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Hello everyone, I’m Zhang Gousheng. Today we’re going to deeply investigate Master Li’s real life experiences. I think you know our attitude towards Falun Gong, and of course, you should also know Falun Gong’s attitude towards us. We are responsible for investigating, they are responsible for suing. So, whether Master Li’s persona collapses after this episode is released is uncertain, but it’s highly probable that the show will be met with Master Li’s ‘divine powers’ and a flood of downvotes from reports.
Thank you all for taking a moment to give a thumbs up. One like is equivalent to one ‘divine power’ counteraction. A trifecta of likes, comments, and shares will directly give Gousheng a golden bell shield. I’ve also written the shareable text for this episode for you. When sharing, just write: ‘Zhang Gousheng’s 100-episode epic, the first episode of the Falun Gong exposé, is shockingly online.’
However, currently, there’s only the episode you’re seeing today. The remaining 99 episodes have been produced and released by Gousheng, who has transformed into 99 ‘Dharma bodies’ in the higher dimensions and ‘unclean worlds.’ Ordinary people’s naked eyes cannot see them for now; only those who have cultivated to perfection can. Today, Gousheng has truly flipped through a lot of original materials. Today, let’s see how an ordinary person, originally named Li Lai, who started by playing the trumpet, changed his name, birthday, and resume step by step, and finally transformed himself into the ‘Cosmic Master Li Hongzhi.’
On July 7, 1952, a boy was born in Gongzhuling Town, Jilin. His birth name was Li Lai, and his family called him Xiao Laizi. During the Cultural Revolution, it was popular among students to change their names to sound more revolutionary. So, Li Lai changed his name to Li Hongzhi in middle school. Master Li’s father later worked as a doctor in the railway system, so he was somewhat within the system. However, his parents separated early, and his mother raised several children alone.
Master Li and Nie Weiping were born in the same year. Children of that era basically had their normal education interrupted by the Cultural Revolution, so Master Li stopped schooling after junior high. In 1970, 18-year-old Li Hongzhi went to a military horse farm in Zhalai’er Banner, Hinggan League, Inner Mongolia. Ostensibly, he joined the propaganda team, but most of his time was spent doing agricultural and animal husbandry work, earning 32 yuan a month as a first-level worker.
But Master Li had musical dreams! Two years later, Master Li’s mother managed to pull strings to transfer him to the cultural and artistic propaganda team of the Jilin Provincial Forest Police Corps, where he played his trumpet. In 1978, the propaganda team was disbanded, and he stayed in the military guesthouse as a service attendant. It was also during this time that he met Li Rui, who worked at a public bathhouse in Changchun, through an introduction. The two quickly got married. Note that public bathhouses were respectable jobs and state-owned units back then, so don’t overthink it.
Fast forward to 1982, and Master Li performed a typical 1980s bureaucratic clearance. First, he used his father-in-law’s connections to leave the guesthouse and transfer to the Changchun Municipal Grain and Oil Supply Company. In the same year, Master Li’s daughter was born, so Master Li had to strive. For the sake of his family and to bridge the strict identity gap between workers and cadres at the time, he took a shortcut called ‘substituting workers for cadres,’ which meant doing office clerical work as a cadre while receiving a worker’s salary and status.
Later, by chance, he benefited from the national policy in the spring of 1984 to clean up and standardize the ‘substituting workers for cadres’ system. He smoothly transitioned from an ordinary worker to a cadre. Master Li continued in this role until 1988. At the age of 36, Master Li did something that changed his life: he enrolled in a class. Note that Master Li was enrolling in a class, not teaching one, at that time.
Around 1988, Li Hongzhi studied two schools of Qigong. One was Chan Mi Gong taught by Li Weidong, which he attended for two sessions. The other was Jiu Gong Ba Gua Gong taught by Yu Guangsheng. Too many people witnessed this experience; the payment receipts and class member lists are still preserved and cannot be erased. But this creates a bug: later, you claim to be a powerful being who became a disciple at age 4 and attained perfection at age 8, yet at 36, you suddenly sat in a beginner’s class and paid tuition to ordinary people. This seems too unbelievable.
