Businessman Lee Yunchin once thought he had it all figured out. In the late 1990s, he left his thriving retail company in Taiwan and headed to mainland China, where cheap labor and vast markets promised fortune for daring entrepreneurs.
Within months, Lee’s sweater manufacturing business exploded, turning out millions of garments and raking in over 100 million yuan (US$14 million) in profit in just half a year.
“At that time, I felt like I could smile in my sleep and say, ‘Wow, it’s too easy,’” he said.
By 1997, Lee’s sweaters were everywhere—colorful, stylish, and high-quality, a stark contrast to the poorly made garments that dominated Chinese shelves at the time. He sold 5 million pieces in the first six months and had agents lining up to represent him across China.
Doing Business ‘The Chinese Way’
Barely ten months after setting up shop in Dongguan, China, Lee’s factory was raided by the local tax bureau. Officials swarmed the premises, seizing documents and shutting down operations.
The visit was not random. Lee soon learned the “assistant factory director” assigned to him by local authorities—supposedly there to “help”—had been secretly reporting his every move.
Then came the infamous invitation, “Let’s go find a nice restaurant, have a meal there, and we can have a good chat.”
Over dinner in a luxury suite, the message was clear. If Lee wanted to stay in business, he had to pay up—what they called “bring money to get things done.” In other words, he needed to bribe the regime officials if he wanted to continue to do business. That night, he spent over 40,000 yuan (US$5,550) on dinner alone and was then handed an even bigger bill.
“He said that our number was too big, meaning my revenue was too high,” Lee recalled. “Then came the part about maybe giving something back.”
It was not a one-off. Over the next decade, Lee would endure two major tax raids, multiple shakedowns, a near-fatal car accident, betrayal by employees and partners, and even threats from gangs and mafia. He kept going, kept paying, kept producing.
Lee thought he could continue to make a profit on his business as long as the authorities were satisfied. “I was not discouraged or scared,” he said.
From Fortune to Extortion
The second tax raid hit harder than the first. By then, Lee had launched a new clothing brand in Shanghai and opened over 30 retail stores across the city. Just before the grand opening of his flagship store, he was hit by a devastating car accident that left him with broken ribs and a shattered collarbone.Soon after, tax officials struck again.
This time, they did not just demand money—they wanted a car. A Chinese regime official bluntly asked for a brand-new Mazda 6. Lee bought it for him, but it did not stop the raid.
As officials seized computers and warehouse inventory, Lee realized the damage was irreparable. To avoid being taxed at inflated “retail” prices instead of the normal wholesaler prices, he was forced to sell the remainder of his stocks quickly, at 10 yuan (US$1.40) per item, which was a fraction of the normal price.
A total of 300,000 garments were sold at dirt-cheap prices. “That’s 30 million yuan (US$4.16 million) as long as he sold it,” he said, referring to the buyer of his stocks.
Lee lost more than just his money. He was losing his dignity.
Betrayed, Broke—and Beginning Again
After the fall of his business, things unraveled quickly. Clients defaulted on payments, partners vanished, and debt mounted. With Chinese vendors banging on his factory doors, Lee was advised to declare bankruptcy and walk away.He refused.
“I didn’t want to owe anyone,” Lee said. “Even when I had nothing, I turned all the outstanding invoices into IOUs. I acted from my moral conscience.”
But conscience could not pay the bills. By the time Chinese New Year approached, mafia and gang members were coming to collect debts with weapons in hand. At the time, Lee had lost all of the money he had made and was deeply in debt. He could not afford anything.
What surprised Lee was that some of the mafia respected him for honoring his debts and not leaving his post. To him, the mafia appeared more honorable than the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials.
He recalled an unexpected offer from mafia members. “Boss, just go home. I'll buy your plane ticket,” said one of the gangsters.
Too ashamed to return to Taiwan empty-handed after all the effort to start a business in China, Lee instead moved into a crumbling abandoned house, a so-called “ghost house,” for six months. During that time, he kept a burlap sack filled with unpaid invoices—20 million yuan (US$2.8 million) owed to him by others.
Then one night, he made a decision.
“That night, it was as if a voice told me, ‘This money is what you owe from your last life. [In] this life, you must repay the debt. Debts must be repaid,’” he said.
Rebirth Through Faith
Soon after, a friend gave Lee a small design job and 5,000 yuan (US$693). He started from scratch, riding buses to client meetings and hand-sketching ideas. Within six months, he was back on his feet, not rich, but content.“I used to blow through 100,000 in a weekend. Now I live on 2,000 for half a year.”
More importantly, Lee had changed. The indulgent nights of gambling, women, and lavish spending were over. He had tasted the excess and the emptiness.
Nevertheless, Lee’s health was failing him. He was diagnosed with bone spurs and a liver tumor. He began exploring spiritual practices such as chakra healing, Zen, and Vajrayana, spending lots of money to attend spiritual retreats, but something was still missing, until his nearly 90-year-old parents invited him home.
Back in Taiwan, while visiting a forest park, he met a woman who gave him a copy of “Zhuan Falun,” the main text of Falun Dafa, a spiritual practice involving meditative exercises and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.
Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, was first introduced to the public in 1992 and quickly grew in popularity.
“I began reading one lecture each day,” he said. He felt that some of the teachings “seemed written specifically for me.”
Lee enrolled in a Falun Dafa nine-day lecture series. For the first time, he felt he understood why he had suffered—and what it meant to truly transform.
He felt that his body had completely changed. During his medical checkup, he was informed that he had the body of a young man and had started to become healthy once again.
As Lee deepened his study of “Zhuan Falun” and embraced the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, he began to learn about the brutal persecution faced by Falun Gong practitioners in China, including accounts of wrongful imprisonment, torture, and forced organ harvesting. The revelations struck a nerve.
In July 1999, then-CCP leader Jiang Zemin launched a brutal persecution campaign aimed at crushing the practice and its 100 million practitioners, after becoming threatened by the fact that there were more people practicing Falun Gong than were members of the Party.
Though he had narrowly escaped being detained himself, Lee recognized that the same CCP machinery that had extorted and humiliated him was now being used to crush spiritual faith. With renewed conviction, he began speaking out, not only about his own awakening but also to warn others.
To his fellow Taiwanese entrepreneurs still operating in China, he offered a heartfelt plea: “Falun Dafa is good. Truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance are good. I hope everyone learns Falun Gong. Also, I want to tell our Taiwanese business friends in mainland China, ‘Take care of yourselves. If you can come back, please hurry back. Doing business in Taiwan is also quite good.’”
Today, Lee is 63 years old. His body, once riddled with illness, is now strong and pain-free. He runs two businesses with his wife in Taiwan, lives simply, and shares his story freely. He is not only a Falun Dafa practitioner but also a man reborn.
