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ASIA
MAY 10, 1999 VOL. 153 NO. 18
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For Chinese officials, Falun Gong is either an unexpected headache or, even more troubling, the latest example of a populace growing restive. Public protests have become more numerous over the past several years. They usually take the form of small-scale demonstrations in the countryside--very rarely in the capital--involving workers who haven't been paid by their state-owned factories, or citizens complaining about arbitrary taxes or local corruption. In 1998 there were more than 2,000 bomb blasts, according to China's Academy of Social Sciences. So far this year, seven bombings have occurred, killing 33 people and injuring more than 100. A meeting of the Communist Party Politburo last week, held to discuss China's application to join the World Trade Organization, ended up focusing on Falun Gong, and Premier Zhu met with members of the Beijing municipal government to consider the group's demands. Beijing has yet to sanction Falun Gong officially as a martial arts group, which is what its members want. To slow the organization's growth, authorities banned publication of Li's books in 1996, although bootleg copies are readily available throughout China.
Little is known about Master Li himself. He comes from China's remote, mountainous Jilin province, and he reportedly worked as a government clerk and a trumpet player in a theatrical troupe. Li claims to have started studying qigong at the age of four, instructed by teachers in two different schools, though he won't name them or even place them geographically, except to say they were "in the mountains." The most intriguing aspect of the Falun Gong phenomenon is how Li transmuted himself from humble breathing master--a figure who normally influences only as many people as he can personally train--to a leader known to millions. It was a transition made possible largely through the power of the printed word and, especially, the Internet.
Conditions couldn't have been riper than in China. Maoism and Marxism are on the wane as free-market practices become increasingly entrenched, and millions of Chinese seem to be searching for something to fill the ideological and spiritual void. Buddhism has come back in a big way--officials estimate that up to 300 million people adhere to a form of the religion--along with Christianity, charismatic cults and secret societies. In the early 1990s, China's officials loosened regulations on qigong groups, which they judged to be localized and unthreatening. Thousands of breathing masters stepped forward to help people control the body's qi, or vital energy. Quacks abound--at least two people were arrested last year, one in Beijing for "occult activities," the other in Shanghai for alleged murder. In March, a top figure in a sect called Zhu Shen Jiao, or Supreme Spirit, was jailed in Hunan province for helping the group defraud locals of cash and tens of thousand of kilos of grain. (Prosecutors said he also persuaded female followers, including girls younger than 14, to have sex with the group's leader. Zhu Shen Jiao, which has 10,000 members, apparently has also called for an overthrow of China's government.) But sects continue to mushroom along with a belief in qigong and its powers. In China's cities, hospital patients frequently complain of qi ailments. The term "Qi Gong-Induced Psychosis" was recently included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the bible of America's psychiatric professionals, where it is described as a culturally bound disorder with painful psychosomatic symptoms.
According to Master Li, he started Falun Gong reluctantly in 1992. He says he had no interest in doing what other masters do, but those mysterious teachers in the mountains insisted. He recalls: "They said, 'What you do will be different. These people who are teaching how to cure illnesses and teaching fitness are paving the road for your coming out.'" Li published his first book, China Falun Gong, in the mid-1990s, and it became a bestseller. In 1997 Li decided to apply for immigration to the U.S. because, he says, China's security organs were getting concerned about the rising number of his adherents.
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R E L A T E D
S T O R I E S :
Interview
With Falun Gong's mysterious leader, Li Hongzhi
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