Communist Party Calls for Increased Efforts To "Transform" Falun Gong Practitioners as Part of Three-Year Campaign

March 22, 2011

According to documents issued by local governments, Party organizations, and other sources, Chinese authorities are currently in the second stage of a three-stage, three-year campaign to increase efforts to "transform" Falun Gong practitioners―a term the government and Party use to refer to the process of pressuring Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their belief in and practice of Falun Gong. The campaign, which lasts from 2010-2012, originated from the central-level 6-10 Office―an extralegal, Party-run security apparatus created in June 1999 to implement the Party's ban against Falun Gong. Some of the documents call on local governments to cooperate with Party organizations, or to make use of businesses or family members of Falun Gong practitioners to increase efforts to "transform" Falun Gong practitioners. Some of the documents list quantitative "transformation" targets, require local businesses to sign "responsibility agreements" that require them to participate in the campaign, or call for the incorporation of "transformation" work into the performance reviews of local government agencies.

Documents Detail 2010-2012 Campaign Against Falun Gong Practitioners

Several documents dated throughout 2010 from local governments, Party organizations, and other sources in locations throughout China describe implementation of a "2010-2012 Transformation-Through-Reeducation Assault and Consolidation Overall Battle Work Plan," a three-year, national campaign that calls on local governments, Party organizations, businesses, and individuals to increase efforts to implement "transformation through reeducation" (sometimes shortened to "transformation") against Falun Gong practitioners (Falun Gong is a spiritual movement based on Chinese meditative exercises called qigong and the teachings of its founder, Li Hongzhi). Sources include two documents from the China Anti-Cult Association (CACA)―an organization that characterizes itself as a "non-profit social organization" charged with "providing reports and suggestions to relevant government departments" on "the situation of cult activities and countermeasures" (Art. 2, Art. 6(4), Charter of the CACA, available in Chinese via the official Web site of the CACA)―describe some aspects of the campaign and elaborate on its theoretical basis. A table below provides summary information about the documents (all documents are in Chinese).

Source

Title

Date

China Anti-Cult Association

Suxian District, Chenzhou City, Hunan Province, Implements Shingle-Hanging Transformation as Shining Tactic in Three-Year Assault and Consolidation Overall Battle

6 August 10

 

China Anti-Cult Association

Prepare Basic Thinking on Transformation-Through-Reeducation Assault and Consolidation Overall Battle

5 August 10

 

Longnan County Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, Ganzhou city, Jiangxi province; reprinted on Web site of the Longnan County People's Government

County Industry and Information Bureau Establishing, Synthesizing, and Maintaining Stability Work Summary for the First Half of 2010

30 June 10

 

Gulou District People's Government, Fuzhou city, Fujian province

Kaiyuan Community 2010-2012 Transformation-Through-Reeducation Assault and Consolidation Overall Battle Work Implementation Plan

27 June 10

 

Jiangxi Provincial Reeducation Through Labor (RTL) Administration Bureau

Provincial RTL System Mobilization and Deployment Meeting on Transformation-Through-Reeducation "New Three-Year Assault and Consolidation Overall Battle" Convenes at Provincial Women's RTL Center

13 June 10

 

Tianwen Town People's Government, Weng'an county, Qiannan Buyi & Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou province; reprinted on Web site of Weng'an County People's Government

Tianwen Town 2010-2012 Transformation-Through-Reeducation Assault and Consolidation Overall Battle Work Plan

5 May 10

 

General Office of the Ruichang Municipal People's Government, Jiujiang city, Jiangxi province; reprinted on Web site of the Ruichang Municipal People's Government

Hongxia Township 2010-2012 Transformation-Through-Reeducation Assault and Consolidation Overall Battle Work Plan

26 April 10

 

Chengxi Town Party Committee, Guoyang county, Bozhou city, Anhui province; reprinted on Web site of Guoyang County People's Government

Chengxi Town 2010-2012 Transformation-Through-Reeducation Assault and Consolidation Plan

13 April 10

 

Binhu Township Party and Government General Office, Changji city, Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Xingjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; reprinted on Web site of the Changji Municipal People's Government

Notice Concerning Printing and Distributing the "Binhu Township 2010-2012 Transformation-Through-Reeducation Assault and Consolidation Overall Battle Work Plan"

13 April 10

 

Jiyuan Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, Henan province; reprinted on Web site of the Jiyuan Municipal People's Government

Regarding Launching the 2010-2012 Jiyuan City Transformation-Through-Reeducation Assault and Consolidation Overall Battle Work

6 April 10

 

Longbu Town Party Committee, Anyuan county, Pingxiang city, Jiangxi province; reprinted on the official Web site of the Anyuan County People’s Government

Notice Concerning Printing and Distributing the "Longbu Town 2010-2012 Transformation-Through-Reeducation Assault and Consolidation Overall Battle Work Plan"

2 April 10

 

Hefei Daily, reprinted on the Web site of the Hefei Municipal People's Government, Anhui province

Yang Sisong Attends City-Wide Mobilization and Deployment Meeting on Work To Defend Against and Handle Cults and the Transformation-Through-Reeducation Assault and Consolidation Overall Battle

1 April 10

 

General Office of the Ningdu County People's Government, Gansu prefecture, Jiangxi province; reprinted on Web site of the Ningdu County People's Government

Notice Concerning the "Ningdu County Sanitation System 2010-2012 Transformation-Through-Reeducation Assault and Consolidation Overall Battle Work Plan"

18 March 10

Hepu County Water Bureau, Beihai city, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region

