Editing Falun Gong (section)

===Causes===
Observers have attempted to explain the CCP's rationale for banning Falun Gong as stemming from a variety of factors. Many of these explanations centre on institutional causes, such as Falun Gong's size and popularity, its independence from the state, and internal politics within the Chinese government.<ref name="FC">{{Cite web |date=2017 |title=Falun Gong: Religious Freedom in China |url=https://freedomhouse.org/report/2017/battle-china-spirit-falun-gong-religious-freedom |access-date= |website=Freedom House |language=en}}</ref><ref name="HP" /><ref name="CC" /><ref name="BF" /> Other scholars have noted that Chinese authorities were troubled by Falun Gong's moral and spiritual content, which put it at odds with aspects of the official [[Marxism|Marxist ideology]].<ref name="XIX" /><ref name="zhao" /><ref name="Shue" /> Still others have pointed to China's history of bloody sectarian revolts as a possible factor leading to the crackdown.{{sfn|Chang|2004|p={{page needed|date=May 2025}}}}<ref name="Rahn2002" />

[[File:610 Office.jpg|thumb|610 Office's organization in China]]
[[Xinhua News Agency]], the official news organization of the Chinese government, declared that Falun Gong is "opposed to the Communist Party of China and the central government, preaches [[idealism]], [[theism]] and [[Feudalism|feudal]] [[superstition]]".<ref name="english.peopledaily.com.cn">{{Cite news |title=Xinhua Commentary on Political Nature of Falun Gong |work=People's Daily|date= 2 August 1999|url=http://en.people.cn/english/199908/02/enc_19990802001003_TopNews.html|access-date=2023-02-10|archive-date=2018-05-24|archive-url=https://archive.today/20180524125754/http://en.people.cn/english/199908/02/enc_19990802001003_TopNews.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> Xinhua also asserted that "the so-called 'truth, kindness and forbearance' principle preached by [Falun Gong] has nothing in common with the socialist ethical and cultural progress we are striving to achieve", and it also argued that it was necessary to crush Falun Gong in order to preserve the "vanguard role and purity" of the Chinese Communist Party.<ref name="hanson1999">{{Cite news|last=Hanson|first=Gayle M. B.|date=1999-08-23|title=China Shaken by Mass Meditation|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_31_15/ai_55553470|access-date=2023-02-10|website=[[Insight on the News]]|via=[[FindArticles]]|language=en|archive-date=8 July 2012|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120708205336/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_31_15/ai_55553470|url-status=dead}}</ref> Other articles which appeared in the state-run media in the first days and weeks after the ban was imposed posited that Falun Gong must be defeated because its "theistic" philosophy was at odds with the [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] [[paradigm]] and the [[Secular ethics|secular values]] of [[materialism]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Noakes |first1=Stephen |title=Contextualizing a Crackdown: Voegelin on China's Falun Gong |date=2020-06-15 |url=https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/handle/2292/53738 |access-date= |publisher=Lexington |isbn=978-1-4985-9861-3 |last2=Ford |first2=Caylan}}</ref>

Willy Wo-Lap Lam writes that Jiang Zemin's campaign against Falun Gong may have been used to promote allegiance to himself; Lam quotes one party veteran as saying "by unleashing a [[Mao Zedong|Mao]]-style movement [against Falun Gong], Jiang is forcing senior cadres to pledge allegiance to his line".<ref name="HP" /> ''[[The Washington Post]]'' reported that sources indicated not all of the [[Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party|Politburo Standing Committee]] shared Jiang's view that Falun Gong should be eradicated, and Jiang alone made the decision of crackdown.<ref name="ReidG">{{cite magazine |last=Reid |first=Graham |volume=203 |issue=3442 |date=29 April – 5 May 2006 |url=http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3442/features/5972/nothing_left_to_lose.html |title=Nothing left to lose |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930160710/http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3442/features/5972/nothing_left_to_lose.html |archive-date=30 September 2007 |website=New Zealand Listener |access-date=6 July 2006}}</ref><ref name="CC">{{Cite news |last=Pomfret |first=John |author-link=John Pomfret (journalist) |date=12 November 1999 |title=Cracks in China's Crackdown |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-11/12/062r-111299-idx.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171214030203/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-11/12/062r-111299-idx.html |archive-date=14 December 2017 |access-date=2024-03-02 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]}}</ref>

