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Rachel Chiu, Opinion contributor Published 7:00 a.m. ET Feb. 3, 2021

Hong Kong activists and Uighur minorities are under assault from Chinese President Xi Jinping's old communist playbook. America can come to their aid.

Seventy-one years ago, my grandmother was beaten, enslavedand nearly killed by the Chinese Communist Party. China continues to do the same thing today and America should offer its new victimsrefuge.

Tension is already brewing between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping. During last month's Davos Agenda conference, Xi condemnedthe arrogant isolationism of the Trump era and cautioned that a cold war, hot war, trade war, or tech war would lead to division and even confrontation. This is the oldest play in Chinas Communist handbook, which values economic and social power above all else.

Bidens next move should be a decisive one a warm welcome for Hong Kongers, Uighurs, and Chinese political dissidents.

At its core, communism involves socio-economic restructuring.But the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has always wanted morethan command of resources and capital and, to that end, continues to pay a high price for fear and respect. Despite their best efforts, Xi and his predecessors have never been able to buy complete compliance from other nations nor its own people.

Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published these words in 1848;100 years later, Mao Zedong, the leader of the CCP, put this belief into practice. In the late 1940s and 50s, Mao and the early Chinese communists galvanized working class tenants with the promise of social equality and property rights.

This massive and deadly disinformation operation, known as the Land Reform Campaign, mobilized the working class to pillage and seize property owned by their landlords.But it didnt end there. Controlling the infrastructure wasnt enough, so rebels humiliated, torturedand killed the ruling class.

Hong Kong activists: We're protesting for our freedom from brutal Chinese authoritarianism

By the time the uprising reached Sun Wui, my grandmothers hometown in southeast China,the landlords had already fled. Their wives, many of whom were originally from the working class, were left behind to care for their children and home. They committed no transgressions against the tenants, yet were persecuted as if they did. My grandmother was sent to a hard-labor campin 1950, where she was forced to tear down her neighbors homes during the day and endure beatings by her captors in the night.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden on Sept. 24, 2015, at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland.(Photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP)

During her four years of torture, my grandmother's infant son died from starvation and illness and shetried to escape repeatedly, failing three times. Her town was overrun by the Communists, but they needed the wives and children to remain as slave labor before they were executed. They took all of her belongings and broke her bones, but they could not destroy her dream of living safe, freeand happy. On her fourth escape attempt in 1954, she succeeded.

Incredibly, she was able tobringherself andthree of her young children to freedom, she finally made it to the United States in 1968.My family now calls Americaour home.

Xi and the CCP are not as strong as they portray themselves. The CCPs ascent to power required the deaths of millions during the Land Reform Campaign and subsequent Cultural Revolution, yet they continue to struggle for social control. Chinas communist handbook contains only authoritarian solutions their go-to response to opposition is to resort to violence, arbitrary detention, imprisonmentand disappearances.Similar to the Land Reform Campaign, the government uses disinformation and arrests to silence political activists in Hong Kong, and they use surveillance and "re-education" camps to torture the Uighurs.

But like my grandmother, the CCPs political opponents do not yield.

The United States should follow the United Kingdoms lead and provide special visas for qualifiedHong Kongers. Since a new national security law went into effect last summer, dozens of pro-democracy activists have been arrested,and many more are at risk, even those no longer on Hong Kong soil.

Hong Kong national security law: Hong Kong freedom lovers deserve global support against Chinese Communist Party's new Red Terror

Last summer, the UK government quickly provided Hong Kongs British National (Overseas) passport holders the opportunity to apply for special visas, which allow for prolonged visits and provide a pathway to citizenship. Such visas from the United States, in addition to refugee and asylee admission, would send a powerful signal to the CCP and all those suffering under its rule.

Rachel Chiu in Ithaca, New York, in 2016.(Photo: Family handout)

The United States has direct interests in the region, including 85,000 U.S. citizens living in Hong Kong and a trade surplus of $26 billion.The Hong Kongpro-democracy demonstrations in 2019 pushed back on authoritarian encroachment from Beijing, championing the freedoms and liberties that the United States believes are central, inalienable rights.

Furthermore, the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992 states that Support for democratization is a fundamental principle of United States foreign policy. As such, it naturally applies to United States policy toward Hong Kong. The United States should honor these social and economic ties by protecting those who similarly champion a free society.

The inability to garner absolute obedience, from the 1940s to present day, is the CCPs mortal wound. If Biden wants to get tough on China, he needs to save its people.

Rachel Chiu is a Young Voices Contributor and public policy researcher at the Cato Institute. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect her employer's. Follow her on Twitter @rachelhchiu.

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My grandmother stood up to the Chinese Communist Party. President Joe Biden should too. - USA TODAY