Word: li
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...crackdown is revealing. Though decades of economic reforms have empowered many in Chinese society, the party retains a firm grasp on the tools of repression. But it deploys them only when it feels directly threatened. In 1992 a grain clerk named Li Hongzhi, who had once played trumpet with a song-and-dance troupe, first mingled the tenets of Buddhism, Taoism and traditional qigong exercises to create Falun Gong, a cocktail of religious beliefs and physical exercises aimed at leading its practitioners to enlightenment. The party took no action, though Li published books, sold videotapes and lectured to large audiences...
Today Falun Gong exists in China almost entirely by virtue of the Internet. A group of activists maintains ties through encrypted e-mails with Falun Gong's exiled leadership in New York City, where Li Hongzhi now lives. These leaders direct a dwindling pool of committed practitioners, many of whom live on the lam in safe houses. But even this network is fraying. "It's harder to stay in touch, and everybody seems to be watched," says New York-based spokeswoman Gail Rachlin...
...still get their message out through followers like a woman in her 30s who met recently with TIME. An accountant for a foreign company in Beijing, she secretly uses her firm's overseas data line to read Falun Gong's website. In early January she found an essay by Li Hongzhi called "Beyond the Limits of Forbearance." Written at the time the demonstrations were starting to ebb, the essay urged more dramatic actions against the "evil" of the crackdown. "I copied it to a CD-ROM and gave it to everyone I know," she says. Through such networks, Li...
...COVER STORY About Falun Gong | Crackdown Li Hongzhi | Modern religion in China | Your Views...
...after a frenetic five years in the klieg lights, is one lived-in girl. Born into what she calls a "poor, but not terribly poor, traditional Taiwanese family," her childhood was far from blessed. The family never ate extravagantly, and Shu Qi (who grew up as Lin Li-huei but had her name changed at age 17 by a Taiwanese agent who thought it sounded more artistic) was seldom allowed to buy things for herself. She remembers a childhood education "revolving around hitting and scolding." That helped make her grow up quickly and with an independent streak. "I wasn...