User talk:Laomei/Archive 1

Please stop removing content from People's Republic of China. It is considered vandalism. If you want to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. 08:16, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

---What a funny little prick you are

Stop it right there. Personal attacks are completely out of place. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 09:52, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

You're one revert away from violating the Three-revert rule. Rather than reverting ad nauseam, I suggest that you take any disagreements you may have to the discussion page at Talk:People's Republic of China. -- ran (talk) 08:49, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Also, if you can read Chinese, I suggest taking a look at zh:中华人民共和国. There's a very detailed description at the bottom. -- ran (talk) 08:57, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

--- Yes, read that and it describes it well, unfortunately it ALSO simply uses the CIA factbook, whereas other, less politically-biased sources claim otherwise. It's not like wikipedia is a legitimate reference for anything, it's all opinion and bias, which this stupid argument proves. Add the areas fot Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, and you arrive at the correct figure in terms of area. I am in China, and books here use the figure I am quoting, how is that ANY less legitimate than what the US claims. If anything, it's more legitimate.

If you want to include Taiwan, then by the same standard, you should include Arunachal Pradesh, the entire South China Sea, and all other areas that the PRC also claims. In the same way, you should include Aksai Chin for India, Sabah for the Philippines, most of Guyana for Venezuela, the southern Kuriles for Japan, and so on. In this case, all disputed areas would get counted twice, once for the one who controls them, and once for the one who claims them.

So here's what happens: either we add the area for Aksai Chin to India, and Arunachal Pradesh to China, and all other claimed areas to all countries, and possibly rearrange the entire chart as a result. The chances of such a proposal succeeding is slim to none, because people don't want to see that a country has an area that's larger than what it actually controls. Or we stick to area of control only. -- ran (talk) 09:17, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

It's not so much the numbers themselves as the way they are presented. One cannot include Taiwan and various other areas into the area of the PRC without at least discussing that this is based on the PRC's territorial claims, which are at odds with reality. For example, the article could present several different numbers: size of territory controlled by the PRC including Hong Kong and Macau, size of territory of the PRC excluding Hong Kong and Macau, size of the territory claimed by the PRC. All of this is fine, if it's based on verifiable information. However, in the overview box, we usually report only the size of the territory under the control of a specific political entity. We do the same thing for the Republic of China article. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 09:52, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

--- This situation is different. Hong Kong and Macau simply ARE parts of China, yet the CIA factbook excludes them. Taiwan is part of China as well, and apart from 25 small, insignificant countries, the rest of the world recognizes this fact as well. Taiwan has never declared independence, and it does not meet the qualifications for statehood. There are many many countries with provinces in rebellion which the government does not control, but those are still included in the statistics for the country as a whole.

We don't take a stand on whether or not Taiwan is or isn't part of China, or which countries are or are not significant. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 09:52, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Like it or not, Taiwan IS a part of China, there is no "stand" to take on the issue. Do they have embassies? Have they been members of international treaties as a nation? Nope. End result is that it is a domestic issue to China and until Taiwan has the balls to claim independence and beat back the PLA, they ARE in fact part of China.

The Republic of China has never declared itself a part of the People's Republic of China, it existed before the PRC did and continues to exist. It controls its internal affairs, maintains its own military, and conducts its own diplomacy (under heavy PRC pressure, of course). The ROC is de facto an independent state and has been for nearly a century. As for what it *should" be, or what it *legally* is, or what it *will* be, or what it *should* do, those are open to debate and Wikipedia does not take a stand on this. -- ran (talk) 19:34, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Well I think Laomei might have a point for including Hong Kong and Macao in the totals (don't they include inner Mongolia? Isn't that a SAR as well?) but I agree Taiwan shouldn't be included in a PRC article for the reasons mentioned. But if we're going to split hairs here on the size of countries, here is why I think China should remain 4th in size either way:

China's area if you include Taiwan, Macao and HK: 9631418 km^2

America's 50 states and DC: 9631418

American Samoa: 199 km^2

Guam: 549 km^2

Northern Marianas: 477 km^2

US Virgin Islands: 352 km^2

Wake Island: 6.5 km^2

Total (excluding Puerto Rico): 9633001.5 km^2

Puerto Rico: 9104 km^2

Total (with Puerto Rico): 9642105.5 km^2

There are also a bunch of uninhabited islands which I didn't bother adding up. These territories are just as much part of America as Taiwan is part of the PRC, by Laomei's definitions above, if not more so since they aren't disputed. So if you add it up the way Laomei wants, China is still the 4th biggest country. Is there anything wrong with this reasoning? PS, I agree that this is a stupid argument. And why do I care? I'm not Chinese or American TastyCakes 23:03, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

The difference being that Puerto Rico is not part of the US. Taiwan has the same status as Transniestria, Somaliland, and many other "nations" which consist of land claimed by the recognized government, although the government does not have any real control of said areas. Many areas in Cambodia also fall into this, as well as many African nations. This does not seem to stop wikipedia editors from including those places in the official statistics for the nation that claims the land and is officially recognized. No major nation recognizes the claims of Taiwan, the only reason it is an issue now is political bullshitting at the highest levels to contain the China "threat". If you want to get technical, even without Taiwan, China is larger than Canada in terms of land area, which used to be the only thing that was counted until the US changed the ranking system for political posturing reasons.

