Jiang Zemin’s days are numbered. It is only a question of when, not if, the former head of the Chinese Communist Party will be arrested. Jiang officially ran the Chinese regime for more than a decade, and for another decade he was the puppet master behind the scenes who often controlled events. During those decades Jiang did incalculable damage to China. At this moment when Jiang’s era is about to end, Epoch Times here republishes in serial form “Anything for Power: The Real Story of Jiang Zemin,” first published in English in 2011. The reader can come to understand better the career of this pivotal figure in today’s China.
Chapter 16: A Cold Blooded Murderer Who Did Not Hesitate to Groundlessly Slander Falun Gong (2nd Half of 2000)
Jiang Zemin willingly placed everything on the line when he started the suppression of Falun Gong. He knew deep down that he was stepping onto a road with no return, a fact that only heightened his fear and madness.
1. “Destroy Their Reputations, Cut Them Off Financially, and Eradicate Them Physically”
At the beginning of the suppression, Jiang Zemin had a secret conversation with Luo Gan on the “Falun Gong problem.” He relayed four main points to Luo:
1. “Treat them ruthlessly, especially those who petition [the government] or distribute Falun Gong material. Once they are seized, beat them to death. Then cremate them without identifying the bodies.”
2. “Use any means that work regarding the issue [of Falun Gong], don’t feel constrained by anything, including the law. If they die no one will be held responsible. I refuse to believe that I cannot handle Falun Gong.”
3. “Destroy their reputations, cut them off financially, and eradicate them physically.”
4. “In general don’t issue any official documents, instead, only send encoded faxes without a signature or transmit the information verbally using the name ‘Party Central Memorandum’!”
At the end of 1999, following Jiang’s instructions, Luo Gan had four former members of the Falun Dafa Association sentenced to long prison terms. In 2000, Luo Gan traveled across China to transmit verbally Jiang’s secret orders. Luo Gan visited many places before he finally returned to Beijing.
In May 2000, the Committee for Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China (CIPRC) and the Free China Movement, based in America, published a confidential document of the CCP, which gave the police the authority to arrest Falun Gong practitioners of their own accord and without an arrest warrant. The document, transmitted by the Department of Public Security of Jilin Province and The High People’s Court, stated, “We should intensify the suppression of Falun Gong. Once Falun Gong practitioners are found, we can arrest them first, then go through the formalities later.”
However, Jiang Zemin repeatedly read in the CCP internal circulars on domestic news that more and more Falun Gong practitioners, even including ones from North America, Europe, Australia and East Asia, were going to Beijing to petition the government on behalf of Falun Gong. In October 2000 alone, upwards of 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners made it to Tiananmen Square, and displayed banners reading “Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance” or “Falun Dafa is Great.” Thousands of adherents continued even to do their exercises in groups. Although the police dealt with these matters swiftly through beating, arresting and detaining them, both Jiang Zemin and Luo Gan were shocked.
Jiang possessed the largest army, police force, spy network, and propaganda system in the world. However, it seems he was utterly helpless in the face of the unarmed Falun Gong followers. Out of embarrassment he grew fiercely angry. He realized that members of the Politburo, who disapproved of the suppression, were making fun of him.
Falling into an impasse in his campaign against Falun Gong, Jiang felt a faint, inexplicable fear. It was not a fear that arises from direct attack, but more a feeling of wandering in the dark carrying a sharp weapon, not knowing where his opponents were or in which direction to attack.
Since arriving in Beijing in 1989, Jiang listened to Zeng Qinghong’s advice on how to capitalize on people’s weaknesses amidst a number of power struggles. For example, to subdue Liu Huaqing, arresting his children and torturing them was definitely effective. The best way to make Qiao Shi leave office was by making a gentlemen’s agreement with him and not carrying it out. Bo Yibo hoped to help his son get ahead by stepping on others, so the most effective means was to use Bo Yibo to persecute others. Jiang knew he could take control of people by seizing on their weaknesses. As for Jiang’s subordinates, it was even easier to manipulate them. Since some of them loved money, some loved women, and some loved power, Jiang had every means to make them loyal to him.
But Jiang couldn’t manage to find what made Falun Gong followers tick. His understanding of the power of spiritual belief fell squarely within the old CCP way of thinking about class struggle. He could not understand how after dealing with these people with the harshest of disciplinary means, such as murder, torture, lies, brainwashing, and monitoring—means which were acquired by the CCP over prior decades—they still did not yield. He simply couldn’t figure out what they were after. But there was one thing that he did know, which was that those people were very honest and stood by the principle of “not returning blows and not returning insults.” Although the suppression of the group was escalating rapidly, and thousands upon thousands of Falun Gong practitioners were dealing with all sorts of threats, insults, torment, and imprisonment, no one attempted retaliation or resorted to any kind of violence. Jiang thought it was inconceivable. In fact, Jiang had hoped that they would resist violently. That way he could send in the army to squash the “rebellion” rapidly, just like what was done during the Tiananmen massacre in 1989.
Falun Gong adherents never hit back, and it appeared at times that they were being assisted by a higher power. In October 2000, a large group of Falun Gong practitioners went to Tiananmen Square to lodge complaints. More than 10 of them were from Nanyang City, Henan Province. They were handcuffed and taken to a detention center by local 6-10 Office police. However, after they entered the cell, all of their handcuffs spontaneously came off. If only one or two handcuffs had come off, one could have called it a coincidence. But with more than 10 handcuffs coming off simultaneously, it went beyond what ordinary reasoning could explain. When that happened, all the guards and inmates were dumfounded. Witnessing the miraculous event, no one dared to make any trouble for the practitioners. Afterwards someone reported the incident to higher authorities. After learning of the matter, Jiang Zemin was left in a cold sweat and dared not to think about it anymore.
