China was at it again, overreacting in a fashion that at first recalled the 1989 tragedy at Tianamen Square. In late July, word flowed from Bejing that the government had initiated a massive crackdown on a quasi-religious sect called Falun Gong - or sometimes Falun Dafa. The Communist Party campaign against the spiritual movement exuded all the trademarks of the typically heavy-handed response that the Chinese have long displayed toward any brand of thinking they believe threatens the principles of the Party, and the social organisation of the country.
The problem here, as the government rounded up more than 5,000 Falun Gong for an ominous-sounding "re-education campaign", was determining what crimes Falun Gong followers had committed and what beliefs they held that so threatened the government.
The edict outlawing Falun Gong issued on July 22 focused on its leader, a 48-year-old former grain bureau clerk named Li Hongzhi, called Master Li by his followers. Mr Li, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, was a fraud, a man who had altered his birthdate to convince followers he was the reincarnated Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, a man who collected money from followers to enrich himself with houses and cars, who urged seriously ill people to eschew conventional medical care. He is, they said, "a massive threat to Chinese society.
While the Chinese followers of Falun Gong - estimates of their numbers range from 2 to 70 million - are practising its breathing and exercise programs in public parks and private homes, their controversial leader lives in the impossibly incongruous location of Flushing, a working class neighbourhood of the New York borough of Queens that is better known for its ethnic Italian enclave than as its appeal as a destination for gurus.
Since Falun Gong has no offices, no churches, no board of directors, no official telephone number - or, as one cynical soliciter put it, no overheads - the best way to get in touch with them in through the Internet. In fact, the movement openly says that its principles and beliefs, as well as the locations for its group exercises, can best be found on a collection of web sites.
The practice has been a hit on US college campuses. On the Internet, one can find listings for Falun Gong exercise gathering in most major cities. We left a message on the New York contact phone number requesting an interview with Master Li. A few hours later a fast-talking American woman called back but offered no chance for chat.
"Hello, we got your message. It's impossible for Master Li to give an interview. You may speak to the key spokesperson, Erping Zhang. He has travelled with Master Li. You cannot call us a religious sect - this is based on ancient principles. I've been doing it for 18 months. If you promise not to call it a sect, you can come to interview Mr Zhang at 3 p.m. today. I'll give you the address."
So, we headed off to a high-rise apartment building overlooking the Hudson River in lower Manhattan. A television crew was packing up its equipment in the lobby.
"Apartment 27K," we said to the uniformed doorman. "Okay," he said with a thick New York accent. "So, what's wit all the reporters goin' up dere? Who's da guy?"
"Er," we said, not sure of who da guy was. "The Chinese thing, Falun Gong?
The doorman shrugged and shook his head: "Jeez, ya never know."
In a sparsely furnished apartment of green industrial carpeting and folding chairs, Mr Erping Zhang sits on a floral print futon sofa beneath a red flag with Falun Xtultan Dafa emblazoned in yellow lettering in both Chinese and English. He is holding forth for a couple of US newspaper reporters.
The New York Times will be the next interview after ours. Then he is off to the ABC TV's Nightline with Ted Koppel. Master Li, I'm told by an aide, is not able emotionally to do interview right now. Mr Zhang has been chosen by Master Li to represent him in all interviews.
Is Master Li currently at home in Flushing, Mr Zheng is asked. "I don't know where Master Li is right now," he answers cautiously. It's a bit of a stretch to believe this, especially as a Falun Gong delegation is heading off to Washington DC in the morning to ask members of the US Congress to oppose the Chinese request to turn over Mr Li.
A crisp-looking young man wearing Gap-style khaki trousers and a starched white shirt, Mr Zhang continues: "We have reports of our people being beaten, of bones being broken in Shaigong. The government should release innocent people and give us the right to practice our cultural heritage."
Born in 1961, Mr Zhang said he learned of Master Li's teaching in 1994, two years after Mr Li beagn teaching Falun Gong in China. "I went to a park and saw people practising. I had a chronic liver disease. I had tried western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine and nothing helped." With that, he proudly displayed his photo identification card from Georgia State University showing a much paler, gaunt version of himself.
It's this notion of improving health and curing disease that is one of the more controversial aspects of Falun Gong, and the one that has led the Chinese government to level its severest criticisms of Mr Li, charging that many people have died by refusing western medications.
Mr Zhnag insists that Master Li never claims that Falun Gong will heal illnesses, just that the practice of the breathing and the movement exercises lead to better health.
But the testimonies in the Falun Gong information kit are indeed filled with miraculous testimonies. "My doctor told me I had one year to live," writes Fengying Mao, a nurse living in Washington DC. She says that 10 years of suffering from Hepatitis C grew into other illnesses such as nephritis. At the very moment she read Master Li's book, Zhuan Falun, she decided she wanted to be a "cultivator", as it is called, and "at the split second this idea flashed, I noticed that the pain in my liver was instantly alleviated." She has been healthy ever since.
Feng Yuan, 28, an aide to Mr Zhang has been practising Falun Gong for over a year. He also told stories of previous poor health and vast improvement.
After listening to followers' stories and reading the lectures in Mr Li's book, mostly a mish-mash of eastern mysticism-mixed with western can-do-ism, one is mostly struck by how very ordinary this kind of thing is in the west, especially in the US. They're everywhere, these semi-mystical gurus who suddenly came upon enlightenment while working at the post office or as the cashier at the grocery, wrote books and pamphlets, began selling them at New Age conventions and on the Internet, and soon developed a following of thousands.
At any given moment, I know someone who is in Colorado re-birthing over a weekend with somebody who promises to ease the trauma of the exit from the womb, or somebody else who has travelled to Sedona, Arizona, for a weekend of recovering their past lives, or someone who has discovered a new hybrid workshop of Buddism-Hinduism philosophy combined with a money-can-be-your-friend seminar.
The point is, nobody really cares. Unless one of these gurus starts amassing semi-automatic weapons on a ranch in Montana in anticipation of Armageddon, people are left alone. In the west, one has the right to be as foolish or as wise as one wants to be without interference from the government.
This is not the way in China. The crackdown on the followers of Falun Gong says much more about the nervousness of the Chinese government as it approaches the 50th anniversary of the Communist state on October 1st than it does about yet another fairly good-natured spiritual sect that appears mildly determined to cheer everyone up a bit.
Interpol has rejected the Chinese government's request to arrest Li Hongzhi, saying it could find no criminal violations. As the US and China do not have an extradition treaty, he is not likely to be sent back to China. Instead, this week, the Chinese began publishing a new series of attacks on Mr Li in the form of comic books with titles such as Li Hongzhi: The Man and His Evil Deeds. The books are so overwrought, overstated, and concerned with demonising Mr Li that some say that are unintentionally comical.
For his part, as his followers squat and lean and bend, doing their morning exercises in parks from Australia to Los Angeles, Mr Li seems to de doing well. He recovered enough emotionally to do a brief interview with the New York Times last week. He was asked how he is coping with living in a strange land: "Sometimes, on weekends, we go to the mall. You know, sometimes I help my wife do the grocery shopping. I love that I can get Chinese sauces in New York."
Hardly the words of man determined to topple the largest nation on earth.
Li Hongzhi: living in New York while Beijing fumes