'Tiens' (a.k.a. 'Tianshi') - how do we explain this madness? ... It's a Chinese-controlled 'Amway' copy-cat blame-the-victim 'MLM' cultic racket.

Several years ago, I was contacted by a young French journalist who asked:

'Tiens, comment expliquer cette folie?' ('Tiens, how do we explain this madness?').

I initially responded by sending this enquirer a link to a critical article that had recently appeared in 'The Guardian.'

The Chinese multinational making millions out of vulnerable Ugandans | Uganda | The Guardian

It turned out that the French journalist had personally-witnessed around 6500 fanatical (mostly-Chinese) 'Tiens' adherents attending a 'convention' in Paris. This event culminated in a kitsch publicity-stunt in Nice on the Cote d'Azur, primarily designed to attract positive media coverage and insert the name 'Tiens' in the  'Guiness Book of Records.' The French 'Tourist Office' as well as French politicians and journalists had (apparently in total ignorance of reality) been lured into playing along with this sinister game of make-believe. 'Tiens' adherents were generally described by the French, and international, media as, 'employees,' whilst emphasis was placed only on the temporary economic benefits this event had brought to France. Apparently, the cost was around 30 millions euros and involved the booking of thousands of rooms in hundreds of French hotels and the sale of thousands of rail tickets. However (as far as I'm aware), no rigorous independent investigation of who/what really financed this reality-inverting show, or accurate explanation of what 'Tiens' actually hides, has ever appeared in the French, or international, media.

Tiens – The Direct Selling Association (dsa.org.uk)

Some readers might be surprised to learn of 'Tiens' (a.k.a. 'Tianshi') - a Chinese-based blame-the-victim 'Amway' copy-cat 'Multi-Level Marketing' cult which makes the astonishing claim to have established corporate subsidiaries in 110 countries (including the USA, France, Germany and UK) and to have more than 40 millions adherents in more than 200 countries. The organization's propaganda further boasts that 'Tiens' has 'established strategic partnerships with top enterprises,' and is 'a successful major global enterprise with ambitions to make a difference to worlds health, to create business development opportunities and to spread hope.'

Li Jinyuan (businessman) - Wikipedia

If the 40 millions figure is accurate, then this means that more than 30% of all current claimed contractors of 'MLM' companies world-wide are signed up with 'Tiens.' Classically, the bosses of 'Tiens' have never disclosed (in an easy-to-understand format) what is the overall net-loss/churn rate for participation in their so-called 'MLM Income Opportunity.'

 

The ostensible intigator and boss of 'Tiens,' is (rags to riches 'billionaire') Li Jinyuan (b. 1958), who looks like he has come straight out of a 'James Bond' Movie.

       Ken McCallum                                                                        Christopher Wray

China: MI5 and FBI heads warn of ‘immense’ threat - BBC News

Speaking of 'James Bond,' last week, the heads of UK, and US, security services (Ken McCallum MI5 and Christopher Wray FBI) made an unprecedented joint public appearance in London to warn an invited-audience (from the world of business and academia) of the 'immense threat to our economic and national security posed by China.'

In short, it has been concluded that the leadership of the ruling Chinese Communist party has been directing, and is steadily escalating, the prosecution of an (undeclared) economic war; using agents, various corporate-fronts and other deceptive methods (including hacking), to steal valuable technology 'on a massive scale'. This state-sponsored criminal activity not only profits the Chinese economy, but also inflicts long-term economic and social damage on China's major competitors. Various examples of how these thefts, and attempted thefts, have been perpetrated, were detailed by the heads of MI5 and the FBI, and these matters are subject to ongoing investigations.

Predictably, a torrent of gaslighting propaganda statements were immediately issued in response to this evidence-based analysis and warning, in which the ruling Chinese regime simply offered a blanket denial and pretended that the heads of MI5 and the FBI are delusional.  

