Portraying Falun Gong as Having a Political Agenda is a Deliberate Ploy on the Part of Jiang Zemin

By Minghui Reporter Lin Zhanxiang

(Clearwisdom.net) Jiang Zemin would be unable to gain public support for his bloody persecution of Falun Gong because the persecution is based on his power, not any Chinese laws. Thus, he has to rely on lies, deceit, framing the innocent, and violence to control public opinion and to sustain his persecution of Falun Gong. Over the past four years, Jiang Zemin has concocted countless lies about Falun Gong and brainwashed the public with the propaganda broadcast by the state-run media. One of the most vicious lies being perpetrated by Jiang is to accuse Falun Gong of "having ulterior political motives," being a political organization like the White Lotus Society, plotting to overthrow the government and establishing a country with united religion and politics. In order to learn the truth, why don't we look a little closer, and try to discern the truth from the lies, and the good from the bad.

Falun Gong disciples do not participate in politics.

Falun Gong encourages practitioners to be good people according to "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance. It is not a so-called political goal or effort, nor is it "anti-humankind," as Jiang's regime accuses. Falun Gong does not have political ambitions such as striving for power or overthrowing the government. Instead, it requires all disciples to get rid of the attachment of fighting for power. Encouraging "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance" is not evil, nor is it "heresy" as Xinhua News Agency accuses. Falun Gong does not have a negative, passive or resentful attitude towards current society, nor does it have any ideas, goals or efforts regarding political combat or any desires or political ambitions of overthrowing the government. Since all human actions are directed and controlled by ideas and thoughts, Falun Gong therefore cannot be transformed into anti-government political power. In addition, Mr. Li Hongzhi, as early as April 1994, asked all disciples not to intervene in politics:

Falun Gong is not a secret organization. Falun Gong disciples practice in parks and public places where everybody can come and go freely: there are no secrets at all. Those with evil intentions conclude that Falun Gong must have a very thorough organization since Falun Gong has "assistance centers." Many popular qigong practices have multiple assistance centers around the country. Assistance centers are not unique creations of Falun Gong. The sole purpose of assistance centers is to help practitioners cultivate together. Falun Gong does not have a registration list; everyone can come and go freely, and there are no rules or ideas about heirarchy either. Falun Gong does not have the characteristics of modern organizations. Falun Gong also has no temples or churches, nor religious rites.

Zhuan Falun, the primary text of Falun Gong, clearly stipulates free instruction of Falun Gong. All the books and audio and video materials can be downloaded for free from the internet, so how can this accused of accumulating money? It is obvious that the accusation that Falun Gong "has accumulated lots of money" is not true. Falun Gong also requires the students "to take the Fa [universal principle] as teacher" and does not promote the worship of any individual. Jiang's regime has wasted money and manpower to block the internet and Falun Gong websites in order to keep the facts from the public.

Falun Gong does not permit violence. The principles do not contain any ideas about fighting. It is clearly written in Lecture 7 of Zhuan Falun that killing is forbidden, and also "you shouldn't hit back when attacked, or talk back when insulted." It is further clarified in Falun Dafa--Lecture in Sydney, 1996 that suicide also "counts as a sin." Falun Gong does not contain any desires or conditions for armed insurrection or violent revolution, and it is clear that such kind of practice can not be used for "revolution" or overthrowing the government.

Jiang Zemin Deliberately Demonizes Falun Gong

Since Jiang Zemin is very sensitive to power, and is jealous of the fact that so many people practice Falun Gong, he decided to break the Chinese Constitution by launching a political campaign to persecute Falun Gong in July 1999. In the beginning, he was opposed by many top officials in the Party, because many people had some right knowledge about Falun Gong. In order to make excuses and justify his persecution towards Falun Gong, and to deceive the government and people into supporting his persecution, Jiang Zemin deliberately spread rumors about Falun Gong and lied, trying to link it with politics. In China, the dictatorship will launch a crackdown against anything once it is linked to politics, and is advertised as having ambitions to overthrow the government. It does not matter if the link is based on fact or rumor.

