Jiang Zemin’s days are numbered. It is only a question of when, not if, the former head of the Chinese Communist Party will be arrested. Jiang officially ran the Chinese regime for more than a decade, and for another decade he was the puppet master behind the scenes who often controlled events. During those decades Jiang did incalculable damage to China. At this moment when Jiang’s era is about to end, Epoch Times here republishes in serial form “Anything for Power: The Real Story of Jiang Zemin,” first published in English in 2011. The reader can come to understand better the career of this pivotal figure in today’s China.
Chapter 16: A Cold Blooded Murderer Who Did Not Hesitate to Groundlessly Slander Falun Gong (2nd Half of 2000)
Jiang Zemin willingly placed everything on the line when he started the suppression of Falun Gong. He knew deep down that he was stepping onto a road with no return, a fact that only heightened his fear and madness.
1. “Destroy Their Reputations, Cut Them Off Financially, and Eradicate Them Physically”
At the beginning of the suppression, Jiang Zemin had a secret conversation with Luo Gan on the “Falun Gong problem.” He relayed four main points to Luo:
1. “Treat them ruthlessly, especially those who petition [the government] or distribute Falun Gong material. Once they are seized, beat them to death. Then cremate them without identifying the bodies.”
2. “Use any means that work regarding the issue [of Falun Gong], don’t feel constrained by anything, including the law. If they die no one will be held responsible. I refuse to believe that I cannot handle Falun Gong.”
3. “Destroy their reputations, cut them off financially, and eradicate them physically.”
4. “In general don’t issue any official documents, instead, only send encoded faxes without a signature or transmit the information verbally using the name ‘Party Central Memorandum’!”
At the end of 1999, following Jiang’s instructions, Luo Gan had four former members of the Falun Dafa Association sentenced to long prison terms. In 2000, Luo Gan traveled across China to transmit verbally Jiang’s secret orders. Luo Gan visited many places before he finally returned to Beijing.
In May 2000, the Committee for Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China (CIPRC) and the Free China Movement, based in America, published a confidential document of the CCP, which gave the police the authority to arrest Falun Gong practitioners of their own accord and without an arrest warrant. The document, transmitted by the Department of Public Security of Jilin Province and The High People’s Court, stated, “We should intensify the suppression of Falun Gong. Once Falun Gong practitioners are found, we can arrest them first, then go through the formalities later.”
However, Jiang Zemin repeatedly read in the CCP internal circulars on domestic news that more and more Falun Gong practitioners, even including ones from North America, Europe, Australia and East Asia, were going to Beijing to petition the government on behalf of Falun Gong. In October 2000 alone, upwards of 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners made it to Tiananmen Square, and displayed banners reading “Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance” or “Falun Dafa is Great.” Thousands of adherents continued even to do their exercises in groups. Although the police dealt with these matters swiftly through beating, arresting and detaining them, both Jiang Zemin and Luo Gan were shocked.
Jiang possessed the largest army, police force, spy network, and propaganda system in the world. However, it seems he was utterly helpless in the face of the unarmed Falun Gong followers. Out of embarrassment he grew fiercely angry. He realized that members of the Politburo, who disapproved of the suppression, were making fun of him.
Falling into an impasse in his campaign against Falun Gong, Jiang felt a faint, inexplicable fear. It was not a fear that arises from direct attack, but more a feeling of wandering in the dark carrying a sharp weapon, not knowing where his opponents were or in which direction to attack.
Since arriving in Beijing in 1989, Jiang listened to Zeng Qinghong’s advice on how to capitalize on people’s weaknesses amidst a number of power struggles. For example, to subdue Liu Huaqing, arresting his children and torturing them was definitely effective. The best way to make Qiao Shi leave office was by making a gentlemen’s agreement with him and not carrying it out. Bo Yibo hoped to help his son get ahead by stepping on others, so the most effective means was to use Bo Yibo to persecute others. Jiang knew he could take control of people by seizing on their weaknesses. As for Jiang’s subordinates, it was even easier to manipulate them. Since some of them loved money, some loved women, and some loved power, Jiang had every means to make them loyal to him.