That is arguable about Puerto Rico, but not so much about those other dependencies, with whom the US is bigger even without Puerto Rico. They aren't an "integral part of the US" but as I understand it they are "owned" by the US. Sounds a little like Hong Kong and Macao to me, no? Land area-wise China is the second biggest, but noone seems to measure country area using only land. Where did you find that the US "changed the ranking system" to include water? I find that doubtful, especially since it makes the US smaller than Canada while having more "land area". If the US was really using the CIA factbook for political posturing, why wouldn't they include all their dependencies to make themselves look as big as possible? I think you have to just accept the fact that the CIA really doesn't care if America is bigger than China. Few people would think less of America because its a few thousand square km smaller than China. Also, I find it funny you think America is trying to "contain the China threat" by sneakily changing the reported size of China while allowing a $170 billion (and growing) annual trade deficit to continue. TastyCakes 04:43, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you

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Thank you Lao Mei! We have never interacted directly, but I have seen your ongoing dispute with Cantus (and others?) in the history of "countries by area". I almost came here asking for your help in the fight against Cantus, but you came in of your own accord. I am the one who originally made the compromise edit with China in 4th place but with a lengthy explanation of it's disputed status in the second column (though others refined the description). I also added in a number of explanations next to all the overseas territories, showing what nations they were protectorates, etc of. Every time Cantus swoops in, these are also wiped and changed back to Cantus' "perfect" edit from some months back. This happens even though Cantus should have nothing against this extra information. He probably never even noticed it's addition. Anyway, I didn't want it to be just a two-man revert war between me and Cantus, so your timely intervention was highly appreciated. Malnova 02:04, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I would still want to toss China up to #3, but the comprimise is ok as long as there is the explanation. Cantus is an annoying little cunt. Laomei 13:09, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Lao Mei for at least keeping my edits intact when you change the order of the US and China. I intended to use the figures listed at an interactive page on the UN website, but these figures were all from 1998 according to a box I read. So I went looking for newer figures, and found the UN Yearbook (though the newest edition online is only 2003). I didn't notice at the time when I was entering the UN figures, but the figure it gives for the area IS larger than that of China (the Yearbook says it does not include Macau, Hong Kong nor the province of Taiwan in the surface area; it also does not include Greenland in the area of Denmark et al). I honestly had no intention of starting an edit war between people again. Maybe we can at least put the qualifier back in the box. It is certainly no less relevant than before. The UN does not even give figures for Taiwan, even though it does give figures for places like Svalbard. Reflecting this, I am considering not numbering Taiwan, but I wanted others' feedback before I did that. Malnova 01:58, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

This blocked user's request to have autoblock on their IP address lifted has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request.

Laomei (block log • active blocks • global blocks • autoblocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

208.113.194.23 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

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Block message:

blocked proxy

• Blocking administrator: Ryulong (talk • blocks)

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Decline reason: We do not permit editing from an open proxy. — Yamla 19:21, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Please don't do that

If you continue to create articles such as Nigger problem, you will eventually be blocked from editing. Please don't do that. – Luna Santin (talk) 20:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Size of the United States

Who is going to know the size of the US better then the US? The United States surely meets the definition of a reliable source, it legally MUST know its own size (for tax and treaty purposes) whereas the UN does not need to know. Therefore I have restored the CIA factbook number on List of continents, countries, and political subdivisions by total area in excess of 200,000 km². Let me know if you have any problems, Prodego ^talk 19:33, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Gone through this whole bit of fun before on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_outlying_territories_by_total_area

If you really want to get paranoid about it I suggest you research census data going back a few decades and you will see the area of the US changes drastically. The US includes ocean claims in it's "area". The CIA is a biased, politicized source, and unless the US gained another California in the past 20 years without telling anyone, then the number is bunk. Suggest you do your research.

Nearly all the data on that page is from the CIA world factbook, if you want to use UN data, that is fine, but you will need to covert every single page in every list to it. The data is from one source, therefore it is all measured the same way, so if the CIA is counting territorial waters as area, then it would be doing so for all nations. Please discuss this, rather then reverting, which is counter productive. Prodego ^talk 16:51, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Last I checked, Wiki was all in love with the NPOV hype, please tell me how a US government source which is bound by law to report whatever it is told as fact by the US government can be considered NPOV on any issue regarding the US? Check your census records, the US jumped up in area out of nowhere by the size of California in the 80s. And the actual "land" portion of that figure decreased at the same time by something the size of Delaware. There are conflicting sources and taking the NPOV one as fact seems prudent. Laomei (talk) 01:48, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I highly doubt the US government could be considered a POV source on this matter by any reasonable standard. What possible motive would any country have to give false area measurements? All of the other areas on that page come from the same source, tabulated the same way, so the US should not be treated differently, since the way area is measured must be consistent, which may or may not be true between different sources. If you argued for converting the entire list to UN data, I could understand your argument, however, treating one country differently than all the others is not acceptable. Prodego ^talk 02:24, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