Therefore, Jiang Zemin groundlessly smeared Falun Gong as an anti-government political power, its biggest political counterpart since the foundation of the People's Republic of China, and a threat to the party and the state. A threat to the party and the state is one of the most sensitive topics to the Party and this naturally has become the most effective excuse for Jiang to use to suppress Falun Gong. Once its severity reaches this height, more than half of the Chinese population has experienced the cruelty of political repression, and nobody dared to speak out about the truth. Therefore, the huge machinery of violence and the dictatorship of the Party became a tool wielded by Jiang Zemin, the bloody persecution and brutal suppression of Falun Gong started with full power, and innocent people were cruelly persecuted and murdered. By framing Falun Gong with the charge of "attempting to overthrow the government", Jiang Zemin has taken advantage of the addiction to power of many top Chinese officials and manipulated them into giving their support, and achieved his purpose of transforming the machinery of the state into the most powerful weapon to persecute Falun Gong. In addition, in order to frame Falun Gong as an enemy that poses a huge threat to the government, Jiang Zemin distorted history, fabricated lies and labeled Falun Gong as the modern "White Lotus Society."

Throughout the several thousand years of China's history, there have been numerous cases of heroes of the countryside calling on people to rebel, acting like overlords, some even managing to overthrow a dynasty or regime. Many had contacts with secret religions among the people. The first one who rebelled in the name of religion was Zhang Jiao in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. He secretly organized masses at the grassroots level in the name of "Taiping Dao" (which advocated the political ideology of yellow supreme peace) and launched the "Yellow Scarves Rebellion" in 184 AD, claiming himself as "General of Heaven." There was Hong Xiuquan in the late Qing Dynasty, who secretly contacted and organized peasants and launched a rebellion in Jintian, Jiangxi Province, calling himself "King of Heaven," and established the Heavenly Kingdom in Nanjing based on a combination of religion and politics. Of course, among such secret religions in Chinese history, the most notable was the White Lotus. During the several hundred years of the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, secret religions of the White Lotus system launched a number of large-scale peasant rebellions, causing the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty and much disturbance in the Ming and Qing dynasties. As a result, authorities of successive dynasties resented secret religions and kept a tight lookout against them.

Jiang Zemin focused on this point, as well as the fear shared by many communist officials, that they might face a "subjugation of the nation and the party" and he tried his utmost to mix up history, deliberately misrepresenting Falun Gong as a religion like the White Lotus. In other words, he made use of the concern and the protective attitude towards their power by the Party and their supporters to gain their support for the persecution of Falun Gong. Because there are so many people practicing Falun Gong, once Falun Gong was labeled a religion like the White Lotus, Jiang would be able to utilize their fear to lead them to view Falun Gong as an enormous political threat to the government. Then Jiang would be able to deceive the masses of government officials to support his persecution of Falun Gong and to create new "laws" in attempts to "legitimize" his persecution.

Jiang Zemin's talk of the White Lotus aimed at confusing and poisoning people's minds

To label Falun Gong as the White Lotus is one of Jiang's deliberate schemes and a key factor used to deceive the CCP and state apparatus into supporting his persecution. The White Lotus and the Manichean church from Persia (also known as Manichaeism) have ancient sources in history, and their basic theory is "dualism and three stages," with dualism referring to two forces of light and darkness fighting with one another continuously in the past, at the present and in the future (three stages), and in the end with the light force defeating the dark force. The White Lotus also absorbed belief in the Maitreya [future Buddha to save the world, a concept of the messiah] and added the notions of the Maitreya descending to the world and the inexorable doom based on the worldly politics and philosophy of fighting. Since Falun Gong is based on "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance' and teaching people to be good people, and since it has taken a pure and righteous path without any political ideology and fighting philosophy, Jiang Zemin could not take advantage of any loopholes, so he avoided the White Lotus's essential ideology of "dualism and three stages," instead, he tried to seize upon some specific phenomena in the White Lotus and make an issue of them, and he tried to make an issue of "reincarnation" and "inexorable doom" and elaborately cooked up a scheme to frame the founder of Falun Gong. Jiang Zemin tried to use these phenomena to confuse people's minds and tried to cover up the true nature of his persecution. His purpose is to link Falun Gong with being anti-government.

