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Iris G Qin
6 days ago7 min read

War on Faith: Falun Gong & Self-Politicization




Falun Gong protest in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.


Iris G Qin is a second-year BSc Anthropology student with an interest in history, religion, foreign affairs, and international law. 


A stark message, “Stop forced organ harvesting in China,” was plastered across large blue and white posters on a busy Chinatown Street. The setup of the yellow booth, with its posters cluttered with mixed Chinese and English text, along with individuals engaged in strange, meditative postures on the ground, was immediately alarming. Closer inspection revealed that the table belonged to a group called the “Falun Gong” and shockingly contained images of apparent torture. I recall that one photo displayed a picture of a hospitalised person with medical tools at their side, which horrified me at the time. Such a set-up in the midst of last year’s Chinese Lantern Festival seemed propagandistic or even cult-like. What was the truth behind such disturbing imagery and the fervent headlining or organ harvesting, persecution, and government-headed torture?  Understanding this question requires a deeper exploration of Falun Gong and its clash with the Chinese government. Here’s everything to know about this ‘new religious movement’ and how their codes have evolved to self-politicize against their persecution.


Origin


Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, was born out of qigong, a traditional Chinese practice that incorporates movement, breathing, and meditative postures to improve physical and spiritual health (Ownby, 2003, pp.303-304). Part of the 1980s religious revival following Mao’s “spiritual vacuum,” qigong is characterized by alternative medicine and contains elements of spirituality, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism despite being grounded in practical action. 


Qigong was initially supported by the Chinese government, with efforts to push forward a new tool of uniquely “Chinese science” and national pride, even going as far as to systemise qigong practice with institutions such as the China Qigong Scientific Research Association. Growing in popularity, qigong began to develop in spiritual or religious directions, one case being Li Hongzhi. Li combined the physical practices of qigong with several teachings and moral codes, cultivating what would become Falun Gong around three base pillars: truth, compassion, and forbearance. Through ethical self-cultivation, these qualities would ultimately lead practitioners to attain spiritual elevation (Ownby, 2003, pp.303-304).


In the early years of Falun Gong, the group found success as a qigong-based healing organisation (UNHCR, 2002), attracting followers with its promise of physical and spiritual well-being. Its charismatic leader, Li Hongzhi, claimed to possess supernatural abilities and pledged to transfer these to his disciples (Chan, 2004, p.670). Additionally, central to the leader-disciple relation was Li’s promise to install a rotating wheel in the stomach of each practitioner, which would purify them and bring health (Ownby, 2003, p. 307). Falun Gong promoted pseudoscientific contributions, apocalyptic beliefs, and promises of salvation, but most importantly, its culture was profoundly Chinese and thus significant towards revitalising Chinese cultural heritage both domestically and overseas, following the failure of the Cultural Revolution and the nation’s opening to the West (Ownby, 2003, p. 308). 




Thousands of practitioners attend a Falun Gong exercise site in Guangzhou, China.


The Chinese Communist Party’s Crackdown


In 1996, Falun Gong was dropped from the China Qigong Scientific Research Association, the official institution in charge of major Qigong organisations of the time (Lu, Su and Zhou, 2018, p.44). Among growing tensions between the group and the Chinese government, this led Li to begin politicising Falun Gong, a process that would ultimately shift the group’s own pillars. Falun Gong began to put pressure on the media as well as scientists who critiqued the group and its dubious scientific doctrines, organising protest events that eventually cumulated into the 10,000-member sit-in protest outside top CCP leaders’ working site. 


This was a striking manifestation of the threat posed by the Falun Gong – its sudden growth from 1992 and its identity as an independent organisation stood at odds with the government’s authoritarian and ideologically singular nature. With its demographic largely consisting of educated, middle and upper-class members, the government feared that the Falun Gong’s numbers could have a destabilising effect on society if it were to mobilise politically, which finally occurred on April 25th, 1999, during the sit-in. 


China declared Falun Gong to be a “heretic cult” (Home Office, 2023, p.14) and began a persecution process that drew parallels to the Cultural Revolution. Book burnings and public arrests became common, and a Party-led security apparatus called “610 Office” was established to disintegrate the group (Naokes and Ford, 2015, p.661). The “systematic use of violence” was sanctioned in forcing renouncement, with even private practice being grounds for re-education camps or detention sentencing. Harsh tactics such as beatings, forced feeding, and electric shocks were implemented in such centers. Between 2010 and 2015, there were multiple national initiatives aimed to re-educate or sentence practitioners, both guided by transformation quotas. 


Forced Organ Harvesting Trade?


Several sources – including a recent survivor testimony from August – have reported on the Chinese government’s forced organ harvesting trade of Falun Gong detainees, along with other systematically targeted minority groups such as Uyghur Muslims (Hurley, 2019). The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR), UK Home Office documents, as well as independent tribunals such as the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC) have investigated these issues at length. 


In 2019, a seven-member panel from the ETAC concluded that there was numerical evidence of the “impossibility of there being anything like sufficient ‘eligible donors’ under the recently formed PRC voluntary donor scheme for that number of transplant operations” (Hurley, 2019). Witnesses of both victims and doctors spoke of forced organ extractions, operating on living patients, and forced examinations, including blood tests and X-rays that could only be reasonably explained as verifying the health of viable organs (Smith, 2019). This panel concluded that it was “beyond reasonable doubt” that crimes against humanity had been committed against Falun Gong prisoners (and in more recent years, Uyghur Muslims).




A Falun Gong stand in Chinatown, London during Chinese Lantern Festival celebrations.


