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A fact from this article was featured on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the On this day section on May 13, 2011.

Issues resolved

A user added a few tags to the top of the page expressing concern about the article's neutrality and reliance on primary sources. I did another reading of Li's biographies in Penny and Ownby, and pulled on some information available on other Falungong pages to improve this one. I think I have thoroughly scrubbed the page of primary sources, so that should not longer be a concern. The page is not as complete as it could be (eg., nothing is said of Li's response to the Chinese government's suppression. He gave several media interviews around that time that are hardly described at all), but on balance it seems to reflect the tone and weight accorded to different aspects of Li's life in major scholarly works.—Zujine|talk 07:17, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I just want to make it clear to the editing public the content changes here at Li Hongzhi. Very important phrases such as David Ownby's "both versions should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticisim" was removed, with black paint smeared all over the Chinese government version of the story, which we learn is just propaganda aimed at destroying Falun Gong. Moreover, we notice the removal of sourced material from Ownby, "According to Zhuan Falun, Falun Gong's system was developed between 1984 and 1989 after years of synthesis from general Qigong principles and advice from Masters of numerous religious and spiritual schools. It claims to have "assembled all the mystical powers, which are the essence of the whole cosmos." Interestingly, we learn that Li has been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize, yet no mention that such a nomination was essentially a fruitless lobbying campaign by Falun Gong practitioners, which is discussed in the CNN piece that it is sourced to.

Evidently, having been through this so many times, I do not want to make any personal remarks, or get into another edit war. As such, I will not be reverting any changes myself to avoid any sort of confrontation in this regard. But I believe the changes have seriously damaged the NPOV of the article, and needs to be scrutinized by uninvolved parties. Colipon+(Talk) 17:51, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

See talk. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 22:13, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I see further explanation is needed.

• Colipon, the phrase attributed to Ownby "both versions should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism" is not Ownby's words. It is a paraphrase of his statement that different versions of the biographies should be taken "with several grains of salt." There is nothing especially important about this statement, and it does not explain to the reader why the biographies should be regarded with caution. In my edits, I drew on Penny to explain that both biographies serve some specific spiritual or political purpose; in the case of Falungong accounts, it is to bolster the orthodoxy of the teachings. The Chinese government's accounts seek to undermine Li's claims to extraordinary insights, and to undermine the credibility of the practice. As Penny state, it is propaganda, and because it relies on unnamed witnesses, it can only be regarded as textual fabrication (his words, not mine). Laying out the agendas of both parties, as I did is and as Penny does, is far more nuanced and instructive to the reader, as it provides guidance on what kind of skepticism they should exercise.
• If you read Penny and Ownby and measure the weight and importance that they ascribe to the official vs. Chinese government biographies, I think you will find that I did likewise.
• As to the statement "According to Zhuan Falun...." whose removal you objected to, that statement was attributed to Ownby's article Falun Gong in the New World. It was improperly attributed. Nothing approaching that content is found either in the secondary source, or in the primary source (Zhuan Falun). That is why I deleted it. However, the same essential history is told in a properly attributed way through my edits.
• Regarding the Nobel Peace Prize nomination, the article previously only mentioned that he was not nominated by the city of San Francisco. The lack of nomination is not more notable than the fact that he was nominated by other parties. The CNN article, moreover, does not assert that this was a "fruitless campaign." It was evidently fruitful in that it did result in nominations.

I am going to restore my edits to the page, as I have seen no substantial reason that they should not be included. My edits involved adding relevant history to the page, providing more clear and nuanced discussions of his competing biographies, and replacing numerous primary sources with high quality secondary sources. I think it was an improvement by any measure.—Zujine|talk 23:26, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

There was a community discussion about including Nobel prize nominations in biographies a few years ago. (here). An important conclusion from that discussion is that "Over a hundred people are nominated annually, the pool of potential nominators is vast, and there are no eligibility requirements (other than being alive)". Also keep in mind that we don't know whether Li was nominated or not in 2000, since the Nobel Prize committee doesn't release the names for 50 years. The 2001 attempt failed to get him a nomination, much less a prize, but I've kept that because that failed nomination was indicative of the controversy about Falun Gong's antigay teachings.

