(Minghui.org) The suppression of Falun Gong by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has gone on for 27 years. Many people still cannot understand why the totalitarian CCP would persecute a peaceful meditation system.
This article summarizes key events and explains the background of the persecution before it officially began in July 1999. In China, a country with an ancient civilization that cherished kindness and spirituality, there have been constant battles between the people and the atheistic CCP since the regime seized power in 1949.
To suppress intellectual freedom and China’s ancient culture, the CCP launched the Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957-1959) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The student-led democratic movement was targeted during the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989.
This not only cut Chinese people’s ties with their traditional culture and spiritual beliefs, it also showed them they had little freedom.
After a series of intellectual and cultural catastrophes, people turned their attention to qigong systems. Rooted in Chinese medicine and posing no threat to the CCP, qigong became popular during the 1980s despite the harsh political environment in China.
But that does not necessarily mean the CCP turned a blind eye to qigong. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991) and the Eastern Bloc (1989-1990), the CCP was afraid of losing power through “peaceful evolution.” It established a nine-person working group to monitor qigong. Consisting of high-ranking officials, these nine members were from the State Sports Commission, the State Science and Technology Commission, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of State Security, the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Public Security, the Liaison Department of the General Political Department, and the Headquarters of the Armed Police.
This comprehensive system allowed the CCP to collect information about qigong systems and control their interactions with the general public.
Falun Gong was introduced to the public in May, 1992. Practitioners experienced significant physical and mental improvement after they began doing the five sets of exercises and living according to the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.
The increasing popularity of Falun Gong and the growing number of practitioners caught the CCP’s attention. In 1994, local police officers were sent undercover to infiltrate Falun Gong practitioners, but they found nothing unusual.
At the end of 1994, Mr. Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, stopped teaching the practice in China.
Because it’s tenets were consistent with the traditional moral values, and the Chinese people practiced before the CCP took power, Falun Gong continued to gain momentum. By 1996, the number of practitioners exceeded those who practiced other qigong.
Falun Gong had no official member lists, and practitioners were free to come and go, so the exact number of practitioners remained unknown. But by 1996, millions of people practiced. Among them were many CCP and government officials, especially retired senior officials.
Jiang Zemin, who became the top CCP leader after the Tiananmen Massacre, was afraid of losing control over people. Seeing that Falun Gong was apolitical and did not curry favor with him, Jiang was jealous of the practice’s immense influence and its founder. These directly and indirectly led to the Guangming Daily Incident in 1996.
Let’s review the CCP’s Three No’s policy regarding qigong systems. On May 13, 1982, Hu Yaobang, then Minister of the Propaganda Department of the CCP Central Committee and later General Secretary of the CCP Central Committee, instructed the Propaganda Department to issue the Three No’s policy on qigong and related issues (such as supernormal abilities), namely: “No publicity, no criticism, and no debate.”
In March 1982, senior CCP official Zhang Zhenhuan hosted an event that showcased supernormal abilities. Wu Shaozu, then deputy director of a bureau under the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (later promoted to political commissar of the Commission), attended. Afterward, Wu wrote a letter to General Secretary Hu Yaobang, which included the following,
“Throughout the history of scientific development, when Copernicus proposed the heliocentric theory, Galileo insisted on the Earth’s rotation, Einstein proposed the theory of relativity, and Thomas Hunt Morgan proposed the theory of genes, all of them encountered severe criticism from secular forces. Some who supported the new theories even lost their lives, like Bruno. The Soviet Union officially labeled the theory of genetics as ‘pseudoscience of bourgeois idealism,’ but the facts have proven that their Lysenkoism theory was the pseudoscience.
“From the examples above, we can see that phenomena that old theories cannot explain are often the harbingers of scientific leaps. Once discovered and elevated to a scientific theory, they have extremely significant scientific meaning and practical value...”
Three high officials also began to support qigong. One of them was Wu, a graduate of Tsinghua University’s theoretical nuclear physics program and then political commissar of the Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense. The second was Teng Teng, a Chinese nuclear chemist, former president of the University of Science and Technology of China, vice minister of the Central Propaganda Department, and vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The third was Jia Chunwang, a graduate of Tsinghua University’s Department of Engineering Physics, specializing in experimental nuclear physics and then minister and Party secretary of the Ministry of State Security. These three officials from important government departments wrote to higher-level leaders, explaining the scientific significance of paranormal abilities while volunteering to be in charge of paranormal ability research and related policies and management. This letter was approved by relevant officials; thus, the Three-Person Leading Group for Human Science in China was established in 1985.
However, the CCP decided to target Falun Gong regardless. Xu Guangchun, the deputy minister of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, convened a meeting in 1996 of the editors-in-chief of 10 major central newspapers in order to gain political capital for himself. He ordered Guangming Daily to publish an article that slandered Falun Gong and that other major newspapers carry it.
Similarly, the State Press and Publication Administration issued an internal document on July 24, 1996, to press and publication bureaus in all provinces and cities across the country, prohibiting the publication and distribution of Falun Gong books such asZhuan Falunand Falun Gong. (More than 10 years after the official persecution started in 1999, the State Press and Publication Administration’s Order No. 50 in March 2011 repealed the ban on the publication of Falun Gong texts in China. But the suppression continued regardless.)