However, you propose doing just that exactly. How many other countries on that list are being allowed to be their own source? Much less their intelligence agency? Furthermore, The US was previously always self-claimed to be 4th largest, it's only very recently and for reasons unknown that it claims otherwise. http://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/table-2.pdf

If you have an alternate source, that would cover all the entries on that page, please bring that forward for discussion. It is important all the data come from the same source, to ensure it was all gathered in a consistent way. You can't simply pick out a different source for each country, they all must be from the same place, for the obvious consistency reasons. Prodego ^talk 20:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I propose teaching the controversy; i.e., if there are multiple conflicting sources, include them all and explain the discrepancy in the notes. bd2412 T 21:30, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment

About the 'including territorial waters in land area' thing. I have to say - you're being a jerk. You're right, yes, but you're being a jerk about it. Calm down and be more polite. DS (talk) 01:53, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Help the Turkish article "Leopard"

Could you please write "jin qian bao" with accents and chinese characters, indicating what each syllable means? --Ekindedeoglu (talk) 01:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

金钱豹 jīn qián bào Literally meaning something like "gold coin leopard", it just means a leopard with golden spots or "Golden Leopard" --Laomei (talk) 02:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

left a wikiquette alert and a note on arbom enforcement

about the recent vile language you wrote on the Li Hongzhi talk page. Not sure what happens from here. Just letting you know.--Asdfg12345 13:59, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Calling a spade a spade is vile now is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Laomei (talk • contribs)

Per the evidence here: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Arbitration_enforcement#Falun_Gong_again and your above statement, you are blocked for 31 hours and banned from the article Falun Gong and its talk page for two months. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:31, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

August 2008

Welcome to Wikipedia! I am glad to see you are interested in discussing a topic. However, as a general rule, talk pages are for discussion related to improving the article, not general discussion about the topic. If you have specific questions about certain topics, consider visiting our reference desk and asking them there instead of on article talk pages. Thank you. Please do not use Talk pages of articles as a forum to dispute beliefs/insult others BMW(drive) 22:15, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

There was no dispute involved, it's a simple case of a POV editor steering articles to reflect his own belief and remove anything critical of his cult and it's leader. The sad thing is that he was sided with on this. A cult is a cult is a cult, simple as that and Falun Gong is nothing more than a cult, yet it's leader is whitewashed and anything critical is removed. This is an absolute joke and a prime example of why Wikipedia is not and will never be considered a legitimate source on anything for anything.

Of course, saying "Falun Gong is a cult" is also POV. How about visiting some Christianity pages and say that "Christ never actually existed" and see how well that goes over?? BMW(drive) 15:03, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Christianity does not have a track record of it's leadership brutalizing it's followers, encouraging them to deny any and all medical treatment and instilling a fear of death in it's followers if they dare to leave. Furthermore, no one is claiming that Li Hongzhi never existed, he most definitely exists, however his lost-o-miracles and "history" has had an interesting way of changing itself over the years, which of course is hushed up. Christians also have not attacked any and all critics and attempted to force a government to silence their critics for them. I spent YEARS in the mainland and witnessed a lot of this stuff first hand. FLG is a lying, deceptive and dangerous cult. Furthermore, it does not claim to be a religion, it claims to be a "spiritual movement" and hides its true nature from outsiders and the uninitiated. Their members have been told to lie and abuse the system to further their cause as "Falun Dafa" is the only "good" and the only "moral" thing in existence while everything else is immoral and wrong/sinful/evil. They make false allegations and libel innocent parties to further their agenda on a consistent basis. There is a claim that the Chinese media "lies" and is "unreliable" as it is state media. They censor, that is very true, and have a history of misreporting figures, however straight out lying, this is something which is often claimed by Falun Gong members (especially in the discussion pages of relevant articles), however never supported with a shred of evidence or a citation which proves this claim. There was a 3 month intensive investigation into the FLG and loads of documentation gathered before the ban, as it was popular (not 100,000,000 popular as claimed, however 2,000,000 is still a strong number) and previously touted as beneficial by the state media as well as independent media (with the exception of criticisms which were attacked rabidly). The group has made threats of violence against the state, which they cannot deny, as responses to "not getting their way". Anything the FLG claims which originates from an internal source must be met with the same criticism they place upon the "evil state media", as they have, at the very least, a similar doctrine of censorship and warping of figures. They make claims and refute any neutral third-party source, while still claiming the credit for the initial investigation (and refuting the results if called upon).

"Recently, a few scoundrels from literary, scientific, and qigong circles, who have been hoping to become famous through opposing qigong, have been constantly causing trouble, as though the last thing they want to see is a peaceful world. Some newspapers, radio stations and TV stations in various parts of the country have directly resorted to these propaganda tools to harm our Dafa, having a very bad impact on the public. This was deliberately harming Dafa and cannot be ignored. Under these very special circumstances, Dafa disciples in Beijing adopted a special approach to ask those people to stop harming Dafa—this actually was not wrong."

