Historical, Social and Political Analysis of the Reasons Behind the Persecution of Falun Gong in China

According to statements in the July 27, 1999, edition of The People’s Daily and quotes from many officials, the conflict between Falun Gong and Communism is seen by Party leaders as a struggle between theism and atheism, superstition and science, and idealism and materialism. These dichotomies are in fact grossly inaccurate. Regardless, these ideological issues are not the true reasons for banning Falun Gong. Falun Gong does not talk about superstitions or idealism, and it is by no means against Communism. Were Falun Gong “against” communism or the Government, this would mean that millions of practitioners were “against” themselves: millions of practitioners were Chinese Communist Party members before the ban, and this includes many high-ranking officials. This whole matter has been thoroughly explained in practitioners’ “Ten Thousand-Word letter” to the Central Government. We offer here several reasons behind the central authority’s suppression of Falun Gong.

Historical Issues

Classifying Falun Gong as a “cult” was simply an excuse to try to eliminate it. Many relatives of senior officials in the Communist Party are Falun Gong practitioners. Mr. Li [the founder of Falun Gong]conducted public teaching for several years, and the public has seen that Falun Gong has impacted society very positively. The Public Security Department has investigated Falun Gong for years. Members of the Department have clearly stated in their duty reports that they see no dangers or violations in Falun Gong. Some have even decided to begin the practice upon learning through their investigations just how upstanding practitioners are. How could the Department and other offices not know that Falun Gong is an upright practice? How could they not know that Mr. Li has always taught people to be good citizens with higher morals? How could they forget that Mr. Li has repeatedly told practitioners not to interfere with national politics or to violate any laws? Officials’ collective amnesia, it seems, is highly strategic.

The fundamental reason for the suppression of Falun Gong is that the Communist Party does not trust Falun Gong practitioners since they are such a large group. There is a historical precedent for fear of large groups in China, so perhaps one could imagine an awareness of history factoring in. Chinese, as a people, are very aware of their history. And these people need think back no further than the last few centuries to recall that two of Chinese history’s bloodiest rebellions, the Boxer Rebellion and the Taiping Rebellion, each began with a charismatic religious figure. Traditional thinking, which posits that history repeats itself in predictable cycles, still holds sway in the minds of many Chinese. Many auspicious dates have come and passed in Falun Gong’s brief history, and each such event has made the practice’s detractors anxious. The past 100 years have been a bloody, unstable century for China, and ruthless competition for power (primarily internal, no less) has left many historically-conscious citizens sceptical of groups claiming benevolent intent.

Yet any knowledge of Falun Gong’s principles and behaviour should render such historical thinking irrelevant. If Falun Gong is examined outside of socio-historical contexts, one sees that this popular practice is quite unlike both its predecessors and kin. This can be said of not only its practitioners, but also of its teacher and his teachings. Falun Gong has, however, become guilty of one intolerable offence in Mainland China: as of early 1999, the number of Falun Gong practitioners happened to exceed the number of Communist Party members. It was estimated by a Government sponsored census that the number of Falun Gong practitioners was 70-100 million, while the Communist Party’s membership totalled only 60 million. Falun Gong practitioners typically gather every day in the park for two or more hours to practice their qigong together. Meanwhile, a typical Party member might attend a total of one Party meeting, lasting maybe two hours, in an entire month; his or her membership might be a mere formality that affords certain social privileges. Were Falun Gong a political entity, some apprehensions by Chinese Government officials would be understandable. During its numerous investigations, China’s Public Security Department found that many practitioners were both party members and government officials. As a result, the Chinese Communist Party believed that Falun Gong had been “taking people away” from them. Bound by historical thinking, officials could not imagine a group this size having anything but political aspirations.

Although the population practicing Falun Gong has become large, most practitioners are outstanding citizens with high moral standards. They form a strong force that upholds social stability, if any social influence exists. Falun Gong’s teacher, Mr. Li Hongzhi, has been explicit that practitioners are not to involve Falun Gong in political matters whatsoever. Falun Gong is about benefiting others through an individual’s self-cultivation practice, not through political means. Why should the Communist Party be against it? It is because they cannot believe that there are people in the world who would not interfere with politics or seek power. Despite Mr. Li’s repeatedly explaining to the Government that Falun Gong will not interfere with politics now or in the future, the Government has tenaciously clung to the belief that if the practice is allowed to continue, it will form a strong force against the government.

