by Guy Sorman
In English, “sect” is not a pejorative term; it means a religious creed like any other. “Cult” is the pejorative word. For the communists, the Falun Gong is a cult.
The professor becomes passionate and tries to convert me for my own good. However, he doesn’t press his case too far. As I get ready to leave, he gives me a voluminous set of documents. He tells me I can also consult the Falun Gong website.
I consulted the site and read the books. Li Hongzhi borrows from the teachings of Buddhism, condemning the appearances of the material world and calling for compassion. He adds Daoist precepts, especially the practice of qigong, said to lead to immortality. To top it all off, he throws in a bit of American science fiction. Followers are prepared for the end of the world. None of this is new. What is remarkable is the organization of the network. Members disseminate information through the Internet. To practice their exercises and meditate, the faithful assemble in private places, flats, or parks. Falun Gong is peaceful, claiming to derive its inspiration from nonviolence. One can leave it as easily as one can join. To date, it has not been involved in any major financial scandal—there is not much money in circulation. Followers must buy the master’s book, a modest expenditure. Exiled to the United States, Li Hongzhi lives comfortably off his royalties. His public appearances are rare. He wants to preserve his mystique.
As must be the case with most non-believing Western democrats, I feel there is no valid reason for the Party to exterminate Falun Gong. It is a difficult conclusion for any rational defender of human rights to reach, for Falun Gong is not rational. Yet democracy requires that we support the right to difference, even when verging on the delirious. Why does the Party view Falun Gong as China’s Number One enemy? How does Falun Gong generate so much enthusiasm among millions of Chinese? These are questions we need to examine.
Falun Gong, an antiparty
At the start, Li Hongzhi was a Party cadre and a Party-backed qigong master. In the Seventies and Eighties, its adherents projected qigong as the science of the body, a respectable discipline like traditional medicine and acupuncture. The communists called these “patriotic alternatives” to Western knowledge. In the Seventies, university laboratories invited qigong masters to displace distant objects by focusing their inner reserves of energy. By the Eighties, the whole of China was in the grip of a qigong fever. In parks, millions of Chinese practiced the slow movements of a gymnastic exercise that the Party believed “purged” all religious content. The cadres took part in these mass exercises. Exercise, however, was not the only reason that people came out. Many felt a latent nostalgia for Buddhism and Daoism. Some, remembering their childhood rituals, enjoyed this revival of ancient practices. Li Hongzhi combined Maoist methods with classical religion, collecting huge crowds in stadiums, making them repeat slogans, and calling them to come up on stage. The choreography was perfect, and the Master was always right. Most saw qigong as a pretext to meet, a way of overcoming loneliness in an atomized society. Li Hongzhi won people over easily. After fifty years of organized violence, informing on one another, and hatred, at last someone spoke the language of love and goodwill. Qigong practitioners started to rebuild trust and cooperation, both of which were anathema to Chinese communism.
Retired people constitute the bulk of Falun Gong members. This is natural. Retirees are the most isolated group in society. But civil servants, army officers, academics, and even Party members are among those who believe in Li Hongzhi’s message. Their adherence is a source of great concern to the Party, stoking its fear of being destroyed from within. Even I was taken aback at the way communists, materialists, and atheists were flocking to join the Falun Gong fold. Some of them told me that Falun Gong had given them a sense of fraternity that they could never have in the Party, a throwback to the old secret societies that mixed rites and mutual aid. Now this is something the Party will not tolerate. Even if Falun Gong has no political ambitions, it is an antiparty.
On April 17, 1999, 10,000 Falun Gong followers gathered in silence in front of the Beijing government headquarters. They had consulted one another on the Internet and decided that this was how they would protest against an article in the press denigrating Li Hongzhi. The Party leadership was stunned. Falun Gong, they discovered, was an organized movement, capable of circumventing the regime through the Internet. The ability to associate outside the Party is what the Party fears the most. Anything unorganized is tolerated; anything organized is not. Ever since that day in 1999, Falun Gong followers have been hounded and imprisoned by the police, the usual method of repression. In keeping with the principle of nonviolence, its followers never offer resistance.
The government was clear: there were to be no more Falun Gong members in Beijing. From the capital to the heart of China, local committees would be held responsible. If the Party caught a follower in Beijing, the local boss in the follower’s home city had to pay a fine and would lose his job. So the local bosses became vigilant, asking people to keep them informed. No one blamed them for using strong-arm tactics. Threats, internment without trial, prison, torture, execution—no questions were asked. Falun Gong members are in a majority in the “labor reeducation centers.” The police have the power to send anyone they consider a threat to law and order to these centers for four years without any legal procedure or trial. There, the followers are kept along with petty thieves, prostitutes, drug addicts, and, until very recently, homosexuals. The Year of the Rooster also saw a sharp increase in the number of incarcerated Protestant pastors and unofficial Catholic priests. They, too, are deviants who merit no trial. They need lessons in morality and manual labor so that they can return to the straight and narrow path. Sadly, no one has bothered to investigate these centers, and little is known about the conditions in which people are being detained. Those who have managed to survive the ordeal speak of torture. The authorities are particularly harsh on followers of sects, forcing them to disavow their faith. In December 2005, the United Nations Commissioner for human rights, Manfred Nowak, confirmed the use of torture in these centers. The Chinese authorities could not refuse him access to at least some of them.
