There is a story about a scorpion that wanted to cross a river. He couldn't swim, so he asked a tortoise to take him across the river on his back. The tortoise declined, saying, "You will sting me."

The scorpion said, "No, I won't because I could not do that without drowning myself." The tortoise thought that sounded reasonable, so he agreed. When they had almost reached the other side, the scorpion stung the tortoise.

"Why did you do that?" the tortoise cried.

The scorpion replied, "I had no choice. It's just my nature."

It has been almost two years since the peaceful appeal of Falun Gong at Zhongnanhai on April 25. Also it has been more than a year since the public suppression on July 22 and the "Legislation" by the People's Congress on December 5. During the past year, the Chinese Government has been escalating the suppression. So far, about one hundred and fifty people have been tortured to death, several hundred were sentenced to jail, and thousands of practitioners were sent to mental hospitals. Over ten thousand others were sent to labor camps and, overall, hundreds of thousands have been arrested. The wide range of the crackdown, and the contemptible and cruel means it employs, have no parallel in Chinese history.

Let's take a look at Falun Gong. Instead of following the tradition of "either be docile or be rebellious," they did not yield, surrender or antagonize. The practitioners insist on non-violence, fear nothing, and step forward one after another to appeal. This is the first time in thousands of years that this has happened in China. Upon reviewing the two years of tribulations, we would like to ask the following questions: Is the suppression a misunderstanding? Is the suppression avoidable? Does Falun Gong endanger the authority of the Chinese Government? My answer is that the suppression is not a misunderstanding. "Truthfulness," "Compassion," and "Tolerance," as promoted by Falun Gong, are extremely beneficial to the country and to the society. There is no doubt, however, that Falun Gong has directly threatened the authority of the Jiang Zemin regime. Therefore, the suppression is inevitable.

"Truthfulness" directly endangers the Chinese government. Simple common sense tells us that the authority of the current Chinese government is based on lies. Before Jiang Zemin controlled the country, the Party had promised the peasant farmers their support. Once they were in power, the Party's authorities deprived the farmers of the land through "cooperative transformations" and "people's communities." During the "Great Leap Forward," in order to surpass Great Britain and to catch up with the U.S., the authorities claimed yields as high as hundreds of thousands pounds per mu. (One mu is approximately 667 square meters, or 0.16 acre.) They produced countless tons of scrap iron, at the expense of depleting the timber resources across the country. They covered up the fact that tens of millions of people were starving to death, while a great victory was proclaimed. To purge the intellectuals, both loyal and disloyal, they invited criticism by initiating a movement to "allow a variety of flowers to blossom and different schools of thought to coexist." Then, in one fell swoop, they rounded up all those who publicly espoused that philosophy. All of these tactics were utilized to make people all across the country realize the consequences of speaking out about telling the truth rather than parroting the politically correct ideology. Through "listing the crimes of Liu Shaoqi" to "millions of unjust verdicts;" from "anti bourgeois liberalization" to "no killing in Tiananmen Square;" through all of that, the Chinese government had never prohibited Falun Gong. People shouldn't believe rumors to the effect that Jiang Zemin once yelled, "I don't believe I can't handle Falun Gong!" Is there anyone who has ever heard this government telling the truth on important issues?

Because the national media had been factually reporting the truth for several days prior to June 4, 1989, Jiang Zemin, who was in power during the crackdown, issued a specific instruction that the emphasis on the publicity of factually reported news belonged to the bourgeois class. "The news in China must be the Party's mouthpiece," and so on. In fact, the Chinese government not only tells lies itself, but also forces the people to join in the lying. The people were forced by the Chinese style of socialism to study and repeatedly report the editorial article, originally delivered by the specially appointed commentator for the People's Daily, describing the nonsense of the "Three Stresses" (Note: The "three stresses" campaign is Jiang's most concerted attempt yet, both to stem damage and to establish himself as a Party builder on a par with Mao Zedong.) and "Three Representatives." (Note: Jiang Zemin's Theory of the Three Representatives - that the Party must always be "representative" of the foremost production forces, of the most advanced culture, and of the fundamental interests of the people.) Through constant repetition, they attempted to brainwash people into believing that these lies had originated from their own opinions. Since Jiang Zemin has been in power, he has perfected the art of deception. Let's examine, for a moment, those high-ranking corrupted officials who were revealed to have been taking million dollar bribes, for example. Did they not also hear the impassioned speech about the "Three Stresses," and against corruption? Everything had seemed so perfect, and the Jiang dynasty appeared impregnable. Nobody had anticipated the appearance of Falun Gong in 1992.