But Jiang couldn’t manage to find what made Falun Gong followers tick. His understanding of the power of spiritual belief fell squarely within the old CCP way of thinking about class struggle. He could not understand how after dealing with these people with the harshest of disciplinary means, such as murder, torture, lies, brainwashing, and monitoring—means which were acquired by the CCP over prior decades—they still did not yield. He simply couldn’t figure out what they were after. But there was one thing that he did know, which was that those people were very honest and stood by the principle of “not returning blows and not returning insults.” Although the suppression of the group was escalating rapidly, and thousands upon thousands of Falun Gong practitioners were dealing with all sorts of threats, insults, torment, and imprisonment, no one attempted retaliation or resorted to any kind of violence. Jiang thought it was inconceivable. In fact, Jiang had hoped that they would resist violently. That way he could send in the army to squash the “rebellion” rapidly, just like what was done during the Tiananmen massacre in 1989.
Falun Gong adherents never hit back, and it appeared at times that they were being assisted by a higher power. In October 2000, a large group of Falun Gong practitioners went to Tiananmen Square to lodge complaints. More than 10 of them were from Nanyang City, Henan Province. They were handcuffed and taken to a detention center by local 6-10 Office police. However, after they entered the cell, all of their handcuffs spontaneously came off. If only one or two handcuffs had come off, one could have called it a coincidence. But with more than 10 handcuffs coming off simultaneously, it went beyond what ordinary reasoning could explain. When that happened, all the guards and inmates were dumfounded. Witnessing the miraculous event, no one dared to make any trouble for the practitioners. Afterwards someone reported the incident to higher authorities. After learning of the matter, Jiang Zemin was left in a cold sweat and dared not to think about it anymore.
Since the persecution campaign was so senseless, the personnel in the 6-10 Offices found it hard to do their jobs. A former 6-10 police officer who escaped to Australia in 2005 described how he felt when he was performing that job: “At the office we often talked to each other with our mouths half-covered, voices as low as possible, and eyes darting all around. Having been in that atmosphere for a long time, we grew accustomed to speaking in this fashion even in public situations, as if we were afraid of being heard or afraid that others might know what we were talking about. We were so sneaky it was as if we had developed a mental disorder.” [1] “When we returned home, we lost our usual smiles, and replaced them with taciturn and deep sighs. Even within the police system, ‘6-10’ became synonymous with ’messing around.‘ The police officers said to each other privately: ’The police officers in the 6-10 Offices are a mess. They never do what they are supposed to do as police.” [2]
Jiang responded to the problems by simply intensifying his efforts to win the officers over with money and power. He established more and more 6-10 Offices, elevated the 6-10 officers’ rank and status, and guaranteed them sufficient funds. For example, in October 2000, Division One of the Tianjin Municipal Public Security Bureau was promoted to “Domestic Safety Defense Bureau,” a deputy bureau level agency. It was the result of a merger between the Political Defense Division and the 6-10 Office, thereby effectively expanding the 6-10 Office to intensify its suppression of Falun Gong. The 6-10 offices, which are units at the division level, have more power than units at any other level of the police system. The power of 6-10 offices within the provincial police departments is so great that they can arrange inspection of and issue orders to other units at the same level. But what is laughable is that very few police officers responded to recruitment efforts on the part of the 6-10. Finally, the personnel were appointed through random assignment by a computer.
The CCP’s system of suppression operates like a well-oiled machine. The 6-10 officials, who are tools in the persecution, are actually the first victims of the persecution. Members of the 6-10 Offices, both new and old, have to make a study of Jiang’s reasons for the suppression and have to read massive amounts of propaganda vilifying Falun Gong, daily. Consequently, they are unwittingly brainwashed.
When the last shred of innate kindness was destroyed in the law enforcement officials, their wicked side engorged quickly. This was when Jiang’s orders could be fully implemented. And after they carry out the orders they are rewarded with money and promotion, similar to how animals obey their trainers in hopes of reward.
Jiang stipulated that the amount of reward the officers in the 6-10 offices and guards in the forced labor camps would receive (such as bonuses, promotions, and merit points) should be closely related to the number of Falun Gong practitioners they successfully force to renounce their beliefs. As a result, under Jiang’s orders layers upon layers of political pressure has been exerted by all levels of government officials, and personal incentives have been offered, causing the police and guards simply to lose their consciences. When the “People’s Police,” who wear the national emblem on their heads, do whatever they please and treat human life as worthless, they console themselves by saying, “the orders came from higher authorities.” Sadly, the police officers who performed such evil deeds at the beginning of the suppression were actually the first victims.
