Sect’s Outlawing Shows Beijing’s Fear of Protest

BEIJING — In an ideological campaign on a scale not seen here since the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre 10 years ago, China on Thursday launched an all-out offensive against the mystical Falun Gong sect, whose followers have shocked the government with their loyalty to an exiled leader and their formidable powers of mass organization.

In the media and on the streets, the ruling Communist Party put out the word that it will not tolerate the “illegal activities” of Falun Gong adherents, who have staged large protests across the country after the arrest of leading group members this week.

During a national television program aired repeatedly throughout the day, the government announced that the group had been formally banned and accused it of harboring political motives and sabotaging “social stability.” The phrase has become Beijing’s mantra in a year of sensitive political anniversaries that include the Communist regime’s 50th anniversary.

The broadcast denounced Falun Gong as a superstitious cult, branded its founder a “public liar” and warned people to dissociate themselves from the group. In language harking back to the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, Beijing ordered all party members involved in Falun Gong to “make a clean ideological break with it” and to undergo “thought education” to reinforce “Marxist materialism and atheism.” Those who refuse will be expelled from the party.

But mindful that the sect claims millions of disciples--from farmers to professionals, public officials to pensioners--the government stressed that individuals can go on practicing Falun Gong’s slow-motion breathing and meditation exercises as long as they stay away from organized activity.

“I will continue to practice ‘Truth, Benevolence and Tolerance’--you can call it what you like,” said one veteran Falun devotee, referring to the group’s credo.

After banning the sect--a decision reportedly taken at an emergency meeting of the Politburo--authorities braced Thursday for more demonstrations.

Today, police detained and bused away about 200 people who sat down in protest in Tiananmen Square, witnesses said. The square was then cordoned off. It was not immediately known whether the protesters were members of Falun Gong.

The campaign against Falun Gong is the most aggressive of its kind since the 1989 massacre. After that crackdown, during which hundreds and perhaps thousands of protesters were killed, Beijing launched a major political and ideological offensive to root out dissenters and “counterrevolutionaries.”

“This is a serious ideological and political struggle,” warned a People’s Daily editorial published in today’s editions.

Beijing has so far managed to maintain political stability by jailing dissidents and reshuffling bureaucrats, but it has had much less luck in enforcing ideological orthodoxy. In recent years, the government has allowed lively public discourse about ideas and beliefs, provided they do not openly challenge the Communist Party’s monopoly on political power.

Belief System Draws From Many Sources

Falun Gong’s followers insist that they have no political aims and merely want to practice their beliefs in peace.

Those beliefs are highly eclectic. They are similar to other schools of qigong, an ancient belief system that aims to channel different types of energy within the body. Qigong’s myriad styles are mostly associated with Buddhism or Taoism.

Qigong is still a popular tenet of traditional Chinese cosmology. Certain forms remain an integral part of martial arts training among army and police forces.

But Falun Gong also has its unique aspects. One of Falun’s central concepts states that the practitioner cultivates a spinning “Wheel of Law” composed of energy in his lower abdomen. Other teachings predict the end of the world because of what the group sees as latter-day “evils” such as rock ‘n’ roll music and homosexuality.

The group’s founder and leader, Li Hongzhi, proclaims himself a savior, lives in exile in New York and has attracted a sizable following across the globe, including in the United States.

In San Francisco, today had been declared “Li Hongzhi Day” by Mayor Willie Brown. But he rescinded the proclamation late Thursday due to the recent protests, saying: “I do not want this proclamation to be misinterpreted as a commentary on any internal issues in the People’s Republic of China.”

Kandace Bender, the mayor’s press secretary, said Li’s followers will still be allowed to hold a scheduled 11 a.m. gathering at City Hall. An “experience-sharing” Falun Gong conference, with attendees from as far away as Europe, also is being held this weekend in San Jose.

Li, 47, worked at odd jobs in the army and police before founding Falun Gong in 1992. After that, he toured the country, giving lectures to stadiums full of disciples, who in turn recruited and taught others.

The cult’s claim of 100 million followers worldwide seems exaggerated, but in China, adherents certainly number more than the 2 million acknowledged by Chinese officials. Other estimates indicate that the group has grown to 60 million followers worldwide.

Li left China for the United States last year. Chinese officials did not say Thursday whether they would seek his extradition, but said with no further explanation that Li must take responsibility for his actions.

U.S. Critical of Tactics Used by China

In Washington, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said Thursday that the U.S. government was unhappy with some tactics used by China in suppressing this week’s protests and had urged the regime to abide by commitments under international human rights conventions that permit peaceful expression and peaceful assembly.

“The participants in the Falun Gong demonstrations have been peaceful and many are middle-aged women,” Rubin said, though he pointed out that the Clinton administration was taking no position on the teachings of Falun Gong.

Quasi-religious groups such as Falun Gong have proliferated in China during recent years with the fading of Communist ideology. Their rise has spotlighted Beijing’s increasing difficulty in controlling the spread of ideas and information; indeed, many of Falun Gong’s mass activities were organized with the use of cell phones and the Internet.

Though government leaders had watched the group’s growth with concern, they became particularly unnerved in April when several thousand Falun Gong adherents suddenly appeared on the doorstep of Zhongnanhai, the Beijing leadership compound, to demand official recognition and protest an article in a scientific journal that criticized the group as superstitious.

The April protest “was the most serious incident since the political turmoil of 1989,” declared the announcer on Thursday’s state TV broadcast.

Falun Gong’s ability to mobilize followers was evident during the past few days as demonstrations involving thousands of people sprang up in cities across China, leading to reports of arrests and beatings.

The Beijing leadership is especially fearful of movements it does not control that are capable of organizing coordinated action across the country.

China’s history heightens this fear. For centuries, millenarian cults such as the White Lotus and Eight Trigrams have propagated beliefs combining Buddhism and folk religion. Visionaries occasionally have incited followers to revolt and prepare for doomsday by accelerating the destruction of society.

Thursday’s announcement banning Falun Gong capped weeks of mounting concern about the group within China’s Communist leadership. In a veiled attack on the sect, the People’s Daily, the party mouthpiece, has been running stories and front-page editorials on the need to root out “superstition” in society.

Thursday’s TV program, as well as an extensive report issued by the official New China News Agency, sought to paint Falun Gong as a cult riddled with superstitious practices, some of them dangerous.

The 70-minute program, shown four times within 10 hours, cited cases of Falun Gong disciples who suffered hallucinations, then killed themselves or others.

One retired worker, the program said, disemboweled himself with a pair of scissors while looking for the “Wheel of Law” spinning in his abdomen. Another follower tried to attain a Buddha-like status by immolating himself, it said.

The broadcast also sought to discredit Li, the head of the sect, by accusing him of leading a profligate life and using income from books and lectures to buy cars and villas while evading income taxes.

Despite its denunciation of Li, the program adopted a more measured tone about rank-and-file believers, describing them as unwitting dupes who were simply looking for a way to improve their health.

Followers bristled at the description. “You can fool a lot of people sometimes,” said one longtime devotee, “but how do you fool 100 million people?”

Times staff writer Chu and special correspondent Kuhn reported from Beijing. Staff writers Jim Mann in Washington and Mary Curtius in San Francisco also contributed to this report.