Xu initially intended to label Falun Gong as a “cult.” After Guangming Daily published an article defaming Falun Gong, however, relevant government agencies received hundreds of thousands of letters from the public clarifying the facts about Falun Gong. As a result, further suppression of Falun Gong was temporarily halted. (On June 2, 2014, the CCP’s Legal Evening News publicly reiterated the Ministry of Public Security’s document [2000] No. 39, explicitly stating once again that Falun Gong is not a cult. But the suppression did not stop.)
In January and July 1997, the Ministry of Public Security, which was controlled by Jiang Zemin’s follower Luo Gan, conducted two nationwide investigations into Falun Gong, intending to designate it a “cult.” However, after thorough investigations, public security bureaus across China reported, “No problems have been found.”
Despite the lack of evidence, the Ministry of Public Security’s First Bureau issued Notice No. 555 in 1998, “Notice on Conducting an Investigation into Falun Gong,” which labeled Falun Gong a “cult.” In China, using the media to smear a person or group is a prelude to nationwide political campaigns.
He Zuoxiu, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences who helped write the CCP’s propaganda, started attacking Falun Gong. He asserted that “the development of quantum mechanics proves that Jiang Zemin’s ‘Three Represents’ theory is the fundamental standard for evaluating scientific and technological innovation.”
He Zouxiu was Luo’s brother-in-law and deliberately smeared Falun Gong on Beijing Television’s Beijing Express program in May 1998. Many practitioners went to the TV station to share their personal experiences and clarify the facts. After the staff understood the situation, they made corrections.
He Zuoxiu’s provocation displeased the then vice-mayor of Beijing, who ordered him to refrain from making slanderous remarks in the Beijing media. Because he was banned in Beijing, he moved to Tianjin in April 1999, where he published a defamatory article described below.
On July 21, 1998, the First Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security issued a “Notice” to public security departments across China. This triggered the local police to forcibly disperse Falun Gong practitioners. Officers conducted illegal home searches, broke into private residences, and confiscated personal property. This happened in Xinjiang, Heilongjiang, Hebei, Fujian, and other places.
In response to this harassment, Falun Gong practitioners wrote letters to police station chiefs to explain why it was wrong. In the second half of 1998, a group of retired senior officials from the National People’s Congress, led by Qiao Shi, conducted a detailed investigation and study of Falun Gong. They concluded that: “Falun Gong is entirely beneficial to the country and the people.” At the end of the year, they submitted an investigation report to the Politburo headed by Jiang Zemin.
After they reviewed the report, Politburo members were pleased. Then-Premier Zhu Rongji issued an instruction, essentially stating that Falun Gong practitioners should not be disturbed. Zhu’s instruction was based on economic and government interests—if a practice could save China a significant amount in medical insurance costs and contribute to maintaining social order, the government should support it. (It was only when Falun Gong practitioners participated in the April 25 appeal in 1999 that they learned of Premier Zhu Rongji’s aforementioned instruction, which he issued at the end of 1998.)
Jiang Zemin was not satisfied and gave the report to Luo Gan. This directly or indirectly triggered the Tianjin Incident in 1999.
With Luo Gan’s support, He Zuoxiu ignored Zhu Rongji’s order and published another defamatory article about Falun Gong in the Tianjin Education Institute’s Youth Science and Technology Expo magazine on April 11, 1999. Without any basis for his claims, he said Falun Gong harms society.
They trusted the government and felt officials needed to know the facts, so some Falun Gong practitioners went to the Tianjin Education Institute and other related institutions from April 18 to 24, 1999, to clarify the situation. On April 23rd and 24th, the Tianjin Public Security Bureau dispatched riot police to beat practitioners. Many were injured, and 45 practitioners were arrested.
When Falun Gong practitioners requested that the arrested practitioners be released. Tianjin Municipal Government officials informed them that due to the intervention of the Ministry of Public Security, the arrested practitioners would not be released unless officials in Beijing authorized it. The Tianjin police told practitioners, “Go to Beijing; only by going to Beijing can the problem be solved.”
Following their advice, practitioners went to Beijing and participated in a peaceful appeal on April 25, 1999. Three months later, Jiang Zemin launched the nationwide persecution that continues today.
There’s an old saying: “If you want to find fault, you can always find an excuse.” Two thousand years ago, Nero framed Christians by slandering them; Hitler targeted Jews by defaming them. The CCP maintained its grip on China for decades through its political campaigns, and it will not hesitate to crush any group that it views as a threat to its totalitarian rule—Falun Gong is no exception.
Despite this 27-year-long persecution, which includes being tortured, killed, and having their organ harvested, practitioners continue to uphold Falun Gong. They continue to tell people the threat the CCP poses to mankind.
As the CCP exports this persecution overseas by using certain Western media, the legal system, and leveraging the economy, the consequences could be catastrophic if this transnational suppression is not curbed.