(Clearwisdom.net) The April 25th appeal refers to the group appeal by over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners at the National Appeals Office in Beijing near Zhongnanhai, the headquarters compound of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), some 11 years ago. They assembled to appeal for the release of dozens of practitioners arrested by the police in nearby Tianjin City. They also sought to lift the ban on the publication of Falun Gong books and a return to the safety and freedom to practice Falun Gong that had been enjoyed in earlier years.
“The next step for China's wealthy” refers to the 2011 China Private Wealth Survey released by China Merchants Bank and Bain & Co. on Wednesday, April 20, 2011. According to the survey, more and more wealthy Chinese are choosing to emigrate overseas, taking their money with them for investments in their new homes. Some media reports claim that the next step for China's super-rich is to leave China entirely.(1)
Is the April 25th appeal related to the next step for China's super-rich in any way? The author of this article certainly believes so. The April 25th appeal showed that, 11 years ago, the Chinese people still trusted their government. They had the hope that the CCP government would uphold justice. Today, however, the next step for China's super-rich shows that people nowadays no longer trust the CCP regime and have little faith in China's future under the CCP.
The super-rich are closer to the core of the CCP power and seem to know more than the masses. They sense more instability. Yet, the general public only sees superficial economic prosperity—they don't see the crisis on the horizon.
Mr. Yu Yongding, a former member of the Monetary Policy Commission of the People's Bank of China, published an article on the CCP's English mouthpiece China Daily, “China's rapid growth has been achieved at an extremely high cost. Only future generations will know the true price.”(2)
The “China model” Mr. Yu discusses is basically a ponzi scheme. Yet Mr. Yu considered only the economics. He didn't speak to the downward slide of morality in recent years, which some believe will have an even bigger and far-reaching impact on China's future generations.
One of my college classmates is now a chief executive officer of a private equity firm. He is considered young and successful in Chinese society. He believes that, “This is now the darkest time in China's history.” He arrived at this conclusion based on his life experiences, such as environmental pollution, the increasing gap between rich and poor, corruption, food poisoning to boost profits, the overwhelming flood of pornography, the decline in morality, and the general lack of spiritual belief.
However, I think many people may have overlooked another “dark” area covered up by propaganda. Over the past 12 years, the persecution of Falun Gong has accompanied the downward slide of morality. In order to assess the future direction of China, one cannot ignore what the CCP has done during the persecution of Falun Gong. Maybe you think the persecution has nothing to do with you. However, what the CCP has done in this persecution reveals its true colors.
Two examples can effectively illustrate this. One is the staged “self-immolation” propaganda stunt in Tiananmen Square. The other is the harvesting of organs from living Falun Gong practitioners.
The Staged Immolation in Tiananmen Square
On January 23, 2001, the eve of the Chinese New Year, videos were recorded and broadcast throughout China and around the world that alleged that a number of Falun Gong practitioners had set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. A woman by the name of Liu Chunling died at the scene.
Upon close slow motion analysis of the footage broadcast by China Central Television (CCTV), it became clear that Liu Chunling didn't die from the fire. A plainclothes policeman threw a hard object at her head, killing her. As for the so-called organizer, Wang Jindong, his clothes were burned to pieces, yet the plastic soda bottle between his legs remained intact. The bottle was supposed to have contained the “gasoline” used in the self-immolation.
The self-immolation was staged by the authorities to turn public opinion against Falun Gong. The false news was carried by thousands of newspapers and hundreds of TV and radio stations and numerous Internet sites controlled by the CCP. Western media picked up the story and spread the CCP propaganda all over the world.
The timing of this was right for the CCP. The persecution of Falun Gong had begun losing momentum after its first year and faced public skepticism and resistance. The immolation propaganda stunt very quickly and effectively stirred up huge public anger and hatred of Falun Gong and fueled the later escalation of the persecution.