Since the persecution campaign was so senseless, the personnel in the 6-10 Offices found it hard to do their jobs. A former 6-10 police officer who escaped to Australia in 2005 described how he felt when he was performing that job: “At the office we often talked to each other with our mouths half-covered, voices as low as possible, and eyes darting all around. Having been in that atmosphere for a long time, we grew accustomed to speaking in this fashion even in public situations, as if we were afraid of being heard or afraid that others might know what we were talking about. We were so sneaky it was as if we had developed a mental disorder.” [1] “When we returned home, we lost our usual smiles, and replaced them with taciturn and deep sighs. Even within the police system, ‘6-10’ became synonymous with ’messing around.‘ The police officers said to each other privately: ’The police officers in the 6-10 Offices are a mess. They never do what they are supposed to do as police.” [2]
Jiang responded to the problems by simply intensifying his efforts to win the officers over with money and power. He established more and more 6-10 Offices, elevated the 6-10 officers’ rank and status, and guaranteed them sufficient funds. For example, in October 2000, Division One of the Tianjin Municipal Public Security Bureau was promoted to “Domestic Safety Defense Bureau,” a deputy bureau level agency. It was the result of a merger between the Political Defense Division and the 6-10 Office, thereby effectively expanding the 6-10 Office to intensify its suppression of Falun Gong. The 6-10 offices, which are units at the division level, have more power than units at any other level of the police system. The power of 6-10 offices within the provincial police departments is so great that they can arrange inspection of and issue orders to other units at the same level. But what is laughable is that very few police officers responded to recruitment efforts on the part of the 6-10. Finally, the personnel were appointed through random assignment by a computer.
The CCP’s system of suppression operates like a well-oiled machine. The 6-10 officials, who are tools in the persecution, are actually the first victims of the persecution. Members of the 6-10 Offices, both new and old, have to make a study of Jiang’s reasons for the suppression and have to read massive amounts of propaganda vilifying Falun Gong, daily. Consequently, they are unwittingly brainwashed.
When the last shred of innate kindness was destroyed in the law enforcement officials, their wicked side engorged quickly. This was when Jiang’s orders could be fully implemented. And after they carry out the orders they are rewarded with money and promotion, similar to how animals obey their trainers in hopes of reward.
Jiang stipulated that the amount of reward the officers in the 6-10 offices and guards in the forced labor camps would receive (such as bonuses, promotions, and merit points) should be closely related to the number of Falun Gong practitioners they successfully force to renounce their beliefs. As a result, under Jiang’s orders layers upon layers of political pressure has been exerted by all levels of government officials, and personal incentives have been offered, causing the police and guards simply to lose their consciences. When the “People’s Police,” who wear the national emblem on their heads, do whatever they please and treat human life as worthless, they console themselves by saying, “the orders came from higher authorities.” Sadly, the police officers who performed such evil deeds at the beginning of the suppression were actually the first victims.
Through this system the entire country has become mired in a disaster like never before, where “men turned into beasts, beasts flaunted their wickedness, and the sinister acts hurt men.” The basic values of conscience, ethics, justice, equality, and so on, which had begun making a (slight) comeback after the Cultural Revolution, have been thoroughly destroyed once again in the suppression of Falun Gong. Falun Gong practitioners’ persistent commitment to their teachings about “truthfulness, compassion, tolerance,” has in a sense preserved the last bit of values that the Chinese people have left.
Among the violent means that Jiang used in the persecution, the large-scale ending of lives is the most unnerving. According to the Falun Dafa Information Center, as of June 2005, the confirmed number of persecution-related deaths of Falun Gong practitioners in China exceeded 2,500. And even more unknown deaths have occurred, in the forced labor camps, brainwashing classes, detention centers, etc.
The Death of Chen Zixiu
Chen Zixiu’s death, which was widely reported by Western media, is merely the tip of the iceberg of what is happening nationwide in the brutal persecution of the Falun Gong, a persecution under Jiang’s direction.
Chen Zixiu was a retired laborer who lived in Weifang City, Shandong Province. She had some tough experiences in life. Her marriage had only lasted 14 years, because when she was 37 years old, her husband was diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer. Then, soon after her husband’s death, her mother, who had been living with her, also passed away. She was left by herself to care for two children, one 13 years old, and the other 11.
A detailed report in the April 20, 2000, edition of The Wall Street Journal (hereafter WSJ) stated:
The day before Chen Zixiu died, her captors again demanded that she renounce her faith in Falun Dafa. Barely conscious after repeated jolts from a cattle prod, the 58-year-old stubbornly shook her head. Enraged, the local officials ordered Ms. Chen to run barefoot in the snow. Two days of torture had left her legs bruised and her short black hair matted with pus and blood, said cellmates and other prisoners who witnessed the incident. She crawled outside, vomited and collapsed. She never regained consciousness, and died on Feb. 21.
The next day, Chen’s daughter, Zhang Xueling, saw in the morgue her mother’s remains—a sight too gruesome to look at. Her body was covered with a cloth, and she had make-up on. Upon removing the cloth Zhang could see that her body had been damaged all throughout, with large purple welts covering her torso. Her ears were swollen and bruised. Her teeth were split or broken; even after the cosmetic touch-up (by authorities, wishing to disguise their violence) bloodstains showed through. Chen’s lower legs were swollen, while her back was marked by a six-inch-long mark from a whip. Her abdomen was bloated. On her buttocks, thighs, and lower extremities large patches of swelling had turned black. Chen’s clothes, mattress, and underwear were soiled with blood and excrement. Her clothes were shredded. The facts tell that Chen Zixiu died from injuries.