To patch this bug, Falun Gong’s later sacred narrative took a leap into past and future lives. They said that the Master wasn’t ‘learning’; he was ‘inspecting’ and ‘awakening.’ In Falun Gong’s materials, the Qigong masters who taught the classes were not qualified to be Master Li’s teachers. They were people with whom the Master had karmic connections from past lives, having received favors or even made contracts. His sitting in the audience to listen to classes in this life was merely following the arrangement of cosmic evolution to reclaim the Qigong methods previously deposited with them, using human forms to awaken his sealed higher cosmic memories. It’s practically Master Li’s multiverse.
However, several early collaborators who later parted ways with him told the truth: there were no past-life contracts at all. Master Li simply learned two popular Qigong methods, found the movements quite appealing, and then extracted and adjusted some hand gestures and postures from each to create his own system. Around 1989, this compiled Qigong method was initially developed, and he began teaching people to practice in small groups part-time around the Monkey Mountain area in Changchun Victory Park. As his practice grew more successful in the park, just earning pocket money by teaching people to sit cross-legged clearly couldn’t satisfy Master Li’s ambitions.
A crucial turning point arrived. In May 1991, Master Li took a leave of absence without pay and left the Grain and Oil Company. Where did he go? To Thailand to visit his sister. Master Li stayed there for 10 months, not returning to China until March 1992. But he wasn’t idle during those 10 months. What kind of place is Thailand? It’s full of Buddhist temples, murals, and graceful Thai dances. Master Li’s eyes were directly illuminated by this trip. Later, his former brother-in-law said that a considerable part of Master Li’s signature hand gestures and poses were inspired by Thai dances, Buddhist statues, and murals.
After returning to China, the grand undertaking of teaching Qigong full-time officially began. However, one person couldn’t build an empire alone, so Master Li quickly assembled a founding team. Early collaborators included Li Jingchao, Liu Fengcai, and Song Bingchen. Li Jingchao acted like a product tester, repeatedly practicing the movements in the woods to see which postures were aesthetically pleasing and comfortable. Liu Fengcai was the chief content officer, responsible for revising the lecture materials, which he modified over 70 times. In the month before the official opening of classes, the group was still frantically fixing bugs and updating the version in the woods of Changchun.
A master who aims to save sentient beings also needs a Dharma image. This core visual packaging project was handed over to Song Bingchen. In the early 1990s, without Photoshop or Meitu Xiuxiu, the Master’s team managed to create a hardcore black technology using purely manual methods. They went to a costume shop, bought a yellow Dharma robe used for acting, dressed Master Li in it, and took a photo of him sitting solemnly in meditation. Then, they cut paper into lotus petals to form a lotus platform, pasted the Master’s photo onto it, and finally used a brush to manually draw thousands of Buddha’s rays behind the Master’s head. After piecing it together, they re-photographed, plate-made, and printed it. Master Li’s Dharma image was successfully created. The next step was to wait for Falun Dafa 1.0 to be officially launched.
On May 13, 1992, the first training class grandly opened in the lecture hall of Changchun No. 5 Middle School. According to official statistics later, about 180 people crammed into the venue, marking a successful first battle with an income of 5,400 yuan. The first class sold for 5,400 yuan, which was a good start. However, the Chinese Qigong scene at the time was a battle of gods, with masters claiming to be omnipotent everywhere. If you only relied on a few compiled movements and a Dharma image made from handmade paper cutouts, you wouldn’t be able to stand out in the fiercely competitive Qigong world. You needed to concoct an origin story that could awe the entire universe.
Thus, in 1993, the book ‘Falun Gong of China’ was officially published, with a feature article titled ‘Falun Rotates, New Heaven and Earth’ at the end. This material was Master Li’s first public sacred resume, which was later revised several times and included in ‘Zhuan Falun.’ The book states that when Master Li was 4 years old, a high-level Buddhist master named Quanjue took him as his sole disciple; by age 8, he had already attained perfection; at 12, a Taoist ‘Eight Extremes True Person’ personally came to teach him; subsequently, he received guidance from Zhen Daozi and a Buddhist female master in rotation.
A great teacher produces a great disciple, so supernatural powers were naturally abundant. The book also states that Master Li could become invisible at age 8, freeze people fighting in mid-air, and even pull iron nails out of wood from a distance. He could even levitate into the air. Once, his schoolbag was locked in the classroom, and with a thought, Master Li passed through the locked door and windows into the classroom, retrieved his bag, and passed back out with another thought. To make people believe these stories, he added many details, saying that once Master Li got stuck halfway through a window, getting covered in glass shards, and had to use his willpower again to forcibly break free.
