Wang Xin is pictured while studying at Tsinghua University. (Courtesy of Wang Xin)
Tsinghua University, one of the top academic institutions in China. In the minds of many Chinese people, it is unattainable. To be a Tsinghua student is an honor for a student and even for a family.
Wang Xin, who was admitted to Tsinghua University in 1994, enrolled in the Department of Precision Instruments and Mechanics. Life opened a door for him to be happy, and his future was as bright as the sun. However, the nationwide political campaign against Falun Gong in China in 1999 forced him to spend nine years in prison and die in a lifetime; after his release, he was displaced under close surveillance, and his family and friends were often harassed and threatened. Wang Xin finally chose to take his wife and children with him, and moved away from his homeland to the United States.
This political persecution had already begun to brew. Wang Xin really felt its presence on April 25, 1999.
On that day, as usual, Wang Xin got up early and prepared to go to a place on the campus of Tsinghua University where people call the “grove” to practice gong.
Entering Falun Gong
Wang Xin had been weak since she was a child, and colds and fevers were a common occurrence. After attending Tsinghua University, this condition seemed to worsen and seriously affected his studies. “When I entered Tsinghua in ’94, I was not accustomed to that climate, and my body caught frequent colds, so I could not listen to the lectures properly, which greatly affected my studies, and my ranking slipped to 22nd place out of a class of 30 people. Also once practiced other qigong, without much effect. During my sophomore year, one time while running, a teacher told me that Falun Gong was good and asked me to give it a try, and three months later, my body recovered.”
Falun Gong completely changed Wang Xin’s physique and mental outlook. “Practicing Falun Dafa has made me cheerful and healthy, and my moral values have improved greatly, and I have made very great improvements in dealing with people. This is reflected in academic life in the form of significant improvements in academic performance, sports scores and student mutual evaluation scores at school.”
His overall grades went from 22nd in his class before practicing Falun Dafa in his freshman year, to 13th in his sophomore year, and by his junior and senior years, he was firmly in 2nd place in his class, and took the position of Vice President of the Departmental Science Association in his senior year. In his fifth year (early ’99), he was recommended for direct doctoral study in the Department of Seiko without examination, after combining his achievements in the previous four years. During this period, he also won the “Hao Lai Xi” alumni scholarship and the “Hosetsu Yuying” alumni scholarship because of his excellent character and academic performance.
In early 1999, Wang Xin, a Tsinghua student, was awarded the “Hakuhosi” Alumni Scholarship for his outstanding academic performance. (Courtesy of Wang Xin)
Recalling the physical and mental changes after practicing Falun Dafa, Wang Xin is grateful to the founder of Falun Dafa, Mr. Li Hongzhi, and feels fortunate to have been able to practice Falun Gong in his lifetime. “Growing up weak and confused, I have always struggled to live in self-righteousness. This is not a problem for me alone; it is basically the same for all people who grew up in the Party culture. Only some people show more in this area, some people show more in that area. The common features are extreme ignorance, arrogance from the heart, no reverence for God and Buddha, the universe, mockery of morality, contempt for faith, chasing desires. In this state of life, they still feel that they are sufficiently elegant and confident. But when questioned inside, it is found to be pale and empty. The sad thing is that people who still have humanity are afraid of seeing their own pallor and emptiness, forcing themselves to be busy and avoid reality; people who have no humanity at all, take pallor and emptiness as their personalities, and let loose and even do nothing evil. In such a world of ten evils, I was lucky to come in contact with Falun Gong and enter its practice.”
Experiencing the April 25 Petition
Before July 1999, most Tsinghua students practiced in the “small woods,” practicing the first to fourth sets of gongfu, called “dynamic gong,” from 6 to 7 a.m., standing, and “static gong” for one hour from 10 to 11 p.m., sitting. ” from 10:00 to 11:00 p.m., sitting down.
When he arrived at the “grove” in the morning of April 25, Wang Xin felt something strange and found that there were very few people at the refining site and no one was refining. He asked a fellow practitioner who was present, “The practitioner said that people had been arrested in Tianjin yesterday and were going to petition the central government. We then asked, “Why did Tianjin arrest and beat people?”
On April 22, He Jo, a brother-in-law of Luo Gan, then secretary of the CCP’s Political and Legal Committee, wrote an article attacking Falun Gong and published it in the magazine of the Tianjin Education Institute. Tianjin Falun Gong practitioners went to the newspaper to clarify the facts, during which there were no verbal conflicts or arguments. However, on the 23rd and 24th, the police violently arrested 45 practitioners and told the others to go to the Beijing Petition Office to solve their problems.
Once everyone heard that this was the case, they said we should all go to the petition office as well,” Wang Xin said, “so they took a bus and went to Fuyu Street in twos and threes.
“When we got to Fu-yu Street, there were already a lot of people there. Some of the Tsinghua students who had gone earlier were at the main gate of Fuyu Street, so we went to a side of the corner of Fuyu Street, not on the main street.
“At about 2 or 3 p.m. Broth, a woman on a motorcycle, wearing a helmet and a mask, came to us and said how and what we should do.” Wang Xin felt that something was wrong with this person, as if she wanted to make a big deal out of it, “As soon as I saw this person, she didn’t look like our fellow practitioners, not like a good person. She incited us and wanted to fight against each other. I can’t say she’s a secret agent or a member of the evil party, but she’s not a practitioner.
“She just wanted us to do something, and she said that if we needed help, she could help, or find someone to help, and that’s about it, because it’s been a long time, I can’t remember the original words she said, but I know she was trying to stir things up.”