There is full documentation of all of their abusive nature, much of it coming from their own websites and mouthpieces, however it is strictly in Chinese and presented with disturbing spin. This is information not intended to be released to the English-speaking world as it is highly damaging to their own PR efforts. The notion that an encyclopedia chooses to fully support and back highly POV editors repeatedly on issues such as this is quite frankly disturbing. Laomei (talk) 22:08, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If that is the case, then edit "cautiously", and within the rules on any faith-based article. Fact is that many many people believe in the "way of life", and live by its tenets. You have a strong POV yourself, some of which is WP:OR. I'm certainly not going to push my POV on Falun Gong anywhere as all I'm trying to do is resolve a dispute. Many faith-based articles (indeed many articles overall) include a small section called "Criticisms of ...". When written carefully and in a non-threatening way, with properly cited facts, a small section like that can exist. It should be a tiny section so as to not "piss off" the believers. Don't be contentious about it, and if people start to remove properly cited, polite commentary, then take it to WP:AIV or something, but don't attack. It is really nobody's role to denigrate a belief/way of life, but there's nothing wrong with "minor criticism". PS: Many would say that some Christian churches have brutalized their faithful for centuries, and some sects deny their members certain vital medical treatment too. Let me know if I can help. BMW(drive) 11:18, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

There is much in the above statement which is 1) inconsistent with my experience of Falun Gong practice and also completely inconsistent with the experiences of the hundreds of practitioners I have met, and 2) contradicted by a large body of scholarship and journalism. I wouldn't bother arguing any ideological points in this forum, but when I have a bit of time, maybe in a week or two, I'll track down some journal articles and some links to show what I mean. In a few cases the people that the CCP said were Falun Gong practitioners who had murder/suicided (or was it a double murder? can't remember) were found to not even exist, i.e. a complete fabrication of news. In other cases the CCP's claims about Falun Gong leave them realm of the ridiculous and start becoming bizarrely comical: such as that Falun Gong teaches necrophilia, other bizarre sexual acts, and that practitioners poison beggars for fun, among other heinous misdeeds. They only do this in China, for some reason, and didn't start doing this stuff until 1999. Oh, and no one is allowed to investigate. (a few reporters who have won awards for their journalism on Falun Gong, such as Hamish McDonald from The Age, and Ian Johnson from WSJ, and had their credentials revoked soon after) Ironically, also, Laomei, according to everything I've read, the investigations against Falun Gong before the persecution were initiated by Luo Gan for the purpose of gathering evidence to crack down, a bunch of the guys who were doing the spying ended up starting to practice Falun Gong, and the reports at the end all said that Falun Gong was good for China! I've read this in Falun Gong sources and elsewhere, and later on I'll see what digging I can do. I'm going on the basic assumption that if you're presented with authoritative, independent sources which talk about things you do not have direct experience in, that you will more-or-less believe what they say. Of course, I don't really know what experience you have with Falun Gong, whether you've actually spoken to practitioners in China for a few hours, watched them practicing in the park, skimmed through Zhuan Falun, or what. There's certainly no money involved, and no hierarchy, structure, or organisation. It's a set of free teachings, when it comes down to it. There's also a stackola of photos and video of the persecution these people have experienced--it's not made up. There's also a report published by two serious Canadians, one a former crown prosecutor and foreign minister, the other a top human rights lawyer who has won awards, that the CCP has been harvesting Falun Gong practitioners' organs for years. Look at the evidence if you dare. Here are some links: http://organharvestinvestigation.net/ , http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=8237 , http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/CNN-Facing-Disgrace-Buste-by-John-Kusumi-080824-502.html , http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/160ymogj.asp?pg=1 , most recent, conclusive evidence: http://organharvestinvestigation.net/release/pr-2008-08-22.htm . Happy reading. If you respond, I may be able to judge whether it's worth an hour of digging through the archives for some stuff on Falun Gong in the early days, and maybe some independent info on the persecution (though there is an abundance from good sources including Amnesty, UN Special Rapporteurs, HRW, US State, Columbia Journal of Asian Law, and so on). Best.--Asdfg12345 13:15, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Try this for a change, read credible sources. I read through the report and it makes many claims, however it offers no solid evidence of anything. People love to claim torture, yet there are no photos, there is simply no proof at all. I have taken the liberty of contacting the US embassy in China a few times (good friends with many people there) and asked about some of these specific cases and claims. Believe it or not, they DO investigate the claims of Falun Gong murderers from time to time on request of the US government, and they do it very low key. Not once have they found the claims to be inaccurate. So, the simple thing which is amusing me here regardless of that, is the fact that you have taken it upon yourself to adopt a scientology approach of "always attack, never defend", when you are losing, you change topic, you provide half-truths, but never bother to pay any attention to the full context. Yes, Falun Gong was at one point supported, then there came that funny little moment when people started criticizing it in non-state media. Falun Gong supporters actively threatened these people and harassed those in charge until retractions were printed and reporters fired. Our good megalomaniac friend took this approach to any and all criticism and when Tianjin protesters were arrested for violence, they took it to Zhongnanhai to harass the Chinese government and DEMAND that China make it illegal to criticize them, on the threat of violence. Conveniently, Li Hongzhi had already fled and left his brainwashed masses to take the fall for him. Funny thing that, how cult leaders tend to be the first to take the money and run. But back to your argument as it is very flawed, here's a nice compilation of TRANSLATED sources coming from NPOV http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20060806_1.htm

Falun Gong said four months ago: "The world cannot wait until all the evidence becomes available, because the crimes will worsen. Even if there is a 1 per cent probability this is true, it is worth the whole world carefully and fully investigating."