This sacred resume underwent several dynamic revisions over the years. In early versions, to create a relatable persona, the book said that young Li Hongzhi did chores like chopping wood, cooking, and taking care of his younger siblings, portraying him as a model youth like Lei Feng in the 1980s. But when the narrative shifted towards packaging him as a savior from higher cosmic realms, this earthly aspect seemed too mundane. Therefore, his personal life was extensively edited out. His wife and daughter, the Grain and Oil Company, and his father-in-law helping him get a job – all these down-to-earth mortal affairs were marginalized or even omitted.
At the time, some early collaborators who saw the miraculous stories he told privately asked him, ‘Aren’t you afraid of being exposed by exaggerating your resume so much?’ Master Li frankly blurted out the truth: ‘If I don’t exaggerate, no one will believe it.’ Some people then became curious: ‘Since you’re so divine, why not demonstrate it live?’ A reporter once approached Master Li and said, ‘Don’t you have supernatural powers? Come on, show us.’ Master Li immediately got agitated, his face darkened, and he retorted, ‘Are you trying to make a monkey out of me?’
Then there was the remaining hardware issue: his birthday. In all of Master Li’s archival materials before the 1990s, whether it was his elementary school enrollment form, military service record, state-owned enterprise employee form, marriage certificate, or various forms he filled out himself, it clearly stated July 7, 1952. However, in September 1994, Master Li, who had already achieved fame and fortune, went to the Changchun Public Security Bureau and insisted on changing his birth date to May 13, 1951.
Why did he insist on making himself more than a year older? Because May 13, 1951, happened to be the traditional Buddha’s Birthday (April 8th in the lunar calendar), and May 13, 1992, was precisely the day he started his first training class. You see the strategy: the earlier date seamlessly connects to the reincarnation of Sakyamuni, the middle is his own arrival in the human world, and the later date connects to the start of his business. The same date, linking the Buddha’s birth, his own birth, and the company’s launch, gives people a sense of predestination. You see, the IP creation is meticulous. Thus, the packaging project for the ‘Cosmic Master Li Hongzhi’ was completed.
Next, to scale this business nationwide to millions, you need to integrate it with Chinese characteristics and get the system to endorse it. Think about it: no matter how fantastically Master Li embellished his resume or how dazzling his Dharma image was, if he only practiced ‘divine powers’ in the woods of Changchun, he would at best be a regional master deeply rooted in Monkey Mountain and radiating influence over Changchun. How could he become famous nationwide and eventually harvest tens of millions of followers? Because Li Hongzhi didn’t build his market from scratch; he stood on the shoulders of national institutions. At that time, he and the official Qigong association were partners, practically wearing the same pants.
Let’s recall the general environment in the early 1990s. State-owned enterprises were undergoing reform, mass layoffs were occurring, and the existing public healthcare system was loosening its grip. Ordinary people couldn’t afford medical treatment, and the state was also short on funds. The state secretly needed Qigong to appease laid-off workers and relieve them of the heavy burden of medical expenses. Meanwhile,江湖 masters needed the state to provide them with a cloak of legitimacy. Thus, the China Qigong Science Research Association, an official institution, naturally became the largest Qigong MCN incubation company at the time.
In the summer of 1992, Li Hongzhi, with the first pot of gold earned in Changchun, headed straight to Beijing to pay his respects. That autumn, Falun Gong smoothly affiliated itself with the Qigong Association, becoming a directly affiliated public initiative. Did you think the Qigong Association endorsed him for free? What are you thinking? This was a win-win business model. The Master went out and held classes, earning money. The Qigong Association stamped his documents, provided letters of introduction, lent venues, and then they sat down to split the profits.
The Qigong Association truly profited significantly from Li Hongzhi at the time, usually splitting the earnings 50/50. Later, as the Master became famous, Li Hongzhi wanted a larger share for the organizers. The Qigong Association and Li Hongzhi often argued fiercely backstage over how to split the ticket revenue. Although they occasionally quarreled over profit sharing, they cooperated quite harmoniously in expanding the mass market, with official endorsement and the Master’s ‘divine powers’ working in tandem.