Through this system the entire country has become mired in a disaster like never before, where “men turned into beasts, beasts flaunted their wickedness, and the sinister acts hurt men.” The basic values of conscience, ethics, justice, equality, and so on, which had begun making a (slight) comeback after the Cultural Revolution, have been thoroughly destroyed once again in the suppression of Falun Gong. Falun Gong practitioners’ persistent commitment to their teachings about “truthfulness, compassion, tolerance,” has in a sense preserved the last bit of values that the Chinese people have left.
Among the violent means that Jiang used in the persecution, the large-scale ending of lives is the most unnerving. According to the Falun Dafa Information Center, as of June 2005, the confirmed number of persecution-related deaths of Falun Gong practitioners in China exceeded 2,500. And even more unknown deaths have occurred, in the forced labor camps, brainwashing classes, detention centers, etc.
The Death of Chen Zixiu
Chen Zixiu’s death, which was widely reported by Western media, is merely the tip of the iceberg of what is happening nationwide in the brutal persecution of the Falun Gong, a persecution under Jiang’s direction.
Chen Zixiu was a retired laborer who lived in Weifang City, Shandong Province. She had some tough experiences in life. Her marriage had only lasted 14 years, because when she was 37 years old, her husband was diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer. Then, soon after her husband’s death, her mother, who had been living with her, also passed away. She was left by herself to care for two children, one 13 years old, and the other 11.
A detailed report in the April 20, 2000, edition of The Wall Street Journal (hereafter WSJ) stated:
The day before Chen Zixiu died, her captors again demanded that she renounce her faith in Falun Dafa. Barely conscious after repeated jolts from a cattle prod, the 58-year-old stubbornly shook her head. Enraged, the local officials ordered Ms. Chen to run barefoot in the snow. Two days of torture had left her legs bruised and her short black hair matted with pus and blood, said cellmates and other prisoners who witnessed the incident. She crawled outside, vomited and collapsed. She never regained consciousness, and died on Feb. 21.
The next day, Chen’s daughter, Zhang Xueling, saw in the morgue her mother’s remains—a sight too gruesome to look at. Her body was covered with a cloth, and she had make-up on. Upon removing the cloth Zhang could see that her body had been damaged all throughout, with large purple welts covering her torso. Her ears were swollen and bruised. Her teeth were split or broken; even after the cosmetic touch-up (by authorities, wishing to disguise their violence) bloodstains showed through. Chen’s lower legs were swollen, while her back was marked by a six-inch-long mark from a whip. Her abdomen was bloated. On her buttocks, thighs, and lower extremities large patches of swelling had turned black. Chen’s clothes, mattress, and underwear were soiled with blood and excrement. Her clothes were shredded. The facts tell that Chen Zixiu died from injuries.
After killing Chen Zixiu local police claimed that she had died from a sudden heart attack and there was no foul play in her death. To make matters worse, the local government extorted 2,000 yuan from Chen’s daughter, Zheng, as a “detention fee,” and another 1,000 yuan as a fee for the cotton quilt and food Chen had in captivity.
The murderers who beat Chen Zixiu to death were not subject to any punishment. Instead, they were rewarded and promoted. Among them Deng Ping, who was on the staff of the Chengguan Neighborhood Administration Office, was promoted from being a probationary Party member to a full one. Gao Xingong, another who was involved, was recognized for being a “pioneer” and a “model worker.”
After the WSJ ran the story—and on its front page, no less—about Chen Zixiu persisting in Falun Gong until her murder, the Chinese government detained Chen’s daughter on charges of “obstructing public security.” Moreover, her husband was forbidden to visit her during her detention. It was Luo Gan who had ordered her arrest.
The journalist, Ian Johnson, later won a Pulitzer Prize for his series of stories on Falun Gong, of which Chen Zixiu’s was one. This drew international attention to the plight of Falun Gong adherents in China, and the story of Chen Zixiu, specifically, became known throughout the world. Jiang’s efforts to garner international support for his suppression of Falun Gong failed.