How Falun Gong Politicized Their Third Pillar of Truth


The Chinese government define the Falun Gong as a “heretic cult.” At the same time, Western countries generally perceive it as a new religious movement and, occasionally, a legitimate spiritual group with cult-like qualities (Chan, 2004, p.670). Interestingly, neither Li Hongzhi nor practitioners of Falun Gong have publicly identified with any labelling and instead, choose to advance themselves as a practice deep-seated in traditional Chinese culture. Both the PRC and Falun Gong claim to be authentically Chinese; however, Falun Gong actively uses their cultural identity as a means to contest that of the government. 


If China markets itself through culture, then Falun Gong is, in essence, a “de-branding” away from China’s self-presentation, as performed by the Chinese government (Chan, 2016, p.139). The brand of China becomes a locus of struggle over national meanings and representations. An example of this contestation is Shen Yun Performing Arts. A touring performing arts company, SYPA’s mission is to “revive the true, divinely inspired culture of China and share it with the world.” As an international company based in the United States, they perform across the globe but notably, never in mainland China. 


SYPA was established by Falun Gong expatriates in 2006, with an emphasis on authentic “Chinese-ness” through Chinese culture (dance and symphonic music) whilst rejecting the “China-ness” of the Chinese government (Chan, 2016, p.139). In this sense, SYPA is deeply embedded in the politicisation of Chinese culture against the Chinese government and acts as a tool of resistance against its own expulsion from China. It asserts or preserves its own identity as authentic Chinese despite operating outside of China’s physical boundaries and relying heavily on Chinese diaspora communities.




“Flowing Sleeves” in the 2009 Shen Yun Performing Arts program at the Lincoln Center, New York.

In response to government persecution, Falun Gong itself has reshaped and redefined its foundational pillars to conform to their strategies of resistance. To maintain Li’s charisma and to justify rapid mobilization overseas and collective anti-government activities, Falun Gong underwent doctrinal innovation, retiring from some traditional beliefs in favour of ideas that were at times contradictive. Falun Gong gave up one of three core values, swapping “forbearance” for “Clarifying the Truth” (Lu, Su and Zhou, 2018, p.43-52), with their organisational objective increasingly departing from mysticality and enlightenment towards the identity of a political tool. 


In early Falun Gong days, Li often referred to a mystical “universal truth” that was linked to attaining enlightenment and knowing the “mystical nature of the universe”. However, only Li Hongzhi knew the “entire truth,” and his teachings of this subject were occult and perhaps linked to his claims of supernatural abilities. Following the crackdown and prohibition of Falun Gong, the “Truth” began to expand to encompass three core teachings: Firstly, that Falun Gong suffered “unprecedented, the most severe, persecution in history.” The second truth was the unveiling of the CCP’s wickedness and persecution of the ordinary people. The final truth was that Falun Gong is good and moral. The Truth pre-1999 Prohibition had obvious religious overtones; afterwards, it became strongly politicized and very concrete compared to its once-mystical nature. 


Importantly, Falun Gong initially displayed values of inclusivity, which contributed to their rapid success. However, following the Prohibition, Li stated that practitioners who were unwilling to oppose the Chinese government did not deserve to be Dafa disciples. His pattern of contradicting statements over the years attests to Falun Gong’s transformation as they continuously re-negotiate their identity and status in relation to the Chinese government. Interestingly, in a 2004 series of editorials titled Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, Falun Gong, in turn, defined the CCP as “an evil cult that harms mankind” (Lu, Su and Zhou, 2018, p.53).


Today, Falun Gong remains persecuted in mainland China but has a large community in Western countries. When I told my friend about my encounter in Chinatown, she replied disdainfully that “Falun Gong propaganda is frequently found in Frankfurt,” her hometown. As shown in her statement, I believe that the popular culture perception of Falun Gong among my demographic leans towards “cult” and away from “new religious movement.” Concerns on human rights abuse and, specifically, forced organ harvesting trade must be rightfully explored by international tribunals – however, it is worth exploring the broader social, cultural, and politically-laden frameworks within which the Falun Gong-CCP clash resides.








Works Cited

Chan, C.S. (2004) ‘The Falun Gong in China: A Sociological Perspective’, The China Quarterly, 

179, pp. 665–683. doi:10.1017/S0305741004000530.

Chan, L.S. (2016) ‘Emotional duplex in the nation (de-)branding: a case study of China and 

Shen Yun Performing Arts’, Critical Studies in Media Communication, 33(2), pp. 139–153. doi:10.1080/15295036.2015.1129547.

Home Office, Country Policy and Information Note (2023). China: Falun Gong. Available at 

Hurley, R. (2019) ‘China’s forced organ harvesting constitutes crimes against humanity, 

informal London tribunal finds’, British Medical Journal, 365. doi:10.1136/bmj.l4287

Lu, Y., Su, Y. and Zhou, N. (2018) ‘Doctrinal Innovation, Resistance, and Falun Gong’s 

Politicization’, China Review, 18(4), pp. 41-62. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23615141 (Accessed: 29 October 2024).

Noakes, S. and Ford, C. (2015) ‘Managing Political Opposition Groups in China: Explaining the 

Continuing Anti-Falun Gong Campaign’, The China Quarterly, 223, pp. 658–679. doi:10.1017/S0305741015000788.

Smith, S. (2019) ‘China forcefully harvests organs from detainees, tribunal concludes’, NBC 

UNHCR. (2002) Dangerous Meditation: China’s Campaign Against 

Falungong. Available at: https://www.refworld.org/reference/countryrep/hrw/2002/en/40640 (Accessed 28 October 2024).

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