NEW YORK—Bizarre incidents have been afoot in Flushing, a city on the outskirts of Manhattan, over the last five months, as organized attacks against Falun Gong practitioners began taking place. Over 15 individuals have been arrested, and similar incidents are still occurring.
Soon after the attacks began, a recorded phone conversation revealed that the Chinese consul general in New York had boasted of having encouraged and congratulated the attackers. City Councilmember John Liu and State Assemblywoman Ellen Young were also found to have met with and supported those accused of the attacks.
Before John Liu took his peculiar stand toward the violence against Falun Gong in his district, he was honored in China by the Chinese Communist Party and its media as a rising political star, even though his only political activities have been here in New York City.
City Council Member John Liu
When Falun Gong practitioners were being attacked by large, organized crowds on the streets of Flushing, New York, they had tried to meet with their elected officials to ask for support.
Attempts to meet with Council Member John Liu and State Assemblywoman Ellen Young were unsuccessful. It was then discovered that Liu and Young had others they preferred meeting with, giving advice to, and supporting—the very individuals who had been attacking the Falun Gong practitioners.
The meeting was announced on June 29, when an article published by China Press said that on the following day, John Liu would be holding an open office for any resident who wanted to present their cases. On June 30, during a press conference at his office, Liu denied knowledge of violence of the attacks. He also refused to condemn the attackers or offer support to the victims.
Following the press conference, Liu kicked out Falun Gong practitioners who had come to his office to present their cases, and instead met with the attackers.
Among those who met with Liu in his office that day was Victor Yao (a.k.a. Qiu Wei), who was arrested for allegedly attacking a Falun Gong practitioner with a metal steering wheel lock in Brooklyn.
John Liu is the District 20 council member in charge of Flushing. He is also the first Chinese city council member in New York.
World Espionage and the United Front
An article written by Dr. Paul Moore, the former FBI chief Chinese intelligence analyst, entitled, “How China Plays the Ethnic Card,” explains how the CCP tries to use Chinese immigrants as spies.
“Over the years, China has displayed a very strong preference for collecting as much intelligence as possible from individuals of ethnic Chinese heritage, and when it recruits agents, it almost invariably recruits ethnic Chinese,” said Moore.
“The Chinese approach is based on accomplishing what intelligence professionals call a ’soft recruitment.‘ That is, a targeted individual is developed by intelligence professionals—sometimes over a period of years—with the goal of having him come to see himself as a ’friend of China,'” said Moore. “The intelligence professionals want their Chinese American target simply to perceive himself as more Chinese than American and to come to see that he has a special duty to help his ancestral land somehow, some day.”
The method of using Chinese living in other countries for espionage and political manipulation is what the CCP refers to as the “United Front.”
The first leader of the CCP, Mao Zedong, defined three weapons to be used in communist revolution: the United Front, armed struggle, and party building. Mao stated in the first issue of The Communist, published in 1939 that these are, “the three magic weapons of the Chinese Communist Party to defeat enemies in the Chinese revolution.”
The CCP’s United Front operations work through the manipulation of Chinese living in foreign countries. Its focuses are on espionage, organized crime, the influencing of politics in other nations in the favor of the CCP, and the suppression of Chinese dissident groups. A specific department was created for the operations of the United Front under the Chinese communist regime: the Department of United Front Work of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.
On Dec. 4, 2000, Jiang Zemin, the former leader of the CCP, said at the 19th National Conference on United Front Work, “The fundamental task of the United Front Work is to fight to win people’s hearts and gather the forces.”
The CCP’s tactics of the United Front, work by using Chinese living in other countries to infiltrate foreign politics, establish Chinese associations and business groups which can act at its orders, and by planting or transforming political and community leaders who can then act in the interests of the CCP.
A document that was sent out by the CCP on July 14, 1990, illustrates its purpose. The document was sent to all levels of United Front personnel throughout China, demanding that they, “vigorously carry out the United Front Work overseas.” and, “to actively strengthen and develop connections with influential representative personnel and groups.”
‘A New Political Star’
From March 29 to April 1 in 2007, New York City Council Member John Liu was brought on an escorted trip to China with six leaders of Chinese associations in New York. The trip, which was announced by the Chinese Xinhua news Web site, was planned by Lu Cheng, the leader of the Shandong Association of Fellow Provincials of New York. Cheng is also the chairman of the Union of the Chinese Organization Leaders, a group with close ties to the CCP.
Liu toured through China, visiting some of the communist regime’s top officials in various cities. His trip was heavily reported on by the CCP’s media both before he arrived and during his stay, which referred to him as being the “new political star.” His trip was also reported on by CCP-controlled media inside the United States.
On Mar. 30, upon entering into Beijing, Liu met with Xu Yousheng, the vice director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, one of the three offices that the Department of United Front Work directly gives its orders to.