I also reworked some other changes, which had nothing to do with "scrubbing the pages of primary sources" and everything to do with aligning the page to the Falun Gong phraseology and worldview. These included repetitive use of emotive words such as "persecution", attributing the Chinese government's actions to the "Chinese Communist Party", and extensively quoting Li Hongzhi instead of secondary sources. There was also the strange mention of the awards heaped on Li by the governments of Houston, San Jose, and other Americans municipalities, for "unselfish public service for the benefit and welfare of mankind" when not a high percentage of Americans are Falun Gong members. As it turns out, they were praising Falun Gong's sit-ins and other political protests against the Chinese government, so I added that bit to the article. The "birthdate controversy" was completely bowdlerized, removing (the secondary source-recorded) mention of Li's prior attempts to change his birthdate, Zhuan Falun's listing of his earlier birthdate, and pre-"persecution" accusations that he was aligning himself with Sakyamuni. All non-primary source material from that controversy was restored.

The bifurcation of Li's "early life" into "Spiritual" and "Chinese government" sections is unhelpful. Falun Gong does not publish "mundane" biographies of Li, but that doesn't mean Misplaced Pages can't. Specific instances where somebody believes the Chinese government falsified its records, like the oxytocin birth — oops! that's sourced to a primary source that you added — can be discussed, but otherwise, it's enough to note the competing narratives and to attribute statements appropriately. Otherwise, I just restored some attributions to Falun Gong sources. Shrigley (talk) 00:42, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Zujine’s decision to clearly delineate between the approved, spiritual biographies and the Chinese government biographies, and will explain why. This is a biography of a living person who has two distinct life stories, as told by two different sources. The accounts are, in many places, irreconcilable. We can include details from each, with due weight, but need to properly ascribe the source of all such claims. As Bejnamin Penny writes, it is all but impossible to find sources of information on Li’s early life that are not associated with either Falun Gong or with the government (the latter having produced biographies only after July 1999 in the context of state suppression). The Falun Gong biographies are entirely spiritual in nature, and contain few details on Li’s career and education. The state biographies are concerned entirely with these things. Both narratives of Li’s life were created with specific agendas in mind, and must be described in the context of those agendas.

Shrigley has removed that differentiation and context. He also restored the statement that David Ownby says Li was born Li Lai in 1952. If you refer to the footnote that Ownby provides, however, you will notice that these details—as with all others that Ownby gives to describe Li’s career and ordinary life—are credited to Chinese government sources, and are not the result of Ownby’s own research. As Ownby writes in the footnote, “These are obviously state propaganda, produced in the context of the campaign against Falun Gong.”

Some of Ownby’s other footnotes provide for some amusement. For instance, Chinese government biographies included anonymous interviews with Li’s elementary school teachers, who are purported to recall him being a very unexceptional student. Ownby gives a good tongue-in-cheek assessment of those claims only in the notes:

“Li was born in 1951 or 1952 and would have begun elementary school in 1957 or 1958. If his third-grade teacher, to take a hypothetical example, had been forty years old in i960, she would have been seventy-nine in 1999, when the campaign against Falun Gong began. One cannot but marvel at the "supernormal powers" of the elementary school teacher who recalls the mediocre writing skills of an unexceptional student forty years earlier.”

I am not suggesting that the Chinese government’s account has no merit at all. Indeed, I think the reason Ownby drew from these bios in spite of their political agendas was that they provide details that are otherwise unavailable, since the Falun Gong biographies do not include many details of Li’s “ordinary life.” But readers should be aware of the source of all claims about Li Hongzhi, and of the possible conflicts of interests of those making those claims. I think a scrupulous interpretation of WP:BLP would lead us to the same conclusion.

Benjamin Penny, probably the most authoritative biographer of Li’s, adds similar caveats, stating that “information about Falun Gong published in the People’s Republic is necessarily part of a negative publicity campaign,” and so should be “treated with caution.” This includes information on his alternate date of birth, alternate name, places or employment, and so forth.

