MONTREAL China's Liberation Army Daily recently condemned the Falun Gong and its leader, Li Hongzhi, as "Western anti-Chinese forces" - a new wrinkle in a government campaign to discredit the group as an apocalyptic doomsday cult. It began by dismissing the spiritual movement as a trick played on the superstitious and the illiterate.
Most Chinese Falun Gong practitioners I have met in North America, however, are youngish and highly educated, most often in the hard sciences, and feel that their practice of Falun Gong has reacquainted them with aspects of Chinese cultural tradition that have been ignored since the Communist Revolution in 1949.
But in the context of modern Chinese history, traditionalism can be subversive and, by bringing together science, spirituality and Chinese nationalism, has proved to be explosive.
Since the 19th century, the central dilemma of China's history has been how to remain Chinese while becoming modern. Science has been perceived by Chinese intellectuals and the Chinese state as the solution to that dilemma.
Science was first understood as little more than a handy - if formidable - bag of technological tricks that enabled the West to build strong armies and that China could borrow in her turn. The notion that traditional Chinese culture could be preserved beneath a protective outer shell of Western science and technology was summed up by the slogan "Let Chinese learning serve as our foundation, and Western learning as our practical orientation."
In the 20th century, it became clear that science was more than tricks and that the scientific method might pose a challenge to traditional Chinese culture. Many Chinese intellectuals were prepared to make the painful admission that Chinese culture needed changing and hoped that science, as a neutral, universal methodology, would propel China forward - perhaps even past the West.
The supposedly scientific character of Marxism-Leninism was an important factor in its adoption by Chinese intellectuals, and a romance of science continues to permeate Chinese culture to this day.
That attitude is critical to understanding Falun Gong. Li Hongzhi, its founder, sees his message not only as a return to a neglected spiritual tradition, but also as a contribution to modern science. Quarks and neutrinos figure in Mr. Li's writings as frequently as Buddhas, and he insists that truth, benevolence and tolerance are the physical qualities of the universe, not simple moral platitudes.
In surveys I have circulated at Falun Gong "experience-sharing" conferences in Montreal and Toronto, practitioners identify the intellectual content of Mr. Li's teachings - in particular, his physics - as at least as important as spiritual enlightenment when they explain what drew them to the movement. Indeed, the greatest difference between Falun Gong and the larger qigong movement, from which it emerged in 1992, is precisely Li Hongzhi's emphasis on "scientific" theory.
Widespread practice of all forms of qigong - a varied set of exercises, meditative techniques and spiritual practices, based on ancient Chinese wisdom - spawned a mass movement of some 200 million people in China in the 1980s. Even now, most Chinese accept that qigong is real and helpful in achieving physical and mental well-being.
The Chinese state once supported qigong, including the Falun Gong variant, and established the Chinese Qigong Scientific Research Association in December 1985 to coordinate and fund scientific experiments to prove that qigong has a scientific basis. Official support for qigong lasted well into the 1990s.
At a time when Deng Xiaoping was opening China to bring in Western technology, China was investing in qigong, hoping to prove the existence of an indigenous science. For a brief, heady moment, it was possible to be modern and Chinese at the same time, as the twin goals of China's modern experience came into focus.
But in the past decade, qigong and Falun Gong grew faster than the state could have imagined. In China's energized economy, qigong masters sold books and audio and video cassettes, and organized national tours with mass rallies in which paying customers were said to experience trance, possession and a variety of other-worldly states. The authorities could not control the message. Qigong as Chinese science gave way to moral exhortations, supernatural powers and miraculous cures, all of which took as their point of departure traditional Chinese culture.
The Chinese Communist Party survived the catastrophic failure of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution by liberalizing the economy and appealing to patriotism. But the party's victories against the Japanese and the Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek are now more than 50 years old.
China's rapid economic development has brought with it inequality, corruption and "Western" consumerism. Qigong and Falun Gong have offered a return to a timeless cultural pride based on reasserted Chinese values. Neither appears to have had overt political ambitions at the outset.
But their evocation of a different vision of Chinese tradition and its contemporary value is now threatening to the state and party because it denies them the sole right to define the meaning of Chinese nationalism, and perhaps of Chineseness.
