adding to the nefariousness of Lang Lang’s performance are his connections to the United Nations, both individually and through his involvement in the ACYF. The ACYF is engaged in “environmental protection” and is taking an influential role in the global environmental movement; the group receives money from the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), and has been the recipient of the “Champion of the Earth Award” by the UNEP in 2004, as well as the “Human Resources Development Award” by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) in 1999. The organization also received the World Youth Award from the UN in 2000.

The communist youth movement leader himself has links to various global governance bodies. He was picked as one of 250 “Young Global Leaders” by the World Economic Forum (and presented their Crystal Award in Davos, Switzerland in 2010), and was also named a “Goodwill Ambassador” by UNICEF, and in this capacity, he is seeking to influence American children through music education and scholarships. According to UNICEF:

UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and classical pianist Lang Lang is expanding his commitment to children’s rights by creating an international foundation to encourage children’s love of music.

Launched today at a special performance for children at The Town Hall in New York, the Lang Lang International Music Foundation is dedicated to expanding young audiences and inspiring the next generation of musicians.

“I think the best way to reach children is to play them music. This really opens their ears and their minds,” he said.

One can only imagine what type of music a communist youth movement leader wishes to “reach” American children with.  

Despite Lang Lang’s documented work with the Chinese Communist Party and its various subsidiaries, his performance is being defended by the Obama administration, while anti-communist Americans and Chinese pro-democracy activists are appalled by the performance, which is seen as a direct attack on America, aimed at embarrassing Americans in their own White House before Obama, by performing a song ridiculing American interests and foreign policy goals right under the nose of oblivious American leaders.

Like Lang Lang’s seemingly benevolent “education” program, his performance duped America’s rulers, camouflaging hateful propaganda under the mask of “friendship.”

Related article: Communist Propaganda Song Performed at White House

Photo: President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama welcome China’s President Hu Jintao to the White House in Washington, Jan. 19, 2011, for the State Dinner: AP Images