China's war against the Falun Gong organization is going global.
Already engaged in a vigorous drive at home to destroy the huge quasi-religious group, Beijing is taking steps overseas to disrupt the activities of Falun Gong abroad.
"Chinese diplomats are seeking to discredit the sect and undermine its image in the United States, Australia and other countries by pressing public officials not to have dealings with the group or allow its participation in local activities," wrote Associated Press correspondent Helen Luk.
According to Center for the Study of New Religions (CESNUR) (http://www.cesnur.org/testi/falung101.htm), Falun Gong is a form of the Bhuddist concept of Qi Gong. The movement's leader, "Master Li describes the Falun in terms derived from both Buddhism and Taoism as a microcosm containing all the secrets of the universe."
To Beijing, however, the group which teaches Bhuddist-style physical and spiritual exercises is subversive and constitutes a threat to the Chinese communist leadership. As such it must be stamped out.
What frightens China's leadership, is the ability of Falun Gong to attract huge throngs of followers. According to the AP, "the group was once estimated to have up to 100 million followers in China, or more than the Communist Party's 64.5 million."
In the latest domestic incident involving Falun Gong, some imprisoned woman practitioners died at a labor camp in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang in June. Official Reports say as many as 14 female prisoners hanged themselves in a mass suicide, but Falun Gong insists its teachings prohibit suicide, and charged that Chinese authorities had fatally beaten 15 inmates to death.
The domestic crackdown on Falun Gong spread to Hong Kong, where the sect is legal.
Officials there barred about 100 Falun Gong practitioners from entering Hong Kong in early May during a visit by Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
On a worldwide scale, Falun Gong's largest number of practitioners are in Taiwan, where the membership is estimated at 100,000. According to Falun Gong it has about 500 members in Hong Kong, 3,000 in Australia, 10,000 in the United States, 1,000 in Singapore and 3,000 in South Korea. There are also small communities in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Japan.
Chinese Dictatorship Interferes in U.S.
Beijing has now taken aim at the U.S., going after local officials in the drive to destroy the organization. The AP reports that Beijing's "attempts to use diplomatic pressure to silence Falun Gong have enraged members and government officials in the United States."
A former mayor of Saratoga, Calif., Stan Bogosian told the AP that late last year, a few days after he signed a proclamation declaring Falun Gong week, two officials from the Chinese consulate urged him to rescind it.
When he refused, Bogosian reports, the Chinese asked him to remain neutral and questioned him about his position on Taiwan. Enraged Bogosian called a news conference to denounce the Chinese regime for ``highly irregular'' actions. ``The Chinese government should not be interfering in the political process,'' Bogosian told the Associated Press. ``The issue of whether Falun Gong is a cult or not is not important. For me, these are basic human rights.''
Bogosian and many others see Falun Gong as a harmless group whose adherents, clad in their yellow T-shirts, practice controlled breathing exercises and move slowly to ethereal music in parks.
But Bogdosian's experience was not unique. AP says that at least a dozen other mayors of cities in California, Illinois, Washington, Maryland and Michigan have been pressured by Chinese officials, who often try to tie their anti-Falun Gong position to U.S.-Chinese trade relations.
``The whole thing sounded like a propaganda pitch to me,'' said Tod Satterthwaite, mayor of Urbana, Ill., who ignored the Chinese demands.
But some mayors have given in to Chinese pressures. In 1999, mayors in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Baltimore - all important east-west trade centers - revoked proclamations honoring Falun Gong.
In Australia, Falun Gong members reveal that Chinese officials have sent letters to civic leaders describing the group as ``an out-and-out heretical sect, which is anti-science, anti-humanity and anti-society in nature.''
``The letters were sent to local government offices in order to try and persuade them to disallow perfectly legal activities being conducted in the area,'' Michael Molnar, a spokesman for Australia's Falun Gong, told the AP.
According to the Australian government, the Chinese Embassy had denied sending the letters. Rebecca Tromp, spokeswoman of Blacktown City Council, said officials from the Chinese consulate in Sydney raised the issue of Falun Gong participation in a festival sponsored by the city government.
``We advised them that any participation Falun Gong has is within our festival and that is what they do and we would continue to allow them to participate,'' Tromp told the AP.
Falun Gong is headquartered in New York, where its founder, Li Hongzi, established his peculiar brand of Qi Gong in 1992. In 1998, Li moved permanently to New York City, from where he oversees the expansion of Falun Gong internationally. Small groups exist in the major metropolitan areas of the U.S. and Canada, and in some 30 other countries.
According to CESNUR, the Chinese regime launched a campaign against spiritual and religious groups in 1999, and Falun Gong was targeted as a superstitious and reactionary group by a media campaign. Unlike other groups, Falun Gong responded by staging an unauthorized demonstration of more than 10,000 followers outside Beijing's Zhongnanhai, the residence of China's top leaders. It was the largest such demonstration in recent Chinese history.
Beijing was especially alarmed by its intelligence service's failure to prevent the demonstration, and by the disturbing news that some of China's medium-level political and military leaders were adherents of Falun Gong. "The authorities started an unprecedented public campaign against the movement - and hundreds of local leaders and members were arrested," CESNUR reported. China also asked the U.S. to arrest and extradite Li, a request the U.S. quickly rejected, asking the Chinese instead to stop what the outside world saw as religious persecution.
Although the persecution has driven many members underground, millions remain in China and several thousand abroad. Exactly how many "members" Falun Gong has is a matter of dispute (the government uses a figure of 2 million; Li claims 100 million), and "membership" might not be an entirely applicable concept. Although the movement recommends a nine-day introduction course and frequent contacts with local centers, it also states that everybody can simply start practicing Falun Gong by following the instructions from one of the many books, cassettes and Web sites quickly available in a variety of languages.