Some of the “nonviolent” methods that the Party adopted are comical, to say the least. A local apparatchik, for example, sees old people of the locality still meeting to practice qigong. They have been doing this for many years. They think qigong will keep them healthy, which it does. But how is one to distinguish between someone practicing qigong as a form of gymnastics and a Falun Gong member doing so out of devotion to the Master? The apparatchik is clever. He identifies the places where the qigong enthusiasts meet: parks, lakesides, riverbanks, and near temples. He installs gym equipment there and puts up posters urging the public to use these modern devices, rather than the outmoded qigong. Old men start exercising on a swing-like apparatus and other such contraptions. The Party also encourages people to waltz in these traditional meeting places. Loudspeakers blare out Western music, old couples begin to dance, and ancient China fades away. No harm is done, provided news does not reach the top. In this way, the Falun Gong, though no longer visible, has become a vast secret society with which the Party must contend. Its members speak in veiled terms; it recruits new followers through the Internet and text messages.
Falun Gong is a threat because it operates in the realm of beliefs and conscience, where the Party has no control. It is unflinching in its resistance, producing many a martyr. The history of China offers several instances of mystic revolts that led to the overthrow of imperial dynasties. The last such revolt was the famous Taiping rebellion, whose leaders believed that bullets would pass them by. The rebellion destabilized the last of the Manchu dynasty. Falun Gong is also mystical, and, though history may not repeat itself, most liberal intellectuals in Beijing and those in exile accept that Falun Gong has become their objective ally.
Quantifying Chinese faith
The large-scale reconstruction of Daoist and Buddhist temples and the fervor of the new Christians are suggestive of a re
ligious upsurge in China. Most conversations veer toward moral or mystical speculation. Many causes underlie this quest for the transcendent: the post-Maoist ideological void, crass materialism, widespread decadence, and memories of old practices. But these are just impressionistic sketches of the intangible. Or so I thought. The Communist Party has even managed to quantify religious fervor.
The main function of the Institute of Religions in Beijing is to act as a watchdog. Its scholars do not study theology; their job is to prevent excesses. I met with two acolytes, one experienced and authoritarian, and the other more modern. Their roles were clearly delineated: the old face of the Party and the new face of the Party.
In case I had forgotten, the older man reminded me that China recognizes all patriotic religions. Since the 1949 Revolution, five religions—Catholicism, Protestantism, Daoism, Buddhism, and Islam—have received this status. Anything else is either not religious or a counterrevolutionary cult. “Patriotic religious organizations” manage places of worship and also decide what practices should be followed or banned. Is proselytizing allowed? Yes, provided the authorized religion is taught by a member of a patriotic association and is Chinese. Catholic missionaries sent by the Vatican, Korean pastors, and Japanese Buddhists are liable to expulsion. The younger apparatchik assured me with a broad smile: “This isn’t chauvinism. The Chinese want to be educated by the Chinese.” Is that so? How, then, did Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity come to China in the first place, one wonders.
I told them of my experiences in the Chinese provinces. Could one talk of a religious renaissance? The two men consulted each other in low voices. The young apparatchik replied in a modern fashion: “We are,” he began, “among scholars. I shall thus give you an honest and scientific answer.” Before going any further, he thought it prudent to have tea served. A young peasant girl poured boiling water from a flask over the tea leaves. She was dressed in a five-star bell-boy uniform not quite her size. Once the tea leaves had settled at the bottom of the cup, we drank, burning our lips in the bargain. One had to suck to swallow the herb tea without the leaves. It was a noisy exercise, requiring a great deal of concentration.
“No, we don’t see any religious renaissance in China,” continued the young apparatchik. The researchers at the institute had counted the members of the five patriotic religious associations. In 2005, the number stood at 100 million. The researchers exclude the possibility of believing without joining any group: that is not scientific. A hundred million is roughly the same figure as in 1950, when the first religious census was conducted. From 1966 to 1976, during the Cultural Revolution, the number of believers decreased significantly. With the restoration of religious freedom in 1985, the number went back up, stabilizing at about 100 million. But China’s population has doubled since 1950, which means that in fifty years, the proportion of believers has come down by half. The apparatchiks were all smiles. They thought they had convinced me.
That only 300 million “have religion,” out of a population of a billion, means that communism and economic progress provide a better alternative, supplanting religion. Both the commissars looked very pleased with this. I counterattacked: “It is obvious that the number of Protestants is increasing.”
They replied: “They were very few in the past. They are just catching up with the Catholics. That’s normal.”
