UCLA Asia Institute

How did Falun Gong strike such a deep chord in so many Chinese people and find such a fertile ground for recruitment? This paper studies the nature of Falun Gong, and attempts to address issues concerning the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ideological work on the Chinese youth, and crisis of faith among the Chinese people brought forth by economic reforms in recent years. The hypothesis is: the CCP’s reemphasis on ideological education only aggravates the crisis of faith among the youth because the ideological work idealized by the CCP pushes for one direction, but the realities experienced by the youth push for a different direction. This has also allowed alternative values, such as Falun Gong, to fill the void left open by the decline of the CCP’s official ideology.