Human Rights Watch commented that the crackdown on Falun Gong reflects historical efforts by the CCP to eradicate religion, which the government believes is inherently subversive.<ref name=Dangerous/> The Chinese government protects five "patriotic", state-sanctioned religious groups. Unregistered religions that fall outside the state-sanctioned organizations are thus vulnerable to suppression.<ref>{{Cite web|title=2010 Annual Report | work=Congressional-Executive Commission on China|url=https://www.cecc.gov/publications/annual-reports/2010-annual-report|access-date=2023-02-10| date=10 October 2010|archive-date=10 February 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210134451/https://www.cecc.gov/publications/annual-reports/2010-annual-report|url-status=live}}</ref> ''[[The Globe and Mail]]'' wrote: "any group that does not come under the control of the Party is a threat".<ref name="BF">{{cite news |newspaper=The Globe and Mail |date=26 January 2001 |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/beijing-v-falun-gong/article759323 |title=Beijing v. falun gong<!--sic--> |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150926030056/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/beijing-v-falun-gong/article759323/ |archive-date=26 September 2015 |department=Metro |page=A14}}</ref> [[Craig S. Smith]] of ''The New York Times'' wrote that the CCP feels increasingly threatened by any belief system that challenges its ideology and has an ability to organize itself.<ref name="nyt20000430">{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/30/weekinreview/the-world-rooting-out-falun-gong-china-makes-war-on-mysticism.html?pagewanted=all |title=Rooting Out Falun Gong; China Makes War on Mysticism |last=Smith |first=Craig S. |date=30 April 2000 |work=The New York Times |access-date=19 February 2017 |archive-date=11 November 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171111152438/http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/30/weekinreview/the-world-rooting-out-falun-gong-china-makes-war-on-mysticism.html?pagewanted=all |url-status=live }}</ref> That Falun Gong, whose belief system represented a revival of [[traditional Chinese religion]], was being practiced by a large number of Communist Party members and members of the military was seen as particularly disturbing to Jiang; according to [[Julia Ching]], "Jiang accepts the threat of Falun Gong as an ideological one: spiritual beliefs against militant atheism and historical materialism. He [wished] to purge the government and the military of such beliefs."<ref name="XIX">{{cite journal |first=Julia |last=Ching |title=The Falun Gong: Religious and Political Implications |journal=American Asian Review |volume=XIX |issue=4 |date=Winter 2001 |page=12}}</ref>

Yuezhi Zhao points to several other factors that may have led to a deterioration of the relationship between Falun Gong and the Chinese state and media.<ref name="zhao"/> These included infighting within China's qigong establishment, the influence of qigong opponents among leaders of China, and the struggles from mid-1996 to mid-1999 between Falun Gong and the Chinese power elite over the status and treatment of the movement.<ref name="zhao"/> According to Zhao, Falun Gong practitioners have established a "resistance identity"—one that stands against prevailing pursuits of wealth, power, scientific rationality, and "the entire value system associated with China's project of modernization".<ref name="zhao"/> In China the practice represented an indigenous spiritual and moral tradition, a cultural revitalization movement, and it was a sharp contrast to "Marxism with Chinese characteristics".<ref name="twiss">{{cite book |last=Twiss |first=Sumner B. |chapter=Religious Intolerance in Contemporary China, Including the Curious Case of Falun Gong |title=The World's Religions After September 11 |editor-first=Arvind |editor-last=Sharma |publisher=Greenwood |year=2009 |pages=227–240}}</ref>

[[Vivienne Shue]] similarly writes that Falun Gong presented a comprehensive challenge to the CCP's legitimacy. Shue argues that Chinese rulers have historically derived their legitimacy from their claim to possess an exclusive connection to the "Truth". In imperial China, truth was based on a [[Confucianism|Confucian]] and [[Taoism|Daoist]] cosmology, where in the case of the Communist Party, the truth is represented by Marxist–Leninism and historical materialism. Falun Gong challenged the Marxist–Leninism paradigm, reviving an understanding which is based on more traditionally [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] or Daoist conceptions.<ref name="Shue">{{cite book |first=Vivienne |last=Shue |chapter=Legitimacy Crisis in China? |editor1-first=Peter Hays |editor1-last=Gries |editor1-link=Peter Hays Gries |editor2-first=Stanley |editor2-last=Rosen |title=State and Society in 21st-century China. Crisis, Contention, and Legitimation |location=New York |publisher=Routledge Curzon |year=2004}}</ref> David Ownby contends that Falun Gong also challenged the Communist Party's hegemony over the [[Chinese nationalism|Chinese nationalist]] discourse: "[Falun Gong's] evocation of a different vision of Chinese tradition and its contemporary values are now so threatening to the state and the party because it denies them the sole right to define the meaning of Chinese nationalism, and it even denies them the sole right to define the meaning of Chineseness."<ref>{{Cite news|last=Ownby|first=David|date=2001-02-15|title=Opinion &#124; China's War Against Itself|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/15/opinion/china-s-war-against-itself.html|access-date=2023-02-10|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=28 December 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161228103005/http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/15/opinion/china-s-war-against-itself.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Maria Chang commented that since the overthrow of the [[Qin dynasty]], "[[Millenarianism|Millenarian]] movements had exerted a profound impact on the course of [[History of China|Chinese history]]", culminating in the [[Chinese Communist Revolution]], which brought the CCP to power.<ref name="Chang"/>{{rp|59}} Patsy Rahn (2002) describes a paradigm of conflict between Chinese sectarian groups and the rulers who they often challenge. According to Rahn, the history of this paradigm goes back to the [[End of the Han dynasty|collapse of the Han dynasty]]: "The pattern of a ruling power keeping a watchful eye on sectarian groups, at times threatened by them, at times raising campaigns against them, began as early as the second century and continued throughout the [[Dynasties in Chinese history|dynastic period]], through the [[History of the People's Republic of China (1949–1976)|Mao era]] and into the present."<ref name="Rahn2002">{{Cite journal|last=Rahn|first=Patsy|date=2002-01-24|title=The Chemistry of a Conflict: The Chinese Government and the Falun Gong|url=https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/tpv/2002/00000014/00000004/art00004|journal=Terrorism and Political Violence|volume=14|issue=4|pages=41–65|doi=10.1080/714005633|s2cid=145680606|access-date=10 February 2023|archive-date=10 February 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210134442/https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/tpv/2002/00000014/00000004/art00004|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}</ref>