So, best to attack the EVIL CHINESE COMMUNISTS now, even though there is no evidence whatsoever for the claims.

Here's another goodie, but oldie. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-11/25/content_394887.htm Hey look at that, blood test for AIDS in the prisons. If you want to go down this route, you will lose, as there have already been investigations and none of them revealed even remote evidence for the claims of "organ harvesting".

So, anyways, lets go back to the ORIGINAL issue being discussed here. Are Falun Gong members in China being arrested? Yes, they are. Why are they being arrested? What crimes have the committed? Why is Falun Gong perceived as dangerous to social stability? What are the claims that Li Hongzhi has made in regards to both himself and his cult beliefs? The Chinese media is able to provide photos, video, and highly detailed reports and documentation supporting the Government's claims, and the only response you have is that the Government lies... going to have to ask you, seeing as you are so well read on the subject, to disprove it using NPOV sources. FLG-sponsored propaganda and publications do not count. On a personal note, I am accosted daily by FLGers in Canada via Skype who are determined to sway me, and when I go to the Chinese embassies, have materials forced into my hands and I flat out refute the lies I have actually been physically assaulted, that's on police record in Tokyo, Chicago and Los Angeles. Non-violent my ass, always the last resort of someone who knows they are beat. Laomei (talk) 15:30, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

wow.. I can only say I am so sorry you have this understanding, and I hope that one day you will be able to see this situation in a different light. I've never even heard of someone saying these kinds of things before. Falun Gong is just about being a good person, and now it's persecuted in China and has hatred spread about it by the CCP. It's just a set of exercises and a few books. I wish you the best.--Asdfg12345 16:32, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

btw, if you want vision, here is an hour long, independently produced documentary by an arm of the canadian broadcasting corporation. Among other things it has a practitioner who got his legs branded, and the doctor says the guy got his legs branded. It's one of the forms of torture police use. Again, all the best.--Asdfg12345 16:41, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

It's far more than that, and you know it. Li Hongzhi himself is on record telling his followers to conceal the truth and attack all critics. The marketing outside of China is VASTLY different from how it was marketed within China, and the Chinese and English versions are highly inconsistent with each other. I suggest learning Chinese if you have any desire to know what is really going on and why so many people call it a cult. Oddly, I assume you have not bothered to read a single source I have provided, nor have you addressed my questions. Unable to defend and all out of attacks, you run and hide. Problem with the phone transcripts, these are allegedly doctors, a company provided cellphone is a VERY standard perk for doctors (I know quite a few), and the cellphone numbers are all 136 numbers, 136 is a prepaid phone number prefix, the recordings, sad to tell you are also far clearer than any mobile phone in China tends to get, recordings are fakeLaomei (talk) 17:15, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

