This secret notice was issued to “further boost Marxist atheism research, propaganda, and education.” It reflects a new assessment from the top Party leaders, in light of “the new situation to target ‘Falun Gong,’ and various pseudo-sciences and superstitions, and represents a new trend of denigrating Western ‘hostile’ forces attempting to ‘westernize’ and ‘disintegrate’ China, in the name of religion”. It mandates that Marxist atheism propaganda and education be integrated into all sectors of society throughout the country, at all levels. All efficient measures shall be taken to “ban all uncivilized conduct in spreading superstitions,” in order to assist “peoples’ minds to be educated, spirits enriched, and their state of thought improved.”]
On January 17, former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Zhao Ziyang passed away at the age of 85 in a Beijing Hospital, an event mourned by many concerned with China’s welfare across the world. Zhao’s life is a microcosm of contemporary China, one of tumultuous change and reversals of course. We saw things come full circle with Zhao’s life — Party ideology undermining a person’s human nature, and human nature reawakened.
The funeral service of the former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Zhao Ziyang was held on the morning of January 29 at Babaoshan Cemetery in Beijing. Without mentioning Zhao’s background as former Premier, General Secretary of the CCP, or a key figure in China’s reform, the Xinhua News Agency published a brief obituary, which instead emphasized that Zhao “made serious mistakes in 1989.” With regard to the CCP’s handling of Zhao’s death, Epoch Times reporter Xin Fei interviewed Mr. Gao Wenqian, who is one of China’s most prominent official historians.
When former Chinese leader, Jiang Zemin, launched the persecution of Falun Gong, one of his primary motivations was to target a perceived threat by the United States.
Two Chinese Communist Party internal documents (see Appendix) show how Jiang Zemin in 1999 motivated and ordered the Communist Party to crackdown on Falun Gong. The two documents—a letter and a speech by Jiang addressing his politburo (the small circle of men who effectively run the country)—indicate that one of Jiang’s reasons in using heavy measures towards Falun Gong was to fend off the “U.S. threat.”
A little over nine years ago, when I was studying at a graduate school in the serene and rural heartland of the US, I first heard of the Chinese term “Falun Gong” through an MBA student from Beijing. The tall, hefty guy kept a very short crew-cut favored by typical Beijingers of his gender and age, which, in combination with the swastika symbol that hung on the wall of his apartment, sent a chill down my spine: a Nazi skin-head from China?
As embarrassing as my first encounter with Falun Gong was, it turned out to be a productive learning experience. The unusually soft-spoken and self-effacing youngster, a rarity among people brought up in the buzz and panache of China’s capital, convinced me that the sign of the swastika (a word that I had always thought to be German) had originated in India, and had been a symbol of Buddhism for thousands of years. He also did a demo of the Falun Gong exercises, which convinced me the practice was one of the numerous Qi Gong exercises prevalent in China.Apparently none of these things would lead me to imagine that Falun Gong would one day become a phrase so rich in its symbolism of thereality in China, and a force that seems uniquely capable of unsettling the ostensibly monolithic Communist regime in China.