Social Issues

In terms of China’s current social predicament, the country is currently experiencing incredible changes in every aspect of society. Nothing short of a “crisis in values” is unfolding, as foreign values indigenous to capitalist markets and radically different societies pour into Chinese culture daily. Little is in place to check this influx of values and ideas. As the dying embers of deep-seated traditional culture--culture that even weathered the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), to some extent-- go out, all sorts of problems novel to China emerge. Discontent and disease with current conditions are common to many. While such issues are far beyond the scope of this essay, suffice to say that political leadership in China is very uncertain over how to handle these things.

Falun Gong finds itself amidst some of these tensions, and certain self-seeking Chinese Communist Party officials have exploited this. Most notably, Falun Gong finds itself at the intersection of traditional Chinese cultivation arts (such as qigong and taiji) and modern Western science and biomedicine. For thousands of years, the Chinese have enjoyed traditional healing arts such as acupuncture, herbal medicine, and qigong. More importantly, these aspects of traditional culture provide deep understanding of human life, nature, the universe, and the relationships among them. During the Cultural Revolution, these arts were slapped with the labels “superstition,” “fraud,” “backwards,” “unscientific,” and even “embarrassing,” amongst others.

Although the Chinese Government has promoted these practices in the last two decades as a means to resolving a terribly-burdened health care system, these traditional arts have never fully recovered their nobility. Thus, when it serves certain persons’ political purposes, those labels are once again hauled out and thrown around to incriminate others. This is easily accomplished as anything grounded in Western science (such as Western bio-medicine) is seen as “modern” and “progressive” in contemporary China. It should come as little surprise, then, that the Chinese media ran numerous stories in the last couple years declaiming Falun Gong as “superstitious” and reeking of “feudalism.”22 As many of its practitioners discontinue medical treatment, some people have suggested that Falun Gong is antagonistic to modern science and medicine.

Ironically, at the same time, many hard-line Party members--some of whom are well-known scientists in China--continue to believe that Maoism and Marxist doctrine are “hard science,” meaning akin to physics and chemistry. As among Falun Gong practitioners there are many accomplished scientists, such rhetoric has not gone unnoticed or unchallenged. So even science has become a politically-charged entity in China today. Many supposed “scientists” have allied themselves with those in political power and attacked Falun Gong for personal gain. We thus witness the political campaign against Falun Gong being heralded as a “scientific achievement.”

While Chinese leaders like to describe 1999 as a year of “challenge and opportunity,” the “challenge” segment is what has largely prevailed for the Government. Economic growth has come to a grinding halt, worrying many leaders. Majority of the Government’s state owned enterprises are constantly losing money, and many now face bankruptcy. Unemployment is skyrocketing, while the gap between the rich and the poor has widened dramatically. Class tensions are emerging in a distinctly poignant, modern form, of which China has not seen the likes. Demonstrations by those who are unemployed take place across the country almost every day. As this develops into a nationwide problem, it grows ever harder to control. All of this makes for novel, severe health care problems. Demoralization is perhaps the highest it has been in years. These matters lead into the issue of China’s political situation.

Political Issues

Politically, today’s China is focusing on economic and technological development. The political forum is set up for those who have expertise in the economy, technology, and management. Those who specialize in political propaganda and in fighting battles over ideology have lost their opportunities for political advancement. Yet many of these persons have had important roles in the history of the Communist Party. A stable, peaceful, and prosperous China, however, gives them very little chance to maintain the powerful positions they once enjoyed when political campaigning was the focus of the Party. To remain necessary components of the government, these people desperately need political unrest. Hence, they have in fact been working hard to create unrest. Falun Gong, they decided, was just what was needed.

