I thought Falun Gong was a sub-species of Qigong (but I might be betraying my Sino-ignorance). Didn't the CP just take action against another medidation/exercise etc. "sect" (w/the Chinese web sites reporting that a high-ranking CP official had formerly sought solace from this "sect" for back pain) ? The thing I find interesting about the whole Falun Gong brouhaha is that it illustrates the continuities between CP China and Imperial China (w/its famed propensity to monitor and squash unaffiliated "civil society"-type organizations, whatever their (a)political content). (Note: I am not trying to advance some ethnocentric Wittfoegelian "Oriental despotism"-type hypothesis).
John
At 11:33 AM 2/28/00 -1000, you wrote:
>I love it, I just realised that I have caught the Hoffaite bug...even I
>spelled Falun Gong wrongly in my original post...
>
>Actually John, you have the spelling right, which puts you ahead of most
>of American mainstream critics of China, but, no, sorry, China has not
>banned Qigong. They have banned Falun Gong, but not qigong. I saw plenty
>of qigong going on in China while I was there last year, even after the
>Falun Gong crackdown...
>
>Steve