The truth is that Protestants outnumber Catholics ten to one. But the Party finds it easier to deal with scattered evangelical groups than with an organized Catholic Church that receives its orders from outside. Between the Vatican and Yankee Protestantism, the Communist Party prefers the Americans.
The two commissars showed me out courteously, advising me on how to proceed further with my inquiry. Subjective impressions were not reliable. The institute had a scientific answer to all my queries.
Perhaps like the Jesuits of the past, I, too, was a prisoner of my prejudices.
They had not seen any religion in China. I seemed to find it everywhere.
Many North American Protestant observers talk about a mass conversion of the Chinese to an evangelical religion. Through their fervor, they believe, the converts will overthrow the Communist Party and bring in democracy. Christianity, the way it is spreading in China, is more Chinese than Christian. And if the history of China teaches us anything at all, it is that no single religion has ever been able to dominate the others. It appears more likely that religions and sects will remain scattered. But this very plurality is a sign of hope in a China struggling to get rid of the think-alike syndrome.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Dispossessed
Moving westward from seafaring China is like journeying back in time to discover the secret of the Chinese economic miracle. The experience is overwhelming.
As I wait at the Beijing airport, more efficient than any in Europe, the whole country seems brand-new. I recall the giant statue of Mao Zedong that once welcomed visitors. It was removed; no one knows when. But Mao’s statues have not disappeared altogether. They can be seen in most large cities except Beijing and Shanghai. Two hours later, I reach Xian. We are still in new China. Everything works, and everything is oversize. The huge airports and highways are often empty. They were built to unify the Chinese provinces and create a single market. Until only a few years ago, China had as many markets as provinces. Each market was a closed entity, running its agriculture and industry like an autarchy. Custom duties and all kinds of physical and administrative barriers protected local enterprise. That period is over. One can now talk of a single Chinese market, unprecedented in the country’s history. Highways abound, and some of the Party’s cadres have made their fortunes. How are they financed? The exorbitant toll tax is out of the reach of the poor and most travelers. Political leaders are the main, and sometimes the sole, highway users in central and western China. Their black Audis can be seen speeding down the highways. Where is the money going to come from?
The craze for highways
In the poorest regions, where highways and airports have little utility, they are financed by state-owned banks that have no choice but to bow down to the dictates of the local Communist Party. They know they will never recover their investment. Even in the more prosperous provinces, the toll tax is not enough to pay back the loan. Highway companies, public enterprises for the most part, acquire land dirt cheap on both sides of the road with the peasants receiving hardly any compensation. Real-estate speculation raises prices, making some of these ventures so profitable that Western banks invest in them with eyes closed.
Western travelers are impressed by the speed at which the network is developing. They don’t see the conditions in which it is being built. The crews recruited from the countryside work eighty hours a week. They get makeshift accommodation, are poorly fed, and can’t leave the site. “Labor camps,” as they are called, is the most neutral term to describe these prisons. The liberal writer Wang Yi, a professor of law at Chengdu, points out that the Nazis, too, built splendid roadways in the Thirties, and Westerners were just as wonderstruck.
Giving preference to highways and private cars makes little sense in a country as vast and poor as China. The railways and public-urban transport are a thousand times more suited to carry the massive flows of people and goods over long distances. It would enable the western and central provinces to industrialize and send their goods to the ports. Yet the Chinese government has invested in only one rail line—the one through Tibet, inaugurated in 2006. It has hardly any economic utility, but China will be able to colonize this rebellious province more easily and send in the army, if need be. The Tibetans understand as much.
Highways are a lucrative business for the Party cadres, and they can be constructed quickly. That is why the government is so keen on them. The leaders are impatient. They are looking for quick gains, both for themselves and for China. There is no long-term strategy. No one wants to think ahead. Perhaps no one believes in the long term. Capital is for infrastructure alone; education and health get
short shrift, because Chinese development is not based on developing human resources. In Japan and Korea, it was just the opposite. Sometimes in the course of their speeches, the leaders in Beijing admit these errors. Things will be different in the future, they promise: the poorest provinces will have schools, hospitals, factories, and trains. For the moment, though, these remain empty slogans. The immediate reality, as we will see, is quite different.
East to West: a journey in time
Moving west of Xian, we take the highway on which work is going on day and night, held back only on account of a shortage of concrete. We are still in the developed world, but overloaded trucks from bygone days pass us from the opposite direction. It is as if the history of China is unfurling before us. New factories are coming up; those of the Maoist period are crumbling. The new ones are private; the old ones were public. The principle of creative destruction, so dear to free-market economists, is at work here as never before or elsewhere. The Catholic and Protestant churches in the villages we drive by indicate a religious awakening. We are in Shaanxi Province, where the first Christian church was built in the seventh century by a Nestorian sect from Persia that was later dissolved. From the very beginning, Christianity in China has had to strike a delicate balance between being Chinese enough not to appear alien, yet not so Chinese as to lose its identity and merge into the religions of the country.