Self-Criticism in Beijing

International Herald Tribune

Paris, Friday, April 14, 2000

BEIJING - An official Chinese magazine has for the first time published a strong criticism of the Communist Party's crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual sect, saying that the tenacity of the organization underscores a moral vacuum in China.

The article, published in a magazine controlled directly by a Chinese government ministry, is an indication that within the confines of China's government, opposition still exists about China's biggest campaign of suppression since student-led protests were crushed around Tiananmen Square 11 years ago.

"The questions posed by Falun Gong are questions that cut to the heart of China's modernization process as a whole," the article said. "Falun Gong is the biggest challenge to China's ruling party since the founding of the People's Republic of China. This is because in today's China, the most profound challenge is not unemployment, inflation nor corruption. The most profound challenge is that there is no effective ideology."

In another sign of Falun Gong's persistence, more than 200 practitioners flocked to Tiananmen Square on Thursday to urge the UN Commission on Human Rights to censure China for its human rights record. A human rights organization estimated that at least 60 of the protesters raised banners at various points around the square, causing hundreds of police officers to rush about frantically in an attempt to silence the demonstration.

Falun Gong sources have said that more protests are planned in the days leading up to the commission's vote on April 18 and to the first anniversary of a massive demonstration around the headquarters of the Communist Party last April 25 that touched off China's crackdown.

Frank Lu, director of the Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China, based in Hong Kong, said the party had also issued a document calling for more roundups as the conference and anniversary approached.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Sun Yuxi, declined to comment on the reported protest Thursday but said that Falun Gong had caused the deaths of more than 1,000 people because it encouraged practitioners to cultivate an "inner orb" of energy in lieu of medical treatment.

"The Chinese government's legal ban on Falun Gong is precisely to protect human rights to a greater extent," he told a news conference.

Since Falun Gong was officially banned last July, Mr. Lu estimated, more than 5,000 people have been sent to labor camps, usually for three years, and more than 300 people have been sentenced to jail terms for their involvement in Falun Gong.

Falun Gong is a spiritual sect that borrows elements from Buddhism, Taoism and other folk religions. The sect preaches a sometimes-confusing doctrine whose tenets range from a belief in aliens to opposition to corruption and women's liberation. Its practitioners follow a former soldier and trumpet player named Li Hongzhi who left China in 1995 and now lives in New York City.

The article criticizing China's crackdown appeared in the January edition of the magazine, which was seen recently in Beijing. Chinese sources requested that name of the magazine be withheld in order to keep it from being shut down by China's security services which, with the growth in publishing, cannot censor each magazine published in China today.

The article was written by a young, award-winning scientist who has researched several of China's most serious problems such as the gap between rich and poor and the lack of a civil society.

The article is the most eloquent analysis to date of Falun Gong's implications for China and the meaning of the crackdown - the logic of which has escaped many Westerners. At root, the author said, the struggle between the government and Falun Gong is the struggle to develop a true civil society in China.

Falun Gong, the author said, attracted many people because they had no other choices. All other organizations were controlled by the Communist Party so no one wanted to join them, the article said.

Falun Gong has experienced explosive growth in China, the article said, because it fulfilled the needs of common people, like fired or retired workers from state-owned enterprises who felt dispossessed by China's economic reforms, and longtime Communist officials who were appalled by the vast social changes rocking this country.

At least 10 million people in China have belonged to the tightly organized movement.

For the dispossessed, coping with the wholesale collapse of China's medical system, there was Falun Gong's emphasis on clean living and Tai-chi type exercises as a way of curing all ills. For old Communist Party members, there was Falun Gong's nostalgic return to an old-fashioned morality.

"This is a time when beliefs totally collapse," the article said. "Tradition has become the garbage of history. There is not a legitimate ideological system."

The article said that a way out of the trap poised by Falun Gong was "to rebuild China's spiritual home," by lifting bans on religions and religious groups and by allowing nongovernmental organizations more freedom.

"It is a mistake to think of religions as an alien force," the article said.

The author argued that a way to deal with groups like Falun Gong was to "encourage healthy nongovernmental organizations to develop, have less governmental interference and give organizations more autonomous power."

"The Falun Gong issue won't be solved in the short term," the essay concluded.