China Central Television (CCTV) footage showed that Liu Chunling was killed by a tall man. The staged self-immolation was, indeed, a conspiracy.
The plastic soda bottle between Wang Jindong's legs remained intact after the fire. The policeman with the fire blanket stood behind and watched him burn, giving Wang Jindong time to finish his scripted cries about Falun Gong before putting the blanket on him.
“False Fire: China's Tragic New Standard in State Deception,” a brief documentary produced by NTDTV, won a Certificate of Honorable Mention at the 51st Columbus International Film & Video Festival in 2003. The film analyzes the video of the immolation carried on a popular national CCTV program “Focus Talk.” Slow motion analysis of the CCTV footage reveals that the self-immolation was a hoax, a propaganda piece staged by authorities to demonize Falun Gong in the public eye. Isn't it terrible that the CCP would go this far to instigate hatred and persecute good people?
The Harvesting of Organs from Living Falun Gong Practitioners
If the intent of the staged self-immolation was to sew the seeds of hatred, the organ harvesting atrocities that followed were the fruit of those seeds.
In 2006, a Chinese reporter and a former employee of Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine broke the news of live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners (see: http://clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2006/3/17/70915.html ).
From 1999 to 2007, the organ transplant market in China grew rapidly. In 2003, the number of organ transplants suddenly skyrocketed. Organ transplant tourism also became very popular during 2003 and 2006. Some hospitals in China claimed publicly that the waiting time for an organ was only one to two weeks. In Western countries, the wait for a similar organ was two to three years. Some Chinese hospitals even offered a second organ transplant free if the first didn't succeed. For Mainland China, where there isn't a national organ donation system or a custom or culture of donating organs, where do all these organs come from? The live organ harvesting exposed in 2006 provides an answer to this question.
In November 2009, Seraphim Editions in Canada published the book “Bloody Harvest, The Killing of Falun Gong for Their Organs.” The authors were Mr. David Matas, a renowned human rights attorney, and Mr. David Kilgour, Canada's former Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific. The book made public a great deal of evidence of live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners as a result of several years of investigation and research. The evidence included the tape recordings of conversations with doctors in several hospitals in China confirming live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners.
The Minghui website, the Chinese version of Clearwisdom, published a detailed report, “Falun Gong Practitioners Systematically Murdered for Their Organs: Refuting the Chinese Regime's 'Death Row' Explanation, Chapters I~XIII” (see: http://www.clearwisdom.net/appx/eng/search/?terms=Ouyang+Fei%2C+Sun+Sixian%2C+Lin+Zhanxiang). The report compiles considerable information published on the Internet by various departments of the CCP. Many of the pages referenced have since been deleted, however, copies can still be found on a digital library of achieved Internet sites. It became obvious that the large number of organs available in China could not have been supported by executed criminals, as Party officials claimed. Many Falun Gong practitioners that went missing during the persecution were almost certainly used as a live organ reservoir.
A November 2008 report by the the United Nations Committee Against Torture noted that an increase in organ transplant operations coincided with the persecution of Falun Gong and urged an immediate independent investigation.
“Between Life and Death,” a NTDTV documentary about live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners recently won the Certificate of Merit at the 2011 Hugo Television Award in Chicago.
Some may find it hard to believe, but the evidence tells the truth.
This year marked the 12th anniversary of the peaceful April 25th appeal. On April 25, 1999, over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners visited the National Appeals Office because they trusted that the Chinese government would do the right thing. However, the CCP abused their trust and used the appeal as an excuse to launch a persecution that has now lasted over 10 years.
Recognizing the never-ending parade of atrocities the CCP has been capable of, the next step for many of China's wealthy is to leave China. One can only wonder what life will be like for the great masses who are not among the super-rich and have to remain there.
Notes:
(1) Reported by Reuters on April 20, 2011
(2) “A Different Road Forward” by Mr. Yu Yongding on China Daily on December 23, 2010
Category: Perspective
