Zhang Hongbao

Early life Zhang was born in 1954 in Harbin, where his family trade was coal-mining. Zhang spent ten years during the Cultural Revolution in a state farm in Heilongjiang, during which time he started practicing Qigong. In 1977, he was admitted to the Harbin School of Metallurgy. On leaving, he joined the Communist Party and became a physics teacher in a mining region. Zhang gained entrance into the Beijing University of Science and Technology in 1985 where he studied Economic management. Palmer, citing Ji Yi, said Zhang obtained only mediocre grades as a student, but he was interested in a diverse range of modules from Law to Chinese and Western Medicine. He also signed on at the Chinese Qigong Further Education Academy. During this time he developed a style of Qigong which was based on automation, physics, relativity, bionics, and with distinctive use of mechanical engineering jargon. After graduation, he became a paid qigong researcher at a university during the Qigong boom in China. launching it on the auspicious date of 8 August.

According to Perry, in the early 1990s, Zhang and his followers withdrew to Qingchengshan, deep in Sichuan, where Zhang would reorganise his activities into commercial enterprises, the flagship of which was the Qilin Group, based in Qilin City. Cunningham states the group was made up of some 60 companies headquartered in Tianjin. The group reportedly employed 100,000 workers, mostly in qigong-related education, publication and health-product ventures.

Criminal allegations and exile Unlike Li Hongzhi, founder of Falun Gong, who disavowed political ambition, Zhang Hongbao positively embraced it.

In 2000, a close disciple defected from the group and wrote a scathing exposé alleging that Zhang was a fraud and had illicit sex with followers. Independent Chinese skeptic Sima Nan alleged that Zhang was a rapist and may even have been responsible for the murders of some former followers. The Chinese Government issued a warrant for his arrest on 7 June 2000, and a statement calling for his return to face four counts of rape between 1990 and 1991, and two counts of using forged travel documents between 1993 and 1994. Zhang was denied asylum by the United States, but was granted wrongful withholding, which prevented repatriation to China. After 13 months in detention in Guam, he secured the services of Robert Shapiro, who defended O.J. Simpson. Shapiro claims credit for gaining the support of Trent Lott and Jesse Helms for Zhang's application.

In April, the China Federation Foundation (CFF) was founded with money from Zhang, and led by a dissident named Peng Ming. This group wanted to form an alternative government for China through the violent overthrow of the Communist government.

In what may have been a power struggle within the Chinese dissident movement, Zhang subsequently fell out with other dissidents, including Yan Qingxin, his domestic partner for 12 years. Until September 2001, Yan was Zhong Gong's first lieutenant and "helped build the organization into a powerful entity that made billions of dollars". Yan filed a lawsuit on 26 June in Pasadena Superior Court accusing Zhang of assault, battery and false imprisonment, and asked for damages of US$23 million. If convicted, Zhang would have lost his protection status and been expelled from the United States. In the end, the felony charges in the He Nanfang case were reduced to one charge of battery, a misdemeanor, to which Zhang pleaded no contest on 22 April 2005.