As first published in the New York Times:
Feng Gang stood in front of 150 people in a conference hall in Beijing that Amway, the American marketing giant, calls its flagship “experience center.”
Introduced endearingly as Big Brother, he pitched the company’s newest product to an audience of recruits — men and women, young and old, one a street sweeper still in his orange municipal jumpsuit.
Mr. Feng said Amway’s energy drink, XS, could reduce blood-alcohol levels by as much as 70 percent. It could cure depression, he went on, or help someone who is drunk drive home. His aim: to get the crowd to go out and sell the products.
For more than a decade, scenes like this represented a financial salvation for Amway and other companies that use sales representatives to recruit others below them in what’s called multilevel marketing.
Facing declining fortunes in the United States and elsewhere, they turned to a ballooning consumer class in China hungry for new products — and susceptible to promises of the riches to be had by selling them.
Now, the future seems less promising. The giants of multilevel marketing have come under a dual assault, from regulators here and in the United States.
Two companies, Herbalife and

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