actually, after studying Falun Gong for close to three years I thought I'd also study Chinese. I know enough Chinese now to read Zhuan Falun and understand it (繁體字）. I read too slowly to be practical though. I can communicate basic things, and am obviously still in the process of learning and studying. It's an immensely difficult language to acquire; or, to put it another way, requires more time and dedication than languages with more similarities to English, like Spanish or French or whatever. I see Chinese people a lot so that's also helpful and useful. I don't understand Li Hongzhi to have said anything of the sort, about attacking critics and concealing the truth, and I've read everything he's published many times. He has actually said not to attack critics, and that when faced with criticism that practitioners should first look inside themselves to think about whether they may have done anything to cause that. I read this just recently, in fact, in the Singapore 1996 lecture. You can just find that right now for yourself, assuming your not behind the internet blockade. There are other statements, and I can give you the link if you want to read. He says that practitioners should treat people with compassion, and that this is the most fundamental. Even this persecution has been responded to in the most peaceful way. There's not even a hint of violence, not even a suggestion of it. For the first several years those practitioners just went to the authorities and wanted to tell them the truth about Dafa. They didn't realise that there was a brutal persecution waged by the central government. They actually thought there were some misunderstanding. After getting bundled up and tortured by police on their way to the appeals office though, after a while they realised. There's not a single case of Falun Gong practitioners becoming violent, and I've never heard of this--it's just completely not what Falun Gong is about. I'm just a person who wants to be good, to treat other people in a decent way, to live my own life. I spend a lot of my time doing things to inform people about this terrible persecution. All my dealings with Falun Gong have just consisted of reading the books and doing the exercises. I haven't given anyone a cent, haven't signed a form, haven't done anything I didn't do myself; I will come up with ideas about how to tell more people about the persecution, and do things like help design posters or print flyers or whatever. We do everything ourselves, just talk about it and then do it. If someone wants to say I'm a cultist for that, I think that's their problem. I'm a peaceful and friendly person, I don't have any ambitions to harm others or any political or bad motivations. Falun Gong is a spiritual path. I am taken aback that you would this kind of hatred toward it. I can only guess that many incidents, impressions, media reports, feelings, etc., over a long period of time have built you this impression, and now you think a certain way and you think what you think is true. Clearly, what you have read from state media has made much more of an impression than what you have directly experienced. I looked at both the sources you linked. I had read Harry Wu's statement before, I'm aware of what he has said; I didn't understand what the AIDs testing had to do with organ harvesting evidence. It isn't really related as far as I can tell. In the report they're talking about a range of health tests targeting just the Falun Gong prison and labor camp population; they're talking about the Falun Gong practitioners being singled out and other prisoners ignored. These weren't HIV tests (and there were some other health checks, too, and, also, why the hell would they HIV test Falun Gong practitioners prison? they torture them to death frequently enough, and those people aren't going to be sleeping around.) By the way, the Chinese and English/Spanish versions of the Fa, and I assume other language versions, but cannot verify directly myself, are the same. It's simply untrue that they are different. Some minor things will be different because you can't just translate some things between languages literally (like chengyu or whatever--can you imagine?) or it won't sound right. There's no changes in meaning between the different language versions I have seen. I mean, the idea doesn't make sense to me, no one who understood what Falun Gong was about would do such a thing, and even if one person wanted to, so many people read Chinese and English who practice Dafa that others would fix it or something. Finally, saying that the recording is fake because you don't think they would get such a clear sound, to me, that doesn't make sense at all. The guy is right there saying he was on the call, maybe they got a clear signal that day? It's the same voice on the audio as on the video, so I just don't know how it could be denied. Here's an excerpt from Kilgour's website

http://organharvestinvestigation.net/release/pr-2008-08-22.htm C. Counter Propaganda

A third Chinese government reaction to our report was counter propaganda. The counter propaganda either misrepresents our report or denies the sources without foundation. Here are a few notable examples.

i) A claim of rumour

At the symposium on organ transplants at Beilinson hospital near Tel Aviv where I spoke on May 30, 2007, the Chinese Embassy to Israel circulated a statement at the symposium that the report David Kilgour and I wrote on organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners contains:

     "verbal evidence without sources, unverifiable witnesses and huge amount of unconvincingly conclusive remarks based on words like "probably", "possibly", "maybe" and "it is said", etc. All these only call into question the truth of the report."

Yet, all one has to do to is to look at the report to see that every statement we make in our report is independently verifiable. There is no verbal evidence without sources. Where we rely on witnesses we identify them and quote what they say.

The report is on the internet and is word searchable. Anyone who searches it can see that the words "probably", "possibly", "maybe" and the phrase "it is said" are not used in our report, not even once.

ii) Shi Bingyi

One basis for our conclusion that Falun Gong practitioners were the primary source of organs for transplants was the large increase in transplants coincident with the start of persecution of the Falun Gong. Yet, the only other significant source of organs for transplants, prisoners sentenced to death, remained constant.

To document the overall increase in transplants, our report cited Shi Bingyi, vice-chair of the China Medical Organ Transplant Association. We indicated that he said that there were about 90,000 transplants in total up until the end of 2005.

Yet there were approximately 30,000 transplants done in China before the end of 1999 and 18,500 in the six year period 1994 to 1999 inclusive. That meant that transplants went up from 18,500 in the six year period prior to the persecution of the Falun Gong to 60,000 in the six year period after the persecution of the Falun Gong began. Since the death penalty volume was constant, that left 41,500 transplants in the six year period 2000 to 2005 where the only explanation for the sourcing was Falun Gong practitioners.

UN rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak asked the Chinese government to explain the discrepancy between organs available for transplants and numbers from identifiable sources. The Chinese government, in a response sent to Professor Nowak by letter dated March 19, 2007 and published in the report of Professor Nowak to the UN Human Rights council dated February 19, 2008, that

     "Professor Shi Bingyi expressly clarified that on no occasion had he made such a statement or given figures of this kind, and these allegations and the related figures are pure fabrication."

Moreover, the Government of China, lest there be any doubt, asserted that

     "China's annual health statistics are compiled on the basis of categories of health disorder and not in accordance with the various types of treatment provided"4

Shi Bingyi was interviewed in a video documentary produced by Phoenix TV, a Hong Kong media outlet. That video shows Shi Bingyi on screen saying what the Government of China, in its response to Nowak, indicates he said, that the figures we quote from him he simply never gave. He says on the video:

     "I did not make such a statement because I have no knowledge of these figures I have not made detailed investigation on this subject how many were carried out and in which year. Therefore I have no figures to show. So I could not have said that."

