FALUN GONG: STRUCTURE AND FINANCING AS SEEN FROM

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 HONG KONG 004115 SIPDIS NOFORN SIPDIS NSC FOR DENNIS WILDER DEPT FOR EAP/CM E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/17/2031 TAGS: PHUM PINR PGOV HK CH SUBJECT: FALUN GONG: STRUCTURE AND FINANCING AS SEEN FROM HONG KONG REF: HONG KONG 1142 Classified By: E/P Chief Laurent Charbonnet. Reasons: 1.4(b,d). ¶1. (C) Summary: The Falun Gong (FLG) movement has virtually no organizational structure, coordinated policy, or central financing, according to numerous Falun Gong contacts in Hong Kong. It is better thought of as a very loose association of practitioners who communicate through emails and regularly-held meetings and spend their personal funds to broadcast their message via a rather sophisticated group of media outlets worldwide. Those media outlets, including the "Epoch Times" (ET) newspaper, New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV),the "Sun" radio, and the "Sound of Hope" shortwave radio, on the other hand, do have organizational structure and financing and can operate as a proxy for a FLG organization. However, these media outlets should not be viewed as synonymous with FLG. ET and NTDTV view themselves as the anti-communist voice of China, but ordinary FLG practitioners don't see themselves that way. Ordinary practitioners, as well as the broader FLG movement, seem rather non-political. Moreover, the movement is almost completely decentralized. Wealthy local donors provide much of the funding for FLG events and media operations, and they operate independently of FLG founder Li Hongzhi, who lives in New York. Each of our contacts insisted that they receive no direct or specific instructions from Li or anyone else in New York. End Summary. 2.(C) We spoke with the following individuals to discuss FLG structure and organization: David Matas, a veteran international human rights lawyer who has done legal work for Falun Gong torture victims and other Chinese dissidents; Sophie Xiao, FLG activist in Hong Kong; Cheryl Ng, editor of ET in Hong Kong; Sarah Liang, reporter for NTDTV in Hong Kong; Fionna Ching, FLG activist in Hong Kong; and Cheuk Yuen-wong, President of NTDTV Australia, and Law Yuk-kai, Director of the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor (Protect all.) A Movement Without Much Organization -------------- ¶3. (C) There really is no FLG organization, no members, no hierarchy, no vetting of people, no coordinated policy, no instructions, no spokesperson, no statements on behalf of the group, no assets, no bank accounts, and no fund raising. We heard this consistent message from each of our contacts. What exists is a very loose association of practitioners who communicate through emails and regularly-held meetings and spend their personal funds to broadcast their message through a rather sophisticated group of media outlets worldwide. Those media outlets, including the ET newspaper, NTDTV, the "Sun" radio, and the "Sound of Hope" shortwave radio are closely connected with the FLG movement and staffed largely by FLG volunteers. ¶4. (C) Falun Gong, which literally means "practice of the wheel of law" and is also known as "Falun Dafa" (great law of the wheel of law) is a system of mind and body development started in 1992 in China by Li Hongzhi, who now lives in New York. According to Master Li, as he is referred to by FLG practitioners, when one cultivates their mind they can ultimately assimilate to the supreme nature of the universe--truthfulness, compassion and forbearance. Li's philosophy of life is detailed in his book, Zhuan Falun (turning the wheel of law). FLG practitioners view Li and his book with reverence, though they don't consider Li a prophet or FLG a religion. We were repeatedly told that one can be both a FLG practitioner and, for example, a Christian. One of our contacts said she views FLG as "simple rules of life." However, she also said that she feels closer to Master Li than to her own father. There are no reliable estimates of the number of FLG practitioners worldwide--the Chinese government says there are 70 million while a FLG website claims there are 100 million. ¶5. (C) Despite our contacts' insistence that FLG has no hierarchical structure, it does, in fact, have a very loose organization. Cheuk Yuen-wong, President of NTDTV Australia, reluctantly told us after some pointed questioning that FLG has a "branch committee" in each country that is typically made up of about 5-10 people (in some jurisdictions with small numbers of FLG practitioners, however, the branch committee might consist of a single person, as in Hong Kong where wealthy restaurant chain owner Kam Hung-cheung is the HONG KONG 00004115 002 OF 004 sole member of the committee and referred to as the "chairman"). These branch committees organize FLG conferences and galas, make decisions regarding protests and demonstrations, coordinate legal strategies, and generally decide how to allocate funds. However, FLG has no funds of its own. All of the money for specific events or causes is provided by individuals on an ad hoc basis. ¶6. (C) Given this, it's not surprising that the branch committees are almost invariably comprised of large donors who direct where their money is to be spent. Cheuk, who is one of the largest FLG donors in Asia, told us that he is now serving as a senior consultant to the Australian branch committee. (Note: Cheuk is a Hong Kong native and former civil servant who made a fortune in the textile business before retiring to Australia in 1987. End Note) Cheuk said the selection process for branch committee members tends to be rather informal--he called it a "self-nomination process." He added that it was