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This essay examines the historical background and recent developments in the aggressive repression of Falun Gong by Chinese authorities. Falun Gong is essentially a form of qigong, the general name for a set of physical and mental disciplines based loosely on traditional Chinese medical and spiritual discourses, and organized around a charismatic master who teaches his followers specific techniques as well as general moral precepts, with the goal of realizing a physical and moral transformation of practitioners. However, Falun Gong differs from qigong in certain important respects, notably its devotion to the charismatic master and his scriptures, its apocalyptic outlook, and its spiritual aims. Straying from the scientistic and apolitical path outlined by the state, Falun Gong placed itself outside the boundaries of socialist China and thus could not be tolerated.

This chapter provides an overview of Falun Gong's brief history and presents the various contexts which must be understood if one is to come to terms with Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa. These contexts include the history and politics of religion in modern China; the reform era Chinese Communist Party's search for a new legitimacy in the wake of the failure of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution; and the qigong boom. The chapter concludes with a literature review of the scholarship on qigong and Falun Gong.

This chapter is constituted by a systematic exploration of two transnational advocacy campaigns targeting the Chinese state: the search for justice on behalf of the Falun Gong religious movement, banned in China since 1999, and the transnational push to strengthen intellectual property rights in the PRC. In terms of results, these campaigns turned out completely differently. While the IPR protection campaign was welcomed by China’s leaders and witnessed the creation of an extensive if somewhat ineffectual set of institutions geared towards more rigorous enforcement, the campaign for Falun Gong received no such reception, and has not been countenanced in any form by the national government, save for its ongoing effort to exterminate the group from the Chinese mainland. Despite these disparate results, however, both of these cases reflect a pattern of ‘natural’ causality, as neither was incentivized to alter its original mission or message.

This chapter provides an overview of the practices, doctrine, and history of Falun Gong, focusing on the controversies inherent in this movement. Specifically it considers the complex alien and anti-science theology of Falun Gong and concludes with an examination of the movement's clashes with the Chinese government and consequential apocalypticism born of those struggles.

This chapter are how such high levels of violence against members of a minority religious group are justified by those in positions of power in China and how the apparatus of the state is used to effect this violence. It is one thing for a state to allow discriminatory behavior toward minority faiths that are out of step with dominant values and parties in a society. That happens with regularity around the globe. However, when the state itself becomes an instrument of violence toward minority faiths, this demands explanation.

Chapter two experiences the urban terrain of Hong Kong as a kinesthetic dramatization of Hong Kong's unsteady relationship to Chineseness. Through a somatic mapping of the city the chapter examines Hong Kong's particular postcolonial predicament — its return to the mainland after 100 years of British rule — and attendant cultural identity crisis. As a place through which things and people from every direction cross and recross, Hong Kong sometimes seems like a place without any actual land, just an intricate network of transit systems in kinetic suspension. The chapter explores a dance piece called Revolutionary Pekinese Opera (1997) by City Contemporary Dance Company and a series of public protests by the spiritual group Falun Gong, both of which occurred around the time of Hong Kong's handover to China. Both choreographies reveal Hong Kongers' efforts to apprehend the city during a time of uncertainty. The chapter argues that both the dance piece and the protests served as critiques of the forces of global capitalist flow that tend to motivate the everyday choreography of the streets of Hong Kong. At the moment of the handover these two choreographies strove to make visible the bodies handed over through this transfer of sovereignty. This chapter suggests that alternate kinetic forces can work to inject blips, stutters, and stillness into a habitus otherwise dominated by free flow.

This chapter explores two new remakings of Anouilh's Antigone in order to examine the current U.S. attraction to Anouilh as a vehicle for exploring irreconcilable social and political tensions. Both Cornerstone Theater's multimedia rock musical An Antigone Story: A Greek Tragedy Hijack, which took place in Los Angeles before and during the Democratic National Convention in 2000, and Antigone Falun Gong, in which the heroine defied government orders to practice Falun Gong in a contemporary Chinese city park to protest the killing of her (probably) interned brother, undermine the positions taken by both major characters. In An Antigone Story, Antigone cannot make her gesture meaningful in a dystopian American future dominated by media and corporations, and Falun Gong's A is faced with a world in which individual gestures, perhaps necessarily, sustain little meaning.

This chapter discusses the regulation of religious organizations in China. In particular, it examines the Falun Gong incident in 1999 and its impact on religious affairs, along with recent repression of house churches, such as the Shouwang Church.

