Word: falun
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Over at the student union there are a couple of early risers putting up decorations and looking bored. The Falun Dafa (you and the Chinese government know them as Falun Gong) people are also in the house, passing out their literature, although they either don't speak English or are really good at politely ignoring requests for more information...
...safety net to absorb those unemployed people, and in the context of a social upheaval on the scale of Europe?s industrial revolution, they?re perceived as a mortal threat to the very survival of the Chinese state. It?s that thinking that has driven the crackdown on the Falun Gong religious sect over the past 18 months. Despite the group?s apparently harmless blend of Buddhism, exercise and mysticism, the idea of a nationwide organizational structure to rival the Communist Party?s was intolerable to the leaders in Beijing. And concerns over the social impact of economic liberalization have...
...social control, and liberalizing the economy will necessarily bring unemployment and uncertainty to millions of ordinary Chinese, raising the specter of massive social unrest that could potentially tear China apart. The depth of that fear among the leadership was evident in last year's crackdown on the apparently harmless Falun Gong religious sect, and it will almost certainly act as a brake on Beijing's implementing the economic liberalization measures to which it has agreed. So while the Senate vote ends the annual unpleasantness between Beijing and Washington when Congress would rattle its saber at China before dutifully extending normal...
...billion wallets, America's evangelists are out to snare Chinese souls. Their spiritual quest couldn't come at a more opportune time. The decay of communism, combined with rising unemployment and rampant consumerism, has kindled a religious revival in China. Some Chinese, many elderly and disenfranchised, have taken to Falun Gong, the outlawed meditation group that spooked the nation's leadership by quietly mobilizing more than 10,000 people for a mass protest in Beijing last year. Other seekers of spirituality, mostly younger and more attuned to Western influences, have converted to Christianity. Two decades ago, shortly after the antireligion...
...year, less because of Maoist nostalgia than out of concern that its immediate consequences - massive unemployment with no social safety net - will provoke widespread unrest that could undermine Beijing's grip on power. It was the same concern to maintain order that drove the crackdown last year on the Falun Gong religious sect, which while it had no obvious political agenda represented an independent nationwide organization that the communist leadership found threatening. So while WTO membership will formally commit Beijing to open up large sectors of its economy to foreign competition, the realities of implementation are likely to be governed...