After killing Chen Zixiu local police claimed that she had died from a sudden heart attack and there was no foul play in her death. To make matters worse, the local government extorted 2,000 yuan from Chen’s daughter, Zheng, as a “detention fee,” and another 1,000 yuan as a fee for the cotton quilt and food Chen had in captivity.
The murderers who beat Chen Zixiu to death were not subject to any punishment. Instead, they were rewarded and promoted. Among them Deng Ping, who was on the staff of the Chengguan Neighborhood Administration Office, was promoted from being a probationary Party member to a full one. Gao Xingong, another who was involved, was recognized for being a “pioneer” and a “model worker.”
After the WSJ ran the story—and on its front page, no less—about Chen Zixiu persisting in Falun Gong until her murder, the Chinese government detained Chen’s daughter on charges of “obstructing public security.” Moreover, her husband was forbidden to visit her during her detention. It was Luo Gan who had ordered her arrest.
The journalist, Ian Johnson, later won a Pulitzer Prize for his series of stories on Falun Gong, of which Chen Zixiu’s was one. This drew international attention to the plight of Falun Gong adherents in China, and the story of Chen Zixiu, specifically, became known throughout the world. Jiang’s efforts to garner international support for his suppression of Falun Gong failed.
Since 1999, Shandong Province has consistently been one of the regions that have handled Falun Gong followers most harshly and violently. Luo Gan was originally from Shandong. Since the suppression of Falun Gong began, he visited, under the directives of Jiang, Shandong Province many times to actively supervise and reinforce the campaign and to promote the policy of suppression through Jiang’s trusted follower Wu Guanzheng—Secretary of the CCP in Shandong Province.
In April 2004, after the tragedy of Chen Zixiu’s death was exposed by her daughter, Zhang Xueling, via the WSJ story, Luo Gan boiled with rage and ordered the arrest of Zhang.
On Dec. 27, 2000, the WSJ ran another article by Ian Johnson, titled “How One Chinese City Resorted to Atrocities to Control Falun Dafa.” The piece disclosed that:
Rising out of the North China Plain in a jumble of dusty apartment blocks and crowded roads, this is an unremarkable Chinese city in every respect but one: Local police regularly torture residents to death. Since the beginning of the year, when police killed a 58-year-old retiree, at least 10 more Weifang residents have died in police custody, according to relatives and a human-rights monitoring group. All were practitioners of the spiritual group Falun Dafa, which the central government banned last year. Across this country of 1.3 billion, at least 77 Falun Dafa adherents have now died in detention, according to reports by human-rights groups. Weifang, which has less than 1 percent of the national population, accounts for 15 percent of those deaths.
Weifang is a prefecture-class city situated in the eastern part of China with a population of over 8 million. Between Sept. 30 and Oct. 30, 2000, Luo Gan visited Weifang twice and stayed in Anqiu County, assuming personal command over Falun Gong related affairs. Thirty Falun Gong followers are known to have been killed in Weifang between July 1999 and February 2004—more than any other city of the same class in China. This is directly related to Luo Gan’s personal supervision of the suppression in Shandong Province.
In October 2000, a horrible and shocking event occurred at the Masanjia Labor Camp in Liaoning Province. There guards stripped naked 18 female Falun Gong adherents and threw them into the cells of male inmates for the men to do with as they wished; rape and sexual violence ensued. The incident was exposed in the international media, arousing the attention of the world. Afterwards in February 2001, the UN Commission on Human Rights stated in a special investigation report on torture against women that Luo Gan did know the facts of the case where 18 female practitioners were stripped of their clothes and thrown into male inmates’ cells. The incident was a concrete manifestation of Jiang Zemin’s order to “strengthen the suppression of Falun Gong.” [3]
A Nine-Year-Old Girl Gang Raped
There are too many horrific stories to recount. Among them is one that was witnessed by Ms. Liu, who had been staying in Beijing for a long time to appeal her own case. She related her three-day experience while being detained in Changping County Psychiatric Hospital. In the summer of 2002, she went to Beijing to appeal to the government, and was taken to Changping County Custody and Repatriation Center via police car. Later she was sent to Changping County Psychiatric Hospital after protesting her arrest. She was sent there for punishment, not for mental reasons. Liu has stated that she never actually saw a doctor or nurse in the hospital from the beginning of her stay there to the end. She discovered that most of the people locked up there were those who had lodged complaints with the government or were Falun Gong practitioners; most of the staff were either police officers or hired thugs. They all carried leather belts and if anyone was even slightly “out of line,” as they saw it, they would use a belt on them. The detainees were not allowed to move around freely, but the thugs could go in and out of their rooms as they pleased. Liu was locked up inside a room sealed off by three iron gates. No doctors supervised anything.
Altogether she was detained there for three nights. She recalled that during the night, three thugs who were called “big head,” “long hair,” and “dummy,” and who could barely speak clearly, came into her room and gang raped a nine-year-old girl. The little girl’s parents were Falun Gong practitioners, she says. They had been locked up in that hospital and later murdered there. Afterwards, the little girl was gang raped by the three thugs during the night. Liu remembered that the little girl was absolutely broken and would cry miserably. Nobody who saw what was happening dared speak up and stop the rape. It was a living hell.
Liu said that she read several chapters of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, and felt that the description therein of the brutality suffered by Falun Gong adherents far from captured the horrific reality. She explained that while she was in the Changping County Psychiatric Hospital, she would stay awake until dawn every night crying miserably in extreme fear.
The Testimony of a Former 6-10 Office Official
Regarding inside stories about the 6-10 Office: More and more Chinese Communist officials can’t stand persecuting innocent and kind citizens and have chosen to defect from the CCP, so because of this some details about the persecution have been published publicly.
