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Beijing lashes out over Falun Gong heckling

China condemned the Falun Gong spiritual group as an "anti-China political group" yesterday but spared Washington criticism over a heckler from the movement who disrupted Chinese President Hu Jintao's (胡錦濤) White House appearance.

Hu's visit to Washington last Thursday was choreographed to highlight his statesman status and Beijing's hopes to subdue trade tensions with the US.

But a follower of Falun Gong -- banned in China as a cult in 1999 -- entered the White House grounds as a reporter and yelled at Hu and President George W. Bush as they stood before reporters.

A spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, Qin Gang (秦剛), said yesterday that China had made representations to Washington about the embarrassing incident.

But official Chinese anger was focused on Falun Gong, which staged protests against Hu throughout his four-day US visit.

"This demonstrates once again that Falun Gong is not only a cult but also an anti-China political organization with base political intentions," Qin told a regular news briefing.

Falun Gong wanted to wreck China-US relations by any means, Qin said, urging Washington to take concrete and effective measures to rein in its "anti-China" activities.

Sharon Xu, spokeswoman for Falun Gong in Hong Kong, denied the group was "anti-China."

"I think the world already knows that Falun Gong is a spiritual movement, is a good-natured practice, and it poses no threat to people's health or mind," Xu said.

The Chinese Communist Party "has to ask itself why it is the only government that labels Falun Gong as a cult," she said. "Falun Gong is not against China as a nation or as a country, nor is it against the US and China developing relationship."

Last Thursday, Wang Wenyi (王文怡), a reporter for the Epoch Times -- a New York-based newspaper that supports Falun Gong -- joined a crush of journalists at the White House for Hu's visit. Wang interrupted Hu as he delivered a speech at the White House during his first official visit as China's president. US President George W. Bush was with him.

Wang yelled out in Chinese: "Stop oppressing the Falun Gong," as well as "Your time is running out," and "Anything you have done will come back to you in this lifetime."

She also shouted in English: "President Bush, stop him from killing," and "President Bush, stop him from persecuting Falun Gong."

Wang was charged on Friday in US federal court with a misdemeanor of willfully intimidating, coercing, threatening and harassing a foreign official. If convicted, she could be jailed for up to six months and ordered to pay a US$5,000 fine.
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