Zhong Gong - Banned in China

Banned in China

The 12th session of the NPC Standing Committee passed a resolution on 30 October 1999 which allowed it to take action against "heretic cults" and which applied retroactively to Falun Gong, Zhong Gong and any other spiritual groups deemed "dangerous to the state".

However, Zhong Gong has been much more low key than Falun Gong, and the government crackdown on it is almost unknown in China. Palmer describes how Zhong Gong effectively ceased to exist once the organisation was no longer able to provide material and social benefits to its followers.

As a sign of Zhang's acumen, Thornton notes that when the Beijing daily reported that his Beijing-based In­ternational Qigong Service Enterprise had been shut down pending an investigation into possible criminal activities, Zhang hired the team of lawyers who had defended Mao's widow during the Gang of Four trial, and managed to gain a public apology from the paper. A five-year string of unsuccessful legal actions against the government followed, during which Zhang managed to elude arrest.

After China declared Zhong Gong an illegal organisation, all its assets and those of the 3,000 entities constituting the Unicorn Group were confiscated, and its 600 principals arrested. After a warrant for the arrest of leader Zhang Hongbao was issued, he fled to the United States and applied for political asylum. He was not granted asylum, but gained Protective Resident Status on 13 June 2001. Zhang died in the United States in a motor accident on 31 July 2006 at the age of 52. After Zhang’s death, Zhong Gong almost disappeared from the public's eye.