As for torture, former 6-10 Office official Hao Fengjun, who defected to Australia in May 2005, described an account as follows: “I rushed to work and drove with a female officer to the prison of the Nankai Branch of the Tianjin Public Security Bureau. When we arrived at the prison located at Erwei Rd., Nankai District, I saw Sun Ti laying on a table in an interrogation room. Sun’s eyes were so swollen because of the beating. The policeman who interrogated Sun was a guy named Mu Ruili, the captain of the 2nd division of the 6-10 Office of the Bureau of State Security. Mu was holding a steel rod (0.6 inch in diameter) with screw threads that showed blood stains. There was a hi-voltage electric baton on the table.”[4] “Sun … showed me her back. I was shocked. Almost her entire back had turned black and there were two gashes of about eight inches in length, oozing blood.” [5] “I also saw a policeman beating her with a metal rod that was over a foot long. When I saw this, I knew I couldn’t do this job.” [6]
After July 20, 1999, a large number of Falun Gong practitioners who had gone to appeal to the government were abducted. Hao Fengjun stated, “Three female [Falun Gong] practitioners were sent to our police station. They were in their forties or fifties. They were all subject to interrogation by the police. During the more than 10 days of interrogation, I could hear extremely piercing cries whenever I went to work. Later my colleagues in the criminal police unit told me that they were ordered to make Falun Gong practitioners disclose their names and addresses by any means, fair or foul.”
As for murder, according to one report from an Australian news agency on June 9, 2005, a third former CCP police officer, who is unwilling to reveal his name, testified that he personally witnessed a Falun Gong practitioner tortured to death in the police department where he worked. Through Bernard Collaery, a well-respected attorney in Canberra, the Lateline television program of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation revealed of him, “He had heard the sound of someone being beaten up in the police department, so he hurried to break it up, but he was told to leave. From there he went upstairs. His conscience was under attack. He returned and told them to stop.” It was too late, however, as he saw that the Falun Gong follower was tortured to death. “He saw a naked man whose head had collapsed back into a chair. His legs were outstretched. It was obvious that he was already dead. He was scared by what was before his eyes.”
Han Guangsheng, a former Judiciary Bureau Chief in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, who was also once the Vice-Director of the Public Security Bureau in Shenyang City, escaped into Canada in September 2001. He revealed that Jiang Zemin’s orders at that time were primarily efforts to stop Falun Gong practitioners from going to Beijing to appeal [to the central government]. “For this particular issue, there are controlling measures from the central government all the way down to the local government. One of the controlling measures is that if more than three Falun Gong practitioners go to appeal then the Vice-Secretary and even the Secretary of that city have to do ”self-criticism“ in front of the provincial-level [officials]. In order to save face and rank and to avoid going to the province to do self-criticism, leaders from each city started using the power of the police and lots of money to stop Falun Gong practitioners from going to Beijing.” “Masanjia Labor Camp implemented all sorts of methods of torture and abuse in order to improve their ’transformation‘ [i.e., renunciation] rate. I didn’t know it initially but later found out that the Ministry of Justice ordered all cities to go to Masanjia to learn their ’transformation’ techniques.” “The principle technique used in Masanjia is the use of electric batons.” Practitioner Gao Rongrong, a staff member from the financial department of Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in Shenyang, was shocked on her face by electric batons for over six hours by Tang Yubao and Jiang Zhaohua on May 7, 2004, in Longshan Labor Camp. Her beautiful face was severely disfigured. One year later, Gao Rongrong was tortured to death.
From July 20, 1999, up until now more than 100,000 Falun Gong adherents, including pregnant women, the elderly and young children have been sent to forced labor camps without trial. More than 500 practitioners were formally sentenced to prison terms. Some have been sentenced to prison terms of upwards of 18 years. Hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens have been detained, and nearly all of them have been treated inhumanely. What is even more shocking is that more than 1,000 Falun Gong practitioners were detained in psychiatric hospitals and injected with drugs harmful to their nervous systems. By June 2005, over 2,500 deaths while under police custody have been confirmed. Moreover, the whereabouts of countless adherents are still unknown. The depth and breadth of this catastrophe is still difficult to estimate.
2. Assassination Attempts
Jiang’s jealousy is beyond the ability of most people to comprehend. Overly strong jealousy turns into hatred, and causes many irrational things to take place.
When just arriving in Beijing, Jiang did his utmost to fawn everyone. When he met Wu Shaozu, Director of the National Physical Education Committee, he talked about sports and recreation news such as that of boxing and chess. After Jiang seized power, Wu Shaozu was dismissed from his position because he sympathized with Falun Gong. When Jiang visited Deng Xiaoping’s residence early on, he modestly exchanged views about the art of movies with celebrity Liu Xiaoqing. Later, after his power was consolidated he took revenge on her for making a joke about him in the past. She was detained, all her real estate sold, and she was told to pay a large fine. Jiang proclaimed that he would keep her only barely alive. The attendants who had witnessed his sycophancy at Deng Xiaoping’s residence were all relocated to remote areas. Even Deng Zhifang, Deng Xiaoping’s son, was disciplined.
Jiang’s purging of people is not planned well in advance, as most outsiders might imagine. He has never been clever enough to do that. He has ruthlessly eliminated certain political opponents for extremely simple reasons: they contradicted Jiang sometime, stepped a little too close to the women whom Jiang liked, unknowingly did something Jiang thought was forbidden, or did nothing but merely make Jiang feel uncomfortable.
Jiang insisted on suppressing the Falun Gong, despite everyone’s opposition. He tossed out a pile of untenable excuses as superficial reasons for it, but deep down it was his jealousy of Falun Gong’s founder that he found intolerable and that spurred him on.