Both of the two main third party biographers of Li Hongzhi (Penny and Ownby) note that accounts from the PRC published in or after the 1999 were propaganda produced in the context of state suppression. We should do the same, though we should take care that our tone should be no less academic.Homunculus (duihua) 04:54, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Another quick note: the oxytocin details (that it was not synthesized until 1953, and thus could not have been used in Li's birth) are also cited in Ownby, page 257. No need for a primary source there.Homunculus (duihua) 05:34, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, if sources are cherry picked like that, it is very easy to find 'evidence' of the 'orthodox' Falun Gong narrative in a third-party scholar's works, append Ownby and Penny's names, and make it seem like it is all 'neutral'. Homunculus is entirely correct in saying that 'the two narratives serve two different goals'. Yet the weighting of the language shifts entirely against the government's biography after Zujine's edit, with emotive language and all the peroxide. Like I said, I don't think it's hard for third-parties to spot the sheer ridiculousness of the POV balance shift in favour of Falun Gong after Zujine's edits, which is precisely why I didn't even bother reverting the changes. And voila!, User AgadaUrbanit, who I have never seen on any China-related articles, let alone Falun Gong, spotted it only several hours after the edits. Let this speak for itself. Colipon+(Talk) 05:44, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Colipon, you earlier protested the deletion of a quotation that was misattributed. Do you have any other specific objections? As I have stated elsewhere, I am only concerned with content and policy, and not in partaking of ideological battles.Homunculus (duihua) 06:01, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I've repeatedly ask Wiki administration to send down some non-involved editors to clean up Falun Gong. Until then, these articles will always be a mess, since disputes like this are endless. I've also repeatedly invited the supposedly 'pro-Falun Gong' editors to endorse this plan, because I think it is the only way to resolve the disputes. But sadly, the response to this has been dismal. Colipon+(Talk) 06:10, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I have always favoured the proposal for unaligned editors to be involved, which is precisely why I've invested so much in reading all the sources I can on Falungong and working to improve these pages. For the record, I am agnostic on Falungong (and in general, though I do believe in the right to human dignity and freedom from torture), but I am knowledgeable on the academic discourses, and have tried to improve these articles accordingly. As you may recall, there are no more Falungong editors around to consent to your plan. In any event, this is not the place to discuss abstract ideas about how to handle these articles.—Zujine|talk 14:57, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Again, none of my remarks were personal, so there is no need to 'clarify' whether or not you are a Falun Gong editor. I have also read both Penny and Ownby and do not find that we are giving these sources a balanced presentation on here, particularly after your earlier set of edits. Ownby was initially very sympathetic to FLG, but in his more recent book Falun Gong and the future of China he distances himself from this. I read these books several years ago so I cannot recall the contents exactly, but the gist of it was that he was very careful not to endorse 'either side of the dispute' - which is the approach that Misplaced Pages should take as well. Thus I raised this as a content concern. I get frustrated because like before, edit wars are occurring again, and much the same pattern of discussions are occurring again. Colipon+(Talk) 15:21, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Birth date controversy

The section dealing with Li's date of birth did not actually describe the nature of the debate (for instance, it did not even explain that May 13 is the birth date of Sakyamuni, or state what the Chinese government thinks the implications are). Zujine tried to fix this, and Shrigley reverted him for reasons unknown. I have again tried to fix it such that it actually tells us something useful.

The old version seemed focused on the question of whether or not Li changed his date of birth in the government records. But that is not source of the controversy; Li agrees that he changed the records. The actual debate centers on the question of whether his purpose was to simply correct the record, or whether he was trying to bolster his spiritual authority and misrepresent himself by aligning his date of birth to that of Sakyamuni. The Chinese government argues the latter, and Li argues the former. This being the case, in my edit I stated clearly that Li did change the government records, and provided his explanation of why he did this. I left in the background about the Changchun faction, even though I frankly don't see how it helps clarify the issue. I also added a note to explain how the Chinese government has attempted to make use of the birth date change, as that was previously lacking.

