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"Communist bandit" (Chinese:共匪;pinyin:gòngfěi) is ananti-communistepithet directed at members of theChinese Communist Party. The term originated from theNationalist government in 1927 during theChinese Civil War. Outsidemainland China, someChinese people now use the term "中共" (zhōnggòng, literally: "Chinese Communist") to refer to thePeople's Republic of China or the Chinese Communist Party. It could also be translated to the English term "commie".[1][2]
The characters for "Communist bandits" are composed as follows:[3]
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The term of "Communist bandits" to describe theChinese Communist Party during theChinese Civil War between the Nationalists and the Communists.[3] When theImperial Japanese Army occupied parts of China during theSecond Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese occupation authorities used the term "Red bandits" and "Communist bandits". On July 15, 1947, Document 0744 ordered the CCP andits forces to be called "Communist bandits" as a form ofrectification of names, to the exclusion of all other terms, such as "Red bandits" (in Chinese 赤匪).[3] Along with the termfei, the term was used in official documents to describe the authorities established onMainland China and their agencies, and in several slogans such as "Fight against Communist Bandit's Animalistic Life".[3] In the 1980s, the term was replaced by "Chinese Communist Authorities".
The term is used today as an insult against the PRC, their sympathizers, or just Chinese mainlanders, particularly byTaiwanese independentists and Republic of China supporters.[4] In 1996,Microsoft halted sales of itsWindows 95 operating system in mainland China due to discoveries that it contained the term in Chinese-languageinput method software bundled with the operating system following police raids on computer stores.[5][6][7] In addition, the term is also used towards non-Chinese communists or communist-governed countries, such asYuenán gòngfei (越南共匪, directed atCommunist Party of Vietnam orViet Cong and the Vietnamese people), orBěihán gòngfei (北韓共匪, directed atWorkers' Party of Korea and the North Koreans).
In May 2020, it became known thatYouTube had been deleting any use of the term since October 2019.[8] Posted comments containing the phrase would shortly disappear without a reason being given.[9]Alphabet, owner of YouTube, said the removal of such comments was "an error".[8]
There is a pastry shop inChiayi, Taiwan named 共匪餅, meaning "Communist Bandit Pastries", which makes light of the martial law era epithet.[10]
