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CAIXINMEDIA

Parasite Of Power, Demise Of A 21st-Century Chinese Guru

Wang Lin concentrating before one of his famous tricks
Wang Lin concentrating before one of his famous tricks
Song Shinan

BEIJING — Wang Lin is one of China's best-known (and self-proclaimed) qigong masters, drawing in the rich and famous with his spiritual healing methods and such proclaimed feats as chopping off snakes' heads and bringing them back to life. This figure who many believe to be a simple charlatan has attracted senior public officials, movie stars like Jet Li and Jackie Chan and businessmen like Jack Ma, the founder and CEO of the Alibaba group.

Now, Wang been arrested on suspicion of being involved in the kidnapping and murder of one of his disciples.

His is not a unique case: There are many contemporary variations on the figure of the traditional Chinese alchemist. The only difference is that Wang claims to be neither a Buddhist nor Taoist, relying instead on little more than a few weeks of acrobatic troupe training from his youth.

The Ming Dynasty alchemists are Wang Lin's true precursors. Most Ming emperors believed in diabolism and other nonsense coming from crooked monks. As a result, those monks interfered in the ruler's affairs, jeopardized people's livelihoods, and brought endless damage to the empire.

Over the decades, through his skills in fooling people, Wang made acquaintances with a mix of VIPs and wove a powerful personal secret network.

His various outlandish declarations are indispensable gimmicks for attracting clients. Some came to him asking to have a baby. Some wanted to enjoy the company of ten lovers at the same time. Others came with incurable illnesses. Public officials, meanwhile, typically came in search of a promotion or hoping that their wrongdoings would never be found out.

In brief, whether they are entertainment stars, successful businessmen or public officials with great power, these believers aspire to access a mysterious, supernatural force delivered to them directly from Wang.

Not all of his followers, however, are fools. It is very clear in their minds that by visiting the "Wang Palace" — the pompous name the guru gave his five-story home — they'd be ushered into the wealthy club of aristocrats and tycoons. Through Wang's alchemy, the troika of officials, entrepreneurs, and entertainers respectively contribute their power, money, beauty and fame and thus have access to what they desire in return.

Wang is like a spider, crawling across his web, keeping the three categories together. He often held private gatherings in his mansion, with the "big men" of Chinese society rushing to attend.

Solidarity of status

From the point of view of social psychology, such a phenomenon brings physical and material proximity that can create the sense of solidarity within the group, reinforced by the "high status" characteristic shared by the different members.

Wang accepted followers only via recommendation from other high-profile clients. Coupled with his persuasion skills and supposed magical powers, many were thus convinced that Wang was a "superman," and to that being around him would bring blessings and material resources.

To a certain extent, Wang Lin's circle is a pre-modern phenomenon, where no distinction existed between the private and public. As long as one is admitted to this club, official business can be conducted in secret, while private affairs can be solved with public power. Wang Lin had no power himself, but was instead a parasite — using his fame and bogus authority to act like a broker of the power of others.

Alas, Wang's arena can never be exposed to the sunlight. Once a shady circle's words and deeds are before the public eye, it's doomed to collapse. The reason is simple: There is too much entanglement of rights and interests. To protect themselves from public scrutiny, the involved parties would never admit their close relations with the self-proclaimed master, lest they face the uproar of public opinion.

Since Wang's arrest, the authorities remain unclear about his involvement in the murder case. Some suspect a powerful elder in his circle may have tried to eliminate both Wang and his disciple; others wonder if an even more powerful political strongman outside his circle may have wanted to crack down on the power hiding behind Wang. What's certain is that the web of influence that gave Wang Lin his power has unraveled forever.

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Green

The Problem With Always Blaming Climate Change For Natural Disasters

Climate change is real, but a closer look at the science shows there are many factors that contribute to weather-related disasters. It is important to raise awareness about the long-term impact of global warming, but there's a risk in overstating its role in the latest floods or fires.

People on foot, on bikes, motorcycles, scooters and cars navigate through a flooded street during the day time.

Karachi - People wade through flood water after heavy rain in a southern Pakistani city

Xinhua / ZUMA
Axel Bojanowski

-Analysis-

BERLIN — In September, thousands of people lost their lives when dams collapsed during flooding in Libya. Engineers had warned that the dams were structurally unsound.

Two years ago, dozens died in floods in western Germany, a region that had experienced a number of similar floods in earlier centuries, where thousands of houses had been built on the natural floodplain.

Last year saw more than 1,000 people lose their lives during monsoon floods in Pakistan. Studies showed that the impact of flooding in the region was exacerbated by the proximity of human settlements, the outdated river management system, high poverty rates and political instability in Pakistan.

There are many factors that contribute to weather-related disasters, but one dominates the headlines: climate change. That is because of so-called attribution studies, which are published very quickly after these disasters to highlight how human-caused climate change contributes to extreme weather events. After the flooding in Libya, German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described climate change as a “serial offender," while the Tageszeitung wrote that “the climate crisis has exacerbated the extreme rainfall."

The World Weather Attribution initiative (WWA) has once again achieved its aim of using “real-time analysis” to draw attention to the issue: on its website, the institute says its goal is to “analyse and communicate the possible influence of climate change on extreme weather events." Frederike Otto, who works on attribution studies for the WWA, says these reports help to underscore the urgent need for climate action. They transform climate change from an “abstract threat into a concrete one."

In the immediate aftermath of a weather-related disaster, teams of researchers rush to put together attribution studies – “so that they are ready within the same news cycle," as the New York Times reported. However, these attribution studies do not meet normal scientific standards, as they are published without going through the peer-review process that would be undertaken before publication in a specialist scientific journal. And that creates problems.

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