Of course, Master Li also couldn’t have grown this business without a group of knowledgeable die-hard supporters within the system. The core figures of the ‘Wheel Empire’ at the time included Li Chang, who came from the public security system, and Wang Zhiwen, an engineer from the railway system. Li Hongzhi was responsible for creating ‘miracles’ on stage, while these seasoned insiders from the system handled networking and obtaining approvals from behind the scenes. With the operations of these individuals and the vested interests of the Qigong Association, Master Li received awards galore. At the 1992 and 1993 Beijing Oriental Health Expos, he was directly awarded the ‘Marginal Science Progress Award’ and ‘Most Popular Qigong Master’ by the authorities. In 1993, a newspaper sponsored by the Ministry of Public Security even praised him, and the China Society for the Promotion of the Cause of Justice awarded him a letter of appreciation. Most amusingly, he brazenly lectured in the auditorium of the People’s Public Security University of China to an audience of over 2,000 people.
Thus, Master Li’s Dharma Empire grew rapidly. According to data later released by the tax authorities after investigating his taxes, Master Li ran over 50 training classes nationwide, evading taxes amounting to over 2.8 million yuan. This is just what was discovered. In the early 1990s, when the monthly salary was only a few hundred yuan, this was undoubtedly a money-printing machine! However, this honeymoon period didn’t last long before Master Li became dissatisfied. Traveling everywhere to hold in-person classes was too tiring. He would age, say the wrong things, get agitated when pressed by reporters, and could only stay in one city at a time. The efficiency of ‘harvesting leeks’ was simply too low. Moreover, he had to share the ticket revenue with the ‘big shots’ at the Qigong Association. Master Li felt his operation had grown large enough; why should he still be exploited by them?
To scale the business to tens of millions and keep 100% of the profits for himself, an epic upgrade of the business model was needed. Therefore, after holding his last in-person class in Guangzhou in December 1994, Master Li, who was raking in money, suddenly announced that he would no longer hold classes. This was not retirement, because he had discovered a more advanced business model: using Qigong for free traffic and then selling merchandise for profit. That was much more lucrative! In January 1995, Li Hongzhi held the launch ceremony for the book ‘Zhuan Falun’ in the auditorium of the Public Security University. This way, the money from selling books and audio-visual products went entirely to the Master himself, and he no longer had to pay protection fees to the Qigong Association.
Moreover, in that era of high uncertainty, ‘Zhuan Falun’ provided certainty to people. It told the public that the fundamental characteristic of the universe is Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Good deeds you do are called ‘virtue,’ and bad deeds will turn into black ‘karma.’ If you are laid off today, have no money, or get a terminal illness, it’s not because society has problems or because you’re unlucky; it’s ‘eliminating karma’ and paying off your debts from past lives. As long as you follow me, endure hardship, and cultivate, you will eventually attain perfection and settle your accounts.
Today, we laugh at the elderly ladies handing out The Epoch Times, laughing at them only saying ‘Falun Dafa is good’ and finding these aunties comical. But go back to the early 1990s and look at their situation: falling from familiar factories and enterprises into indifferent, unfamiliar cities, their children laid off, suffering from chronic illnesses and unable to afford doctors. At that time, people in the park would teach you exercises for free every morning, and someone would accompany you to study. If you missed a day due to back pain, someone would specifically visit to ask, ‘Auntie, why haven’t we seen you today?’ This cheap, even free, social comfort broke through the psychological defenses of people in the lower-tier markets. Many people didn’t understand ‘higher dimensions’ at first. After practicing, sweating, they slept better at night, and their back pain lessened.
This feeling of improvement was real. It was a normal effect brought about by group mutual support and regular routines. But if you happened to be practicing Falun Gong at that time, you would attribute all of it to the practice. In this way, the book’s teachings spread like a virus, and the network formed by core members within the system delivered the book to every corner of the country. According to official statistics later, there were 39 guidance centers, over 1,900 guidance stations, and more than 28,000 practice sites nationwide.
According to statistics from relevant departments’ investigations in 1999, from 1993 to 1996, a total of 11 types of Falun Gong books were published through official or semi-official channels, with a cumulative circulation of 2.18 million copies and total sales exceeding 17 million yuan. There were also other peripheral products: practice and teaching aids, cards, etc., which were too numerous to count. By 1996, Master Li’s business had completed an epic upgrade from holding classes to selling merchandise.
Logically, he could have closed the doors and counted his money. But at this point, his former employer became unhappy. The Qigong Association came knocking, demanding to audit the accounts and collect a share. They also proposed establishing a Party branch within Falun Gong. The first two demands involved taking money out of the Master’s pocket. The last one was difficult: how could a ‘Cosmic Master’ who had written himself as surpassing Sakyamuni in ‘Zhuan Falun’ have a Party branch secretary above him? This organizational chart was simply too difficult to draw. Thus, in March 1996, the two parties officially parted ways. The official version is that the association revoked Falun Gong’s affiliation; the Master’s version is that he voluntarily withdrew. Who dumped whom is not important; what matters is that this mutually beneficial partnership came to an end.
