Page "Falun Gong" Paragraph 84

Yuezhi Zhao argues that a number of factors contributed to the souring of relations between Falun Gong and the Chinese state and media.

These included infighting between China's qigong establishment and Falun Gong, speculation over blackmailing and lobbying by qigong opponents and " scientists-cum-ideologues with political motives and affiliations with competing central Party leaders ", which caused the shift in the state's position, 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.

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.

" In China the practice represented an indigenous spiritual and moral tradition, a cultural revitalization movement, and drew a sharp contrast to " Marxism with Chinese characteristics ".