The police believed they had eradicated the Qigong movement led by Zhang Weixiang, who died in 2006. But the “Datong Base Faction” continued to flourish.
by Deng Huizhong
Many in China remember Human Universal Science (人宇科学, also translated “Human and Space Science”), one of the Qigong movements that became successful and fashionable at the end of the 20th century, only to be severely repressed as the year 2000 approached.
Actually, Human Universal Science both became successful and was repressed before Falun Gong. Its founder was Zhang Weixiang, the director of the veterinary station in Fengtun Town, Chiping County, Shandong Province. Born in 1942, Zhang reported that in 1978 he started receiving messages from “Great Ancestors” and “alien astronauts” through automatic writing. In 1982, he founded Human Universal Science to spread the messages, who taught an esoteric theory of the energies animating the universe, new Qigong exercises, and remedies for a wide variety of illnesses and for guaranteeing longevity. At its peak, the movement had at least 100,000 devotees.
In 1996, Human Universal Science was listed among the antisocial forms of Qigong by the CCP. It was banned in 1999 as a “xie jiao.” In June 2000, Zhang was arrested, and 17 centers of Human Universal Science throughout China were raided. According to his followers, Zhang was mistreated and tortured in jail. After his release, his health quickly deteriorated, and he died in 2006 at age 64.
While the CCP believed Human Universal Science had been eradicated, Zhang’s ideas continued to be promoted by different groups quarreling with each other, and by websites and social media forums appearing and disappearing and playing a cat-and-mouse game with the authorities.
The larger remaining group is the “Datong Base Faction” led by Yang Fangping, an artist and dancer born in Weifang, Shandong Province in 1953. She joined Human Universal Science in 1998 and, after the movement was banned, created a variety of organizations. Flying largely under the radar of the authorities, Yang’s faction flourished and even planned to establish a communal settlement for the devotees.
Eventually, the police connected the dots and on May 16, 2023, twenty-one gathering places of the Datong Base Faction and private homes were raided in the same day. Thirteen leaders, including Yang herself, were arrested.
In December 2023, the authorities announced that Yang had suffered a cerebral infarction in prison and would be unable to stand trial. Yang had experienced health issues previously, but like in the case of her mentor Zhang Weixiang, followers suspected that mistreatments in jail had made her condition worse. Believers found it even more suspicious that several other Datong Base Faction members arrested, who were in good health, became unable to stand trial according to authorities because of illnesses they allegedly developed in jail.
Other co-workers were tried and sentenced on March 26, 2024. The crackdown and the effort to identify members of the Datong Base Faction and other offshoots of Human Universal Science continues. Every time the CCP announces that a “xie jiao” has been successfully eradicated, the statement should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.