After Jiang’s failed attempt to extradite Falun Gong’s founder via a reduction of $500 million in trade surplus, Zeng Qinghong secretly issued an assassination order to the network of Chinese agents. The Ministry of State Security and the General Staff Department of the People’s Liberation Army jointly set up a special task force which was specifically in charge of learning the whereabouts of Falun Gong’s founder Li Hongzhi, as well as recruiting and training killers to prepare for the assassination of Mr. Li.
In December 2000, Jiang learned that Falun Gong’s founder was going to Taiwan to speak before his students. In light of that, Zeng Qinghong dispatched personnel to Taiwan to secretly make contact with local criminal underworld organizations. Zeng planned an assassination by offering $7 million to assassins in Taiwan. Since Falun Gong’s founder knew about their intentions, at the last minute he announced the cancellation of his visit to Taiwan. As a result, Jiang spent the money in vain.
Jiang and Zeng were frustrated and enraged, and went even further by issuing military orders to the task force, demanding Falun Gong’s founder be killed at all costs. The goal of the task force was to create trouble by framing Falun Gong, by misleading the public so that it would be hostile toward Falun Gong, and by looking for any opportunity to assassinate Falun Gong’s founder at any cost, including at the expense of human lives. Jiang approved the expenditure of $500,000 to recruit women to form “suicide teams.” Following the example of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam in Sri Lanka, the women were trained as human bombs, and were prepared to be dispatched to America. When Falun Gong’s founder attended experience sharing conferences, they would pretend to be Falun Gong practitioners, approach the founder and attempt to detonate the bombs on their bodies.
Shortly before the Hong Kong Falun Gong Experience Sharing Conference in 2001, Jiang obtained a confidential report stating Falun Gong practitioners would hold a conference on Jan. 13–14, and Falun Gong’s founder would come to make a speech on the 14th. Jiang immediately issued a secret order to at all costs seize this opportunity for assassination in a territory under his own control. After that the People’s Liberation Army General Staff Department, the Ministry of State Security, and the Public Security Bureau coordinated to create an assassination plan, code named “114.” During that time, the CCP’s overseas intelligence organs in Southeast Asia and North America all entered a state of high alert. Nearly all the underworld organizations in Hong Kong and Macao were involved in the plan under the CCP’s coercion and allurement. To avoid any suspicion, the plan was to be carried out by local underworld organizations. In regards to his secret arrangement, Jiang was very confident that it would go off without a hitch. When the conference started, the assassins were quietly thrilled while they awaited the appearance of Falun Gong’s founder, and considered it all but done except for receiving their compensation from their bosses.
But on Jan. 14, Falun Gong’s founder did not show up. The spies became restless with anxiety. Finally, when the conference was close to its end, the organizers of the conference read a greeting transmitted from America from Falun Gong’s founder to the conference audience. The assassination plan had once again failed. After learning of the news Jiang and Zeng were stunned. When Falun Gong’s founder issued the greetings, he said at the time that the telegram would be a big blow to someone.
Only then did the assassination team realize that Falun Gong’s founder knew very well about the assassination plot. The plan, which Jiang had become extremely happy with, ended up in smoke.
Despite Jiang’s jealousy and assassination plot, the influence of Falun Gong’s founder kept rising. In 2001, after several months of discussion AsiaWeek announced that Mr. Li Hongzhi was the most influential figure in Asia that year, while Jiang ranked only fourth. AsiaWeek stated that within a short span of nine years, Falun Gong had rapidly attracted more than 100,000 (a number well underestimated) of practitioners worldwide. Even facing the CCP’s forced suppression, the influence of Falun Gong continued to steadily increase. Even if Mr. Li Hongzhi made few public appearances, he was still deeply respected and supported by Falun Gong practitioners.
With the repeated failure of assassination attempts, Jiang grew more and more fearful. His task force furthermore fell apart as its members kept meeting with inexplicable accidents. The assassination attempts ended without any results.
Since Falun Gong’s Experience Sharing Conference in Los Angeles in 2003, Mr. Li has taken part in nearly all large-scale activities in America, and has often spent a great deal of time answering questions for his students.
Since the start of Jiang’s persecution of Falun Gong, Falun Gong followers around the world have been subject to frequent harassment and threats by CCP spies. Two of the CCP’s former officials, Chen Yonglin and Hao Fengjun (mentioned above), who were specifically in charge of suppressing Falun Gong, escaped from two government entities that the CCP controls the tightest. One is the overseas-based embassies and consulates, and the other is the domestic 6-10 Office. Both of the men chose to leave their dark pasts behind and seek refuge in Australia. They exposed all kinds of scandalous inside stories about the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong.
Chen Yonglin made the claim that there are nearly 1,000 CCP spies in Australia. Hao Fengjun confirmed Chen’s statement, saying China has a formidable spy network operating overseas. Chen simultaneously exposed the CCP’s policy against Falun Gong in Australia: fight Falun Gong tit for tat, initiate attacks, strive for [the Australian government’s] support, and win [Australian] sympathy. The evidence Chen provided may confirm China’s extension of state terrorism from domestic to overseas in this genocide.
Australian media entity The Age reported on June 8, 2005, that the Chinese Embassy employed many types of spy tactics to disrupt Falun Gong activities, such as surveillance, large-scale telephone tapping, even breaking into practitioners’ residences, and so on. Ana C. Vereshaka, spokesperson for The Falun Dafa Information Center in Melbourne, said CCP spies once broke into her residence in Balwyn and stole Falun Gong materials.
The CCP’s actions against overseas Falun Gong adherents aim to create a climate of terror; they have the same purpose as the assassination attempts.