The common characteristics of secret anti-government religions include that they all have worldly political ideologies and objectives. Although Jiang Zemin could not find any of those things in Falun Gong, he could deliberately cook up lies. In order to accuse Falun Gong of having "ulterior motives," Jiang Zemin, the then General Secretary of the Party, President of China and Chairman of the Military Committee of the Party, threw away all disguises. On August 15, 2000, Mike Wallace, a reporter for 60 Minutes on CBS, conducted an unusual interview with Jiang Zemin at Beidaihe, during which Jiang Zemin said to Mr. Wallace, "Their leader claimed himself to be the reincarnation of Bodhisattva and Jesus, and he said that the doom of the universe was about to arrive, and the world would explode."

However, Jiang Zemin's accusations could only deceive those who have not read Falun Gong books and who live under the government's strict news blockade. Falun Gong books have time and time again openly clarified these issues and denied the statement of "reincarnation":

As for the denial of the "doom of the universe," there is much written evidence:

Jiang made a big fuss over Mr. Li Hongzhi supposedly "changing his birth date" with repeated propaganda in state official media. In fact, China is a very populous country, the management is poor and disorganized, so it's not uncommon that the birth date in one's archive is wrong. (For example, the birth date on my birth certificate is wrong too.) Jiang tried to use "changing his birth date" to strengthen his accusation of "reincarnation," as a major slogan of the White Lotus Society was "Maitreya reincarnates and becomes the King of Light in the human world." The sole basis that Jiang labels Falun Gong as an anti-government organization like the "White Lotus" was the so-called "reincarnation" and "end of the world." From the above analysis we can see how Jiang slanders the founder of Falun Gong even if he could not find anything wrong with Falun Gong itself.

People with some knowledge of Falun Gong and the White Lotus Society can easily see through Jiang's lies.

Falun Gong's Peaceful Exposure of Persecution Differs Fundamentally from the "Revolt against Government Oppression"

"Revolt against government oppression" means that people have no other choice but to revolt and overthrow the state power. Here, to overthrow the state power is the key of the matter and the goal of action. In over four years of brutal persecution by Jiang, until the end of November, more than 820 innocent Falun Gong practitioners have been tortured to death; over 100,000 have been illegally detained; and numerous Falun Gong practitioners are forced into homelessness, breaking up families, with some gone and some dead. Nonetheless, Falun Gong follows "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance" as always and walks a peaceful and rational path. No matter appealing to the government, going to Tiananmen Square, distributing truth clarification flyers, setting up websites or presenting petitions, there is only one purpose: to expose and stop the persecution, and clear away the lies. In the past four years, even at the cruelest time of persecution, there was not any sign of Falun Gong turning into a political power to overthrow the government.

In the past four years, tens of millions of Falun Gong practitioners and their families have used peaceful civil disobedience in the face of the bloody persecution. The facts show that when legal rights are illegally deprived, Falun Gong does not carry on with "revolt against government oppression"; instead, Falun Gong opposes any form of "eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" violence or armed struggle, and keeps seeking peacefully resolution for the issue. Overseas lawsuits against Jiang for crimes against humanity and torture also follow the spirit of rule by law. All these manifestations are because the goal of all Falun Gong practitioners' activities against persecution is to stop the persecution and expose the evil. Falun Gong practitioners do not have a bit of interest in political power or worldly interests.

From the large number of facts revealed in the past several years, we can see that Jiang's accusations against Falun Gong of "anti-communist party" and "anti-government" do not have any basis in fact; instead, they are plain criminal acts that are against China's constitution.
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/12/13/62469.html

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