Two final notes: Chinese government sources have actually given two dates of birth for Li: July 7 and July 27. David Ownby notes this discrepancy, and I have also now noted it. Also, the old version relied on primary sources, namely Chinese government websites. Primary sources should be used with extreme caution in BLP, and this is all the more so when those primary sources are described as propaganda by the reliable sources. I have removed it in accordance with WP:BLP.Homunculus (duihua) 17:33, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

By "primary source" are you referring to the People's Daily Opinion piece. I can understand why an opinion piece might be less than ideal in a BLP despite it being published in a mainstream source but your statement seems to indicate that you believe that government controlled Chinese media should be avoided in this article. That seems like the kind of position that you should verify through the BLP noticeboard. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Sean, the reliable academic sources describe all accounts of Li Hongzhi's life from the PRC post-1999 as propaganda. David Ownby writes that all such details, even the mundane ones, are "obviously state propaganda, produced in the context of the campaign against Falun Gong." Benjamin Penny writes that "one of the targets of the government’s propaganda was the biography of Li Hongzhi, its founder and leader," and elsewhere states "information about Falun Gong published in the People’s Republic is necessarily part of a negative publicity campaign,” and so should be “treated with caution.” The People's Daily is included within that category, and is decidedly not a neutral, mainstream source on Falun Gong. It is a primary source, and a highly partisan one at that. Falun Gong accounts are also primary sources. The article should rely on quality secondary sources. I am happy to take this to the BLP noticeboard if you believe that's necessary.Homunculus (duihua) 18:05, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm uncomfortable with the blanket exclusion. I see your argument as being analogous to someone arguing that we can't use US State Dept press releases in a BLP about a suspected terrorist. It excludes an important, albeit highly partisan, part of the picture. All governments have enemies that they talk about. These kind of concerns are usually handled on a case by case basis in BLPs. I doubt that this will be a problem in practice though as there are plenty of sources. Sean.hoyland - talk 18:31, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Where possible, Chinese government sources should be corroborated with another RS. There is a lot of propaganda emanating from the state, obviously, as many academics have noted. The issue I take here is that, in the very least, state media presentations of materials pre-persecution is more or less acceptable, and not everything the Chinese gov't publishes on this matter is automatically sinister or part of a well-organized conspiracy, especially prior to 1999 (one 'pet issue' in this regard is the alleged link between Luo Gan and He Zuoxiu, which remains in the main article for no good reason). Much of the propaganda following 1999 is essentially embellished versions of pre-1999 investigative reporting. Like the article notes, many of Li's 'rival groups' did the first 'exposes' of Li and Falun Gong in general. The point is, Li's detractors were numerous and far-reaching prior to the state's propaganda campaign. This inevitably exposes another issue with the content - which is that a 'dichotomy'-style presentation of Li's biography is highly misleading. Penny discusses this in great detail, I do not have the passages in front of me, nor the time to flip through the pages again. Colipon+(Talk) 21:23, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I see a user has partially reverted, and thus made the section incomprehensible again. It now reads "According to Li, his date of birth had been misprinted as one of the pervasive bureaucratic errors of the Cultural Revolution, and he was merely correcting it. He called it a "smear" from people trying to destroy him." He called what a smear? The meaning has been completely lost, yet again. Also, can someone explain the objection to just quoting Li Hongzhi? That quote has been used in full in multiple reliable sources, it's not excessively long, and it's the clearest articulation of Li's own position on this. Paraphrasing the quotations means we risk obscuring or misrepresenting the meaning, and that seems to be what happened here.Homunculus (duihua) 18:15, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