3. Exclusive Interview by Mike Wallace
On Aug. 15, 2000, in order to drum up momentum for his overseas trip, Jiang Zemin arranged for Mike Wallace, host of CBS’s “60 Minutes,” and his production team to interview him in Beidaihe. Thus, Mike Wallace became the first American television correspondent to do a one-on-one interview with Jiang. Wallace’s program crew had been applying for the interview for over 10 years.
The interview lasted more than three hours. The program was to be broadcasted on the night of Sept. 3 before Jiang’s visit to America. Jiang pretended to have a magnanimous attitude and indicated that the purpose of the interview was to promote friendship between China and the U.S. He said relations between the two countries were good overall. However, Wallace was quite straightforward with him. He hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that Jiang’s answer was “spoken like a real politician,” and that there was “no candor in it.”
Wallace also incisively mentioned that Jiang was the last major communist dictator in the world. Jiang said, “Your way of describing what things are like in China is as absurd as what the Arabian Nights may sound like.“ Jiang continued, ”The National Peoples Congress selects the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Central Committee has a Politburo. And the Politburo has a standing committee of which I’m a member. And no decision is made unless all members agree.”
Obsessed with showing off, Jiang actually forgot some very basic facts. That is, the National People’s Congress simply does not have the ability to elect members of the CCP’s Standing Committee, nor has it ever. This is basic knowledge for a Chinese citizen. As the all-powerful leader of China at the time, Jiang actually didn’t possess even the most basic concept of the laws. He was even unable to understand what position he held. The only thing he knew was that he was the “emperor” and could do whatever he wanted to. In fact, the CCP does not need the agreement of all of its standing members to make a decision. The decision to suppress Falun Gong is a very good example of that. At that time six out of the seven members did not agree with the suppression, but Jiang acted of his own accord.
Wallace asked, “Why is it that Americans can elect their national leaders, but you apparently don’t trust the Chinese people to elect your national leaders?”
Jiang replied, “I am also an elected leader, though we have a different electoral system. Each country should have its own system because our countries have different cultures and historic traditions, and different levels of education and economic development.”
Jiang confused several different concepts in his remarks. Actually it should be very clear to him that he was elected by the National People’s Congress, which is called by many a “rubber stamp.” He was exactly the dictator who controlled the “rubber stamp.” Common people never elected him.
He defended himself by referring to China’s “specific conditions.” When looked at in comparison to the CCP’s opinion stated a half century ago, his argument makes excellent satire.
The Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, Xinhua Daily, published the following passage 65 years ago:
They (the KMT) think that China cannot realize democratic politics today, but can a certain number of years from now. They expect that only after the knowledge and education level of Chinese people are enhanced to that of Europe and America can we realize democratic politics. In fact, under a democratic system, it would be easier to educate and train the populace. (Feb. 25, 1939)
Five years later, Xinhua Daily additionally wrote:
To implement the general election system thoroughly, fully, and effectively so that people are able to enjoy common and equal rights to vote and rights to be elected, we must make sure that, just as Mr. Sun Zhongshan [Sun Yat-sen] said, before elections, local associations and people have the freedom of election, proposing bills, promotion of candidates, and discussion. In another word, people should definitely have the freedom of assembly, association, speech, and publication. Otherwise, the so-called voting right is still a right only on paper. (Feb. 2, 1944)
However, presently Jiang has forgotten what the CCP called for at that time. It could be said that he has forgotten his own origins.
When Wallace asked Jiang why China had a one-party state, Jiang replied, “Why must we have opposition parties?”
More than 50 years ago it was the CCP, ironically, who suggested why. It declared: “To carry out democratic politics at present, the key lies in putting an end to rule by a single party. If this issue is not solved, then the nation’s affairs will inevitably be handled by one party. People with abilities and wisdom will have no way to voice their ideas, and good suggestions will have no way to be implemented. The so-called ‘democracy’ then, no matter what form it would take, would only be nominal.”
Wallace remarked that there was no freedom of press in China. He stated that Americans believe an individual’s freedom and the freedom of press are intertwined and proceeded to ask Jiang why he feared freedom of press.
Jiang answered, “The press should be a mouthpiece of the Party.”
This was in contradiction, then, with the previous position of the CCP. On Sept. 1, 1943, the CCP’s media once accused its rival as such:
The “theorists” of the fascist press openly and shamelessly advocate the stance of “one party, one leader, one newspaper.” With regard to “dissident” progressive newspapers, they impose all sorts of means of restriction, annexation, or elimination, such as examining manuscripts, deleting willfully, threatening readers, hindering sales, dispatching spies to infiltrate newspaper offices, secretively seizing administrative authority, and ultimately forcing buyouts or closures of media.
In the same vein Xinhua Daily wrote on Oct. 9, 1944:
At present, if we acknowledge that the postwar world is an irresistible and indivisible one, then to survive in this world and be an “outstanding member” of the international community the first thing we need do is respect freedom of the press, which is people’s undeniable right, and immediately put it into practice.
It’s hard to understand how more than 50 years later, when Jiang hoped to present himself to the Western press as an “enlightened” ruler, his talking points paled so badly in comparison with even the past theory of the CCP.
Without a doubt, what made Jiang look most foolish was the disparaging comments he made about Falun Gong’s founder.
Wallace indicated that he was unable to understand why the Chinese authorities persecute Falun Gong. Wallace stated that Falun Gong followers practiced exercises and believed in a spiritual life. What, Wallace asked, made Jiang so paranoid that he needed to abuse, arrest, and kill its adherents?
Jiang responded by saying that Falun Gong’s founder, Li Hongzhi, has claimed to be a reincarnation of the lord of Buddhas and a reincarnation of Christ and preaches an apocalyptic doctrine about the end of the Earth and how the planet would explode. Jiang also said that Falun Gong had driven thousands of its members to commit suicide.