Since 1999, Shandong Province has consistently been one of the regions that have handled Falun Gong followers most harshly and violently. Luo Gan was originally from Shandong. Since the suppression of Falun Gong began, he visited, under the directives of Jiang, Shandong Province many times to actively supervise and reinforce the campaign and to promote the policy of suppression through Jiang’s trusted follower Wu Guanzheng—Secretary of the CCP in Shandong Province.
In April 2004, after the tragedy of Chen Zixiu’s death was exposed by her daughter, Zhang Xueling, via the WSJ story, Luo Gan boiled with rage and ordered the arrest of Zhang.
On Dec. 27, 2000, the WSJ ran another article by Ian Johnson, titled “How One Chinese City Resorted to Atrocities to Control Falun Dafa.” The piece disclosed that:
Rising out of the North China Plain in a jumble of dusty apartment blocks and crowded roads, this is an unremarkable Chinese city in every respect but one: Local police regularly torture residents to death. Since the beginning of the year, when police killed a 58-year-old retiree, at least 10 more Weifang residents have died in police custody, according to relatives and a human-rights monitoring group. All were practitioners of the spiritual group Falun Dafa, which the central government banned last year. Across this country of 1.3 billion, at least 77 Falun Dafa adherents have now died in detention, according to reports by human-rights groups. Weifang, which has less than 1 percent of the national population, accounts for 15 percent of those deaths.
Weifang is a prefecture-class city situated in the eastern part of China with a population of over 8 million. Between Sept. 30 and Oct. 30, 2000, Luo Gan visited Weifang twice and stayed in Anqiu County, assuming personal command over Falun Gong related affairs. Thirty Falun Gong followers are known to have been killed in Weifang between July 1999 and February 2004—more than any other city of the same class in China. This is directly related to Luo Gan’s personal supervision of the suppression in Shandong Province.
In October 2000, a horrible and shocking event occurred at the Masanjia Labor Camp in Liaoning Province. There guards stripped naked 18 female Falun Gong adherents and threw them into the cells of male inmates for the men to do with as they wished; rape and sexual violence ensued. The incident was exposed in the international media, arousing the attention of the world. Afterwards in February 2001, the UN Commission on Human Rights stated in a special investigation report on torture against women that Luo Gan did know the facts of the case where 18 female practitioners were stripped of their clothes and thrown into male inmates’ cells. The incident was a concrete manifestation of Jiang Zemin’s order to “strengthen the suppression of Falun Gong.” [3]
A Nine-Year-Old Girl Gang Raped
There are too many horrific stories to recount. Among them is one that was witnessed by Ms. Liu, who had been staying in Beijing for a long time to appeal her own case. She related her three-day experience while being detained in Changping County Psychiatric Hospital. In the summer of 2002, she went to Beijing to appeal to the government, and was taken to Changping County Custody and Repatriation Center via police car. Later she was sent to Changping County Psychiatric Hospital after protesting her arrest. She was sent there for punishment, not for mental reasons. Liu has stated that she never actually saw a doctor or nurse in the hospital from the beginning of her stay there to the end. She discovered that most of the people locked up there were those who had lodged complaints with the government or were Falun Gong practitioners; most of the staff were either police officers or hired thugs. They all carried leather belts and if anyone was even slightly “out of line,” as they saw it, they would use a belt on them. The detainees were not allowed to move around freely, but the thugs could go in and out of their rooms as they pleased. Liu was locked up inside a room sealed off by three iron gates. No doctors supervised anything.
Altogether she was detained there for three nights. She recalled that during the night, three thugs who were called “big head,” “long hair,” and “dummy,” and who could barely speak clearly, came into her room and gang raped a nine-year-old girl. The little girl’s parents were Falun Gong practitioners, she says. They had been locked up in that hospital and later murdered there. Afterwards, the little girl was gang raped by the three thugs during the night. Liu remembered that the little girl was absolutely broken and would cry miserably. Nobody who saw what was happening dared speak up and stop the rape. It was a living hell.
Liu said that she read several chapters of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, and felt that the description therein of the brutality suffered by Falun Gong adherents far from captured the horrific reality. She explained that while she was in the Changping County Psychiatric Hospital, she would stay awake until dawn every night crying miserably in extreme fear.
The Testimony of a Former 6-10 Office Official
Regarding inside stories about the 6-10 Office: More and more Chinese Communist officials can’t stand persecuting innocent and kind citizens and have chosen to defect from the CCP, so because of this some details about the persecution have been published publicly.
