SIT-REP 7-30; Friday, July 30, 1999

In This Issue: China, Taiwan & Falun Gong

Note: This report builds upon a Special Background Report on the world-wide phenomenon of Fundamentalism, written in early 1998 and available in the Website Archives. Research on "eschatology" is contained in an unpublished anthology-database I have been monkeying-about with for the last six years or so.

Beijing, Taipei & Falun Gong:

I wonder if the technocratic and kleptocratic Communist government of Beijing is not another variation of Andrew Carnegie's dictum: "Three generations from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves." The Party has moved beyond communism and socialism towards a mixed economy but clings to its totalitarian political philosophy, its mandate to hold power. The first generation of Chinese Communist leadership built power under Mao, then initiated economic reform under Deng, the second generation is trying to conserve its exclusive grip on power and the next generation of leaders will face the irresistible pressure of a prosperous middle class "revolution of rising expectations," the initial twinges of which are already upsetting the Communist Party's hold on power.

Deng Xiao Ping unleashed many modernizing forces in China which have had profound social and economic effects since the mid-1970s. Intelligent and charismatic, Deng was also far-seeing. But his successors, charged with the rapid conversion of China from a rural-agricultural subsistence economy to a post-industrial age juggernaut, show little vision and little abiding confidence in themselves. Their objective is to stifle open political debate, which would lead to overt political competition, as China's constitutional being mutates. What Beijing's masters wish is to continue the ancient Imperial regime by early 20^th Century ideologically-defined dictatorship. The Chairman is Emperor by a different name.

You get the sense that since Beijing buys influence among the Clintonites and attempts to bully its neighbors around the South China Sea rim, these are gray men; ones "who know the price of everything and the value of nothing." Such regimes are far too common; Mr. Clinton himself, is a more charismatic example.

China has made two concurrent problems for itself: Taiwan's assertion of a "state-to-state" parity in relations, and the suppression of the new religious sect, "Falun Gong" (more properly, Falun Dafa, as "gong" stems from the exercise-meditation regime of "qi gong" and "Falun Gong is the exercise regime).

Taiwan:

In my July 14, report, I was wondering about the timing of Taiwan President Lee's enunciation of his abandonment of the "One China" position for his new "two states" principle of "equal stature" in Beijing-Taipei negotiations and relations. Was Lee compounding the pressure on Mr. Clinton, or was he capitalizing on Beijing's recently launched crackdown on the Falun Gong sect?

I have to think it is due to the concurrence of both situations. Beijing is compounding problems for itself. Mr. Clinton's reaction to Lee's new principle is to mollify Beijing, but many in Congress continue to voice support for Taiwan's vigorous democracy over Beijing's overtly corrupt plutocracy.

I now think the US has been too patient and too generous with Beijing; it is time to start developing means of encouraging China towards more progressive development of its polity and Constitution. Beijing, in the wake of the Kosovo Air War, reasonably warns of American Hegemonism, and Mr. Clinton's Administration has no moral call (or backbone) for getting firm with Beijing, but it is also true that China's aspirations towards regional hegemonism are more than a bit too much --I am thinking of disputes over the Spratly and Paracel Islands, etc.

One consideration that binds America's response is the inscrutable relationship between China and North Korea; Beijing's ultimate sanction against reckless American behavior, may be to unleash Kim Jong-Il's underfed legions and their unconventional weapons against the South, where 36,000 American troops would be in immediate peril from nuclear, chemical and conventional attack. This is not to be read as a call to halt searching for ways to encourage enlightenment in China, just a reminder that our means are not unlimited.

Falun Gong and Eschatology:

For years, understanding that China has to chart its way through a massive dislocation of its rural population; there are some 4-500 million peasants being displaced in history's largest-ever "enclosure. There are some 100 million or more displaced peasants classified as "drifters" in China's major cities. England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany and other countries had underpopulated new continents to ship their surplus peasantries off to in the18th and 19^th centuries, but there is no open land for the Chinese, Indians and surplus of Muslim states in Asia and Africa.

Falun Dafa, a "spiritual-renewal movement" was founded just a few years ago as an exercise-meditation regime by a government clerk, Li Hongshi. Now 47, Mr. Li has resided in exile in New York City since last year. On July 29, in a symbolic extension of an escalating crackdown, Beijing issued a warrant for Li's arrest via Interpol, but the US and China have no extradition treaty, so he will remain here, most likely, an exiled leader of a disapproved group, not unlike the Dalai Lama. The group now is estimated to comprise from 20-50 million active practitioners, with some estimates running as high as 100 millions. In contrast, the Communist Party has about 60 million members.