Many people assume the next part of the story is the authorities turning against him and the Master fleeing overnight. But that’s not the case at all. Master Li could move in and out of China very smoothly at that time. Starting in 1995, his lecture classes had already opened in France and Sweden. The daily operations in China were long managed by his core members. The Master’s movements were unhurried, unlike someone being banned. He arranged for immigration, booked flights, and by early 1998, he had safely landed in the United States with his family. Once in the US, the Master announced the dissolution of local guidance stations, allowing members to come and go freely. Nominally, the physical entity was gone, but in reality, this network woven through workplaces, parks, and acquaintances had transformed into an underground organization.
It was also during these years that Falun Gong developed a unique skill for dealing with negative reports: ‘surround them.’ Whichever media outlet said something unfavorable, they would organize students to go and demand an explanation. And surprisingly, this tactic yielded tremendous benefits in the early stages, receiving continuous positive feedback. From 1996 to 1999, according to incomplete statistics, Falun Gong organized no less than several hundred group ‘sieges’ against media outlets, schools, and local government agencies.
The most classic incident, which injected an overdose of adrenaline into both the Master and his followers, was the Beijing Television incident in May 1998. The cause of this incident was trivial: the State General Administration of Sport had just issued a new policy stating that Qigong masters would henceforth need to be certified like doctors. Beijing Television had a news program called ‘Beijing Express,’ and a 24-year-old intern director named Li Bo used this as a pretext to make a program titled ‘Can On-the-Job Certificates Eliminate Fake Qigong?’ The young man was enthusiastic about his work but didn’t know how deep this water was. Li Bo carried his camera to Zizhuyuan Park to interview Falun Gong practitioners doing morning exercises, and then interviewed physicist He Zuoxiu.
The practitioners were full of spirit in front of the camera, claiming their Qigong could cure all cancers. He Zuoxiu shook his head, saying these claims were absurd. He stated that the near-superstitious enthusiasm of many Beijing residents for Qigong and Qigong masters was mainly driven by the promise of cancer cures. He explained that as your Qigong improves, your body naturally changes for the better, and you shouldn’t claim the master’s Qigong is immensely powerful. The program was broadcast, and this was a major offense! It touched the Master’s ‘dragon scales.’
Within a few days, one to two thousand practitioners surrounded Beijing Television, blocking it completely. The Master, far away in the US, personally called back to ensure implementation, criticizing the first day’s turnout as too small, saying, ‘If there are so few people, it’s better not to go.’ You must admit, this group had high quality. They didn’t shout slogans, hold banners, or block the gates. They just quietly surrounded the building, exerting invisible pressure purely through their numbers. Beijing Television was stunned on the spot. In those days, a public institution had never seen such a situation. To quell the disturbance, the station fired the intern director Li Bo the next day, and the program producer also left. The television station subsequently re-produced and broadcast a program vindicating Falun Gong, and high-level officials personally apologized.
Incidentally, the producer who left was named Wang Changtian. After leaving, he started his own company called Enlight Media. So, strictly speaking, Master Li has some credit for half of China’s private film and television industry. This sent the entire Falun Gong camp into a frenzy. The positive feedback was overwhelming and stimulating! The aunties shared with each other, ‘Even Beijing Television was persuaded by our truth-clarification. The Master’s power is immense! As long as we have enough people and stand long enough, even the authorities will have to bow.’ Subsequently, whenever Qilu Evening News, Liaoning Daily, or Southern Daily published a critical article, their front doors would be tightly surrounded the next day. Most local media and organizations, preferring to avoid trouble, chose to apologize and retract their articles.
These repeated victories led the entire organization to believe they had grasped the soft spot of the system. Master Li also seemed to truly believe in this method, thinking that by using the human sea tactic skillfully enough, he could scare local officials into acknowledging his legitimacy. Alas, this algorithm, when run against the Communist Party’s logic of governance, directly caused a system crash. This is because the underlying code of this machine is highly centralized and monopolistic of organization. On the system’s ledger, whether you are a good person is not a statistical item at all. It only counts how many people you can mobilize. An underground network with millions of people, not controlled by the Party organization, capable of mobilizing thousands at any time across provinces, is, regardless of how kindly it introduces itself, a potential hostile force that could shake the foundation of rule at any moment in the ledger of power.
