Asiaweek Ranks Mr. Li Hongzhi as Number One among the 50 Most Powerful People in Asia

[Clearwisdom.net] In the recent issue of Asiaweek, Mr. Li Hongzhi is ranked as the number one in Asiaweek's sixth annual ranking of the 50 most powerful people in Asia.

In an article written by Richard Hornik, it says

"If all the rapid, often violent changes that have swept across Asia in the past 20 years, none has shaken the region more than the revolution in communications. Asia's elders -- its political, social and business leaders -- had long clung to the strictly vertical, top-down communication pattern handed down over the centuries..."

"Rapid economic development in the 1980s had begun to erode that hierarchy. But the advent in the past five years of the Internet, e-mail, and mobile phones and the continued blossoming of satellite broadcasting have flattened that structure..."

"That sea change has shaped the selection process for this, Asiaweek's sixth annual ranking of the region's 50 most powerful people. In the following pages, we will catalog the personalities we believe are changing not just the face of Asia, but its mind and soul. As a result, 35 of last year's Power 50 elite -- many of them old-style politicians and tycoons -- are off the list. In their place are some of the region's new economy entrepreneurs, an Oscar-winning film director, an Olympic gold medalist turned marketing queen, and our Power 50 number one: Falungong spiritual leader Li Hongzhi."

"Why Li? In just nine years, he has built from scratch a movement numbering in the tens of millions. His followers are so committed to him that he has rattled China's encrusted leadership. In spite of Beijing's draconian steps to quash the movement -- and the relatively dated technologies of audio and video cassettes used by Li's disciples -- Falungong's following continues to grow. His appeal also helps demonstrate that communication is a two-way street. The power of a message also depends on the receptiveness of the audience. Falungong and other religious movements such as Christianity fill a spiritual and moral vacuum created by the [party' name omitted] Party's inability to articulate a new ideology other than the creation of material prosperity."

"The communications revolution has only begun to destroy the barriers of status and tradition which have kept Asians from talking to each other, and the rest of the world, for centuries. Most of the messages communicated by the people on our list are positive. Some contain the seeds of hatred and intolerance. But it is the transforming power of what they have to say and the way they convey it that we are ranking this year, not the ephemeral clout that comes from the barrel of a gun or even from a barrel of money."