Jiang was under the impression that he understood the thinking of Americans. He knew that in Western society what would be most likely to cause hatred and misunderstanding was something that insulted Jesus. The problem with Jiang’s line was, though, that Falun Gong’s founder never claimed to be a reincarnation of Buddha or Jesus.
What’s more, Falun Gong’s founder never made the prediction that Earth would explode. In fact, in 1998, he told thousands of people in a large audience that the destruction of the Earth that had been predicted by many to occur in 1999 would not take place.
As for unfortunate things happening because of doing the Falun Gong exercises, the Chinese government had previously carried out at least three large investigations and studies before 1999, and discovered that Falun Gong is quite effective at healing illness and maintaining people’s health. Therefore, there really was no excuse for the persecution. Since the beginning of the persecution in 1999, it has been stated, in media controlled by Jiang, that 1,400 people have died because of doing the exercises. The 1,400 death cases are of course fabricated recklessly by the Chinese authorities. However, coming out of Jiang’s mouth, the story turned into thousands of suicides.
There are tens of millions of Falun Gong practitioners. Even if 1,400 of them died within seven years, the death rate would be 200 people per year. That’s far lower than the normal average death rate of 0.6 percent in China. Therefore, what’s most ironic is that the 1,400 supposed death cases, even if they were true, would not indicate Falun Gong’s shortcomings, but would instead prove Falun Gong’s healing and fitness effects.
From the special interview with Mike Wallace, people obviously were unable to see Jiang’s “wise image,” but instead witnessed his demeanor as a rascal and his loose tongue. It must be pointed out that when Jiang lied to Wallace in his capacity as head of state, he took advantage of China’s national prestige to slander Falun Gong, and in turn harmed the entire prestige of China.
4. Encountering Falun Gong During the Millennium Summit
New York City was bustling more than ever in September 2000 with the arrival of the Millennium Summit.
According to a New York police source, during the summit period there were more than 90 approved demonstrations, among which at least 10 were aimed at Jiang Zemin. From Jiang’s arrival to his departure on Sept. 9, crowds protesting followed him closely. The demonstrations with the most participants and widest influence were from Falun Gong.
Some 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners from around the world came to New York to “welcome” Jiang. They had come from more than 30 states in America, as well as from Canada, Europe, and Australia. They wore yellow T-shirts with the words “Falun Dafa” on them could be seen everywhere on New York streets. Falun Gong’s large-scale activities started on Sept. 5. On that day they had many practitioners gather to do the exercises and then distribute flyers in about six or seven different places. Besides the Waldorf Hotel where Jiang stayed and other symbolic places, they also went to three different Chinatowns where many Chinese people live.
Being such a marvelous sight to see in the fall, yellow became the fad that season.
At noon on Sept. 6, more than 1,000 practitioners started an eight-block long march, which called for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong, along 3rd avenue heading north towards the United Nations’ Dag Hammarskjold Plaza.
Since the time when the persecution of Falun Gong began over a year prior, practitioners kept petitioning in America by holding large scale group exercise sessions, but this was the first time they had a march. That day they also published an “Open Letter to Jiang Zemin” on an entire page of The New York Times, requesting Jiang to listen attentively to the voices of the millions of Falun Gong practitioners and to understand the agony which millions of Chinese people were experiencing.
Someone wearing a yellow T-shirt unexpectedly ran into the Mayor of New York City, Mr. Giuliani. Looking at the shirt, which read, “CHINA: STOP PERSECUTING FALUN GONG,” the mayor told the person, “You’re doing the right thing.”
Jiang in fact dreaded Falun Gong’s demonstrations. Chinese officials employed all the means they could think of to allow Jiang to avoid Falun Gong followers. Jiang tried to pressure the New York police into disallowing people to wear yellow T-shirts in some places. The drive from the airport in New York to the hotel was reportedly divided into several legs and the directions for each were put into a different envelope; they could not be opened until the motorcade was approaching the end of one leg. This could be considered well thought out. However, even so, Jiang was startled many times by seeing peaceful and sincere Falun Gong followers.
At noon on Sept. 8, as Jiang was just leaving a lunch meeting at the Waldorf Hotel, an adherent walked within one meter of Jiang and shouted to him, “Please release all Falun Gong practitioners!” All the reporters and Chinese personnel who were present heard the voice clearly. When Jiang heard the words “Falun Gong,” his face turned pale, one of his arms rose up spontaneously and his body started to shake uncontrollably.
On the night of Sept. 8, after attending a concert at Lincoln Center, Jiang came out from the back door and planned to join his motorcade, which was to leave somewhere near the front exit. Before this happened, eight members of the Party for Freedom and Democracy in China, led by Chairman Ni Yuxian, bought tickets and entered Lincoln Center. They arrived on time and took seats in the middle of row P behind the VIP section at 8 p.m. When the second program, “Moonlit River In Spring,” ended while the audience was applauding, all eight of them stood up and began to applaud. By then the audience had discovered that they were all wearing the same thing—white T-shirts with red lettering on them. Their chests read, “Abolish the Chinese Communist Party’s One-Party Rule” and their backs had, “Jiang Zemin is a Dictator” written on them. The audience was astonished. After approximately a half minute of silence, the CCP’s Consul General Zhang Hongxi awakened as if from a slumber and quickly directed procommunist overseas Chinese leaders Liang Guanjun and Hua Junxiong to round up the eight.