The writer, associate professor of history at the University of Montreal, has published widely on Chinese secret societies and is author of a forthcoming book on Falun Gong. He contributed this comment to The New York Times. MONTREAL China's Liberation Army Daily recently condemned the Falun Gong and its leader, Li Hongzhi, as "Western anti-Chinese forces" - a new wrinkle in a government campaign to discredit the group as an apocalyptic doomsday cult. It began by dismissing the spiritual movement as a trick played on the superstitious and the illiterate.
Most Chinese Falun Gong practitioners I have met in North America, however, are youngish and highly educated, most often in the hard sciences, and feel that their practice of Falun Gong has reacquainted them with aspects of Chinese cultural tradition that have been ignored since the Communist Revolution in 1949.
But in the context of modern Chinese history, traditionalism can be subversive and, by bringing together science, spirituality and Chinese nationalism, has proved to be explosive.
Since the 19th century, the central dilemma of China's history has been how to remain Chinese while becoming modern. Science has been perceived by Chinese intellectuals and the Chinese state as the solution to that dilemma.
Science was first understood as little more than a handy - if formidable - bag of technological tricks that enabled the West to build strong armies and that China could borrow in her turn. The notion that traditional Chinese culture could be preserved beneath a protective outer shell of Western science and technology was summed up by the slogan "Let Chinese learning serve as our foundation, and Western learning as our practical orientation."
In the 20th century, it became clear that science was more than tricks and that the scientific method might pose a challenge to traditional Chinese culture. Many Chinese intellectuals were prepared to make the painful admission that Chinese culture needed changing and hoped that science, as a neutral, universal methodology, would propel China forward - perhaps even past the West.
The supposedly scientific character of Marxism-Leninism was an important factor in its adoption by Chinese intellectuals, and a romance of science continues to permeate Chinese culture to this day.
That attitude is critical to understanding Falun Gong. Li Hongzhi, its founder, sees his message not only as a return to a neglected spiritual tradition, but also as a contribution to modern science. Quarks and neutrinos figure in Mr. Li's writings as frequently as Buddhas, and he insists that truth, benevolence and tolerance are the physical qualities of the universe, not simple moral platitudes.
In surveys I have circulated at Falun Gong "experience-sharing" conferences in Montreal and Toronto, practitioners identify the intellectual content of Mr. Li's teachings - in particular, his physics - as at least as important as spiritual enlightenment when they explain what drew them to the movement. Indeed, the greatest difference between Falun Gong and the larger qigong movement, from which it emerged in 1992, is precisely Li Hongzhi's emphasis on "scientific" theory.
Widespread practice of all forms of qigong - a varied set of exercises, meditative techniques and spiritual practices, based on ancient Chinese wisdom - spawned a mass movement of some 200 million people in China in the 1980s. Even now, most Chinese accept that qigong is real and helpful in achieving physical and mental well-being.
The Chinese state once supported qigong, including the Falun Gong variant, and established the Chinese Qigong Scientific Research Association in December 1985 to coordinate and fund scientific experiments to prove that qigong has a scientific basis. Official support for qigong lasted well into the 1990s.
At a time when Deng Xiaoping was opening China to bring in Western technology, China was investing in qigong, hoping to prove the existence of an indigenous science. For a brief, heady moment, it was possible to be modern and Chinese at the same time, as the twin goals of China's modern experience came into focus.
But in the past decade, qigong and Falun Gong grew faster than the state could have imagined. In China's energized economy, qigong masters sold books and audio and video cassettes, and organized national tours with mass rallies in which paying customers were said to experience trance, possession and a variety of other-worldly states. The authorities could not control the message. Qigong as Chinese science gave way to moral exhortations, supernatural powers and miraculous cures, all of which took as their point of departure traditional Chinese culture.
The Chinese Communist Party survived the catastrophic failure of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution by liberalizing the economy and appealing to patriotism. But the party's victories against the Japanese and the Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek are now more than 50 years old.
China's rapid economic development has brought with it inequality, corruption and "Western" consumerism. Qigong and Falun Gong have offered a return to a timeless cultural pride based on reasserted Chinese values. Neither appears to have had overt political ambitions at the outset.
But their evocation of a different vision of Chinese tradition and its contemporary value is now threatening to the state and party because it denies them the sole right to define the meaning of Chinese nationalism, and perhaps of Chineseness.