In April 1999, a journal of the Tianjin Academy of Education again published an article by He Zuoxiu criticizing Falun Gong. The followers, blinded by past victories, once again activated their mobilization machine, with thousands heading to Tianjin. They thought this would be another routine victory like the Beijing Television incident, but they didn’t expect that the Tianjin authorities had received different instructions this time. The riot police directly cleared the area and arrested 45 people. Faced with the sudden failure of their siege tactic, the followers were bewildered. When they went to the Tianjin Municipal Government to demand the release of the arrested individuals, the official who received them uttered a dismissive remark: ‘Tianjin can’t solve this. If you must report it, go to Beijing.’
Anyone with a slight sense of the system’s temperament would have realized the wind was changing and stopped immediately. However, at this point, Falun Gong, from top to bottom, treated the official’s words as a formal invitation. ‘Go to Beijing? Of course! We’ve already flattened Beijing Television, why should we fear going to Beijing?’ Thus, an unprecedented net was silently cast towards Fuyou Street, the most important core area of China in the night of April 23, 1999. The Tianjin official’s dismissive ‘go to Beijing’ remark ignited the mobilization machine that had long been poised. The repeated victories in Tianjin, Beijing Television, and dozens of media outlets nationwide had injected blind confidence into this underground network. They truly believed that as long as the numbers were sufficient and the momentum was strong enough, they could once again force the authorities to back down. However, these people, deeply immersed in fanaticism, could never have imagined that the next 44 hours would completely rewrite the fate of this organization.
The 44-hour countdown began at 5:10 PM on April 22, 1999. At 5:10 PM, Northwest Airlines flight NW087 landed at Beijing Capital Airport. Li Hongzhi, who declared himself a ‘businessperson’ on his entry card, quietly arrived in Beijing. At this time, the Communist Party was clearly not yet prepared to take action against Falun Gong. Master Li smoothly returned to his residence in the Fahua Temple residential complex in Chongwen District, Beijing. That evening, Ji Liewu, a core member responsible for overseas and Hong Kong affairs, urgently rushed to report the latest developments regarding the arrest of Tianjin practitioners to him. By the morning of the 23rd, core members from the system, including Li Chang, Wang Zhiwen, and Ji Liewu, gathered together. Li Chang’s initial idea was relatively conservative, suggesting they negotiate with the Ministry of Public Security. However, Ji Liewu advocated for directly approaching the highest level, the State Council and the Premier. Li Hongzhi made the final decision to choose the latter.
The State Council’s Petition Reception Office is located on Fuyou Street, directly facing the west gate of Zhongnanhai. From a legal procedural standpoint, Master Li considered this ‘petitioning according to law.’ Under Li Hongzhi’s personal direction, a siege strategy targeting the highest authority was finalized. Not only would the Tianjin incident and the previous Beijing Television negotiation be linked, but the number of participants would also be significantly increased. Those who went last time were not enough; more people were needed this time, including those from out of town. The same tactic was used: they were asked not to organize under the official names of the Falun Gong Research Society or guidance stations, but rather for everyone to go spontaneously as individual practitioners.
On the evening of April 23rd and the 24th, this underground network, lacking official organizational names but possessing astonishing mobilization power, began to move. During those two days, at the study sessions held in Canjingguan Hutong in Beijing’s Dongcheng District, core members began assigning tasks to various group leaders. You see, the power of faith is quite formidable. This was 1999; there were no WeChat groups or live internet broadcasts. Relying solely on personal networks and pagers transmitting instructions layer by layer, the entire network mobilized in secret within a few hours. Falun Gong practitioner Yu Chao recalled that late night, when a counselor suddenly paused their reading and suggested everyone go to the Central Petition Office the next day, he felt an unprecedented sense of solemnity. To prepare for potential bloodshed, Yu Chao changed into a completely clean suit and new underwear the next morning, fearing he might die there and wanting to be presentable at least when his body was collected.
Yet, just as thousands of believers like Yu Chao were filled with heroic resolve, ready to sacrifice themselves for the Dharma, Master Li had already secured his plane ticket to leave China. On the morning of the 24th, Li Hongzhi appeared at Capital Airport. The originally scheduled CA111 flight was delayed due to mechanical failure. He quickly changed to the 1:30 PM CA109 flight directly to Hong Kong. The ‘Cosmic Master,’ who claimed to perceive cosmic evolution and see through past and future lives, retreated more nimbly than any mortal when faced with the potential risks of the CCP’s human machine.
