Why did China begin persecuting Falun Gong after tolerating the movement for nearly a decade?

Question

My Question:
Why did China begin persecution of Falun Gong midway through 1999 following nearly a decade of tolerating the movement?

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Freedom House - The Battle for China's Spirit Falun Gong
The Communist Party initiated the worst instance of religious persecution since the Cultural Revolution, with the clampdown against Falun Gong. – André Laliberté, Ottawa University, leading scholar on religion in China, 2015

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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter 1943 to a Polish diplomat in reaction to being told by Jan Karski about the Holocaust. Frankfurter said:

"I did not say that this young man was lying. I said that I was unable to believe what he told me. There is a difference."

Ethan Gutmann an investigative journalist who has written many articles and books on the topic estimated in 2014 from 2000 to 2014 on any given day 450,000 to 1 million Falun Gong members are in prison in China and that from 2000-2006 100,000 were murdered for their organs. More recent studies have demonstrated that this process is still continuing today.

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Falun Gong is a modern Chinese movement founded by Li Hongzhi who introduced it in the early 1990s. It experienced a period of viral growth in the 1990's and was even embraced by some members of China's Communist party at that time. By 1998 Chinese government sources estimated that as many as 70 million people had taken up the practice.

Falun Gong is a physical fitness movement which practices rhythmic motion and meditation.

In early 2000s state sponsored persecution of Falun Gong first began to be reported. Persecution included extra legal detention, torture, re-education camps, execution and large scale organ harvesting.

Evidence

Documentaries on China's Organ Harvesting of prisoners of conscience.

• Human Harvest, a 2014 Peabody Award winning documentary
• Hard to Believe, a 2018 PBS Award winning documentary

The European Parliament passed a resolution in December 2013 on organ harvesting in China. That resolution, amongst other provisions, called for a full and transparent investigation by the European Union into organ transplantpracticesinChina

Bloody Harvest(2007) and the update Bloody Harvest: The Slaughter(2017) by

• David Matas, human rights lawyer and the Director of the International Centre for Human Rights & Democratic Development.
• David Kilgour - former Canadian Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific)

Bloody Harvest
We have concluded that the government of China and its agencies in numerous parts of the country, in particular hospitals but also detention centres and 'people's courts', since 1999 have put to death a large but unknown number of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience. Their vital organs, including kidneys, livers, corneas and hearts, were seized involuntarily for sale at high prices, sometimes to foreigners, who normally face long waits for voluntary donations of such organs in their home countries.

How many of the victims were first convicted of any offence, serious or otherwise, in legitimate courts, we are unable to estimate because such information appears to be unavailable both to Chinese nationals and foreigners. It appears to us that many human beings belonging to a peaceful voluntary organization made illegal eight years ago by President Jiang because he thought it might threaten the dominance of the Communist Party of China have been in effect executed by medical practitioners for their organs.

Our conclusion comes not from any one single item of evidence, but rather the piecing together of all the evidence we have considered. Each portion of the evidence we have considered is, in itself, verifiable and, in most cases, incontestable. Put together, they paint a damning whole picture. It is their combination that has convinced us.

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United States Congress 2016 : Organ Harvesting an Examination of a Brutal Practice Recently US Congress issued S.Res.220 expressing solidarity with Falun Gong over persecution including forced organ donations. Freedom House has issued a report finding the persecution is ongoing. The UK Parliament: Debated China's Forced Organ Removal in China

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Freedom House - The Battle for China's Spirit Falun Gong

• Orders for arrests continue to come down from high-level authorities, but sometimes the Public Security Bureau agents will say no, they are only exercising to be healthy. – Chinese human rights lawyer, 2013
• The Communist Party initiated the worst instance of religious persecution since the Cultural Revolution, with the clampdown against Falun Gong. – André Laliberté, Ottawa University, leading scholar on religion in China, 2015

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My Question:
Why did China begin persecution of Falun Gong midway through 1999 following nearly a decade of tolerating the movement?

Per pouts comment

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from Wikipedia: Rational

Foreign observes have attempted to explain the party's rational as a variety of Falun Gong's attributes:

• popularity
• independence
• refusal to toe party line
• internal communist power politics
• their moral and spiritual content, which amounts to try to do the right thing.
• the mere fact that it's promoted as a religion

Given political protests are wide spread in China. Given the only protest generally attributed to Falun Gong involved about .0001% of their membership and given 100's of such protests are daily events in china I find the fear of their protesting unlikely. Most most of the given attributes are also valid against Christian groups operating in China I think most of these explanations can be dismissed.

