Washington Post: Falun Gong Poses Test in Hong Kong

Washington Post Foreign Service

Monday, February 19, 2001

HONG KONG -- There are perhaps 500 members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement in this city of nearly 7 million, and many of them are not very active. The group has no formal office, and uses as its headquarters a small apartment that belongs to a member who happens to be away. When adherents get together, they spend a lot of time practicing breathing exercises.

Until recently, hardly anyone here knew they existed.

But as China ratchets up its campaign to crush Falun Gong, the group's tiny Hong Kong branch has emerged as the latest and most serious test of Beijing's promise to let this former British colony govern itself for 50 years.

China banned Falun Gong in 1999, describing it as an "[Chinese government's slanderous word]"and a threat to the authority of the ruling Communist Party. But even as the government arrested thousands in a nationwide crackdown, it left the Hong Kong practitioners alone.

Now, after five purported Falun Gong members set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square last month, Beijing has launched a new blitz against the movement -- and is urging action against believers in Hong Kong.

"This is make or break for 'one country, two systems,' " said Martin Lee, leader of Hong Kong's Democratic Party, referring to the policy under which China agreed to grant the city a high degree of autonomy after the end of British rule in 1997.

"Everyone agrees that the Falun Gong people have not committed any crime here," Lee said. "If in spite of that, Hong Kong caves into Beijing pressure and either bans them or restricts them, the whole world will know that Hong Kong does just what Beijing tells it to do."

[...]

China has applied pressure on Hong Kong before, but never in such a forceful, direct and public way.

"It's ridiculous," said Kan Hung-cheung, a soft-spoken restaurateur who is a Falun Gong [spokesman] and a former writer for one of the city's pro-China newspapers. "We're just 500 people. How can we endanger national security? They're making a big deal out of nothing."

In his first remarks on the issue last week, Hong Kong's chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, said Falun Gong [...] But Tung, who was appointed by Beijing, stopped short of threatening to strip the movement of its legal status.

Michael DeGolyer, director of an academic project that surveys attitudes about Hong Kong's return to China, said he was optimistic that Tung had found a way to "nod to the emperor" while preserving Hong Kong's autonomy.

"At the moment, I'm pretty encouraged that we've backed away from the brink," he said. "Given the intense pressure, and the virtual hysteria that the central government has launched nationwide against Falun Gong, it's a good sign that good sense still prevailed here."

Tsang Yok-sing, chairman of Hong Kong's largest pro-Beijing party, also praised the government, and added that Falun Gong should exercise similar restraint and avoid provoking Beijing with any high-profile protests. "The crisis isn't over, but I think the Falun Gong followers in Hong Kong understand the situation," he said.

But others said Falun Gong should be free to criticize the government as loudly as it wants, and they criticized Tung for pledging to keep a "close eye" on the group when it has done nothing illegal.

"Everybody has a right to do what Falun Gong is doing, so why are they a cult? Why are we monitoring them?" asked Rose Wu, director of the Hong Kong Christian Institute. "We do exactly what Falun Gong does. We protest, we criticize the government, we exercise our rights. Does this mean we're next?"

Some see the uncertainty about what will happen to Falun Gong asthe latest sign that Hong Kong is losing its special status in China as a place where the rule of law prevails.

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Margaret Ng, a lawyer and member of Hong Kong's legislature, said Beijing's attack on Falun Gong adherents here should serve as a reminder of how fragile the city's freedoms are.

"The only thing that protects us is political will," she said. "The moment they want to suppress Falun Gong or any other critics in Hong Kong, they have all the apparatus of the law to do it."

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