> One attempt involved a battleship “accidentally” firing onto another battleship where both Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping were visiting.

Hm. That really does qualify as an assassination attempt if it wasn't an actual accident. Enough such things happen by accident that it has a name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_fire

These are FalungGong. I will not trust Falun Gong's news on China. They are known to create conspiracy stories.

Agreed. Whilst I don’t trust China’s CCP, I sure as heck don’t trust anything from Falun Gong. Those guys are running an asymmetric battle against the Chinese State and frankly they would be capable of saying anything if it helped their cause.

What is Falun Gong exactly? I never understood what they are.

Interesting. The Wikipedia's declaration about them being "new religious movement" is inconsistent with the body of the article. It looks like it started as some kind of Chi Kung exercise and wellness group, but it got big very fast and Chinese Government got concerned about their popularity. Then, under CCP persecution, it escalated and morphed into a full-blown political dissident movement. Initially viewed favorably by the press as a dissident movement. Now, Wikipedia article is very unfavorable because The Epoch Times misalignment with press. Ok, I think I understand.

I wouldn't trust either the CCP or Falun Gong to speak my weight, they are both power structures and they are both engaging in all kinds of PR exercises to put themselves in the best light. But to Falun Gong's credit: I don't think they've engaged in massive human rights violations so they have that going for them. But there are certain cult like aspects to it and 'new religious movement' or not I think that the fewer such entities there are the better (and also fewer of the likes of the CCP please).

I mean I would too if my ethnicity was so repressed, along with all the other non han Chinese.

Falun Gong is a religion, not an ethnicity, and they are of the cultish variety.

It's like believing the scientology center. Not trustworthy, they have an angle.

1. The sources aren’t limited to falun gong

2. It makes sense given Xi’s current paranoia and constant purges

Search for

  search terms site:nytimes.com

(or bbc.co.uk or ap.com or another trusted source)