Curing capitalism : 'Zhineng qigong' and the globalisation of Chinese socialist spiritual civilisation

Abstract

The present thesis traces the emergence and transnational circulation and transformation of “Zhineng Qigong” (“Intelligent Qigong”), a neo-socialist grassroots movement that in the first two decades of the post-Mao era aimed to synthesise Marxism, modern science and traditional Chinese self-cultivation practices to create a revolutionary “science of life”. Following the terminally ill patients, Communist Party activists and spiritual seekers who dedicated themselves to Zhineng Qigong, it narrates an attempt to propagate this science, hoped to precipitate society’s leap into the “realm of freedom” – a spiritual-political utopia that combined the communist ideal with China’s ancient dream of datong, the “Great Harmony”, when humanity will live in perfect accord with the laws of the cosmos.

Drawing on the group’s internal documents, this study explores the emergence, beliefs and practices of Zhineng Qigong in post-Mao China: how, between the late 1980s and 1990s, the movement gained several million followers; operated a large “medicine-less hospital” that treated terminally ill patients using qigong only; created a nation-wide network of qigong-scientists and a socialist commune intended to model a new way of life based on qigong science. It further draws on interviews conducted in five countries and four years of participant observation with a group of 650 non-Chinese practitioners to show how, following the government’s crack-down on the Chinese qigong movement in 1999, Zhineng Qigong was circulated and rearticulated outside the People’s Republic, carrying into the world a subtle, embodied critique of global capitalism. The case of Zhineng Qigong, it is argued, brings to attention a new, post-Mao form of productive state-power: confronted by the widespread loss of faith in socialism after the Cultural Revolution, the new leadership left behind the coercive politics of revolution and class struggle and began to rework China’s rich cultural memory into the vision of a distinctive Chinese modernity. Zhineng Qigong, which at its peak counted between 3.47 and 10 million followers, represents one striking example of an emerging form of discoursive power which channels the freedoms of the reform-era into a controlled and productive direction, produces docile, self-regulated bodies, and invites the subject to partake in the grand narrative of the revival of China’s millenia-old “socialist spiritual civilisation”.