ABC Nightline: Soul Searching in China

Thursday, March 1, 2001

CHRIS BURY, ABCNEWS The leaders of China see faith as a threat.

1ST MAN They woke up one morning and found a group that was off off their radar screens.

CHRIS BURY So they're fighting back against a popular spiritual movement.

SOPHIE SHOU (ph) It is hard how people can uphold their belief in such vicious and brutal situations. ...

CHRIS BURY Tonight, Soul Searching in China. ...

CHRIS BURY The [party's name omitted] leaders of China, it seems, want to have it all. They want the economic benefits of open markets without the messy openness of democracy. They'd like the Olympics and the global prestige the Games would bring, but they want the international community to bug out of their internal affairs. And China's leaders give the impression of religious tolerance, even as they are cracking down hard on followers of those faiths the government does not approve. Just how hard became clear this week when the US State Department issued its annual report on human rights conditions around the world. In scathing language, the report accused China of intensifying its crackdown on religion, especially on practitioners of the outlawed spiritual movement known as Falun Gong.

By year's end," the report says, "thousands of unregistered religious institutions had been either closed or destroyed, hundreds of Falun Gong leaders had been imprisoned, and thousands of practitioners remained in detention or were sentenced to labor camps or mental institutions."

China, needless to say, disputes that conclusion. The Web site of its embassy here states flatly that the problem of religious persecution does not exist in China. An embassy spokesman told us today, quote, "There are no underground churches in China." Well, tell that to the Chinese Christians you'll meet later in this broadcast, who worship together secretly in basements and barns for fear of being found out. Or tell it to followers of Falun Gong. Not since Tiananmen Square and the pro-democracy movement has China singled out one group in such a campaign of propaganda and persecution. We begin with this report from ABCNEWS correspondent Mark Litke in Beijing.

MARK LITKE, ABCNEWS (VO) Almost nightly, Chinese television viewers are assaulted by the gruesome images... It is the most powerful ammunition to date in China's propaganda war against Falun Gong, deliberately meant to shock and outrage any Chinese harboring sympathies for the group, and just part of a highly orchestrated nationwide campaign with mass rallies attacking the group [Chinese government's slanderous words] ...

SOPHIE SHOU The campaign's been escalating. It's getting worse and worse.

MARK LITKE (VO) Sophie Shou, a spokeswoman for Falun Gong in Hong Kong, says this is more than a war of words and images. She says thousands of Falun Gong followers have been sent to labor camps and mental hospitals, a campaign that reminds her of the hysteria during Mao Tse-tung's cultural revolution. People fired from their jobs, publicly humiliated, forced to confess. And if they don't, human rights observers have reported that Falun Gong detainees are being tortured, with more than 100 killed in police custody.

Shou says the relentless persecution is taking a toll, driving practitioners deeper underground.

SOPHIE SHOU It is hard, how people can uphold their beliefs in such vicious and brutal situations like today in China.

MARK LITKE Still, after nearly two years of trying, Chinese authorities have failed to crush Falun Gong as they vowed to do, and their anger and frustration is clearly mounting.

(VO) What angered the government in the first place was the enormous popularity of the spiritual group, especially among China's elite. Retired civil servants, even [party's name omitted] Party members were signing up in droves. The blend of exercises and meditation, they said, gave them peace of mind in a society offering little in the way of spiritual comfort. But a line was crossed in 1999 when, without warning, 10,000 Falun Gong members surrounded the leadership compound in Beijing, demanding an end to the government's criticism of their movement. It was tantamount to Americans surrounding the White House. To China's leaders, this was an insurrection, not unlike the pro-democracy uprising in Tiananmen Square.

1ST MAN They woke up one morning and found a group that was off of their radar screens, surrounding their house. That made the image of their security forces look like paper tigers.

MARK LITKE (VO) Falun Gong was soon labeled [Chinese government's slanderous word], then banned. But just as with Tiananmen Square, analysts believe there may also be a split in the government between moderates and hard-liners; moderates believing the government has overreacted. But a reportedly furious President Jiang Zemin has decreed that Falun Gong is a threat to the ultimate authority of the [party's name omitted] Party. So the crackdown has become a litmus test for party loyalty, and a warning to all critics.

1ST MAN They're making examples, I think, so that we don't have other groups that try to feel that they can challenge the party, too. Because there are an awful lot of groups in China that really aren't part of the [party's name omitted] Party.

MARK LITKE (VO) China is clearly concerned with the firestorm of international critism over the crackdown, which could derail its Olympic bid, or entry into the World Trade Organization. So government officials keep trying to explain their actions. The latest spin from the head of the new anti-[Chinese government's slanderous word] agency, ...

And only last week China organized mass t'ai chi exercises in, of all places, Tiananmen Square, meant to show the outside world that China does allow groups to engage in public activity similar to Falun Gong, just as long as they never challenge the authority of the group that counts most in China, the [party's name omitted] Party. This is Mark Litke for Nightline in Beijing. ...