http://faluninfo.net/article/911/?cid=162
Upon its initial introduction to the public, the government of China not only acquiesced to its spread, but even encouraged it, inviting its founder Mr. Li Hongzhi to teach in government facilities, and praising the practice for the benefits it brought to public health and morality.
Popularity: The more popular Falun Gong became, the more resistance it encountered. Party leaders fear any large, independent spiritual group. When Falun Gong books became bestsellers in 1996 they were banned; when a government survey estimated that over 70 million people practiced Falun Gong - more than the Party’s membership - media began attacking Falun Gong and state security began spying on and harassing adherents.
Individual leader’s role: Personality may have also played a significant role. Fearing Falun Gong’s rapidly growing popularity was overshadowing his own legacy, then-Party leader Jiang Zemin ordered that the practice be “eradicated.” According to a 1999 Washington Post article, “Jiang alone decided that Falun Gong must be eliminated.” Journalists and inside sources have described Jiang as “jealous” of Falun Gong and “obsessed” with eliminating the group. As China analyst Willy Lam has argued, by creating a national campaign Jiang sought to both align power to himself and eradicate a group he saw as a threat to his power.
Conflicting ideology: The ideological differences between the atheist Communist Party and the spiritual Falun Gong must also be taken into account. Falun Gong’s deeply spiritual belief system and its moral code can be said to be rather inimical to the beliefs held by the Communist authorities. Moreover, although religion is again becoming increasingly popular in China, religious groups must submit to the state and their leaders must be Party approved. Other groups who, like Falun Gong, have chosen to preserve their belief system and refused to submit to the Party’s authority have also met with persecution.
Nature of CCP rule: Finally, the persecution of Falun Gong can be said to be simply the latest in a historical continuum of violent campaigns that the Party uses to consolidate its control. Indeed, since the 1950s not a decade has gone by without some violent state-led campaign aimed at the masses, be it the suppression of “counterrevolutionaries,” the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the 1989 crackdown on the democracy movement, or Falun Gong.
Of all the available explanations for why Falun Gong was banned, one explanation most commonly cited in the media – that Falun Gong was banned as an “evil cult” – is false. It wasn’t until October of 1999 that the Chinese government attempted to label Falun Gong an evil cult and enact a legislative decision to retroactively justify the ban on that basis. The persecution had in fact officially started three months earlier, and when it began, the “evil cult” language was absent from the official discourse.