The meeting was reported on by numerous overseas Chinese media outlets, including China Press and the Phoenix T.V.
The Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, where Yousheng is the vice director, is the office that acts as a medium between the Department of United Front Work and the CCP’s foreign embassies and consulates. When needed, the consulates and embassies will also relay orders to CCP-controlled Chinese associations, student groups, and business groups.
Following his meeting with Yousheng, on Mar. 31, Liu was given the, “Award for Chinese Influencing the World.” The award was given to him at Beijing University by close to 10 media organizations that are either controlled or influenced by the CCP, including Phoenix T.V., World Journal, and China News.
To ‘Promote Understanding’
The office working plan of the CCP’s Chinese Affairs Office in Xi'an, gives orders to invite foreign officials to visit China. The document says to invite overseas “people to visit China with government funding; promote their understanding and keep expanding the collaboration and exchange between these people and our city.”
What’s meant by “promote their understanding” is illustrated by a report that was written by a CCP official after he had met with various Chinese community leaders in New York. In an article published on the Web site of The Overseas Chinese Affairs Office in Beijing, on Sept. 26, 2006, entitled “My emotional ties to the work of overseas Chinese affairs” Zhong Guiren, chairman of the Returned Overseas Chinese Federation in the Dongcheng District of Beijing, speaks about his work of meeting with the leaders of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, Tsung Tsin Association, as well as other Chinese community leaders in New York City.
Guiren describes his relaying the CCP’s propaganda: “In response to their questions and doubts, I provided truthful information about the ‘June 4’ Incident [i.e., the Tiananmen Square Student Massacre on June 4, 1989], the true face of Falun Gong [words slandering Falun Gong are omitted], and the real objectives of those who advocate ‘Taiwan Independence’ or ‘Tibetan Independence’ and the Chinese government’s policy toward these people,” said Guiren.
He explains how, after speaking with the New York organizations, they began to open up contact with officials from the Chinese consulates and embassies. He then speaks about how the Chinese embassy made arrangements similar to those that were made for John Liu, for some of the group leaders to go China. Afterwards, he says that those who went on to China changed their interests in the favor of the CCP.
“After 2001, some of the leaders, with arrangements from the officials of the Chinese Embassy in the USA, visited Beijing, Shanghai, and their hometowns in Guangdong Province,” said Guiren.
“In the past, the leaders of the Chinese organizations and associations in New York City’s Chinatown were all pro-Taiwan; now they have tilted toward Mainland China, and they have increasingly agreed to a peaceful reunification of China and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” Guiren said.
The statement, “peaceful reunification of China,” refers to objectives of The China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification (China Council), which was formed on Sept. 22, 1988 in Beijing.
The China Council, is also one of the three offices that are controlled by the CCP’s Department of United Front Work, just as is the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council.
According to the Web site of the China Council, it serves two main purposes in its work outside China. One is to, “blend into local high-level politics,” while the other is to “influence the mainstream society.”
According to the Xinhua News Agency, known as the “mouthpiece” of the Chinese communist regime, the China Council is composed of overseas Chinese leaders who operate under the CCP. The report says that the heads of the China Council are the leaders of so-called democratic parties who, “have accepted the leadership of the Chinese communist party as a pre-requisite, and have participating Party status.”
A Mayor Like John Liu
John So, the first Chinese Mayor of Melbourne, Australia, provides another example of a politician in another country who received special treatment in China. John So had gone to China in 2007, through the arrangement of overseas Chinese organizations, just as Liu’s trip had been arranged by the head of an overseas association in New York.
While in Beijing, So received the same award that John Liu did. He was widely reported on by CCP-controlled media, which referred to him as being the “best Mayor in the world,” just as the CCP media had referred to John Liu as the “new political star.”
Liu and So have taken similar stances toward Falun Gong practitioners. John Liu had refused to speak out for them or support them during the attacks against them in Flushing, and instead sided with the attackers.
After they had been attacked in his district, Liu was quoted in articles by the China Press and Ming Daily claiming that Falun Gong practitioner’s protests against the persecution of their beliefs by the CCP and their parades were, “bothering the citizens” and “disturbing the peace of the neighborhood.”
In 2003, So prohibited Falun Gong practitioners from participating in his city’s annual Moomba parade. His prohibition of the group was given on short notice, with his reasoning being that Falun Gong practitioners were “too political.” The charge of being “political” is a standard feature of CCP propaganda used to support its persecution of the Falun Gong.
On April 7, 2004, John So was fined $200,000 for his actions by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, and was ordered to make a public apology to the Falun Gong practitioners. Afterwards, So was granted membership to the Council for the Promotion of United Front Work in China.
Read Part 3 of the report
