ANALYSIS-Cult scares Chinese communist party

Reuters, November 2, 1999
By Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING, Nov 2, 1999 (Reuters) - Mao Zedong offered China revolution; Deng Xiaoping offered the Chinese riches.

But China today has no driving vision, leaving a large spiritual gap through which the mass movement Falun Gong has burst to threaten the very authority of the communist party.

That is why, political analysts say, the government has sustained a ferocious crackdown against a sect which has attracted ordinary Chinese in their millions.

In the search for reasons behind the popularity of Falun Gong, many analysts point to current President Jiang Zemin's less-than-inspiring guiding vision: "The Three Stresses."

At a time when many Chinese are adrift in a sea of change, fretting about their jobs, health care and education of their children, Jiang is exhorting the nation to "stress theoretical study, political consciousness and healthy trends."

Analysts say it is this emptiness of modern Chinese Communism, and failed attempts by the government to define a new legitimacy, which lie behind an explosion of new cults and religions, and explain the ferocity of the crackdown.

Above all, they point to the figure of Jiang, who has little of the charisma of Mao or Deng, the two outstanding "helmsmen" of communist China in the 20th century.

"Even party and state officials have no time for the political message in the 'three stresses' campaign," said one Western envoy.

"I don't think they believe that Falun Gong is a severe ideological threat to them, that people will be converted from communism to Falun Gong. But he added: "The moral basis for party rule is in fact very slight indeed." In that sense, Falun Gong holds a mirror to what some see as the Chinese Communist Party's growing self doubt.

The Mandate Of Heaven

The Communist Party's sledgehammer response to the Falun Gong spiritual movement is rooted in a deep understanding of the chaos that can suddenly appear when ruling dynasties lose their moral underpinnings, or the "mandate of heaven."

In 1850, a great rebellion grew from similar conditions of social and economic upheaval, as the last Imperial Qing dynasty of China collapsed under corruption, mismanagement, and aggressive encroachment by colonial powers.

It is estimated that more people were killed in the 14 years of the Taiping Rebellion than in any war before World War Two.

"The Taiping rebellion sprang from the same problems of poverty, alienation, corruption and collapse in authority," a second Western envoy in Beijing said.

"The situation isn't as bad now as it was in the 1850s, but still the root causes of the Taiping rebellion are remarkably similar to the Falun Gong," the diplomat said.

It is a deep irony that the Taiping was admired by the founding fathers of the Chinese Communist Party as one of the great pre-socialist popular rebellions.

But the government is itself now straining to maintain social stability as it radically reforms a command economy to pull its people into a freer market system -- still led by Communist principles.

Stern Maoist Ethics Eroded

Falun Gong, a mixture of Buddhism, Taoism, meditation and exercises, was designed by its reclusive, comfortably well-off U.S.-based founder Li Hongzhi as a form of salvation from a world he preaches is corrupted by science, technology, and decadence.

Claiming millions of members in China, the movement first stunned the Chinese leadership when more than 10,000 emerged without warning in April to sit silently protesting outside the leadership's own Zhongnanhai compound in Beijing.

Last week, China declared the movement an illegal cult, and legislation was passed at the weekend that promises jail terms for its organisers.

Dozens of leaders had already been detained and trials are expected to start soon.

Two decades of economic reform have eroded the strict moral codes and control of the days of founding Chairman Mao Zedong.

Tens of millions live in poverty. Corruption is rife. The wealth gap is growing fast. Once-guaranteed jobs may vanish tomorrow. Once free education and medical now cost money.

Many members say they are drawn to Falun Gong because, apart from the physical benefits from its meditation and exercise practices, it gives them a moral framework for life.

It is not the first time the Communist Party has gone all out to destroy what it sees as a rival for the loyalty of the people.

In the years after sweeping to power in 1949, the Communists unleashed a terror against secret societies, religious sects and gangs that competed with them for popular support.

They banned the popular Yiguan Dao as a cult and executed dozens of its priests accused of helping the Japanese invaders and the defeated Nationalists, who fled into exile in Taiwan after losing a civil war to Mao's Red Army.

Falun Gong Seen As Greater Threat Than Dissidents

The Communist Party sees Falun Gong as an even greater threat than the banned opposition China Democracy Party (CDP).

"Whether it's labour unions or the CDP, any group which has the ability to organise is potentially a threat to the authorities," the second Western diplomat said.

To the Communists, the CDP is less of a threat because it is largely a group

To the Communists, the CDP is less of a threat because it is largely a group of pro-democracy activists with no clear aim beyond rehabilitation of demonstrators arrested when the army crushed a student-led protest in 1989, also in Tiananmen Square.

The CDP is not known to have organised mass protests. Falun Gong, however, has mounted more than 300 since April.

Said an Asian diplomat: "The Communist Party has always been very uncomfortable with any organisation that is outside its control."