Taoism and Buddhism are long-held traditional beliefs. They would have a lot of trouble trying to implement a ban on the whole of China. The leaders realize it's better to let that dog lie.
At one point in time, somebody at the Communist Party decided the Falun Gong was subversive and had to be outlawed. Then, the followers reacted. And as often happened, the movement actually gained strength from persecution. Now they're just at a standstill. The Communist party can't just say: "OK. Forget it. We didn't mean anything by it". Without losing face. So the policy continues, and it only strengthen people's beliefs that "There must be something to this if the party wants to suppress it!"
Buddhism and Taoism are legitimate religions with a long history in the East and particularly in China. Falun Gong is another example of bastardized Christianity.
Because the government doesn't control the Falun Gong movement. That's what makes it so threatening, and that's also why Tibetan Buddhists have been persecuted for the past 50 years. In the rest of China, a Communist-approved version of Buddhism has taken root. Buddhist clergy have to teach according to the government's rules, even if those rules conflict with Buddhist principles.
Falun Gong goes off and does its own thing, and that's why it's persecuted. Since its followers aren't under the government's iron fist, they pose a threat to totalitarian rule.
Anyone who thinks China is becoming a freer society is deluding himself.
I don't pretend I am an insider, but this is the bit I understand from it:
Buddhism and Taoism has been embedded deep in the Chinese daily life for centuries with (sometimes very ferocious) interruptions like the Cultural Revolution. Even in the lives of national, provincial and local government members and their families, and it revived massively after Mao and the Gang of Four had gone, and everybody knew already that this would happen. It also gives structure to life of the people and it is familiar, it would have been very stupid to try and prevent it.
The Falun Gong is a relatively young organization that has been quite nontransparent for reasons neither known there and here, and it is allegedly not just a spiritual movement. Also their outside links and funding structure are not clear. People around the world just see a glimpse of the surface, as with so many things in China (Tibet, Xinjiang etc.), usually what our media here want us to see. But it is a very complex society and there may be much more below the surface that we don't know, not only showing an unfavorable image for the government but also for these movements, who usually have their PR machines working well outside of China. That is the problem of the government, they lack good media strategy and always running after the facts, trying to correct a sometimes one-sided picture that already has gone around the world.
On top of this, the Boxer revolt has not been forgotten, and the lack of transparencyCyf FG is making not only the government but also a good part of the population nervous. LIfe has improved very much for an ever expanding middle class of the people, freedom increases step by step, and they don't want that changed by all sorts of changes, no matter religiously, movements or politically. The door is open, most of censoring is for the record only (the kids are smarter than the dino's), the change process is unstoppable, but it can only proceed gradually, otherwise it will end up in chaos. Most people understand this only too well and have no problem with it at all.
The founder Li Hong Zi (they could have used different spelling of his name, I use phonetic sounding of his name), was a minor government town clerk of some sort, after came back from one trip to Burma, he began to push for an exercise program which is Chi Kung (Qi Gong) related. (This is from a memoir by his co-worker and friend and I read it 7 years ago.)
At that time, China was having bad raps in the world political scene about religion issues, and because they were closing down some illegal churches (according to China, and I think they have the rights to decide). Those weren't approved by the China Government, and those operate without any permits or any registrations from both the Christian and the Catholic Church groups.
There were many groups which were crooks and con artists operations. These so call priests or Evangelists did not receive any proper religious training, but solicit money and sex for their personal gains. These people were preying on the innocent, uneducated and stupid farmers, and they weren't even giving the right teaching of Jesus.
I have even heard of fake priests performed exorcism using Bible and wood staffs to beat the mental ill or mental deficient people to death, and later claimed to exorcise the demons and got away from small town justice in China. And there were tricks and false miracles used to recruit members; so there were government crackdowns. Of course there were also legitimate groups of Christian and Catholic devotees bountiful at the time and were forced to go underground.
The China government was eager to divert people?s attention of suppress religious issues; the government decided to direct people to safe activities, such as Tai Chi, Kung Fu, exercises? programs and Qi Gongs. And the Chinese government was also given money grants to sponsor teachers, who were teaching any of above activities; especially if they have their concentration on health issues.
There were 100s of groups rise due to the support of the Government. Later the Chung Gong, the Fa Lun Gong ? etc. As the members increased, some founders got big headed, and begin to use crooked techniques and abuse power to get money from members, and a few of them even have their ambition to try for political influences.
According to one story, when a medium size town had a town meeting, the central government took notices that many local citizens, as well as all levels of Government staffs were members of five Qi Gong groups, of which the FaLun Gong was the biggest, in that small town over 80% were either members or practitioners.
This really got China worried, so they told these groups to disband. Some groups followed the order, other were forceful disbanded by the government used the excuses of different arising issues and looks for evidents of the founders of these groups of any law breaking, if they refuse to disband, therefore the government were forcefully closed down many such groups.
At the time, Li was out of country so he was spared, but he gave a verbal command and told his followers go to the capitals of every towns, cities and National capital to demonstrate, so now the government was real mad, so more harsh actions took place.
Then again Li said, ?If you (the members and the Practitioners) have to defend your faith, if it must, use your bodies and faith to build a wall of freedom for practice. Giving your bodies for Falun Gong is like the Christians lost their lives to maintain their faith, carry weapons if you must!?.
And people were stupid enough to loss their lives for a series of exercise moves. After ten or fifteen years in America, Li decided to reinvent itself, and so Falun Gong became Falun DaFa.
A serial exercise moves became the Greatest teaching of the Biggest Buddha in the Universe, Li himself? And compare to him, the Shakyamuni Buddha is but an insignificant small Buddha. (The exact word and context by Li.)
Why does China crack down so hard on Falun Gong but not Buddhism/Taoism?
