A visitor to the heart of China's capital city, enjoying a warm autumn day, could easily overlook the presence of security forces. Indeed, their action is so discreet that it is not clear whether this is a gentle attempt to stem protest by Falungong members or the beginning of a serious crackdown. PNS commentator Phil Cunningham is a former Neiman fellow who has reported widely from Beijing and Tokyo.

BEIJING -- Yesterday, I saw a quiet protest at Tienanmen on a day in which no protests were reported. Sitting near the Martyr's Monument, at the center of the Square, I watched tourists -- mostly rural Chinese taking snapshots in the big capital -- walk by, enjoying the warmth of the early November sun under a cloudless sky.

It was at this spot in 1989 that student rebels erected their headquarters before the tanks rolled. On this day I saw a middle-aged woman, sitting a few feet away, arrested and thrown into a police van.

The Square is so voluminous and so filled with activity that the half dozen Gongan (public security) vans were hardly noticeable. A closer look revealed that some of the "tourists" were plainclothes agents posing as country folk -- who happened to have mobile phones and walkie-talkies.

The woman who was arrested had shoulder-length hair and wore a purple sweater. She had been sitting quietly on the curb by the monument, apparently resting. I saw a man looking at her and talking into a yellow mobile phone.

A few seconds later a Gongan van came racing across the east side of the Square, slowing only to enter the narrow pavement. Two uniformed men got out of the van, approached the woman, forced her to stand, shouted a few words and led her into the van. She offered no resistance. They slammed the door and talked to her through blackened windows. Then the van took off, carefully gliding past the marble pedestal, and sped north.

I doubt there was anything I could have said or done. I noted the van's license plate number and a man took my photo, but no one said anything to me.

This was the first time I had witnessed the falungong crackdown with my own eyes. A friend told me of being awakened for police searches and ID checks on a night train bound for Beijing. Another friend told of a 50 year old woman in her office detained a month ago on falungong charges and still in jail -- furthermore, her colleagues were warned to stay away from her. And late one evening -- it was nearly midnight and there was no sign of foreign tourists -- I watched police at the Silk Road intersection pulling over cars and pedestrians for ID checks.

Other than incidents like these, there is little evidence of anything out of the ordinary. We are so used to seeing rural migrants chased from their vending spots that witnessing an arrest or ID check is not unusual. Nor is the presence of a cruising Gongan car cause for alarm -- they are supposed to protect us from criminals and do sometimes lend a helping hand to citizens in distress.

But there has been a relentless media barrage on the evils of falungong, sometimes dominating the entire news hour. This heavy handed manipulation was toned down around the time of national day celebrations, but has been revived and viewers of the respectable CCTV evening news have once again seen mutilated corpses allegedly falungong-inspired suicides, tearful denunciations, and gut-wrenching accounts of mental disturbances blamed on the cult.

This footage is especially shocking because criminal acts and suicides normally go unreported. Most TV and newspapers are in the "good news about China" business, so there's no familiarity with the blood and guts side of the news.

It's hard to figure out whether this is just a benign cat and mouse game with authorities trying to stem political and religious protest with a slap on the wrist. Is falungong being treated any worse than the tens of thousands of rural migrants, street vendors and prostitutes who were rounded up and ejected from Beijing in the months leading up to the national day celebrations -- or is this the beginning of a heavy handed social cleansing?

In a week of casual observation, I saw little evidence of falungong members anywhere except Tienanmen where they were apparently courting arrest with sporadic passive protests. Only a handful of the self-professed falungong followers have resisted arrest, and some have made it back to the Square after 24 hours in detention.

In 1989 at Tienanmen authorities rushed students off to the hospital, supposedly because they were dehydrated but also to get a wedge in the activist crowd. The students sometimes resisted help, or made it quickly back to the Square.

Something about Tienanmen -- big and empty in the middle of bustling Beijing -- gives it an elusive, seductive quality. The Square attracts the discontented like moths to a flame unless it sealed off as it was during the October 1 National Day "celebrations."

The flame of democracy hasn't flickered at Tienanmen for ten years, but sparks of discontent are bouncing off the new marble and cement paving stones of the "people's" Square.