These individuals began by having police officers harass Falun Gong practitioners at the local level. They next fabricated evidence to defame Falun Gong and its teacher, spreading negative publicity through government-run newspapers and television. Soon after, police were ordered to beat and arrest people who expressed their concerns to those newspaper editors, such as in the city of Tianjin incident. When practitioners went to the central government at Zhongnanhai to appeal for the release of those arrested, they were channelled in a certain manner so as to create the appearance of assaulting the Chinese leadership compound. By the time of the Zhongnanhai incident, those self-seeking Party members had almost succeeded in creating a “crisis” to scare top Chinese officials into thinking they needed to call on these political experts for help. The peaceful resolution to the Zhongnanhai gathering (facilitated by Premier Zhu Ronji’s kind intervention) disappointed these political plotters. To China’s misfortune, however, President Jiang Zemin--who is also the Communist Party’s General Secretary--was convinced that his power was threatened by this large group of people. Those who plotted all of this once again enjoy centre stage of the Chinese political arena, driving the anti-Falun Gong campaign at break-neck speed. They also find themselves enjoying an opportunity to harm their political rivals. Clearly, Falun Gong has been misinterpreted in every possible way to serve political purposes in China.

One important thing to note is that self-interest has been laced with a most potent thing throughout this matter: fear. Recall that in an editorial in The People’s Daily it was stated that the government believes Falun Gong is fighting with them for people, and that Falun Gong has penetrated into the Party and political institutions-- including key departments, attempting to develop a force against the Chinese Government. Wang Zhaoguo, Minister of the Chinese United Front Line, and Hu Jintao, Vice President of China, believe that the creation and alleged penetration of Falun Gong denotes a political struggle with the Communist Party for its people.

Though often unassociated, a number of phenomena exist alongside Falun Gong that drive Party members’ paranoia. Being the year of the 10th anniversary of the student Democratic movement in Tiananmen Square, political dissidents were more active than before in 1999 and tried to organize an oppositional political party. The ethnic groups in Xingjian as well as Tibetans are struggling for independence. To the east just across the Taiwan straight, Taiwan is also voicing its independent status. Instead of addressing larger issues, the Chinese leadership has chosen to demonstrate its intolerance of any independent expression. A show of strength has been opted for over a show of concern. This has failed to resolve any of these issues, instead inducing larger conflicts. But conflict, it turns out, is the medicine chosen by many Party officials to recover the nation’s health and to vault personal standing.

Should anyone doubt that Party leaders are conscious and concerned by such things, he or she need look no further than to the accidental NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia and its aftermath. China’s state-run media seized the mishap as an occasion for whipping-up a strong sense of national identity and cohesion. Conspiracy theories and the claim that America did this “intentionally” and “viciously” were fed to a non-discerning public. Chinese officials relished the opportunity to scapegoat America (which it equated with NATO, somehow) and spur Chinese nationalism-- something not aroused anytime too recently.

To solidify this connection between Party officials’ anxiety and the crackdown on Falun Gong, one can recall that the same week Falun Gong was banned; President Jiang Zimen and other senior officials blasted Taiwan and its President Lee Teng-hui for its “separatist tactics.” Calling Lee “an evil man” and “a traitor to all Chinese people,” the Chinese propaganda machine did all it could to create a national spirit.

In the end, something Chinese was chosen as the grand scapegoat: Falun Gong. Every imaginable social, political and economic problem has been placed upon the back of the Falun Gong sacrificial lamb. In doing so, the Chinese Government has done all possible to make itself out as the hero, protecting the Chinese people from the immanent, dangerous presence within China--Falun Gong. In the name of “social order,” the Government has engineered and executed a ruthless persecution of Falun Gong. Nothing could be more ironic, as Falun Gong was perhaps the best answer to some of China’s deep social woes. In making the persecution of Falun Gong out to be a heroic, noble, necessary deed, the Party has manufactured every imaginable piece of “evidence” to justify its terrible actions. On the sly, the Government has also intensified its persecution of ethnic minorities, unofficial religious groups, and democracy advocates. Even the practice of other qigong schools is now outlawed in public places--a fact revealing that it is not Falun Gong that scares leaders, but anybody doing something out of their control.

All of this seems to reflect the Party’s having lost its ability to deal with critical issues. The Party does not feel secure with the existence of any social group that could possibly exert wide-ranging social influence. They find such a presence--no matter how benign or even beneficial--intolerable. This is no acceptable way to deal with insecurities or larger, unaddressed social, political, and economic issues.