This brief chapter moves beyond the end date of the title to speculate on the present and future of millennial thinking in the Americas, such as the role it may have played in US expansionism and warmaking post-9/11, which some saw as signs of the eschaton. The chapter also moves a bit beyond the Americas to note the rise of millennial sects such as Falun Gong in China and Aum Shinrikyo in Japan, and contemplate the future of millennial thought worldwide. The chapter (and book) end by drawing the balance between positive and negative aspects of millennialism, not the least being its impact on literature.

This chapter introduces four types of state-religion relations in human history – religious monopoly, pluralism, oligopoly, and a total ban. It argues that religious oligopoly is the most common practice in the world today and applies that understanding to the situation in China. The chapter illuminates the operation of triple markets in China: a red market of legal (officially permitted and regulated) religions; a black market of illegal religious groups and activities; and a grey market of spiritual organizations and practices of ambiguous legal status. This triple market is dynamic, as some groups, such as the Falun Gong, moved from ambiguous to illegal status, while some illegal underground Christian churches have moved into the gray category. The chapter draws upon these findings to challenge and refine dominant theories about the operation of religious markets.

Chapter Five articulates the “triple-market model” of religion in China: there is a red market of religion that comprises legal religious organizations, believers, and activities, a black market of religion that is illegal, and a gray market of religion and spiritualities with ambiguous legal status. The gray market of religion includes illegal practices of legally sanctioned religious individuals and organizations; religious practices that are carried out in the name of culture, science, politics, etc. Three propositions suggest that under heavy regulation, black and gray markets are inevitable, and “the more restrictive and suppressive the regulation, the larger the gray market of religion necessarily becomes.” Empirical evidence is provided to support these propositions.

This chapter discusses the evolving approaches adopted by the Chinese Communist Party in its attitude toward different religions, as well as the different policies of other entities with Chinese populations such as Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Singapore. The issues of Chinese Christians, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Falun Gong are analyzed, as well as their geopolitical implications. The comparison between these policies and cases shows that there are many ways in which a Chinese government can assert its authority over religion, beyond the use of repressive power, but also many ways in which Chinese religious believers relate to the state, other than through dissent.

This chapter provides background on the origins and evolution of Dibao, as well as basic information on the Dibao program and Dibao in the context of China’s other social welfare policies. The chapter traces the evolution of Dibao and illustrates its changing relationship with political order. Dibao originated as a solution to the problem of urban poverty, which the Chinese regime saw as motivating protest and unrest during economic liberalization. However, as the nature of social mobilization changed, so too did China’s conceptualization of political order and its strategy to pursue it. Instead of a means to achieve modernization, political order became an end in itself. The Dibao program evolved into a tool for controlling specific individuals deemed to pose a future threat to the Chinese regime.

If language is the mucilage of culture, religion is its manifesto. Any revelation of identity through language happens only when the speaker begins talking, and even then that identity remains in doubt except perhaps to the most experienced ear. Is that skilled KiSwahili speaker a Mijikenda from the Kenya coast or a Kamba from the interior? Is that cultivated French speaker a citizen of Senegal or a resident of Paris? Did those fellows at the bar in São Paulo mix some Brazilian terms with their Japanese, and are they mobals rather than visitors? Religious affiliation is another matter. Hundreds of millions of people routinely proclaim their religion through modes of dress, hairstyles, symbols, gestures, and other visible means. To those who share a faith, such customs create a sense of confidence and solidarity. To those who do not profess that faith, they can amount to provocation. For the faithful, religion is the key to identity. And such identity is part of the impress of place. Religion and place are strongly coupled, not only through the visible and prominent architecture of places of worship but also because certain orthodox believers still proclaim that their god “gave” them pieces of real estate whose ownership cannot therefore be a matter of Earthly political debate. To some, the Holy Land is a place where Jesus walked. To others, it is a gift from God. To the latter, it is worth dying for. Countless millions have perished for their faith, but comparatively few for their language. Dutch schoolchildren of a former generation used to learn the story of a captured boatload of medieval mercenaries plying the Zuider Zee. To a man, the captives claimed to be Dutch. The captain of the boarding party had a simple solution: any real Dutchman would be able to pronounce the word Scheveningen, a fishing port on the North Sea coast. Those who got it right were given amnesty. Those who failed were thrown overboard and drowned. It is an unusual tale. Language, dialect, accent, and syntax can confer advantage, open (or close) doors to opportunity, and engender social judgments. But they are not historically linked to mass annihilation.