I Regret Having Become a Tool for Making Money ----Inside Story of How Li Hongzhi Amassed Illegal Money As Told by Tang Xuehua, director of the former Beijing ``Falun Gong'' Instruction Center

By Xiao Wenhui and Qiu Hongbo

One afternoon in August 1999, Tang Xuehua, director of the former Beijing ``Falun Gong'' Instruction Center, exposed Li Hongzhi's plot to deceive people. He said, ``Li Hongzhi says that `Falun Gong' can cure illnesses, and people who practice `Falun Gong' do not need to have injections or take medicine when they are ill. I'm lucky that I didn't believe his fallacies. I have a serious heart condition, and have been hospitalized several times. If I had not taken medicine I would have been dead long ago.''

Tang Xuehua, 68, worked at the China Aviation Survey and Design Institute before his retirement. In 1992, he contracted a serious heart disease and consulted many doctors. Li Hongzhi said to him that ``Falun Gong'' could cure his disease. So Tang Xuehua took part in `Falun Gong' classes. Every day, he was the first to arrive at the class and the last to leave. He always sat in the first row. So he became very familiar with Li Hongzhi. Tang said, ``Once Li Hongzhi, holding my hands, told me that I had practiced `Falun Gong' very well, and that he had opened the Laogong Point for me. I was very impressed. But now I realize that Li Hongzhi had ulterior motives from the very beginning.''

When asked how he had become the director of the Beijing `Falun Gong' Instruction Center, Tang said that on June 25, 1992, Li Hongzhi suggested establishing a `Falun Gong' center in Beijing. So a preparatory group was established, and someone called Li was appointed as the director and me as the deputy director and Li Chang and others as the ordinary members of the group. It seemed that Li was a spokesman for Li Hongzhi. But the Li brothers taught ``Falun Gong'' in the suburbs of Beijing and earned some money, which they pocketed. So Li Hongzhi was angry and dismissed them. As a result, Tang Xuehua became the director of the Beijing ``Falun Gong'' Instruction Center. Tang said, ``In addition, I think that Li Hongzhi might have thought I was very convincing for the job of director, because I had a serious heart disease, and I was old and looked honest. At that time I told him that I was not competent to do the job. But Li Hongzhi waved his hand and said, ``You'll be director in name only. Let them (meaning Li Chang and some others) do the work.''

Tang knew that Li Hongzhi had earned a large amount of money through ``Falun Gong.''

Tang said, ``After the establishment of the Beijing `Falun Gong' Instruction Center, Li Hongzhi asked us to sell his pictures to the `Falun Gong' practitioners for three yuan each to raise funds for `Falun Gong' activities. Li Hongzhi also asked us to give advice to patients. We raised more than 10,000 yuan, which was all handed over to Li Hongzhi.''

Li Hongzhi ran 13 ``Falun Gong'' sessions in Beijing altogether, earning a considerable amount of money. Once Li Hongzhi gave a session in a hall of a university, and Tang sold the tickets. So he knew that on that occasion alone they collected more than 40,000 RMB yuan. Li Hongzhi took all this money.

Another time Tang ordered ten thousand ``Falun Gong'' badges at the behest of Li Hongzhi. The cost was only 45 cents each but they were sold to the ``Falun Gong`` practitioners for three yuan each. This money too was taken by Li Hongzhi.

Tang said that Li Hongzhi did not let them accept money when they taught ``Falun Gong.'' But Li himself did not miss one chance to reap money.

Tang continued that at the end of November 1993 Li Hongzhi went to Hefei, provincial capital of Anhui, to give ``Falun Gong'' lectures. ``I went with him. We collected 6,000 or 7,000 RMB yuan for a lecture. At that time Anhui Province was suffering from a disaster. I and the others suggested donating that money to the people who were suffering from the disaster. Li Hongzhi agreed. But afterwards we learnt that he had not donated the money. So he left me with a bad impression. Li Hongzhi always talks about the ``truthfulness, benevolence and tolerance'' of `Falun Gong' but he does not like to do good deeds himself. So we can see what he says is all nonsense.''

Li Hongzhi said on many occasions that his ``Falun Dafa'' practices loose management. But Tang told us that ``Falun Gong'' is well organized. Li established the first ``Falun Gong'' Instruction Center in Beijing and then ``Falun Gong'' instruction stations and sub-stations and practice sites were established all over the country. Li Hongzhi himself appointed the head of the Beijing ``Falun Gong'' Instruction Center and he had the sole authority to dismiss anyone who did not follow his orders closely.

Tang told us that Wang, a deputy head of the Beijing ``Falun Gong'' Instruction Center, once printed a lot of introductions about Li Hongzhi. Li Hongzhi and other responsible persons did not know that. When Li Hongzhi learned about it, he dismissed him from his post and replaced him with Liu Shuwen.

Tang also told us that the siege of the Beijing TV Station was premeditated. Li Hongzhi's instructions were passed on from the higher level to the grass-roots level. During the siege, Tang and Li Chang once went there for an inspection. Li Chang told Tang, ``We had better not appear on the scene. I felt we were shadowed.''

Tang Xuehua keenly regretted that he had participated in ``Falun Gong'' activities and followed Li Hongzhi closely in the past few years. So Tang advised those who refuse to come to their senses to make a clear distinction between right and wrong. `` `Falun Gong' harms people's minds and health and society as well,'' he concluded.

(Excerpted from the Beijing Daily, August 6, 1999)