At 3:07 AM on the 25th, more than a dozen large buses from Hebei quietly appeared near Beihai, and people filed into underground passages. At 5:13 AM, streams of people emerged from alleys and roadsides, converging towards Fuyou Street. At 7:00 AM, over 10,000 Falun Gong followers had completed a silent, surprise sit-in outside the west gate of Zhongnanhai, surrounding it completely. At this time, Master Li was observing from Hong Kong, while tens of thousands of people, under his remote control, gathered outside the walls of Zhongnanhai. On the morning of April 25, 1999, Fuyou Street was tightly surrounded by over 10,000 people, yet not a single sound of commotion could be heard. There were no banners, no shouting, no attempts to breach the gates. Some were meditating, some were reading by the wall, and even used mineral water bottles and fruit peels were carefully collected into plastic bags and taken away.
Subsequently, under Li Hongzhi’s remote direction from Hong Kong, five core members, including Li Chang and Wang Zhiwen, entered Zhongnanhai for negotiations, presenting three demands: the release of arrested individuals, the publication of books, and a legal environment. Around 9:00 PM that evening, upon receiving the supreme command from his Hong Kong master, ‘Leave when told to leave,’ the tens of thousands of people dispersed rapidly within 10 minutes, leaving the ground spotless. That night, the dispersing participants were immersed in a great sense of victory, believing they had once again persuaded the state machine with Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. They had no idea that as they dispersed, a report that would determine their fate was being submitted deep within the red walls.
That night, in a letter to the Politburo Standing Committee, Jiang Zemin directly addressed the underlying logic of this organization, stating that its organizational discipline and speed of information transmission were unprecedented. While the practitioners sought to prove their harmlessness through absolute quiet and order, the highest authority interpreted this absolute quiet and order, which transcended the Party and government system, as a chilling political threat. An organization not controlled by the system, with millions of members, capable of silently mobilizing tens of thousands within 44 hours to assemble in the heart of the highest power, regardless of its stated intentions, was seen by those in power as a premeditated political confrontation. The stricter its discipline, the more unified its actions, and the exponentially greater its danger.
The 44-hour siege on Fuyou Street triggered the state machine’s political PTSD from the June 4th incident. Less than two months later, on June 10th, an inter-departmental mechanism specifically to handle Falun Gong was established – the now infamous 610 Office. The vast system, encompassing public security, state security, propaganda, publishing, neighborhood committees, and women’s federations, was awakened. Immediately following, on July 20th, a nationwide crackdown began. On July 29th, the Ministry of Public Security requested Interpol to issue an international arrest warrant for Li Hongzhi, but it was rejected. Beijing’s response strategy at the time followed the usual pattern: a complete internet blackout, arrest of core members, and a highest-level political designation for the system, attempting to uproot and completely eliminate the organization with a single blow of power.
However, this instead exposed a fatal blind spot of this state machine when facing modern transnational governance. They used the highest-level response reserved for a top political enemy to deal with a hybrid entity that was essentially commercial fraud combined with spiritual MLM. Now, looking back with an omniscient perspective, if purely from a technical standpoint of social governance, how could they have better dealt with a business genius like Li Hongzhi? Gousheng believes the Al Capone model would have been more suitable.
Back then, the US government arrested the Mafia boss on charges of tax evasion. The system could have completely stripped the political nature of this matter, focused on his core business to investigate tax evasion from his nationwide classes, and his illegal sales of books and electronic products. They could have assisted the families of victims who, believing his ‘karma elimination’ theory, refused medication and died, by demanding joint civil compensation from him in the US. Imagine if the state machine had applied to Interpol for an economic crime red notice for the largest case of illegal fundraising and false medical advertising fraud since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Li Hongzhi’s situation overseas would likely have been quite comical. After all, no matter how much Western society loves to protect political dissidents, no politician in any country would be foolish enough to publicly endorse a transnational tax fraudster and quack doctor with a notorious record.