difficult work and not easy to get people to volunteer their time. "You need to have a lot of patience and forbearance," Cheuk said. ¶7. (C) Of course, many branch committee members are also involved in the local or regional operation of NTDTV and ET. As such, the structures of FLG's media outlets, which are much more defined than those of FLG itself, can operate as a proxy for a FLG organization. What's more, while these media organizations are separate entities, the funding is fungible, and often flows across organizations and regions depending on the financial needs and perceived usefulness of the local operation. For example, Cheuk controls NTDTV's operations in Australia, but as one of the wealthiest FLG donors in Asia, he also provides most of the funding for ET operations in Hong Kong and elsewhere. Cheuk told us that he is currently trying to decide whether to continue to fund the printing of ET in Hong Kong, which Cheuk said is enormously expensive, costing about USD130,000 a month. Thus, even though most of our contacts claimed that the media outlets are very separate businesses, it seems obvious that at the very top where the funding is provided, the organizations are linked, at least in the minds of wealthy donors. ¶8. (C) Each of our contacts insisted that they receive no direct or specific instructions from Master Li or anyone else in New York. Cheuk said that Master Li "never tells us what to do or how to do it." Our contacts at both NTDTV and ET stressed that Master Li never comments on the stories they run. Fionna Ching added that "everything is in the book (Zhuan Falun)." However, Sarah Liang told us that Master Li will sometimes communicate with FLG practitioners through written articles when he wants to direct the movement away from a certain topic. She said this often involves drawing a line between politics and FLG beliefs. Media Outlets Much More Political Than FLG Itself -------------- -------------- ¶9. (C) International human rights lawyer David Matas cautioned that the various media outlets associated with FLG (ET, NTDTV, the "Sun," and "Sound of Hope") should not be viewed as synonymous with the FLG movement. "There's an overlap, but they are not the same thing," Matas told us. ET and NTDTV are extremely critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and see themselves as the anti-communist voice of China. "Our main goal is to expose the CCP and show the world what they are all about," Cheryl Ng told us. She said that ET reporting was focused on CCP behavior, history, influence, and activities around the world. However, ordinary FLG practitioners don't see themselves as anti-communist crusaders. Ordinary FLG practitioners are actually rather non-political, and don't have a secular political philosophy or agenda, Matas said. Sarah Liang told us "a lot of people want FLG to become political and do pro-democracy work, but we're not political. We don,t want this responsibility. We just want our faith." In fact, many FLG practitioners are "not too keen on" the anti-communist stories contained in the ET, including the "Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party," which offers a very critical history of the CCP, Sophie Xiao told us. Xiao joked that she often tells ET staff that they might actually be able to sell their paper if they wrote fewer FLG stories. However, she added "we can't tell them (ET) what to do." ¶10. (C) This is not to say that FLG is not involved in promoting pro-democracy issues in China and Hong Kong. FLG practitioners always turn out in Hong Kong for the annual HONG KONG 00004115 003 OF 004 June 4 candlelight vigil and the July 1 march. What's more, FLG was instrumental in collecting signatures for the petition drive against "Article 23" national security legislation in the summer of 2003, Director of the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor Law Yuk-kai told us. However, for FLG, these issues are more about survival than about politics. FLG viewed the Article 23 bill as a direct threat to their existence, believing that the legislation would be used to outlaw its activities in Hong Kong. ¶11. (C) Another critical difference between FLG and the media organizations is their differing legal status in many jurisdictions. In Hong Kong, FLG is registered under the Societies Ordinance, which means that it does not conduct fundraising. In fact, when it comes to fundraising, our contacts told us "Master Li forbids it." As such, FLG has no assets or bank accounts in Hong Kong, or anywhere else. However, the situation is different for the media organizations, which are funded almost exclusively by donations. In Hong Kong, ET and NTDTV are registered under the Companies Ordinance, which requires the disclosure of financial information. Similarly, NTDTV Australia is registered as a non-profit company. Cheuk Yuen-wong told us that NTDTV Australia has submitted a request to the Australian tax authorities to designate NTDTV a charitable organization, which would allow them to accept donations tax-free. NTDTV is also seeking financial assistance from the United States Government, Cheuk told us. He said that the President of NTDTV in New York, Li Zhong, had submitted a request to the USG and was awaiting a reply. (Note: Cheuk couldn't recall the details of the request or where it was submitted. End Note.) New Tang Dynasty Television -------------- ¶12. (C) New Tang Dynasty Television is an independent, nonprofit television station based in New York. It broadcasts a variety of cultural, leisure, political and news programs in Mandarin, and select programs in Cantonese and English. It was launched in February 2002 by five Falun Gong practitioners, and went global on July 1, 2003 with the launch of a 24-hour