Comments

JAsia
I am surprised that you think Beijing's reaction is "hollow", or any governments' perceived threat should be so dismissed, given that you're asking about political history. I don't see why Western states would have a monopoly on unreasonable fear (e.g. Japanese internment WW2, McCarthyism, Yellow Peril, etc). My suggestion was intended to help you frame your question. However, if you've already decided, it would be pointless to say otherwise. I had thought you missed the earlier news reports. I did not realise you discarded this point of view. Maybe show this in question? – J Asia

I did not suggest Beijing's actions with regards to Falun Gong were "hollow". I said the claim Beijing's crackdown is based upon a a single protest seemed to me as a hollow claim. I said last time I checked China tolerated a fairly extensive amount of protests and demonstrations, as I recalled from decades ago. I cited a U.S. State Dept survey. Searching just now, I found sources which corroborate scores of significant demonstrations are tolerated in china daily.

Protest and dissent in China
In 2006, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimated the number of annual mass incidents to exceed 90,000, and Chinese sociology professor Sun Liping estimated 180,000 incidents in 2010. Mass incidents are defined broadly as "planned or impromptu gathering that forms because of internal contradictions", and can include public speeches or demonstrations, physical clashes, public airings of grievances, and other group behaviors that are seen as disrupting social stability

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Why protests are so common in China
70,000 protests of 100 or more people over a three year period documented by a Chinese observer.

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JAsia
or any governments' perceived threat should be so dismissed, given that you're asking about political history. I don't see why Western states would have a monopoly on unreasonable fear (e.g. Japanese internment WW2, McCarthyism, Yellow Peril, etc).

What has occurred in China against the Falun Gong is closer to the scale of the Holocaust's six million jewish deaths rather than 100,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans detained during WWII after the Pearl Harbor attack. Not to suggest Japanese detentions or Anti American trials were reasonable, but they didn't rise to the level of genocide.

There are creditable estimates which place the number of Falun Gong forced killed for their organs at 100,000 over the first 6 year period, with millions detained. We are now in year 18 or 19 and the policy is still ongoing. I think that goes beyond a security policy based on 1 demonstration involving less than .0001% of the Falun Gong membership. But I could be wrong. Write it up.

JAsia
My suggestion was intended to help you frame your question. However, if you've already decided, it would be pointless to say otherwise. I had thought you missed the earlier news reports. I did not realise you discarded this point of view. Maybe show this in question?

Thank you for your suggestion and I think they make the question strongeer. I did revisit and reframe my question. I have not already decided, but I do present I believe significant evidence that the Falun Gong genocide goes way beyond security concerns based upon a single demonstration. I presented evidence that membership in the group was 70 million when a single demonstration took place involving a few thousand Falun Gong. I also presented sources which show demonstrations such at those are daily occasions in China and tolerated generally. 100's of such demonstrations occur daily and have for decades. So my question infers there is another reason for the crack down.

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Sources:

• Li Hongzhi
• In Beijing: A Roar of Silent Protesters
• 2018 US Congress S.Res.220 - Expressing solidarity with Falun Gong practitioners who have lost lives, freedoms, and rights for adhering to their beliefs and practices and condemning the practice of non-consenting organ harvesting
• Freedom House - The Battle for China's Spirit Falun Gong
• UK Parliament: Forced Organ Removal: China - Debate
• July 16, 2018: Organ Transplant Abuse in China Continues Despite Claims of Reform

Answer 1

All the information you need is in your question; you just need to look at things from the perspective of a paranoid, totalitarian regime like the Chinese Communist Party.

Falun Gong is a physical fitness movement which practices rhythmic motion and meditation.

Initially Falun Gong was seen as a benign movement. However over a decade, it rapidly grew; becoming wary, the government attempted to control it through state-run organisations like the Qigong Association, however Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, chose to distance the movement from state control, and concurrently state-sponsored criticism of the movement appeared and grew. Why this happened is an interesting question but immaterial here.

By 1998 Chinese government sources estimated that as many as 70 million people had taken up the practice.

By comparison, there is upwards of 50 million Christians today in China, under tight control and partly driven underground.

A critical event occurred when "upwards of 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners" staged a protest, the largest of its kind since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, which involved hundreds of thousands at various stages.

From the CCP's perspective, there was a

• rapidly-growing
• organised mass movement
• larger than any in China
• outside state control
• who were capable of mass protest on a scale rivalling the one that justified driving tanks down Chang'an Avenue

Furthermore, Falun Gong was seen as an easy target, as it was largely confined in China. Imagine the international backlash if the same persecution was carried out against Christians, or if they waited for Falun Gong to grow even more. Compare to the ongoing persecution of the Uyghurs, which is similar in scale.

Addressing a few more points:

Given political protests are wide spread in China ... 100's of such protests are daily events

Most of these are small scale, localised, and deal with issues that do not threaten the regime. Many are dealt with just as harshly, for example jailing the ringleaders, you just don't hear about them as much.