As for torture, former 6-10 Office official Hao Fengjun, who defected to Australia in May 2005, described an account as follows: “I rushed to work and drove with a female officer to the prison of the Nankai Branch of the Tianjin Public Security Bureau. When we arrived at the prison located at Erwei Rd., Nankai District, I saw Sun Ti laying on a table in an interrogation room. Sun’s eyes were so swollen because of the beating. The policeman who interrogated Sun was a guy named Mu Ruili, the captain of the 2nd division of the 6-10 Office of the Bureau of State Security. Mu was holding a steel rod (0.6 inch in diameter) with screw threads that showed blood stains. There was a hi-voltage electric baton on the table.”[4] “Sun … showed me her back. I was shocked. Almost her entire back had turned black and there were two gashes of about eight inches in length, oozing blood.” [5] “I also saw a policeman beating her with a metal rod that was over a foot long. When I saw this, I knew I couldn’t do this job.” [6]
After July 20, 1999, a large number of Falun Gong practitioners who had gone to appeal to the government were abducted. Hao Fengjun stated, “Three female [Falun Gong] practitioners were sent to our police station. They were in their forties or fifties. They were all subject to interrogation by the police. During the more than 10 days of interrogation, I could hear extremely piercing cries whenever I went to work. Later my colleagues in the criminal police unit told me that they were ordered to make Falun Gong practitioners disclose their names and addresses by any means, fair or foul.”
As for murder, according to one report from an Australian news agency on June 9, 2005, a third former CCP police officer, who is unwilling to reveal his name, testified that he personally witnessed a Falun Gong practitioner tortured to death in the police department where he worked. Through Bernard Collaery, a well-respected attorney in Canberra, the Lateline television program of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation revealed of him, “He had heard the sound of someone being beaten up in the police department, so he hurried to break it up, but he was told to leave. From there he went upstairs. His conscience was under attack. He returned and told them to stop.” It was too late, however, as he saw that the Falun Gong follower was tortured to death. “He saw a naked man whose head had collapsed back into a chair. His legs were outstretched. It was obvious that he was already dead. He was scared by what was before his eyes.”
Han Guangsheng, a former Judiciary Bureau Chief in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, who was also once the Vice-Director of the Public Security Bureau in Shenyang City, escaped into Canada in September 2001. He revealed that Jiang Zemin’s orders at that time were primarily efforts to stop Falun Gong practitioners from going to Beijing to appeal [to the central government]. “For this particular issue, there are controlling measures from the central government all the way down to the local government. One of the controlling measures is that if more than three Falun Gong practitioners go to appeal then the Vice-Secretary and even the Secretary of that city have to do ”self-criticism“ in front of the provincial-level [officials]. In order to save face and rank and to avoid going to the province to do self-criticism, leaders from each city started using the power of the police and lots of money to stop Falun Gong practitioners from going to Beijing.” “Masanjia Labor Camp implemented all sorts of methods of torture and abuse in order to improve their ’transformation‘ [i.e., renunciation] rate. I didn’t know it initially but later found out that the Ministry of Justice ordered all cities to go to Masanjia to learn their ’transformation’ techniques.” “The principle technique used in Masanjia is the use of electric batons.” Practitioner Gao Rongrong, a staff member from the financial department of Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in Shenyang, was shocked on her face by electric batons for over six hours by Tang Yubao and Jiang Zhaohua on May 7, 2004, in Longshan Labor Camp. Her beautiful face was severely disfigured. One year later, Gao Rongrong was tortured to death.
From July 20, 1999, up until now more than 100,000 Falun Gong adherents, including pregnant women, the elderly and young children have been sent to forced labor camps without trial. More than 500 practitioners were formally sentenced to prison terms. Some have been sentenced to prison terms of upwards of 18 years. Hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens have been detained, and nearly all of them have been treated inhumanely. What is even more shocking is that more than 1,000 Falun Gong practitioners were detained in psychiatric hospitals and injected with drugs harmful to their nervous systems. By June 2005, over 2,500 deaths while under police custody have been confirmed. Moreover, the whereabouts of countless adherents are still unknown. The depth and breadth of this catastrophe is still difficult to estimate.
