It’s a story no media company could resist: “Chinese tycoon says he’s going to buy the New York Times.” He promptly gets on a plane to pursue his goal.
Never mind that a New York Times spokesperson said essentially, “We don’t know anything about this.” Every media company rushed to follow a story about one of the biggest of their own.
However, when Chen Guangbiao got to New York, it appears he had something else in mind: Making news on another topic, and likely at the behest of someone in the Chinese Communist Party, given his new message.
With the spotlight focused on him due to his improbable claims of buying the New York Times, today Chen is holding a press conference to revive an event that happened 13 years ago in Tiananmen Square. A staged self-immolation incident occurred on January 23, 2001. Chen says he is donating money for the victims of this incident.
The incident was used for several years in China as a propaganda weapon against people who practice Falun Gong. The Party alleged that the people who set themselves on fire were Falun Gong practitioners, and showed video of the incident repeatedly on television in China. It turned the opinions of many people against Falun Gong.
Analysis of the video (see www.falsefire.com) shows that the incident was staged and not what the Party portrayed it to be in several respects—but the damage had been done. Many people in China acquired an opinion of Falun Gong that made it easier for the Party to continue and intensify its campaign of persecution and torture against Falun Gong practitioners. The shift of public opinion made it easier for the Party to orchestrate harvesting of organs from living Falun Gong practitioners and selling those organs for profit.
Chen says he wants to buy the New York Times for the good of the world. In fact, he is using the spotlight now to further defame people who have been targeted by the CCP, because of their beliefs. The core of the beliefs of Falun Gong practitioners consists of three words: truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. These are the beliefs the CCP is persecuting.
Why is Chen Guangbiao making himself an agent of the Party in further spreading lies? And why at this time?
One thing is clear. According to commentator Heng He, “Without a direct order from the regime, it’s almost impossible for Chen Guangbiao to come up with this idea by himself.”
Stay tuned.
