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place than Hong Kong or Taiwan, where Buddhist and Taoist temples
and Catholic and Protestant chapels, and also an occasional Islamic
mosque, are ordinary parts of any large city or small town. Years of
anti-religious propaganda and Marxist-Leninist materialism in the
mainland have taken their toll, but there is evidence that religious life
is gradually making a comeback.
Of all Chinese religious groups, it is probably Falun Gong that has
received the most media attention, both domestically and abroad. Falun
Gong, also called Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline first made public
in China by Li Hongzhi in 1992, toward the end of China's “qigong
boom.” The practice includes a regimen of qigong meditation but distin-
guished itself from other qigong disciplines with a moral philosophy
rooted in Buddhist tradition, centered on the tenets of Truth, Compas-
sion, and Tolerance. Although the practice does not maintain formal
rituals, temples, or the worship of any specific deity, it fits within com-
monly accepted definitions of a religion in that it seeks to enable the
practitioner to attain higher states of being or enlightenment.
Li traveled throughout China between 1992 and 1994 giving lectures
to the public. By late 1998, government estimates put the number of
Falun Gong adherents in China at over 70 million. In 1996 a rift formed
between Falun Gong and the government-run qigong association. Li
Hongzhi withdrew from the association in March of 1996, and some
scholars have speculated that Falun Gong was bullied out of it because
Falun Gong failed to accept the authority of the association over its
religious operations.
Although some individuals and departments in the government
continued to encourage Falun Gong's growth, the group felt under
increased scrutiny following its split from the state qigong association.
Its topics were banned from further publication in 1996, and
government monitoring of Falun Gong exercise groups gradually
increased, culminating in the April 1999 beating and arrest of several
Falun Gong practitioners in the city of Tianjin. In response, some
10,000 Falun Gong adherents gathered peacefully outside the central
appeal office, adjacent the government compound at Zhongnanhai,
to request official recognition and an end to the escalating harassment
against them. Premier Zhu Rongzhi met with several representatives
and agreed to address their concerns, and the crowd dispersed as
quietly and suddenly as it had formed. President Jiang Zemin, how-
ever, was deeply unsettled by Falun Gong's ability to summon such a
large gathering without the government's knowledge and reportedly
felt threatened by Falun Gong's popularity and independent moral
philosophy. That evening, Jiang sent a letter through the party ranks
