[Minghui Net] The self-immolation incident at Tiananmen Square has been a hot topic among the Chinese people. I wanted to find out what actually happened and went to talk to an old friend of mine who has been working in the Xinhua New Agency for many years. The conversation with him made me feel like I was awakening from a dream.

He said, "There is a trick in reading the news reports. You need to look at it the opposite way; the true is actually false, and false is true.

"There are incidents like workers lying on the rails, and farmers having insurrections. Xinhua [New Agency] knows all of these, but the Chinese people are not allowed to know the news, nor are the foreign media allowed to spread the news to the Chinese people." "If the Chinese people get to know these news, the disintegration like that of the former Soviet Union will repeat in China.

"Western countries enjoy freedom of the press. It is all right to scold the President. In China, the news is controlled by the [party name omitted] Party. The reporters have to follow the orders. If someone writes reports truthfully, he will get into trouble right away. If you play the video of the Tiananmen self-immolation incident twice and watch calmly, you'll find that it's just a show with ulterior motives to cause a sensation.

"Falun Gong is the supreme leader's worst nightmare. It cannot be suppressed and practitioners are not afraid of being arrested. To divert people's attention, they have made up many fake stories, such as killing parents, eating human flesh, cutting open the belly to look for Falun, etc. However, none of these caused a sensation.

"This time the self-immolation did create a sensation. The reason is that during the period of the Chinese New Year, the practitioners have been tightly tailed so that they could not have a chance to go out or speak out. This method, however, is so exhausting that people will soon become disgusted with it. But there are troubles from overseas [about the self-immolation]; the U.S. government had a strong reaction and foreign media raised many doubtful points. The longer the time period, the more likely it is for negative reactions to happen. In particular, China has signed the international human rights declaration. It is difficult to prevent investigation of the incident from a third independent party like the international human rights organization. In China, from the upper authority to grass-roots units, the attitude towards Falun Gong varies. Once the high tide passes, there will be internal repercussions.

"To put Falun Gong practitioners under surveillance, so many people had to work extra hours day and night during the Chinese New Year and they were tired out. The propaganda tries to incite the masses to struggle against each other, but if it goes beyond the limit and the situation goes out of control, that will be terrifying. Bullied farmers, laid-off workers and officers will all come out and argue. For the Falun Gong issue, after one and half year's working extra hours, the street administration cadres and policemen are tired, the news reporters are trying to hide, and cadres of various levels are on tenterhooks. The crack down has been treating innocent people as enemies and the number of people being suppressed has greatly surpassed that of the Cultural Revolution. The more pressure from the higher-level government, the more different opinions and more worries the basic level cadres have. They just don't know how to wind this matter up.

"No matter what the TV propaganda is, the inside people don't believe it. The employees all have friends and relatives who are Falun Gong practitioners. They all know that the practitioners are good people, but they dare not to speak out under the pressure. At the day of redress, all will be reversed and the truth will come out."

From Big Reference, Vol. 1103

February 06, 2001