HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN CHINA: REPRESSION OF THE FALUN GONG
This research paper discusses the origins, nature and appeal of the Falun Gong movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and its repression by the Chinese government. Since it assumed power in October 1949, the Chinese communist regime has committed many human rights abuses which have been a source of internal unrest and foreign disapproval. Since 1992, the Falun Gong movement spread rapidly within China and among overseas Chinese. It has appealed to many ordinary Chinese from all walks of life. A mixture of traditional Chinese religious, philosophic, martial and healing arts influences, Falun Gong has partially filled a spiritual void arising out of China's economic modernization and the decline of Communist ideology. The movement has been forcibly repressed by the PRC government since July 1999 which regards it (even though it is nonviolent and apolitical) as a dangerous threat to the monopoly of power enjoyed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1949. The all-pervasive nature of that repression has largely succeeded in eliminating the Falun Gong as a going concern within China but it has continued to surface as an irritant to the regime.
Since time immemorial, China's governing system has been characterized by authoritarian rule. Chinese rulers sought to achieved a proper balance during different periods between fang, letting go, and shou, tightening up. In other words, there have been cyclically alternating periods of political repression and liberalization. Repression has often been associated with natural disasters such as flood and famine, threatened or actual invasions by alien barbarians and periods when the central government's hold over the people has been weakened by internal corruption, nepotism and decay. According to Philips (2000, May 17), "3,000 years of history show no concept of individual rights or freedom of expression" (p. M 1). T...