The same applies to the propaganda war. Mobilizing the entire nation for the People’s Daily to engage in fierce criticism, on the contrary, indirectly proved to ordinary people that Master Li was indeed a figure of immense power. It was also the golden age of China’s market-oriented media, the sharpest era. If they had let those shrewd investigative reporters of that time dig into his background, photograph the traces of his altered ID, and find dancers in Thailand who had inspired his movements, and produced something like ‘Wang Ju Pai An’ (a popular investigative show), reducing the ‘Cosmic Master’ to a greedy, bragging Northeastern peddler, replacing fear with absurdity and political elevation with universal ridicule, this sacred narrative would have collapsed on its own. But history has no ‘if.’ This kind of intelligent and dignified depoliticized ‘dimensional reduction attack’ could not have been executed by the system at that time, because Fuyou Street 44 hours earlier had touched the bottom line of this logic of rule.
When tens of thousands of people silently assembled in the heart of power, the system’s historical stress response and political hypersensitivity from the June 4th incident were triggered. In shock and fear, the state machine found no recourse in economic categorization or refined media operations. Its instinct was to bring down the heaviest hammer and smash directly. As long as you demonstrated uncontrollable mobilization capabilities, in its eyes, you were a potential rebel that must be crushed immediately. The result? The CCP’s thunderous blow, without any buffer, not only failed to crush Li Hongzhi but instead became the most perfect ‘divine assist’ he ever received. Within the closed logic of the wall, this was decapitation. In the era of globalization, this was equivalent to the state machine personally issuing Li Hongzhi a certificate of political persecution stamped by the Chinese government.
Subsequently, The Epoch Times, New Tang Dynasty Television, and Shen Yun Performing Arts troupe were successively established. What was originally a makeshift underground operation dependent on the cracks within the domestic system was reshaped on the other side of the ocean into an anti-communist behemoth encompassing political lobbying, media matrices, and cultural and commercial enterprises. The system intended to crush this poisonous mushroom, but due to its rigid structure, it inadvertently built a seamless industrial empire for Master Li, enjoying lifelong financial dividends. Master Li could live comfortably in his US estate, counting US dollars and maintaining his status as the ‘Cosmic Master,’ armed with this ‘death-exemption medal.’
However, in China in 1999, the state machine, having lost its checks and balances, truly crushed countless practitioners who had not strayed. The police arrested core members, the publishing system purged books, television stations repeatedly broadcast critical programs, work units summoned employees for talks, and neighborhood committees settled scores with families. The network Falun Gong had woven through work units, parks, and acquaintances was swept away by the state’s even larger system of work units and neighborhood committees. By the end of that year, all core members were sentenced: Li Chang received 18 years, Wang Zhiwen 16 years, and Ji Liewu 12 years.
At the end of the program, we’ll talk about a minor figure whose name almost didn’t leave a trace. He was Li Youlin, a bicycle repairman from Dongliao County, Jilin, and a Falun Gong practitioner. On the evening of May 21, 1999, 47-year-old Li Youlin finished work, washed the oil off his hands, and calmly told his wife, ‘Tomorrow is my Master’s birthday. I’m going to the mountain to burn incense for him.’ Two days later, his body was found on the mountain outside the village. He had hanged himself. At his feet, neatly placed, was the Dharma image of a paper-cut lotus with hand-drawn Buddha’s rays. In front of it were seven burnt-down incense sticks. That day was the lunar calendar’s April 8th, the birthday Li Hongzhi had modified.
Later, Master Li, across the ocean, to avoid any trouble, directly issued a supreme instruction: ‘If he doesn’t follow his Master’s requirements, he is not my disciple. If you get well, it’s because Master’s Dharma body protected you. If you lose your fortune and your life, it’s because your karma is too heavy, and you are not my disciple.’ The Master is always great and righteous; the cost is entirely borne by mortals.
An ordinary employee of a grain and oil company, who transformed himself into the ‘Cosmic Master’ by altering his resume, is now comfortably counting US dollars in his estate in the United States. An ordinary bicycle repairman lost his hope and his life due to his unreserved belief. When we are battered by life in the future, if a master full of high-sounding words approaches you, asking you to hand over your brain in exchange for perfect salvation, please do not believe them. Alright, today’s content is indeed a bit heavy. Master Li is probably starting to ‘send us divine powers’ again. If you’re seeing this, it means the program hasn’t been taken down yet. Thank you, dear viewers, for your likes, shares, and comments. Light a stick of incense for the truth and also put a golden bell shield on Gousheng. To prevent possible lawsuits, Gousheng has listed all information sources in the description. If there are lawsuits, then bring them on. I’m Zhang Gousheng, see you next week.
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