China is claiming victory in its battle over the Falun Gong spiritual group -- at least in a small Michigan city.
According to China's official Xinhua News Agency, Mayor Robert Thomas of the blue-collar Detroit suburb of Westland canceled a week honoring the group in early March following appeals from the Chinese consulate in Chicago.
Thomas said he'd been "hood-winked" by local followers of the meditative and health-conscious religious movement, Xinhua said.
The mayor's action vaulted Westland into the ranks of cities such as Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, who declared Falun Gong observances and then canceled them at the urging of the Chinese government.
Officials in hundreds of other US communities, including at least 20 in Michigan, have proclaimed a Falun Gong week or day. Some, including the mayor of Santee, California, have loudly protested when approached by the Chinese government to remove the declarations.
The Chinese Embassy says the declarations are a campaign of propaganda meant to gather attention and show false support for the movement.
"There are practitioners [of Falun Gong] in this country that have taken advantage of this very fine custom in America of proclamations and declarations," Zhang Yuanyuan (±i´©»·), spokesman for Chinese Embassy in Washington, said Friday.
Zhang said the Chinese Embassy tries to alert each local government that adopts declarations for the Falun Gong that it is an "evil cult."
"We feel we have a duty to tell Americans, to tell the local governments, what they're doing. They're doing something unconsciously that could hurt Americans. What the Falun Gong are doing to the Chinese might become a nightmare for the Americans."
Supporters of Falun Gong say that's absurd.
"It's amazing the Chinese government is getting so up in arms about [Falun Gong]," said Adam Montanaro, a spokesman for the group.
"It's free, nice, healthy exercise that makes people feel better. It's not surprising that local governments are granting the proclamations. What's surprising is that the Chinese government is getting up in arms about what happens in a small town halfway around the planet."
China banned the Falun Gong in 1999, declaring it an "evil cult."