Yet, the actual source of the quotation is footnoted in our report. It is a Chinese source, the Health News Network. The article from the Network is posted on the official website for transplantation professionals in China, <www.transplantation.org.cn>. The text, dated 2006-03-02, states, in part, in translation:

     "Professor Shi said that in the past 10 years, organ transplantation in China had grown rapidly; the types of transplant operations that can be performed were very wide, ranging from kidney, liver, heart, pancreas, lung, bone marrow, cornea; so far, there had been over 90,000 transplants completed country-wide; last year along, there was close to 10,000 kidney transplants and nearly 4,000 liver transplants completed."

Though the Government of China has taken down many of the citations in our report, this citation remains. The original source of the information remains available within China through an official website source.

Moreover, the information in this article continues to be recycled in Chinese publications. The official web site of the Minister of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China posts a newsletter of June 20, 2008 at <http://wwww.most.gov.cn> which states:

     "Up to date, China has performed some 85,000 organ transplants, only next to the United States in number. In recent years, China performed organ transplants on more than 10,000 patients a year...Liver transplants have exceeded 10,000 in number... Heart transplants went over 100 in number..."

The number of 90,000 transplants in 2006 and 85,000 transplants in 2008 do not match and call for an explanation only those who provide the statistics can give. What is striking about the later article, aside from the statistical mismatch, is that it flies in the face of the official Chinese statement to Professor Nowak that China's health statistics are compiled on the basis of categories of health disorder and not in accordance with the various types of treatment provided.

So what we have is a statement from Shi Bingyi on an official Chinese web site which remains extant to this day, a statement which Shi Bingyi publicly denies ever having said. Moreover, despite the continued presence on this official website of a statement showing that Shi Bingyi says what we wrote he said, the Chinese government accuses us of fabricating the words we attribute to Shi Bingyi.

Neither the Government of China nor Shi Bingyi claim that Health News Network has misquoted or misunderstood what Shi Bingyi said. There has been no effort to hide or mask or take down from the internet the publicly posted article of the Health New Network where Shi Bingyi is quoted. The continuation of this article on an official Chinese web site at the same time as China is removing from the internet so much other information about organ transplants which we used to come to our conclusions amounts to a continuation to assert what is to be found in this article.

This whole episode is reminiscent of an exchange in the 1933 Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup. Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont) turns round in her bedroom and sees Chicolini (Chico Marx), who is disguised to look like Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx), President of Freedonia. Thinking that Chicolini is the President, Mrs. Teasdale says to Chicolini: "Your excellency, I thought you left." Chicolini replies: "Oh no. I no leave." Mrs. Teasdale says: "But I saw you with my own eyes." Chicolini answers: "Well, who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"

Anyway, I'm happy to keep discussing with you. If you ask me questions about what I have read or my understanding or experience of whatever issue, I will do my best to answer it. I haven't meant to argue you down or something, and I'm also a bit wary of engaging in heated debate on this. It's really up to you what you want to believe and how you will understand all the things that are being presented to you. You're responsible for that yourself.--Asdfg12345 17:55, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

1) Don't pretend to be gleefully ignorant, AIDS test = blood test. And that's the only test that have been going on.

2) It's not fake due to quality, that only adds suspicion, it's fake due to the number. Furthermore, such a stunt is easily hoaxed, I can call a friend right now anywhere in the world and we can read a script together and call it real. Want me to make someone acknowledge the conversation? I can call off the record and talk about it then do my script. Simple fact is that without proof of both ends of the conversation in the presence of a neutral 3rd party expert, any evidence is inadmissible and subject to extreme scrutiny. But this is not about your strawman now is it? That topic is closed until the first set of questions are answered.

3) As far as your claim to 3 years of study and it being difficult. Try nothing to fluent in 5 months followed by YEARS of living in China and working for Chinese companies at the highest levels in my industry.

We can play this game forever, but you are gonna lose and you are gonna lose hard. I am also documenting this as full admission of your status as a FLG member Laomei (talk) 20:50, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on People's Republic of China. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. If necessary, pursue dispute resolution. —Chris! _ct 23:59, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Blocked

You have been blocked for blatant edit warring at People's Republic of China per the report at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/3RR. Since this is your second recent block for disruptive editing, I have set the duration at 48 hours. I can see no obvious support for the assertion of sockpuppetry. Please discuss your edits on the article's talk page instead of continually reverting content. Thanks. Kuru ^talk 03:42, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

You are aware that you are being manipulated by Falun Gongers who are pushing agenda and have a rampant history of doing so... at least I hope you are aware of that.

Furthermore, this is the resolution to the debate, which I hope at least an admin can see is balanced given the situation.

