The Cultural Economy of
Falun Gong in China
A Rhetorical Perspective
Xiao Ming
Emerging in China in the early 1990s, Falun Gong is viewed by its supporters as a folk
movement promoting the benefits of good health and moral cultivation. To the Chinese
establishment, however, it is a dissident religious cult threatening political orthodoxy and
national stability. The author, a Chinese national once involved in implementing Chinese
cultural policies, examines the evolving relationship between Falun Gong and Chinese
authorities in a revealing case study of the powerful public discourse between a pervasive political ideology and an alternative agenda in contention for cultural dominance.
Posited as a cure for culturally bound illness with widespread symptoms, the Falun
Gong movement’s efficacy among the marginalized relies on its articulation of a struggle
against government sanctioned exploitation in favor of idealistic moral aspirations. In
countering such a position, the Chinese government alleges that the religious movement is based in superstition and pseudoscience.
Aided by her insider perspective, the author deftly employs Western rhetorical methodology in a compelling critique of an Eastern rhetorical occurrence, highlighting how
authority confronts challenge in postsocialist China. By studying the communication
practices of Falun Gong and the Chinese government’s response to the movement,
this work examines how both sides establish rhetorical strategies to maximize political
effects. The author also discusses how both sides create and use ideographs to achieve
their agenda diachronically and synchronically. The resulting case study offers a revealing perspective on the power of rhetoric to establish and challenge cultural controls in
modern China.
The author, writing under the pseudonym Xiao Ming, was a Chinese
diplomat and official of the Ministry of
Culture before coming to the United
States. A graduate of Wake Forest University and the University of Pittsburgh,
she now teaches communication at a
private college in Pennsylvania.
Studies in Rhetoric/Communication • Thomas W. Benson, series editor
April 2011, 152 pages
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