Zhuan Falun was a well-known and highly influential book in China during the 1990s. The book is one of the most important teachings of Falun Gong. It was written by Li Hong Zhi, who is the founder of Falun Gong and remains the central compilation of Falun Gong teachings. Falun Gong describes the practice of qigong—one part of Chinese martial art that “originated from solitary cultivation by the ancient Chinese and from cultivation in religions” (Li 2). Falun Gong “stresses the importance of working on mind, body, and spirit at the same time”(Schechter 45). Falun Gong was believed by the practitioners to not only help with the healing of illnesses, but also to help “people to elevate themselves toward the spiritual goal of enlightenment” (Schechter 45-46). After Zhuan Falun was published in China, the book gained much popularity among the Chinese people and was perceived as a threat by the Chinese government, which censored it.
During this time, China’s media system was undergoing rapid growth, and “rampant commercialism led state publishing houses, with waning state subsidies, to print whatever would sell”(Couldry and Curran 213). Zhuan Falun was published by several publishing houses, which helped spread the book across China. The internet was also a major factor in Falun Gong gaining fame and helped to connect practitioners worldwide. As Bell and Boas (279) noted, “Falun Gong skillfully used the Internet as a powerful new tool of instruction, strengthening of community, and struggle against the PRC government”. Through this, the restriction of Falun Gong in China actually led to its heightened proliferation in the rest of the world.
China has been one of the few countries that restricts its media and the Chinese government achieves this by enforcing “a series of laws and administrative regulations…and ideological (or thought) control”(He 21). If the Chinese government identifies anything that is a threat to their image or power, it can censor material and punish the organization or individual that is spreading it. When the book Zhuan Falun gained popularity and followers, the Chinese government perceived it as a threat to their power and image. Members of the Chinese government were worried that Falun gong would overtake the power of the government and begin to control Chinese people. The banning of Falun Gong protected the Chinese government and its authorities over the Chinese people.
In addition, since ancient times, the Chinese Government has “regarded all non-Confucian faiths as more than religious rivals-they were seen as incipient political competitors, each carrying the seed of rebellion”(Chang 45), and Falun Gong was considered to be a religious rival. The Chinese government saw “Falun Gong demonstrations as a challenge to Communist Party authority and vowed to crush Li and his followers” (Ownby 15). After discovering the government’s intentions, Li Hong Zhi left China. After his departure, Falun Gong practitioners held many demonstrations against the Chinese media’s misinterpretations of Falun Gong. However, on 20 July 1999, Falun Gong was officially banned in China and “more than 450 practitioners were beaten and tortured to death. Millions of Falun Dafa books and tapes were burned and destroyed; web sites were jammed”(Green and Karolides 107).
Even though Falun Gong is censored in China, there are still many followers that practice it privately. However, “many followers still risk arrest and beatings as punishment for performing the exercises, but they do them in their homes instead of public parks” (Chang 29). The Falun Gong practitioners have focused on using the internet as their main tool of communication after the ban by the Chinese government. The large worldwide scope of Falun Gong followers has contributed enormously to the development, maintenance and spread of Falun Gong internationally.
Today, Falun Gong continues to grow, as does the resistance movement against the persecution of Falun Gong followers by the Chinese government. For example, in the United States,
“two U.S. Internet companies founded by Chinese Falun Gong practitioners, Dynaweb Internet Technology Inc. and UltraReach Internet Corporation, have been at the forefront of overseas Chinese and U.S. efforts to breach the PRC “Internet firewall””(Lum 7).
The Chinese Government has fought against such resistances and is still determined to “fight the war to the end” against Falun Gong (Chang 29).
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