Warfare is Deception: Falun Gong and the Art of War

In what seems to becoming a constant theme I feel like I never get to talk about nice things, ever. But then again when studying social justice issues through the lens of religion I'm beginning to feel like that's a given. Anyway on to our topic of doom for today Falun Gong (which I'm sure you've heard of in general), its violent repression (which I'd be shocked if you hadn't heard of), The Art of War (which I'd be weirded out if you hadn't heard of but would understand) and how they're all interconnected (or might be anyway).

So what's this all about? Well sometime in the early history of China, 206 BCE is the age of the oldest known copy, the Art of War was either written or finalized to the current book that it is today. Whether or not it was written by Sun Tzu is unclear (some modern scholars claim he didn't exist), regardless of all of this the modern version of the Art of War was finished by the 6th century BCE at the latest.

A looker ain't he

The book is an in-depth treaties on the best possible way to engage one's enemies in war and how that engagement is a distinct art form unto itself. The book has been an influential part of East Asian Military and Business strategies and was even used in the Invasion of Japan by allied forces. It advocates a strategy of deception, cunning, and strategic outmaneuvering to defeat ones opponents often without having to fight them in a head on confrontation. The book maintains that the greatest victory is one that is won without any bloodshed and posits in the first chapter (remember this now) that all warfare is based on deception and the manipulation of information. So what? What does any of this have to do with Falun Gong...well a lot actually.

In 1992 Li Hongzhi combined elements of Daoism, Buddhism, and Qigong (a pratice that has grown up in China since 1950 based on breath and controlled bodies movements to obtain spitual clarity, physical fitness, and overall wellness) to create Falun Gong. The religion advocates slow moving, meditation, breath control, a tripartite mindset of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, as well as non-violence to obtain enlightenment. At its height in China the religion claimed a membership over 10 million people that was built up of a huge range of Chinese society. Party members and farmers practiced the religion and sights like this weren't all too uncommon:

notice how non-violent they are

So of course this began to deeply deeply disturb the leadership of the CCP and in 1999 the government declared the religion an illegal organization and began to crackdown. However, as the group was non-violent and peaceful there wasn't a lot the government could do without fear of some sort of reprisal (remember Falun Gong rivals the CCP in size right now), unless, of course, public opinion was swayed in their favor. So while thousands were arrested and detained and a massive propaganda campaign was launched, most of the mainland Chinese thought that the government was acting to harshly against the organization.

"Uphold science, eradicate superstition"

Firmly support the decision of the Central Committee 
to deal with the illegal organization of 'Falun Gong

But then on January 23rd 2001 everything changed. That evening five people set themselves on fire outside of   Tiananmen square in protest of the crackdown. 

And just like that suddenly everything the CCP had said about Falun Gong appeared to be true. Only an evil cult that was spreading ideas of superstition and social instability could have pushed five of its practitioners to do such a thing. However, Falun Gong was quick to counter that this behavior was out of character for practitioners of Falun Gong while pointing out a huge number of contradictions in the reporting of the events by the state sponsored news (which can be seen below) 

 

While I am skeptical to jump on the band wagon of a conspiracy theory the video and other materials put forward by the group do seem convincing. However, to be fair, their is convincing evidence on both sides.But for a moment let's entertain the idea that the accusations were true and the protests were staged. With that in mind I began to entertain the idea bringing the Art of War into this conversation. Remember that line I told you to remember about all warfare being based on deception? Well that's exactly what happened here. After this event Chinese, both followers and observers,  throughout the country began to doubt Falun Gong. And many of the faithful who were determined to hold on to their beliefs began to be plagued with doubt and drop away and those that did hold on were subjugated to unspeakable forms of torture, abuse, reeducation, and other human rights violations. 

Which is just like the Art of War capture who you can and use them against your enemy or in the terms of a battle for public opinion you cause deep seeded doubt and suspicion in the moderates and unconvinced isolating the remaining resistance. By doing so you slowly make the remaining group seem more and more radical to the now opposed public causing the remainder to be further isolated and stigmatized allowing the government to crush resistance effectively without causing public outcry. By using this strategy the Chinese government did have to resort to violence, however, by cutting off Falun Gong from its more moderate supporters and manipulating the flow of information they were able to effectively surround the group and crush its center. While pockets of resistance did spring up (Liu Chengjun an activist hacked a satalite news feed for the city of Changchun and managed to broadcast the False Fire video on loop for fifty minutes, he was arrested and died in prison 21 years later) the group has been effectively silence in China due to the CCP's actions. Even if the protests were real the way the CCP handled the situation was, from the stand point of The Art, in a brilliant manner. Regardless of its validity the information surrounding the protests was disseminated and controlled in such a way that it caused confusion and allow the government to have a greater control over public opinion through its use of deceptive tactics. 

While I'm still working on this it is an interesting line to peruse and I'm probably gonna work on it in greater detail in the weeks to come. But in the mean time I'd like to explore more of the details of exactly what happened during 1999 in China and read closer into whatever sources of public opinion at the time exist (although how reliable they will be is completely up in the air). It could also be interesting to investigate how the international community reacted to what happened in China as well as the state of affairs of Falun Gong today, more than ten years after the crack down. 

Peace and Love

Jacob 

Sources 

Chang, Maria Hsia. 2004. Falun gong : The end of days. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press.

Forney, Matthew. 2001. How china beat down falun gong. Time 157, no. 26: 32.

Howell, Jude. 2004. Governance in china. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Sunzi, , Ralph D. Sawyer, Mei-chün Sawyer, and Bin Sun . 1996. The complete art of war. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.