Within just a few years, the number of Falun Gong practitioners had rapidly multiplied to tens of millions. Jiang Zemin instinctively felt threatened. What filled him with dread were not only the huge numbers of practitioners and the participation of numerous Party members, but also the willingness of so many people to speak the truth, after so many years of ideological indoctrination, stressing the consequences of nonconformance. The concept of speaking out about the truth violated Jiang Zemin's taboo. The basic reason for Jiang's direct order to crack down is that the spread of Falun Gong had been unwittingly changing (for the better) the formerly distorted character of Chinese citizens. It's true that Falun Gong is not involved with politics. Neither does it seek to share authoritarian power. But the increase in the numbers of people who are of good moral character is a challenge to the vicious force that dominates through deception, as they reduce the space in which deceit can exist. When the evil authorities discovered that average Chinese citizens were calmly facing death, simply for clarifying the truth, their fear became obvious. Therefore, it is not strange that the party representing the evil force has become desperate in its death throes. In this confrontation between righteousness and evil, what the evil party uses is nothing but lies. First, it was "collecting money," "luxurious mansions" and "oxytocin." Then it was "group suicide in Xiang Mountain" and "self-immolation in Tiananmen Square." Today, it is "a million people's signatures," fabricated by forcing elementary school students to sign. What else could the head of the imposing state and the imposing government do except lie? It would actually be strange if the Jiang regime, which has never told the truth, did not crack down on Falun Gong.

"Compassion" directly endangers the basis on which the Chinese government relies for control. The Chinese government was established by the [party name omitted] Party. Though the Party's original beliefs no longer exists in today's China, even at the highest level, the current government cannot deny it's own history. Through reviewing that history, it is evident that what this party and this government have persisted in is completely contrary to "Compassion," as promoted by Falun Gong.

At the highest level, this party had ten formally titled, two-line struggles, each of which, without exception, successfully overthrew its previous general secretary as an "anti-party element." Consequently, any mere mention of a general secretary may cause fear within the Party.

The history before the founding of the country was one of a series of bloody, internal battles. To purge the Anti Bolshevik League, during the Red Army period, almost all of the battalion and regiment officers were executed. It resulted in the loss of the Fifth Battle of Anti-Encirclement, due to a lack of experienced commanders. Then the 12,500 kilometer Long March began while it was still strategically crippled. In Yan'an, the "Rectification Movement" almost killed all of the Shanbei Red Army officers and local officials led by Liu Zhidan, who were renowned as the "saviors of the Central Red Army."

Ever since the Party has been in power, all of the political movements have made use of the cruelest and fiercest aspects of human nature, the most malicious part of people. During the first thirty years of peaceful development in China, the number of the innocent people who were killed exceeded the total number of all those who had lost their lives in the wars for democracy and freedom, as well as in the wars against foreign invasion. The "class struggle as the key link" and the "dictatorship of the proletariat," are concepts which are openly preached by Party members in China. Jiang's promise of the "physical annihilation" of Falun Gong have all been intended, first, to gradually destroy the compassionate mentality and the beauty within Chinese hearts, and then to replace that mentality with ruthlessness, filling those hearts with ugliness. As a living remnant of the bloody struggles, both inside and outside the Party, and then having usurped the supreme power through political strangulation, Jiang Zemin has become soaked to the marrow with cruelty and inhumanity. Whether viewed in sentiment or by intellect, there is nothing strange about Jiang Zemin being so determined to destroy Falun Gong, which promotes "Compassion," and it is no wonder that such extremely treacherous means have been utilized in the crackdown. From the use of torture tools of an earlier century, to that of the more modern, electric cattle prod; from police and prison officials personally handling their charges, to prisoners being forced by the officials to do unspeakable deeds; all these measures must surely represent the extreme in Chinese history.

"Tolerance" will totally disable the Chinese government's method of control. Normally, any ruler would welcome the peoples' tolerance. Why did Jiang Zemin oppose it? Is he destroying his regime on purpose? The Party is comparatively deficient, in this twenty first century, because it has never effectively established any independent justice system in the more than fifty years that it has been in power. It gives the impression that it refuses to allow a healthy society. One of the fundamental measures for control has been to keep instigating the people against one another to distract them from any concern with their rulers' exploitation, extortion and plunder. The "stability" referred to by Jiang Zemin is nothing more than an ability to keep any spearhead movement from targeting the ruling regime which he represents. What is "inner exhaustion"? It is the exhaustion of energy from the conflicts among people. After having expended the effectiveness of the so-called "laws," all that Jiang Zemin had left at his disposal was the instigation of people against one another. Tactics such as "a million people's signatures," "popular will" and "public indignation" are the same old tricks that were used by Hitler, sixty years ago. Jiang should not imitate him so blindly, as it has a rather ludicrous effect. Never let it be said that there was not strong indignation among the common Chinese people over the labeling of Liu Shaoqi (Note: By the 1980's, history had come to respect him as one of the first generation leaders, along with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De) as "turncoat," "hidden traitor" and "scab" in 1960's. What was the eventual outcome of that negative propaganda?

"The trend of world opinion is vast and mighty. Those who submit will prosper; those who resist will perish." Hopefully, the rest of the Chinese leaders may be more composed and self-assured.

Recommended by readers