satellite channel, which is available in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The station's studios are located in New York, and it also operates 60 reporting centers worldwide. The reporting centers are independent, and have almost complete freedom in choosing the topics they report on. Despite this rather expansive reach, NTDTV's operation is barebones and requires very little overhead. For example, Cheuk Yuen-wong told us that NTDTV relies almost exclusively on volunteers, most of whom work part-time. In fact, NTDTV has no paid staff in its New York offices. Some of the station's volunteers are trained technicians, cameramen and reporters, but many simply learned on the job. The overwhelming majority, though not all, of the volunteers are Falun Gong practitioners. The reporting centers occasionally send staff to New York for training, Cheuk told us. ¶13. (C) NTDTV's operations are funded almost exclusively through donations from wealthy Falun Gong practitioners, Cheuk said. Because of the volunteer nature of their operations, the bulk of their expenses involve satellite transmission. The four satellites NTDTV uses, "Telestar" over North America, "Hotbird" over Europe, "New Sky Satellite 6" over Australia, and "W5" over Asia, cost about USD400,000 per satellite, per year. Cheuk said that NTDTV began having difficulty renewing these satellite contracts in 2004 after Beijing started putting pressure on the satellite companies to stop transmitting NTDTV programming. Thus far, however, NTDTV has been able to renegotiate its contracts, though under less favorable terms than prior to 2004. "Epoch Times" -------------- ¶14. (C) The "Epoch Times" is a free daily newspaper with editions in ten languages distributed in roughly 30 countries. While it carries a broad range of international political, economic, entertainment and cultural stories, its primary focus is coverage of human rights issues in China. While the paper claims an independent stance, it has often been criticized as biased, and frequently contains editorials harshly critical of the Chinese government and the CCP. ET was founded by a small circle of journalists in China in 2000 that began relaying stories overseas of human rights abuses. HONG KONG 00004115 004 OF 004 It launched an English-language edition in New York in August ¶2004. ET has a weekly print distribution of over 1 million. ¶15. (C) ET in Hong Kong (ETHK) is a relatively small operation with only ten full-time employees, all of whom are volunteers, according to Cheryl Ng. Of those volunteers, three work as reporters and three or four work as "sales staff." Interestingly, one of the ten is not a FLG practitioner, Ng said. Although ET is currently a free paper, ETHK is looking for a way to start selling it. The paper's circulation in Hong Kong is about 40,000 per week. Currently, the paper is distributed mostly by hand--FLG practitioners can be seen daily at major tourist attractions such as the Star Ferry handing out copies of ET. ETHK also does a very small number of mailings, though none to the mainland. However, Ng claimed that they regularly briefed ET stories to important readers on the mainland by phone, including dissident lawyer Gao Zhisheng in Beijing (Note: This conversation took place prior to Gao's arrest in Beijing. End Note.) Mainland tourists also often take copies of the ET home with them, Ng said. Some tour operators were advising mainland tourists not to take copies of ET, but Ng said that most had stopped the practice after receiving complaints from ETHK. ¶16. (C) ETHK also operates a "volunteer center" where FLG practitioners "cold call" high-ranking CCP officials on the mainland in an attempt to convince them to withdraw from the CCP, Cheryl Ng told us. Ng called ths operation "very successful." ¶17. (C) Ng clamed that several Hong Kong legislators have toldher privately that ET is important for Hong Kong, whether or not they agree with its reporting and eitorials. According to Ng, ET is the only media rganization that the CCP has no control over. Een CNN listens to what Beijing sys because it doesn't want to jeopardize its access, Ng added. ¶18. (C) Most of ETHK's USD130,000/month operating budget comes from outside of Hong Kong--primarily from Australia. It is common for offices in other countries to share funds based on need, according to Ng. Less than 20 percent of ETHK's funds come from advertising. Ng said that ETHK's operations are "week to week" and she called it a small miracle that the paper has survived. ¶19. (C) In January, ETHK opened a print shop in Tsing Wan, which freed the paper from having to rely on outside printing companies. It also allowed ETHK to begin printing large volumes of its "Nine Commentaries," which offers a very critical history of the CCP. Ng told us that ETHK has now printed over 1 million copies of the Nine Commentaries, which FLG practitioners regularly hand out to mainland and other tourists in Hong Kong. (Note: On February 28, 2006 four Chinese men broke into the print shop during working hours and destroyed an expensive piece of machinery. The print shop was closed for several weeks. Police investigated but had made no arrests in the case as of this writing. See ref for more details. End Note) Other Media Outlets -------------- ¶20. (C) The Epoch Media Group also operates the "Sun" radio station, and the "Sound of Hope" shortwave radio. The Sound of Hope is broadcast from Australia and the U.S., and it has a website where people can listen to broadcasts. Media sources Minghui (clear wisdom) and "Renminbao" (The People's Daily) are also closely associated with FLG. They contribute stories to each of FLG's media outlets, and are used by few, if any, non-FLG media. Cunningham