Still badly shaken up, at his motorcade’s first turn, Jiang caught sight of a Falun Gong adherent lifting a banner high up toward Jiang’s face. On the banner were the English words in big letters: “Practicing Falun Gong is a Right.” After reading the banner, Jiang jerked backwards fiercely and trembled all over. Someone inside the car looked at the banner, and then hurried to lower his eyes.
On Sept. 9, just before Jiang left New York, Falun Gong practitioners had learned that Jiang was in one of the buildings of the Chinese Mission of the UN on 35th street. Dozens of followers went there. Some of them started to do their exercises on the other side of the street, some were holding posters that read, “Stop Persecuting Falun Gong,” “Goodness Brings Good Rewards and Evil Brings Evil,” etc. to let their voices be heard. The mission officials employed diversionary tactics and arranged for the motorcade to start out from the front door to distract the practitioners, while Jiang slipped away out the side gate. However, unexpectedly, when his car had just started to drive out, Jiang ran into four Falun Gong practitioners holding a banner with shiny letters on it that said, “Falun Dafa.” When the car turned onto First Avenue and 35th street, the scene of Falun Gong practitioners holding posters and doing exercises once more appeared right in Jiang’s view.
It seemed Jiang couldn’t escape Falun Gong’s presence.
5. Yelling at Hong Kong Reporters
Jiang talked and laughed merrily before one of America’s most senior reporters. However, only three months later, was he fuming with rage before Hong Kong’s junior reporters. It was the interview done by Hong Kong reporters that showed precisely the true face of Jiang.
On Oct. 27, while meeting the leader of Hong Kong, Dong Jianhua, who earlier had come to Beijing to report on his work, Jiang became very unhappy with the questions that were thrown at him. He rebuked nine Hong Kong reporters on the spot, which is rare in that kind of setting.
When a female reporter was interviewing Jiang about Dong Jianhua’s report, she asked if Dong Jianhua’s re-election was assured by Jiang’s “imperial order.” Jiang grew so furious that he accused the Hong Kong reporters, with his incoherent Cantonese and English, of asking simple and naive questions. He said to the reporters in English, “You are too simple, too naive” and “I am angry!” The whole process lasted four minutes.
Jiang boldly criticized the Hong Kong reporters’ level of professionalism, stating that theirs was lower than Mike Wallace’s. Jiang said, “You should know that Wallace is so much more competent than you. I talked with him so naturally.” It seems that Jiang was quite proud of his performance when Wallace interviewed him on “60 Minutes.” Since during that interview Wallace pertinently pointed out that Jiang was the last major communist dictator in the world, a lot of Hong Kong reporters probably envied Wallace tremendously. However, perhaps this time Mike Wallace would be the one envying someone. Wallace is a veteran reporter who is uniquely skilled and very experienced, yet he failed to remove the tyrant’s mask completely and make him show himself in front of the world. But in Hong Kong a very young woman succeeded in doing that with ease. This must have made Wallace regretful.
Jiang possibly did not know that in a free and democratic country, reporters are always regarded as uncrowned kings. Freedom of the press not only has a kind of protective function for democracy, it also has a kind of monitoring role. Wallace is acclaimed largely for uncovering many unreported stories and pieces of news, with keen analysis and incisive inquiry. He is simultaneously both the embodiment of and a beneficiary of freedom of the press. Without the democratic system in the U.S., which safeguards freedom of the press and freedom of speech, there would not be reporters like Mike Wallace who are so competent. Jiang didn’t realize what was behind Wallace’s acclaim.
China’s reporters, by contrast, are compelled to kneel, to do their utmost to follow along with Jiang’s deception, and to help maintain the persecution of Falun Gong. How could they achieve a high level of professionalism? When Jiang was yelling at the Hong Kong reporters, he downright made a scene. He told the reporters to forget about their professional ethics, and just to “make money without making noise.”
After making a show of power before Hong Kong reporters, Jiang probably realized he had crossed the line. He then pointed his fingers at the reporters and warned that if their reports had deviations they would be held responsible.
Afterwards, the Hong Kong media indicated their amazement of Jiang’s admonishments. Nearly all the daily newspapers reported the story with very eye-catching headlines, describing Jiang as “behaving rascally.”
Could there be other secrets behind Jiang’s fury that he publicly displayed? Did it stem from the fact that he didn’t have the power and prestige that Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping once possessed? Did it stem from the fact that he no longer held absolute authority at the core of the CCP, or that there were such challenges to his authority that even his most trusted subordinate, Zeng Qinghong, couldn’t become a full-fledged Politburo member as he had hoped? And was a sore spot hit upon when the reporter asked if Dong Jianhua’s re-election was assured by his “imperial order”? Or was he so beset with difficulties both at home and abroad due to his suppression of Falun Gong that he could not control himself and keep a leader’s demeanor? We leave it to the readers to decide.
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Notes:
[1] Li Hua, “Zhuanfang Hao Fengjun: 6-10 Ban Heimu Da Jiedi” (Exclusive Interview with Hao Fengjun: Unmasking the 6-10 Office). Epoch Times Chinese, June 14, 2005. http://www.dajiyuan.com/gb/5/6/14/n955224.htm.
[2] Ibid.
[3] “Masanjia Laojiaosuo Jing Chuan 200 Ren Jiti Jueshi Kangyi” (200 People Are on Hunger Strike in the Masanjia Labor Camp). Boxun, Jan. 29, 2005.
[4] “Hao Fengjun: Why I Escaped from China (Part II).” The Epoch Times, June 10, 2005. http://english.epochtimes.com/news/5-6-10/29446.html.
[5] Ibid.
[6] “Zhonggong Di Er Wei Chutaozhe Zhengshi Jiandie Zhikong” (Second Chinese Defector Backs Spying Claims). Epoch Times Chinese, June 8, 2005. http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/5/6/8/n947844.htm.