However, I would contend that the heads of our security services themselves need to be warned; for (apparently-unknown to them) there is a lucrative 'technology' that has already been taken and copied by the Chinese, but which (for obvious reasons) has never been legally-registered as the intellectual property of any individual or corporate structure. This is because the 'technology' in question is a proven system for deceiving large numbers of vulnerable people into de facto servitude. Furthermore, the Chinese must have deduced that they too can get away with peddling their own adaptation of the big 'MLM' lie in plain sight, because the original version has been developed over decades by the bosses of various copy-cat American organized crime groups hiding behind labyrinths of legally-registered corporate structures and posing as 'compassionate capitalists.'  During this period, a syndicate of American 'MLM' crime-bosses has acquired control over a mountain of stolen money; some of which has been used to infiltrate traditional culture and acquire political protection to a degree which makes Mafia bosses look like a bunch of amateurs.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of 'Tiens' is the fact that economically-unviable trading schemes based on endless-chain recruitment (as opposed to economically-viable single level traditional direct selling schemes) have long-since been specifically-banned by law in mainland China. So how is it possible that 'Tiens' has been allowed to exist, if it hasn't been one of various corporate-fronts for the ruling Chinese Communist regime?

In conclusion, the co-ordinated devious techniques of social, psychological and physical persuasion which have been, and continue to be, inflicted on the adherents of 'MLM' cults (without their fully-informed consent), should be immediately recognised by the leaders of our security services as an immense threat to our economic and national security, no matter where these 'MLM' cults have been based.

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Multi-Level Marketing' Warning.

The following deconstructed analysis has been formulated to sharpen the critical and evaluative faculties of all unwary persons approaching so-called 'Multi-Level Marketing' from the dangerous (subjective) point of view that it must be a business/industry, rather than from the safe (purely-objective) point of view that they don't really know what it is.
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More than half a century of quantifiable evidence proves beyond all reasonable doubt that:

• the widely-misunderstood phenomenon that has become popularly-known as 'Multi-Level Marketing' (a.k.a. 'Network Marketing') is nothing more than an absurd, non-rational, economic pseudo-science maliciously-designed to lure unwary persons into de facto servitude, dissociate them from external reality and not only steal their money, but also deceive them into unconsciously acting the role of bait to lure other unwary persons (particularly their friends and family members) into the same trap.

• the technical-sounding made-up jargon term, 'MLM,' is therefore, the misleading title for an enticing structured-scenario of control which has been developed, and constantly acted out as reality, by the instigators, and associates, of various copy-cat, major and minor, ongoing organised crime groups (hiding behind labyrinths of legally-registered corporate structures) to shut-down the critical, and evaluative, faculties of victims, and of casual observers, in order to perpetrate, and dissimulate, a series of blame-the-victim 'Long Cons' - comprising self-perpetuating rigged-market swindles, a.k.a. pyramid scams (dressed up as 'legitimate direct selling income opportunites') and related advance-fee frauds (dressed up as 'legitimate: training and motivation, self-betterment, programs, recruitment leads, lead generation systems,' etc.).

• apart from an insignificant minority of shills (whose leading-role in the 'Long Con' has been to pretend that anyone can achieve financial freedom simply by following their unquestioning example and exactly-duplicating a step-by-step-plan of recruitment and self-consumption), the hidden overall net-loss/churn rate for participation in so-called 'MLM income opportunities,' has always been effectively 100%.

The enticing structured-scenario of control fundamental to all 'rigged-market swindles' is that people can earn income by first contributing their own money to participate in a profitable commercial opportunity, but which is secretly an economically-unviable fake due to the fact that the (alleged) opportunity has been rigged so that it generates no significant, or sustainable, revenue other than that deriving from its own ill-informed participants. For more than 60 years, 'Multi-Level Marketing' racketeers have been allowed to dissimulate rigged-market swindles by offering endless-chains of victims various banal, but over-priced, products, and/or services, in exchange for unlawful losing-investment payments, on the pretext that 'MLM' products/services can then be regularly re-sold for a profit in significant quantities via expanding networks of distributors. However, since 'MLM' products/services cannot be regularly re-sold to the general public for a profit in significant quantities (based on value and demand), 'MLM' participants have, in fact, been peddled infinite shares of their own finite money (in the false expectation of future reward).