On April 25, as the government began to try to contain the spread of Falun Gong by blustering threats, some 10,000 adherents (there is no official organization or headquarters) showed up outside the Forbidden City to protest and to seek official recognition. This was the biggest popular demonstration since the Tiansnmen Square Massacre of June 1989. Last week, Beijing rounded up over 5,000 members and found some 1200 practitioners in the party (it is also popular in the Army), who were shipped off to re-education camps, where they will be subjected to Maoist self-criticism. Falun Gong members, who evince no signs of an ideological or political bent --the practice is oriented to self-improvement and self-awareness-- wonder why they are being picked on.

The problem in Beijing's view is that any group that large is an alluring target to politicians who will bend such popular support to a rival political agenda; this has always been the way with populist and religious movements. Further, China has a particularly unattractive historical experience with religious and quasi-religious peasant movements as outlined below. But Beijing is actually compounding the problem by attempting to suppress that which cannot be suppressed -- a human response to the pressures of the great disclocations sweeping through China as it modernizes.

Concerned with religious "hysterias" based on apocalyptic visions, China has also been cracking down on "home churches" of the more apocalyptic post-Protestant sects, such as Pentacostalists, Adventists, etc. If you believe in a literal "eschatology" or philosophy of the end times, the rise of sects such as Falun Gong, is another signal of the "second coming." In fact, end-times signals generated by the ancient handmaidens of prosperity --Luxury and Corruption-- are all around us, all around the Post Cold War world.

Note: About eschatology and "End Times," the concern arose under peculiar circumstances, as the Jewish community-in-exile in Babylon observed the collapse of three imperial regimes (Assyrian, Babylonian and the Medes) and the rise of a fourth (the Persians) in a mere 62 years (611 BC- 549 BC). Common signals portended these cataclysmic changes, so the Exiles began to write eschatological pieces in cryptic prose, to protect their secret lore from their imperial masters. Further regime changes showed increasingly clear symptoms and signals, and a change in the imperial order presented the prospect for Israel's liberation. Similar signals were apparent in the times of Alexander and early Caesars.

China has its own track record: it has known several interesting "socio-religious" sects, generally rooted among the poor, during the long history of the last two millenia, and some of these sects have never died out. Here are the important ones:

The Yellow Turbans: the core of a 2^nd Century rebellion against the Han Dynasty, led by Taoist monks. This group's rebellion has justified the suspicion of any quasi-religious movement.

The White Lotus Sect: This group helped expel the Mongols in the 13^th Century and almost overthrew the Manchus in the19th Century. It was based on Doomsday prophesies of Buddha's return and its members also contributed to The Boxer Rebellion of 1900. The sect still is active inside China.

The Tai-Ping Rebellion: In the wake of the Opium Wars in Southern China, a quasi-Christian mystic, Hung Hsiu-ch'uan (1817-64) launched the Taiping --"Great Peace"-- Rebellion (1850-64) against the Manchu Dynasty after its army tried to suppress his rapidly growing cult in 1850; 20 million died in this 14-year civil war. Hung asserted he was a brother of Jesus.

The Boxers: "The Fists of Righteous Harmony," associated with the older White Lotus sect, the "Red Fists Societies" and the "Big Knives," this xenophobic peasant movement launched a wave of anti-Christian terror, particularly aimed at Catholic missionaries and Christian converts. Co-opted by the Manchu Empress Dowager and turned against the Foreign Legations, the Boxers conducted the "Fifty Five Days at Peking" siege from May to July 1900. The legations were situated just east of Tiananmen Square.

The Cultural Revolution: Mao's last gasp of ideologically-purist tyranny, in 1966-76.

Now there is Falun Dafa-Falun Gong, which is reportedly Buddhist-based (and more egalitarian), rather than Taoist. (I think Buddhism is more popular in southern China, Confucianism and Taoism (which are supportive of imperial order) are better established in the north).

Sun Txu, the ancient Chinese military philosopher, observed that a victorious army should be like water, flowing around obstructions. Sects such as Falun Gong are also like water, spreading naturally among the masses, and for Beijing's masters to try to hold back this flood is a forlorn hope. But then, again, former Prime Minister Li Peng, in particular, was a dam-building engineer, and Beijing is obsessed with controlling the flow of the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers. Hmm·Tyrants always imagine they can reshape fundamental human forces, and often succeed for a time. Controlling all of a person's thought and mind is simply impossible, and to try to control that part of the mind which dwells on inner improvement is a lunatic arrogance of ideologues. Sometimes the bosses just won't let you "render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's·"

It's going to take a while, but Beijing will face increasing restlessness from its burgeoning urban classes in the next decades.

Note: I would like to have another look at Kosovo and at the F-22 in my next issue.

© Copyright 1999 by Benjamin C. Works -- SIRIUS www.siri-us.com