A pronoun missing an antecedent is not "complete loss of meaning". The relevant part of Li's remarks are still quoted: he thinks that the Sakyamuni accusation is a "smear", which is what this Misplaced Pages article thinks too, judging by the myriad of qualifications on Chinese government sources (compared to the liberal and preferential use of Falun Gong sources). Some of these qualifications may be inappropriate, since the Changchun report comes from 1992, long before the "persecution". Li's entire quote is just a rant against alleged bureaucratic errors during the Cultural Revolution in general. His opinions about that period shouldn't be quoted because he has no academic qualifications to talk about history that doesn't affect him. Shrigley (talk) 20:22, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Shrigley said the information I provided "sourced to blogs and other improper primary sources, was removed after substantial discussion. Please don't re-add them without addressing the points". But I do not see any discussion regarding this here. I believe the quote from Mr. Li's answer in Fajie (based on Fa speech recording in 1994) that he is not Buddha Shakyamuni should be deemed as very relevant. Marvin 2009 (talk) 18:43, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

A similar statement, made to Time magazine, is already in that section. This is just a matter of using secondary sources rather than primary sources. I hope that seems reasonable to you.Homunculus (duihua) 19:40, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I remember that the 2nd Time interview was in August 1999. It happened after CCP launched the crackdown in July 22nd 1999. However the book Fajie I mentioned was published in 1997 and the transcript the book based on was recorded in 1994. The significance is totally different. Marvin 2009 (talk) 20:54, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

citizenship / nationality

An editor is changing the 'nationality' field from Chinese to United States. Li lives in the United States, but nationality is not defined by place of residence alone, but also by national identity. I suggest keeping nationality as "Chinese," but listing place of residency as United States. On the citizenship question, the same editor is writing that Li became a citizen in the 1990s. This claim is sourced (incorrectly) to Time magazine, as well as to Reuters (which gives a one line "Li, a US citizen, ..."), and encyclopedia Britannica, which curiously states that Li became a U.S. citizen in 1997 and settled in the U.S. in 1998. I reverted this previously because, according to the preponderance of sources (and better sources), it's not the case. Palmer, among others, states that Li settled permanently in the United States in 1998 under an investor immigration status, which granted him permanent residency, but not citizenship. David Ownby states that Li "moved to the United States in 1996 but did not received his green card until 1998" (a green card, in case it's not clear, is for permanent residency, not citizenship). The Time magazine article that was incorrectly used to attribute the claim that Li is a citizen instead states "Li decided to apply for immigration to the U.S." in 1997. As anyone who has ever attempted to navigate the labyrinthine maze of USCIS knows, one does not decide to apply for immigration to the U.S. and mysteriously gain citizenship the same year. Many other sources also state that Li is a permanent resident, not a citizen, and Li himself said this in 1999. If there are no sound objections, I am going to change back to state that Li's nationality is Chinese, and that he became a permanent resident in 1998. Homunculus (duihua) 12:55, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

First, Chinese is the name of nation, not nationality. The name of the Chinese nationality is P.R.China. Second, because the PRC does not recognize dual citizenship with any other country, "Article 9: Any Chinese national who has settled abroad and who has been naturalized as a foreign national or has acquired foreign nationality of his own free will shall automatically lose Chinese nationality.", so according to the founded reliable sources noted, when Li became U.S. citizen, he would automatically lose the nationality of P.R. China. Of course, a permanent resident must not be a citizen, but a citizen is certainly a permanent resident. What you analyzed here are nothing more than WP:OR, and what you called "correct" or "incorrect" is nothing more than your own opinion, until you or others do find some valid sources to support your assumption that "Li does still have the nationality of the P.R.China" under the nationality law of PRC, to against those founded reliable sources. --SH9002 (talk) 16:50, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

The most reliable sources on this subject (ie. David Palmer, David Ownby, etc) do not say that Li is a citizen. They say that Li moved to the United States in 1996, and gained permanent residency in 1998. The preponderance of reliable sources on this subject say the same thing. Needless to say, if Li gained citizenship in 1996 as the Encyclopedia Britannica claims, he would not have sought permanent residency in 1998. The Encyclopedia Britannica evidently made a mistake. It happens; even normally reliable sources are fallible.

To the question of "nationality," we evidently have different definitions of the term. You think nationality refers to citizenship. I think citizenship refers to citizenship. Nationality can be defined by national or ethnic origin, national identity, residence, or citizenship. In all respects except current place of residence, Li is probably best described as a Chinese national. Homunculus (duihua) 17:55, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

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