Li Xiangchun, also named Chuck Lee in the U.S., an American PhD, was actually born in February 1965 at Nanyang Town, Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province of China. He worked in Wuxi City of his home province since college graduation in 1987. It was not until September 1991 that he went to America for a master's degree on his own expense. There he was granted a PhD degree and was admitted to American citizenship in 2002. It was in 1997 that Li began to practice Falun Gong. In October 2002, he boarded a plane from San Francisco to Shanghai, carrying with him an illegal scheme to cut in the local CATV network of Yangzhou, a city in Jiangsu Province, to put on some Falun Gong programs. However, he was spotted by the local police when he was to carry out his plan and later, managed to flee. When he attempted again to infiltrate into China on January 22, 2003, he got arrested right on his arrival in Guangzhou. On March 21 the same year, he was sentenced to three years in jail, plus banishment for his sabotage on broadcasting and television infrastructure, which took effect from May 12 in Nanjing Prison. Three years later, that was January 21, 2006, on the very day he was released, he was expelled out of the country.
Mr. Li was arrested on his arrival at Baiyun Airport in Guangzhou on January 22, 2003 and put in prison in Yangzhou. However, he complained to American diplomats that he was arrested just because he was blacklisted as a disciple of Falun Gong. Falun Gong mouthpiece Minghui took this lame argument as a basis to slander the Chinese government; and it called on wide attention and even public signature to manage an immediate rescue. The Chinese government must have been out of its mind – if what Li and the Minghui Net said were true, it is well known this would undoubtedly invite accusations of human rights infringements. The truth, however, is that it's the Falun Gong organization who is out of mind, to believe what Li has committed in China could be covered up with lies. On October 22, 2002, at about one o'clock in the morning, Li was actually caught red-handed on his way to carry out his illegal scheme; the tools he carried clearly told the police what he was up to: complete sets of devices to send and cut off closed-circuit CATV programs, and scissors and knives of all kinds used for cutting and connecting wires. He somehow managed to escape from the police station at about 5 o'clock in the morning and fled back to America. But discontent with the outcome of this attempt, he felt compelled to venture once more, only to be caught before he could get the chance. Does he really believe, in China, American citizens could go beyond the laws?
On March 21, 2003, Yangzhou People's Court held a session to hear the case of Li. The first instance, viewed by Li's relatives and US consular officials as well, made a verdict of three years in jail plus banishment for the sabotage of broadcasting and television apparatus. On May 12, four days after his appeal was rejected, he was transferred to Nanjing Prison, which gave a clear manifestation of the Chinese government's serious attitude about the law and its enforcement. Obviously the verdict is soundly based: otherwise the US embassy and media would not remain silent, given the fact that the US consulate has been paying close attention to this case, contacting Li as many as 24 times in the process by personal meetings and telephone conversations. Till now, not a word is uttered on the part of US embassy to claim the crime Li has committed as something of a framing by the Chinese government, nor has it said the verdict is wrongly made, which explicitly means it has recognized the justice of this court decision. People may still remember that years ago, when an American youth was lashed by the hip for his illegal graffito in Singapore, the American side has done everything possible to show their disapproval. As if diplomatic protest was not enough, the media even took and publicized photos of the lashed hip to condemn Singapore for its "disrespect of hips." This time, however, what PhD Li has committed is so evidently illegal that there is no room at all for argument, thus the western media have to remain silent, leaving the Falun Gong cult to kick and shout alone.
But not everyone is willing to accept justice. Fu Yongqing, Li's fiancee, organized a touring team of three or four people to complain. On a complaint conference held for Falun Gong disciples, she whined in tears that there were no human rights or justice in China and that it was unreasonable for Chinese government to imprison her fiance. Her words reminded people of the example of Zhang Cuiying, an Australian citizen who similarly and deliberately ignored the truth of her illegal infiltration of country border and accused Chinese government of "illegal imprisoning." When a US journalist asked Fu Yongqing, why people heard that the reason of her fiance's imprisonment was his unlawful attempt to damage the operation of television network, she was struck by the question, unable to find any excuse. It took her quite a while before she came up with the argument that her fiance was not smart or educated enough to carry out a cut-in of television programs. And he was actually caught for his breach of city curfew, which deserves nothing like a three year term. Whoever remembers the three principles that Falun Gong preaches (namely "Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance") would now come to understand what the principle of "Truthfulness" is really about: It means "be truly distorting." It's distorting since no city in China has ever had a curfew in recent years, including the serene city of Yangzhou. It was ridiculous of Fu's lies, and of all the lies that Li Hongzhi has taught his disciples to tell about China, like repression, sexual abused torture, city curfew, or whatever could disgrace China's reputation. As if he wanted the western world to believe that China was still living in the Middle Ages. Put the curfew issue aside, Fu's words at least proved that her fiance was arrested on the street deep in the night, making it even less credible that he was innocent. No wonder that not a single word of this conversation has been quoted this time by Minghui.
However, when the verdict was made at the court, Mr. Li surprised all people present with a proud statement of his crime: "On October 5 last year, I came to Wuxi from America. Beside my business plan, I also prepared a trip to Yangzhou, to reveal through the circuit television to the local public how the Falun Gong followers were persecuted on the mainland. I spent three days, from October 10 to 13, inspecting the Yangzhou CATV network. After selecting five sites for this operation, I went back to Wuxi to assemble five sets of devices for it. On the night of October 21, right before my scheduled departure for America the next morning, I came to Yangzhou to do my job. Since too many people were around the first site, I went on to the second, but was interrogated by two policemen because of my roaming at 1 o'clock in the night without an ID card. I was brought to the police station for investigation, but I escaped around 5 o'clock a.m. in the morning." Even more surprisingly, he continued to declare that, "My activity was not violating laws since it served for disseminating the 'Dafa'." All the audience, including the US consular officials, was stunned by his words.
Knowledgeable as he was, PhD Li somehow accused the Chinese government of imprisoning him illegally after he admitted his aim of cutting off authorized CATV programs to broadcast his own with the purchased devices. What logic! Does he really assume that he were the one to make and interpret laws? Or does he believe he could challenge the laws with his "supernatural power" as a Falun Gong disciple and his privilege as a foreign citizen?
