The oGate Incident and Its Influence Outside of China

(Minghui.org) Two articles were recently published on Minghui.org, one being “Many Falun Gong Practitioners Involved with the oGate Software Arrested in China” and another Minghui Editorial “Learn the Lessons and Reduce Losses.” Many practitioners were shocked by the incident and have become more rational since then.

However, some of the damage cannot be reversed. For instance, agents of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have already obtained information about practitioners in Australia who were involved in the oGate architecture and operations. Unless all of us pay serious attention to security, more practitioners could be negatively affected.

Inside China the persecution related to oGate continues. The CCP has arrested a large number of practitioners in the name of oGate investigation, and the above two articles mentioned a few of the arrest cases. I hope we will take this matter seriously.

Learning Lessons

Many practitioners may not know that the CCP had arrested over 10 practitioners back in 2017 for truth-clarification through WeChat. The arrests were made after these practitioners sent some servers to an overseas email project. The recipients were practitioners who had come abroad from mainland China in recent years and who needed more advanced servers for the email project.

But we did not learn the lessons in time. Similarly, some overseas oGate servers were also from China, which posed security concerns. Furthermore, practitioners in Australia working on oGate continued to recruit practitioners in China for in-depth participation in the project, which eventually led to the arrests of the latter.

In China, some of the practitioners who were arrested tended to share some common traits, such as a strong ego and a desire to be informed of everything and to do “big” projects instead of working behind the scenes. As more Chinese practitioners emigrated to other countries, they also brought along such traits overseas.

These practitioners preferred to go big on everything but dreaded enduring hardship, all the while harboring attachments of showing off, zealotry, jealousy, and pursuit of fame. They deemed capable and talented whomever could make lots of money, maintain a large network, and know inside information. But such a mentality is a far cry from the requirements of our cultivation practice, since vanity, power, and accomplishments are not what genuine practitioners pursue. Rather, we should constantly improve ourselves towards selflessness.

Security Concerns

When contacted by overseas practitioners to join projects, some practitioners in China easily developed complacency and the tendency of following other practitioners instead of Falun Dafa teachings. For example, after Tao came out of China, he got to know Xin – who was still in China – and introduced Xin to join a project. Xin was thrilled and has been working on it since then. From Xin’s description, Tao was like a perfect practitioner in every aspect. Upon hearing some negative comments about Tao, Xin was furious, as if his own siblings had been wronged. There are many examples of this kind.

The truth-clarification project using WeChat as a tool was in a similar situation. Some took it for granted that it was a project based outside of China, when in fact practitioners in China were involved. Even those with poor technical skills and those who did not know to apply for WeChat accounts were recruited. They then received training from overseas practitioners who had come abroad from China in recent years. When some practitioners pointed out WeChat security issues as mentioned in Minghui Editorials, some ignored it due to their strong ego. As mentioned above, these practitioners outside of China seemed to always know a lot of inside information because they may have children in some key projects or have connections with key project coordinators. That is, they were very “resourceful” and “well-connected.”

Solid Cultivation

When driven by strong jealousy and a show-off mentality, some practitioners may have strong human notions, lack self-awareness, and are unable to hear different opinions. With their attachments to power, fame, or material interest, they may forget the mission of saving people and instead stir up conflicts and create issues or barriers between practitioners.

Moreover, some practitioners came overseas to avoid the persecution in China. Instead of cultivating themselves and saving people, they focus on making money, getting wealthy, and improving the quality of life. When participating in projects, they may do things for personal gain or put forth little effort just to look good. This can easily mislead new practitioners and negatively affect the efforts of saving people in local communities.

From the Falun Dafa teachings, we know that Fa-rectification period cultivation is very serious. If we fail to meet the requirements of Master, we are walking on the path of the old forces. It is understandable that practitioners who have come abroad from China have the CCP Party culture. But we have to pay attention to xinxing improvement and be able to listen to different opinions; otherwise, our words and actions may have detrimental effects.

Editor's note: This article only represents the author’s understanding in their current cultivation state meant for sharing among practitioners so that we can “Compare in studying, compare in cultivating.” (“Solid Cultivation,” Hong Yin)