Hepu County Water Bureau Party Committee's 2010-2012 Transformation-Through-Reeducation Assault and Consolidation Overall Battle Work Plan (Cached copy available via Google)

Undated

2010-2012 Campaign Seeks To Mobilize Various Sectors of Society To "Transform" Falun Gong Practitioners

Bolstering "transformation through reeducation"―a term the government and Party use to refer to the process of pressuring Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their belief in and practice of Falun Gong, sometimes through coercive, and in some cases, violent means―is the central theme of the 2010-2012 campaign (for more information on transformation through reeducation, see Section II―Freedom of Religion―Falun Gong in the CECC's 2010 Annual Report). For example, the April 13 Binhu Township Party and Government General Office document calls on authorities to "turn transformation through reeducation from a 'soft' duty into a 'hard' duty." In addition, four of the documents call for the establishment of special funds or an increase in funding for "transformation" efforts (Hepu County Water Bureau, Jiyuan Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, Chengxi Town Party Committee, Binhu Township Party and Government General Office). In many cases, authorities carry out "transformation" efforts in prisons, reeducation through labor centers, or "transformation through reeducation centers," and the August 5 CACA document highlights all three as the "main front" in the effort to "transform" Falun Gong practitioners. "Transformation through reeducation" can also apply to non-Falun Gong groups that authorities have designated as "cult" organizations (see a related CECC analysis), and the May 5 Tianwen Town People's Government document calls on authorities to "transform" followers of the Disciples Sect (Mentuhui), an indigenous Chinese sect that appears on a list of Chinese government and Party-designated "cults" issued by the Ministry of Public Security in 2000 (available via the Zhengqi Net Web site, 5 February 07).\

The documents describe a general framework for "transformation through reeducation" that includes as objectives: (1) to increase the number of people who renounce their belief in and practice of Falun Gong through "transformation," (2) to prevent people who have renounced their belief in and practice of Falun Gong from returning to the practice, and ultimately (3) to "return" those people to "normal lives in society." In accordance with this general framework, the campaign is divided into three, year-long stages, lasting from 2010-2012. The three stages of the campaign focus on themes that include the following:

Stage

Selected Themes

Stage 1: 2010

 

  • Establishing targets for the campaign
  • The signing of "responsibility agreements" to implement "transformation through reeducation"

Stage 2: 2011

 

  • Training a professional cadre corps and a civil, volunteer "help and education" corps to participate in "transformation" work
  • "Deeply launching the work of a transformation-through-reeducation assault and consolidation"

Stage 3: 2012

 

  • Developing a long-term mechanism for work to "return to society" Falun Gong practitioners who have renounced their belief in and practice of Falun Gong
  • Drawing lessons from the experience of the campaign and "establish[ing] and perfect[ing] long-lasting mechanisms for transformation through reeducation work"
  • Proposing new "transformation through reeducation" duties

The documents also call for the establishment of mechanisms to place greater responsibility for "transformation" work on actors at the local level, such as governments, Party organizations, businesses, and individuals. For example, the April 6 Jiyuan Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology document calls on the 6-10 Office of the Jiyuan Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology to sign "responsibility agreements" with various businesses and to assess the "transformation" work of those businesses on a regular basis. In some cases, local governments have established specific, numerical targets. For example, the April 26 General Office of the Ruichang Municipal People's Government document establishes the following targets: to reduce by 50 percent the number of people who had not been "transformed" by the end of 2009, and to keep the proportion of "recidivists" and "unstable people" within 10 percent of "transformed" Falun Gong practitioners.

The mechanisms to place greater responsibility at the local level include personalized, and in some cases, invasive measures that reach into the workplaces and homes of Falun Gong practitioners. For example, the May 5 Tianwen Town People's Government document calls on authorities to "mobilize and organize basic-level Party organizations and mass organizations, form responsibility help and education small groups, and enter the villages and homes [of Falun Gong practitioners] to conduct an educational assault." The April 6 Jiyuan Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology document calls on local authorities to require local businesses to establish "transformation through reeducation assault work small groups" and develop an individual plan to "transform" each employee who has not been "transformed." The June 13 Jiangxi Provincial Reeducation Through Labor Administration Bureau document calls for people's police to improve their knowledge and studies of sociology, medicine, psychology, and religion as part of their "transformation through reeducation" work.

Communist Party Takes Lead Role in 2010-2012 Campaign

The documents indicate that the Party has taken a lead role in initiating and overseeing the 2010-2012 campaign. Three of the documents cite the 17th Party Congress as a basis for the campaign (Hepu County Water Bureau; CACA, 5 August 10; Longnan County Bureau of Industry and Information Technology), and the August 5 CACA document states specifically that the 17th Party Congress "put forward a new, higher requirement" in "the work of dealing with cults, including transformation through reeducation." Three of the documents note that authorities from the 6-10 Office at the central, provincial, municipal, and county levels have required local government authorities to participate in the campaign (Chengxi Town Party Committee, Longbu Town Party Committee, General Office of the Ningdu County People's Government). The August 5 CACA report describes "the work of transformation through reeducation" as "led by the Party committees, with the cooperation of relevant [government] departments ...." The same document draws a link between the role of the Party and the political nature of the 2010-2012 campaign when it states: "'Falun Gong' has thoroughly revealed its features as a reactionary political organization: being nurtured by Western―primarily American―anti-China forces and 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces, having the goal of overturning the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, and conducting activities as a cult organization." The document also refers to "transformation through reeducation work" as a "test of [the] Party's ability to govern."

For more information about conditions for Falun Gong practitioners in China, see Section II―Freedom of Religion―Falun Gong in the CECC's 2010 Annual Report.