Modernity and Millenialism in China:<i>Qigong</i>and the Birth of Falun Gong

Abstract Qigong was the most widespread form of popular religiosity in post-Maoist urban China. The paper traces the shifting combinations of practices and concepts which came to be associated with qigong from 1949 to 1999 in an evolving ideological and political context, and ending with an analysis of Falun Gong's rupture with qigong groups. Qigong as a social movement was the product of an ambiguous marriage between the Chinese state and popular groups, and the Falun Gong crisis resulted from the breaking of this alliance. The case of qigong and Falun Gong illustrates the unresolved tensions between modernity, tradition, nationalism and politics in contemporary China.