[[Falun Gong]], currently banned in the Chinese mainland after being declared an ''evil cult'' by the government, claimed anywhere from 20 to over 100 million followers depending on the source being "an internal police investigation"<ref>http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/8/25/82595.html</ref>, the Chinese Sports Ministry<ref>http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/042799china-protest-leader.html</ref>, or various unnamed government sources<ref>http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E3DB1E3DF932A35756C0A96F958260</ref><ref>http://tw.fgmtv.org/fgm/gb/artcontent.asp?artID=10013</ref>. The Chinese Government, however disputes these claims and states a much lower figure of 2 million.<ref>http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/1999/09/08/1308</ref>

Presents all numbers and is very well documented. Laomei (talk) 03:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I take no position in your content dispute; nor do I feel that I am the one being manipulated here. Kuru ^talk 04:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Other than making the exact changes above, what, specifically, about the current language do you not like? Let's try to work out a resolution.LedRush (talk) 04:22, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

What is being proposed above I don't believe is neutral. Few points:

• that Falun Gong is said to be "banned" rather than, as reliable sources would indicate, (i.e., UN, Amnesty, investigative journalism, US State dept, scholars), persecuted.
• that the CCP's "evil cult" labelling of Falun Gong is mentioned here, which has it's own set of controversies, and which scholars of Falun Gong say is no more than a "red-herring" and a justification for suppression. Mentioning it here without giving the rejection of it isn't neutral; it's a fringe view, not a mainstream view. Suggest simply excluding since there isn't appropriate space to offer the rejection of this label and how scholars say it has been used to vilify/persecute. The motivations for persecution should simply be left out of this article, and "evil cult" is by no means a standard explanation.
• that it attempts to show how Falun Gong figures for the numbers are false, while asserting the CCP figure, which is itself claimed to be made only after the persecution to downplay Falun Gong's significance
• also, it gives the impression that Falun Gong claims the Chinese Sports Admin said such and such a figure, rather than saying according to the New York Times that was the figure estimated by Beijing;

given this, I'd just like to make a simple request for Laomei to identify the deficiencies of what is currently on the page:

Falun Gong, now persecuted in China, had 50-70 million practitioners in 1998 according to official estimates, The New York Times said. However, Falun Gong claims to have 100 million practitioners while the China's Ministry of Civil Affairs claims that there are as few as 2 million. As there are no membership lists, current global numbers are unknown.

btw, this differs slightly from the current version in that I removed the word "severely", which isn't rather necessary.--Asdfg12345 04:33, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

the basic difference, as far as I can tell, is that this does not attempt to make any "meta-commentary" on the various claims. In these obviously controversial two little sentences, the less meta-commentary the better; the basic different claims should simply be presented as plainly as possible and without any spin.--Asdfg12345 04:36, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

There are three issues I take with that.

[*]The first is the awkward accreditation to the NYT and the omission of the fact that these numbers are self-claimed as coming from the government, despite that number being radically different (from 20 to over 100) and the source unable to be agreed upon. In the interest of space, widen the range, drop the "NYT" thing, post multiple sources and kill the "official" part of that line. There are too many sources, all credible, all claiming to be "official" and all with very different numbers and claimed sources. I have another source from the Ministry of Religion, direct, still standing on an official government page and unaltered since the ban that states flat out that the group itself reported having over 100 million inside of China. This is just a giant mess thanks to lack of fact checking and taking whoever the source for the story was at face value and reporting the claim as related to the reporter.

[*]The second issue is that if there is a claim of persecution, there should be an short explanation of why. The BBC source is one of the few which is both in English and pre-ban. This is prior to any government concern and it is being flat out called a cult by western media, drop the "evil" if you want, but there is a specific reason it was banned, and whether you agree with it or not, it remains fact.

[*]Third issue, drop the Epoch Times ref, it has no place here. It adds nothing. If you want to keep it, link it to the original CBC story, not a third party making a news story out of a news story... that's just being sloppy.

Keep those issues in mind and I will have no complaint. :) Laomei (talk) 10:52, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

The number of 70 million isn't Falun Gong claimed coming from the CCP, it is NYT claimed coming from the CCP. I'm not sure if that's what you were saying. This appears in several NYT articles. Anyway, I agree there is a lot of ambiguity about the figures, and it's a mess. Why don't we just make it simple: "Falun Gong claimed 100 million practitioners in China before the persecution. Different reports state that the official estimate by the Chinese Communist Party before 1999 was between 30 and 70 million, and after, 2 million. The current numbers are unknown because there is no membership."

some more things to throw in the mix:

"Before the crackdown the government estimated membership at 70 million -- which would make it larger than the Chinese Communist Party, with 61 million members." - 4 From Chinese Spiritual Group Are Sentenced, Nov 1999

"Mr. Zhai and other Falun Gong followers insist that they number at least 100 million, though scholars say a truer figure is probably between 20 million and 60 million. The authorities, not known for their accurate portrayal of the group's followers, say there are only two million." -- Ex-General, Member of Banned Sect, Confesses 'Mistakes,' China Says, Jul 1999

There is plenty of explanation for the persecution, but the "cultic threat" has simply not been adopted by mainstream scholarship or journalism. It's as simple as that. It doesn't even count as a fringe view, because no one except the CCP is promoting it. That Falun Gong is now persecuted in China isn't controversial; an explanation, or even a view of a couple of the most prevalent explanations--which don't include the cultic one--would take at least another 50 words. Yes there is no need for the Epoch Times ref to remain. I think we just need to establish that there are a range of figures, what the key ones are, and say that there is no membership. There's no need to elaborate on the cause for the persecution, that is a whole nother subject and I think I'm justified in saying that we're probably not going to agree on a succinct 50 word summary.--Asdfg12345 11:20, 29 August 2008 (UTC)