The writer, associate professor of history at the University of Montreal, has published widely on Chinese secret societies and is author of a forthcoming book on Falun Gong. He contributed this comment to The New York Times. MONTREAL China's Liberation Army Daily recently condemned the Falun Gong and its leader, Li Hongzhi, as "Western anti-Chinese forces" - a new wrinkle in a government campaign to discredit the group as an apocalyptic doomsday cult. It began by dismissing the spiritual movement as a trick played on the superstitious and the illiterate.
Most Chinese Falun Gong practitioners I have met in North America, however, are youngish and highly educated, most often in the hard sciences, and feel that their practice of Falun Gong has reacquainted them with aspects of Chinese cultural tradition that have been ignored since the Communist Revolution in 1949.
But in the context of modern Chinese history, traditionalism can be subversive and, by bringing together science, spirituality and Chinese nationalism, has proved to be explosive.
Since the 19th century, the central dilemma of China's history has been how to remain Chinese while becoming modern. Science has been perceived by Chinese intellectuals and the Chinese state as the solution to that dilemma.
Science was first understood as little more than a handy - if formidable - bag of technological tricks that enabled the West to build strong armies and that China could borrow in her turn. The notion that traditional Chinese culture could be preserved beneath a protective outer shell of Western science and technology was summed up by the slogan "Let Chinese learning serve as our foundation, and Western learning as our practical orientation."
In the 20th century, it became clear that science was more than tricks and that the scientific method might pose a challenge to traditional Chinese culture. Many Chinese intellectuals were prepared to make the painful admission that Chinese culture needed changing and hoped that science, as a neutral, universal methodology, would propel China forward - perhaps even past the West.
The supposedly scientific character of Marxism-Leninism was an important factor in its adoption by Chinese intellectuals, and a romance of science continues to permeate Chinese culture to this day.
That attitude is critical to understanding Falun Gong. Li Hongzhi, its founder, sees his message not only as a return to a neglected spiritual tradition, but also as a contribution to modern science. Quarks and neutrinos figure in Mr. Li's writings as frequently as Buddhas, and he insists that truth, benevolence and tolerance are the physical qualities of the universe, not simple moral platitudes.
In surveys I have circulated at Falun Gong "experience-sharing" conferences in Montreal and Toronto, practitioners identify the intellectual content of Mr. Li's teachings - in particular, his physics - as at least as important as spiritual enlightenment when they explain what drew them to the movement. Indeed, the greatest difference between Falun Gong and the larger qigong movement, from which it emerged in 1992, is precisely Li Hongzhi's emphasis on "scientific" theory.
Widespread practice of all forms of qigong - a varied set of exercises, meditative techniques and spiritual practices, based on ancient Chinese wisdom - spawned a mass movement of some 200 million people in China in the 1980s. Even now, most Chinese accept that qigong is real and helpful in achieving physical and mental well-being.
The Chinese state once supported qigong, including the Falun Gong variant, and established the Chinese Qigong Scientific Research Association in December 1985 to coordinate and fund scientific experiments to prove that qigong has a scientific basis. Official support for qigong lasted well into the 1990s.
At a time when Deng Xiaoping was opening China to bring in Western technology, China was investing in qigong, hoping to prove the existence of an indigenous science. For a brief, heady moment, it was possible to be modern and Chinese at the same time, as the twin goals of China's modern experience came into focus.
But in the past decade, qigong and Falun Gong grew faster than the state could have imagined. In China's energized economy, qigong masters sold books and audio and video cassettes, and organized national tours with mass rallies in which paying customers were said to experience trance, possession and a variety of other-worldly states. The authorities could not control the message. Qigong as Chinese science gave way to moral exhortations, supernatural powers and miraculous cures, all of which took as their point of departure traditional Chinese culture.
The Chinese Communist Party survived the catastrophic failure of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution by liberalizing the economy and appealing to patriotism. But the party's victories against the Japanese and the Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek are now more than 50 years old.
China's rapid economic development has brought with it inequality, corruption and "Western" consumerism. Qigong and Falun Gong have offered a return to a timeless cultural pride based on reasserted Chinese values. Neither appears to have had overt political ambitions at the outset.
But their evocation of a different vision of Chinese tradition and its contemporary value is now threatening to the state and party because it denies them the sole right to define the meaning of Chinese nationalism, and perhaps of Chineseness.
The writer, associate professor of history at the University of Montreal, has published widely on Chinese secret societies and is author of a forthcoming book on Falun Gong. He contributed this comment to The New York Times.