BEIJING: Continuing suppression of members of Falong Gong, a movement whose supporters continue to “step forward” to respond to their leader’s call to “achieve consummation by facing imprisonment or death,” provides clear evidence that something new, if inexplicable, is happening in China. But there is a paradox here, for this “something new” is also something very old. It is precisely because this mass cult-turned-protest-movement has a traditional resonance that it poses such a threat to the Party establishment.
BEIJING: Continuing suppression of members of Falong Gong, a movement whose supporters continue to “step forward” to respond to their leader’s call to “achieve consummation by facing imprisonment or death,” provides clear evidence that something new, if inexplicable, is happening in China. But there is a paradox here, for this “something new” is also something very old. It is precisely because this mass cult-turned-protest-movement has a traditional resonance that it poses such a threat to the Party establishment.