China's crackdown on the Fa-lun-gong spiritual movement is making headlines in the Chinese-language media of California. Pacific News Service's New California Media, a collaboration of over 100 ethnic news organizations in California, offers the following excerpts from the China Press, the World Journal and the Sing Tao Daily, translated by PNS editor Franz Schurmann. NCM produces the first multi-ethnic media portal on the Web at NCMonline.com.

CHINA'S CRITIQUE OF THE FA-LUN-GONG

The day after the Chinese government banned the Fa-lun-gong, the government publishing office released a detailed criticism of the group's guru, entitled "Li Hongzhi's Distorted Reasoning and Sectarian Talk." The following is an abridged version of that document as it was reprinted by The China Press.

The Fa-lun-gong has been propagating a series of confused ideas. Its main views are: the end of the world will come soon and humankind will be destroyed. Modern science can do nothing to prevent this, and no government cares -- only Fa-lun-gong alone can save humanity, only its leader Li Hongzhi can lead people into paradise. The sole path to salvation is practicing purification of karma (fa-lun-gong) exclusive of any other faith.

Here are some Fa-lun-gong doctrines and their refutations.

1. Human civilization has gone through at least 81 cycles. We are now in a downward cycle and people should be terrified because the ten great evils are everywhere.

* This is not true. All human societies are governed by developmental processes, and move forward by resolving problems.

2. Present-day science will never lead to any explanation of the mysteries of the cosmos, according to Li Hongzhi -- only he can explain the mysteries. When they purify their karma they will be able to gain penetrating vision.

* This is all crazy talk -- it defames science, distorts its real nature.

3. The universe is made up of 2.7 billion galaxies, and yet beyond our universe there are still more universes. Humans are falling downwards. The lowest point of all the universes is our earth.

* Human understanding of the universe is a cumulative process. In this century, scientists developed the "Big Bang" theory. We can now see bodies 12 billion light years away.

4. Humans were created in various ways. The highest gods can create you in a flash -- for gods of great knowledge and insight the body's complexity is but a triviality.

* Li Hongzhi thinks the world's 5 billion people dropped in here from outer space. If that's so then he too dropped down and so he too is garbage as he sees all humans.

5. In East Asia people speak of the life process as birth-aging-sickness-death. Only purifying karma can reverse that process.

* Birth-aging-sickness-death are the rules of nature. If there is birth there will be death. This is objective law.

6. I, Li Hongzhi, am the only one in the world who is preaching dharma merit going up to the highest level. If I cannot lead you into paradise, then no one can.

* Li Hongzhi preaches the end of the world, denies science, proclaims that governments are impotent, and finally says he is the only one who can save the world.

What emerges from this bunch of illusions about the end of the world is that everything must be rejected, science is bad, government is bad. There is only one way to save oneself and humanity is to unconditionally subject yourself to Li Hongzhi. Concentrate your entire spirit and body on just one thing: purifying your karma.

WHY FA-LUN-GONG CANNOT WIN

On July 22 the Chinese Communists suddenly decided to purge the Fa-lun-gong. The Taiwan-headquartered World Journal calls it the biggest mass movement since Tiananmen but predicts it will be crushed or peter out. The World Journal's West Coast edition is published in Milbrae, Ca.

The Fa-lun-gong events mark a turning point in history. Fa-lun-gong is like some country kid bursting into the city who mumbles some mumbo-jumbo and, like the Pied-Piper, gets masses of followers. The emperor, worrying the empire could fall, crushes him. We have a lot of instances of this sort in Chinese history.

But now we are living in an age when information can be transmitted quickly and the masses aroused through the Internet and the media. It's even possible to bore into impenetrable Communist party structures, as we saw last April when the Fa-lun-gong, in just one evening, mobilized tens of thousands of people to march into Beijing and surround the Chinese government compound of Zhongnanhai. This was unheard of!

That time the Communists used the soft-touch to soothe the masses. But they wouldn't calm down. So they decided to crush them.

There are three reasons why.

First, they worry that Chinese society could be destabilized... The Chinese Communists face corruption, economic stagnation, social instability, loss of discipline, a spiritual crisis... President Jiang Zemin himself called (Fa-lun-gong) the most serious event since Tiananmen in 1989, "a major political struggle that will determine the future destiny of party and state."

Second, it doesn't matter whether Fa-lun-gong has 20 million members as they claim or just two million as the Communists say. The fact is they are China's second most powerful organization after the Communist Party. They are not tightly controlled and are found at all levels of civil, religious and political life... Nothing like this has been seen in China during the last 50 years. One can understand why the Chinese communists are worried and intolerant.

Third, the Chinese Communists... discovered that a lot of Fa-lun-gong members are senior citizens... Hitherto all had received preferential treatment from the Communists, yet all decided to make trouble on a scale students and workers never even dreamed of.

The Fa-lun-gong movement also has international aspects... The recent China bashing in the U.S., the bombing of the Belgrade embassy, the U.S. Japan- Security treaty make the Chinese Communists sense their international relations are in difficulty... Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui's new "two Chinese states" position has made Beijing feel the ice is closing in. Most Chinese Communists would prefer to resolve their domestic situation first and then trouble-shoot internationally afterwards, but they are under pressure from hard-liners...

The purge going on in China will inevitably leave many wounds...just like the wounds from Tiananmen (which) still hurt like old pains on a rainy day.

In the wake of this campaign, the hard-liners will grow more numerous. Ideological voices will again rise. Hardline policies will prevail. What will count above all else is the political security of the Communist party.

INTERNET A KEY BATTLE FIELD IN FA-LUN-GONG WAR

In its crackdown on the Fa-lun-gong the Chinese government closed down a million e-mail addresses. Foreign net sites are responding tit-for-tat, according to the Sing Tao Daily on July 31. The Sing Tao, headquartered in Hong Kong, publishes a West Coast edition in South San Francisco.

When the Chinese government declared the Fa-lun-gong illegal, it started a crackdown, forcing Internet servers to cancel some million electronic mail accounts. The government worried about networking by bulletin boards as well as domestic and foreign websites used by the Fa-lun-gong.

Just before the Fa-lun-gong was made illegal, a website outside of China sent an "emergency advisory" warning Fa-lun-gong members of imminent arrest and beatings, and urging them to stick together and obey the law. After Fa-lun-gong and Li Hongzhi were indicted, all the Fa-lun-gong web sites immediately posted protests. When China's official news agency Xinhua and "The People's Daily" published anti-Fa-lun-gong op-ed pieces, these websites posted counter-pieces from various commentators. And when the government put out documents and information, the latter immediately posted "the latest writings" of Ga-lun-fong leader Li Hongzhi.

The Internet has become a battlefield. Within China itself, the fight is pretty one-sided. Several information websites like the "New Wave Website" and the "Look for the Fox" came out with special Fa-lun-gong themes when the group was banned, but most took the government line.

However, when the government continued to publish anti-Fa-lun-gong material day after day, a lot of users became upset, especially about Central TV's hours-long coverage. One on-line user said Central TV "dismissed the Fa-lun-gong as one big cesspool -- it never occurred to them they were going too far. They disgraced themselves." Another net user said, "The Party should have tried to bring them in. Instead, during all these decades they haven't changed their way of 'struggling' one bit.