Wang Xin also noticed that from time to time, people came up to them and asked about it. “When we were there, people would come up to us and say which one of you is the head, who is the head come out how about we go together. At that time we all remained peaceful and rational, did not squeal, and no one took care of those people, all quietly standing there.”
At 2:00 or 3:00 p.m., some fellow practitioners came and said, “Let’s go to the main street of Fuyu Street, don’t stand at the side, the central leaders can’t see us.” Wang Xin then moved from the side to the right side of the main street of Fuyu Street. From a distance, he saw some fellow practitioners from Tsinghua near the main gate.
Around 4 or 5 o’clock in the afternoon, Wang Xin felt that the situation was a little tense. “Word spread among the fellow practitioners that ‘no beating back, no cursing back’, and then later on we saw some leaflets issued, not leaflets made by our students, but leaflets from the State Council, meaning that you should hurry up and leave, and if you don’t leave then you will be responsible for the consequences. But no one moved, just remembered that no matter what happens, we must ‘not fight back, cursing back’.”
“And then when it got a little dark, all the street lights went out, the whole road was dark. At this time, some older people probably knew what was going to happen, but we, the students, didn’t realize that the CCP would do nothing but feel the atmosphere was weird. Later some of the older people said that the Communist Party might be about to make a move at that time.”
On that day, some Falun Gong students saw soldiers appear under the street along the road in full armor, and the students standing in the first row on the sidewalk were at gunpoint.
In the darkness, people waited quietly, and no one moved. “After about half an hour, the lights came back on full blast and nothing happened. Then at 7 or 8 o’clock, word came out that the Tianjin side was letting people go. Everyone withdrew.”
At about 9 o’clock that night, Falun Gong practitioners left the site one after another.
“Everyone walked back in an orderly manner, and in the process of walking, there were those who picked up paper scraps and cigarette butts. As we were at the end of the road, we were among the last to go, and when we saw that the ground was clean, we picked up the little bit of trash that was left that was not easy to notice. Those police officers were also very impressed to see us and said that these kids are quite nice.”
There were reportedly tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners petitioning that day, and the streets of Fuyu Street, Wenjin Street, Xi’an Gate, Beihai, and Chang’an Street were filled with Falun Gong practitioners, some sitting, some standing; there was no noise, no slogans or slogans; everyone was quiet and orderly. The sidewalks were all left open for passersby to walk, whether they were pedestrians, bicycles, buses or cars.
“At that time there were tens of thousands of people on the street, and it was inconvenient to go to the bathroom; everyone was lined up there, a long, long line. Because I am more familiar with the local area, I went to the Xidan side of the mall to find a bathroom, unfamiliar people will go to the nearby residential area to find a bathroom, despite the long queue, everyone is organized very clean, no mess.”
There is no “siege” and no “attack”
Some people questioned whether the Communist Party would not have cracked down if there had been no April 25. Wang Xin replied, “The origin of the April 25 petition was Luo Gan’s brother-in-law, He Jo, who used the practice of public opinion first in previous political campaigns, slandering and defaming Falun Gong in a way that turned black and white, and slapping outrageous labels on it, which was actually a prelude to mass persecution. When the practitioners went to the magazine that published He Jo’s article to reflect the situation, the Tianjin authorities instead sent the police to arrest and beat people, and told the practitioners to go to the central government to petition if they wanted to solve the problem. It is clear that whether you go in or go out, the result will be suppression. If you don’t petition, it will directly push the Tianjin model to the whole country; if you petition, let the police in Beijing lead the trainees to Fuyu Street instead of going to the letter and petition office, and then turn around and put a charge of ‘siege on Zhongnanhai’.”
He also said, “The cadets behaved very rationally and calmly that day, not only did they not cause any impact on state organs, but there were no slogans, no slogans, large and small intersections were given way, and there was no impact on the lives of nearby residents, neither ‘siege’ nor ‘attack’.” Being treated unfairly and seeking help and clarification from the government seems perfectly normal to Wang Xin, but those who have experienced previous campaigns, including Wang Xin’s parents, think otherwise and are deeply concerned. “My family was terrified when they found out I had gone. They have all experienced all the campaigns. At that time, the central government said there were no arrests or beatings, no people were not allowed to practice Falun Gong, no such thing, and instead they (Wang Xin’s parents) said that what was not there was basically what they were doing.”
Wang Xin’s parents had already sensed the atmosphere of “a mountain of rain coming down,” and they were worried for Wang Xin.
Postscript.
In October 1999, Wang Xin was forcibly suspended from Tsinghua University, and on March 13, 2001, he was kidnapped and detained in the Beijing Detention Center, where he was illegally sentenced to nine years in prison by the Beijing First Intermediate People’s Court on December 13, 2001, for spreading the truth about Falun Dafa on the Internet and using floating balloons. In December 2008, Wang Xin was persecuted to the point of death, and the prison, fearing responsibility, notified his father and other family members to see him one last time. After a week of resuscitation, Wang Xin regained consciousness, and in July 2010, he was forcibly withdrawn from his studies and given a certificate of incompletion of his doctorate by Tsinghua University.
In July 2010, Wang Xin was forcibly withdrawn from his studies, and Tsinghua University gave him a certificate of completion of his doctorate. (Courtesy of Wang Xin)
After his release from prison, Wang Xin has been the subject of strict control by the Shenyang Public Security Bureau, and more than once the police followed him to his door after he arrived home. Especially during sensitive periods, his whereabouts were closely scrutinized by the police, causing endless stress and pain to his family and friends. In order to avoid police harassment, he was forced to leave his home and change his residence several times, living a life of displacement. in March 2019, Wang Xin left his homeland with his wife and children and is now living in the United States.
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