Given the only protest generally attributed to Falun Gong involved about .0001% of their membership

This is more of a reason to be paranoid; given their size, the fear was that they could easily stage much larger protests.

Answer 2

I gleaned this from an article on Falun Gong in a winter 2000 magazine, seven A4 pages of text. I can only quote a few basic points here, relevant to the question, as in its Synopsis.

"Falun Gong's struggle with the Chinese communist government and the group's stress on physical fitness and personal morality should not mask the dogmatic and peculiar religious teachings of its founder and leader, Li Hongzhi. While communist leaders in China have legitimate reasons to fear this movement, which began in 1992, Westerners should also be wary of Falun Gong, particularly Li's teachings on the segregation of the races and the rejection of modern medicine.

"Li asserts that this world is beset with evil, disease, and immorality and only under his guidance can one attain perfect health and personal salvation. He claims that his Five Sets of Practice Exercises are derived from the purest form of Qigong, "the life force of the universe," and will provide practitioners with true wisdom and supernormal power. According to Li, what he has to offer not only predates all religions but also was uniquely given to him by the heavenly realm.

"What Li is merchandising as a way to good health actually leads people into thinking that the attainment of inner happiness is what is most important in life. In fact, he is trying to lure practitioners into dangerous occult activities." Photograph of police officers making preparations to destroy Falun Gong literature in the Yunan province of China on 4 August 1999. (Christian Research Journal article by Christine Dallman and J. Isamu Yamamoto, p 22, Vol. 22 Issue No. 2)

The article explained that the Chinese government was caught off-guard by 10,000+ Falun Gong members staging a silent but illegal protest at the government's compound in Beijing on 25 April 1999. Falun Gong wanted official recognition and respect, but the communist government saw this as a power struggle. Given thousands of year's of history of spiritual groups within China rising up long before Communism and becoming political forces that eventually toppled dynasties, it is easy to see why large groups of protestors are viewed with suspicion, and in need of being stamped on by the current regime.

At that time, the Chinese media broadcast the official report to the public, charging Falun Gong with promoting "superstitious, evil thinking." The People's Daily declared:

"We should be highly vigilant against superstition for it may confuse our [Communist] thinking, undermine our fighting will, shake our beliefs and destroy our cohesiveness." (CNN Interactive, 21 June 1999, 'China Calls for End to Superstition'. http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9906/20/BC-CHINA-SECT.reut/index.html

Falun Gong is closely tied to the ancient Chinese practice of qigong which is a form of Taoism combining personal discipline with attainment of spiritual energy or life force. (Qi is generally translated as 'life force.') Its founder, Li Hongzhi claims to have been sent to earth by a supreme being. (David Rennie, "10,000 Cult Followers Join Demo in Beijing" Daily Telegraph, 7 May 1999)

He moved to America. In 1996 he gave his first Falun Gong seminar in Houston. The movement can be found all over the world now. He lives off the royalties of his books (translated into several languages) and followers consider his writings sacred, particularly his main text, Zhuan Falun (Spinning the Wheel of Law) which was published in 1994.

A good answer to your question was stated on 28 July 1999 by Ted Koppel's telecast of Nightline. He began by saying:

"Here's the problem: The Chinese government does not have a very good reputation for openness, nor, to be blunt, do they deserve one. They are secretive - sometimes to the point of paranoia, and they tend to be repressive in the face of even the slightest dissent. So when we in this country hear stories of the Chinese government cracking down on what is consistently being described as a perfectly harmless movement that has its roots in Buddhism, believes in meditation, deep breathing, stylized exercise, we tend to take that at face value; that is, after all, just the sort of reaction we would expect from the Chinese government. Only as Henry Kissinger once famously observed, 'Even paranoids have enemies.' And this time the Chinese government may, in fact, have something legitimate to be worried about."

Back in the late 1990s the number of Chinese who practices Falun Gong might have been greater than that of the total membership of the Chinese Communist Party.

Some adherents of Falun Gong are card-carrying Communists, even generals within the Chinese military.

Falun Gong's enrollment includes thousands of people in the West as well, Li living in Manhattan.

His spiritual teachings are incompatible with the atheistic doctrine of Chinese communism.

That is why China began persecuting Falun Gong some ten years after it started up.

Answer 3

According to my personal experience, after my relatives and friends came into contact with Falun Gong:

1. They no longer go to the hospital when they are sick, but practice Falun Gong, so that they miss the best time for treatment
2. Stop going to work to practice Falun Gong
3. Donate assets to Falun Gong organization . . .

Everyone who came into contact with Falun Gong became abnormal. People around them became scared. Thinking back to the terrible scene at that time, no one would want to experience it again.

This is not a religious issue, and other religions will not cause such results. This is more like the ban on drugs in various countries, just to prevent people from destroying their lives.

So this question is considered from another angle, why did China tolerate Falun Gong for nearly ten years?