Beijing Appears in Standoff With Falun Gong

After a week in which hundreds of members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement defied China’s security apparatus by silently demonstrating in Tiananmen Square, the two sides appear stuck in an uneasy standoff.

Beijing’s claims of victory in smashing the movement and getting its followers to abandon their faith are at best premature. But Falun Gong disciples’ optimism that the protests can overturn the government ban on the group seems equally unrealistic.

On Monday, police arrested a handful of Falun Gong members who had made it to the square. However, the number of protesters had dwindled since last week, when hundreds of members were detained.

Beijing stands little chance of eradicating the group. Its founder, Li Hongzhi, now commands a worldwide following from New York. And with its government levers of social and ideological control eroded by reforms, the regime is finding that its options at home are limited.

One pocket of resistance to the crackdown lies in a village an hour’s drive from Beijing. Here, Falun Gong disciples have turned an inconspicuous apartment into a base camp from which they head into the city to protest in Tiananmen Square and the State Council Complaints Bureau. Lined with army blankets, the apartment accommodates as many as 60 followers each night, from small children to senior citizens.

The inhabitants of the safe house change daily. Disciples come in from the provinces, protest, are detained, sent home or incarcerated for a few days, then return to the capital.

These followers come from all parts of China, but share a common perspective. They all claim to have benefited physically and spiritually from Falun Gong’s meditation exercises and philosophical precepts. And they feel compelled to speak out in defense of their faith regardless of the consequences.

“I cannot sit by passively as the government slanders and vilifies our master, especially since our master gave me life,” said one middle-aged woman who has been detained four times for protesting.

Many of the safe house residents say they have hit the streets out of desperation, after being forced out of jobs, schools and the Communist Party because of their continuing practice. This contrasts with many practitioners interviewed by state media who have abandoned or denounced Falun Gong.

Even during the heights of radical Maoism, the Communist Party met with limited success in “unifying the thoughts” and beliefs of ordinary citizens. With Chinese today choosing among alternative lifestyles and ideas in a consumer economy, the party’s claims to ideological supremacy are even more at odds with reality.

Nor is losing a government job and benefits the calamity that it once was. As China’s bureaucracy downsizes and the economy is increasingly privatized, citizens are freer to get what they need on the open market. That freedom is accompanied by greater mobility: Many Falun Gong disciples say they got to the capital by calling a friend via cell phone, hopping in a private car and hitting a highway bound for Beijing----all unthinkable two decades ago.

As a result, the government has turned more and more to legal sanctions. On Saturday, China’s legislature passed a new law increasing the penalties for cult organizers convicted of murder, fraud and other crimes. Sunday, the official New China News Agency reported that four top Falun Gong leaders had been formally arrested twelve days earlier--but several months after being detained by police--for “organizing a cult to undermine the implementation of laws,” stealing state secrets and other offenses.

The Chinese government emphasized that these steps were in accordance with the rule of law. Critics agree that the measures are, at least, in accordance with the traditional Chinese conception of rule by law----a tool of the state to control society. As the official People’s Daily put it Saturday, the new measures “are powerful legal weapons for us to maintain social stability.”

Many of the residents of the safe house allege abuse at the hands of local law enforcement. An elderly woman who came to the safe house from northeast China’s Liaoning province with her 8-year-old grandson said that her son is in jail awaiting trial and a probable heavy sentence for protesting.

“He was hanged from a tree by one arm and beaten for half an hour by police, then hung from both arms for more than an hour. After that, the police asked him if he still believed in Falun Gong, but his belief was still very firm,” she said.

Another disciple, from Guangdong province, said that when her brother, a civil servant, refused to recant his faith, authorities confined him to a mental hospital and “forcibly injected him with drugs, after which he became very weak and dizzy.”

Now, with leaders about to go on trial and ordinary followers under pressure, observers are wondering how the government will deal with several high-ranking officials who are said to have supported Falun Gong. Critics of the group say that officials ranging from sports bureaucrats to propaganda bosses have tried to defend the movement and have so far managed to hang on to their positions.