Thus, in 'MLM' rackets, the innocent looking products/sevices' function has been to hide what is really occurring.  i.e The operation of an unlawful, intrinsically fraudulent, rigged-market where effectively no non-salaried (transient) participant can generate an overall net-profit, because, unknown to the non-salaried (transient) participants, the market is in a permanent state of collapse and requires its non-salaried (transient) participants to keep finding further (temporary) de facto slaves to sustain the enticing illusion of stability and viability.
Meanwhile an insignificant (permanent) minority direct the 'Long Con' - raking in vast profits by selling into the rigged-market and by controlling/withholding all key-information concerning the rigged-market's actual catastrophic, ever-shifting results from its never-ending chain of (temporary) de facto slaves.

Although cure-all pills potions and vitamin/dietary supplements, household and beauty, products have been most-prevalent, it is possible to use any product, and/or service, to dissimulate a rigged-market swindle. There are even some 'MLM' rackets that have been hidden behind well-known traditional brands (albeit offered at fixed high prices). Some 'MLM' rackets have included 'cash-back/discount shopping cards, travel products, insurance, energy/communications services' and 'crypto-currencies' in their controlling scenarios.

No matter what bedazzling product/service has been dangled as bait, in 'MLM' rackets, there has been no significant or sustainable source of revenue other than never-ending chains of persons under contract to the 'MLM' front companies. These front-companies always pretend that their products/services are high quality and reasonably-priced and that for anyone prepared to put in some effort, the products/services can be easily sold on for a profit via expanding networks of distributors (based on value and demand). In reality, the underlying reason why it has mainly only been (transient) 'MLM' contractors who have bought the various products /services (and not the general public) is because they have been tricked into unconsciously playing along with the controlling scenario which constantly says that via regular self-consumption and the recruitment of others to do the same, etc. ad infinitum, anyone can receive a future (unlimited) reward.

I've been examining the 'MLM' phenomenon for around 25 years. During this time, I've yet to find one so-called 'MLM' front-company that has voluntarily made key-information available to the public concerning the quantifiable results of its so-called 'income opportunity' in an easy-to-understand format.

Part of the key-information that all 'MLM' bosses seek to hide concerns the overall number of persons who have signed contracts since the front companies were instigated and the retention rates of these persons.

When rigorously investigated, the overall hidden net-loss churn rates for so-called 'MLM income opportunites' has turned out to have been effectively 100%. Thus, anyone claiming (or implying) that it is possible for the average participant to make a penny of net-profit, let alone a living, in an 'MLM,' cannot be telling the truth and will not provide quantifiable evidence to back up his/her anecdotal claims.

Although a significant number of 'MLM' front-companies (like 'Vemma', 'Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing', 'Wake Up Now') have been shut-down by commercial regulators in the USA, some of the biggest 'MLM' rackets (like 'Amway' ,'Herbalife', Forever Living Products' ) have continued to hide in plain sight whilst secretly churning tens of millions of losing participants over decades

The quantifiable results of the self-perpetuating global 'Long Con' known as 'Multi Level Marketing,' have been fiendishly hidden by convincing victims that they are 'Independent Business Owners' and that any losses they incurred, must have been entirely their own fault for not working hard enough.

Chronic victims of 'MLM' cults are invariably incapable of describing what they were subjected to in accurate terms. Even though they are no longer physically playing along with the 'Long Con's' controlling-scenario, they unconsciously continue to think, and speak, using the jargon-laced 'MLM' script – illogically describing themselves as 'Distributors, Ambassadors, Business Owners’ etc.'

Chronic victims of blame-the-victim rackets who have managed to escape and confront the ego-destroying reality that they’ve been systematically deceived and exploited, are invariably destitute and dissociated from all their previous social contacts. For years afterwards, recovering victims can suffer from psychological problems (which are also generally indicative of the victims of abuse): depression; overwhelming feelings (guilt, grief, shame, fear, anger, embarrassment, etc.); dependency/ inability to make decisions; retarded psychological/ intellectual development; suicidal thoughts; panic/ anxiety attacks; extreme identity confusion; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; insomnia/ nightmares; eating disorders; psychosomatic illness, fear of forming intimate relationships; inability to trust; etc.

David Brear (copyright 2022)