China Tells U.S. To Butt Out

China rejected on Thursday U.S. condemnation of its suppression of the Falun Gong spiritual movement and said further criticism would harm relations.

As China deployed hundreds of police around Tiananmen Square for a third straight day to curb protests, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao demanded that Washington stay out of what he said was a fight against an "evil cult."

"China demands the U.S. government to respect the stand of the Chinese government on the Falun Gong issue and stop interfering in China's internal affairs on the excuse of Falun Gong, so as to avoid harming Sino-U.S. relations," state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Zhu as saying.

"Instead of being a religious group, it is actually an anti-human, anti-society and anti-science evil cult that keeps cheating and harming the people and has seriously endangered the society," he said in response to U.S. criticism on Wednesday.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, in the first official comment by the Bush administration on human rights in China, condemned the crackdown on Falun Gong and called on China to release all religious and political prisoners.

Commenting Wednesday after a meeting between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Li Zhaoxing, China's Ambassador to the U.S., Boucher went on to "call on China to release all of those detained or imprisoned for peacefully exercising their internationally recognized rights to freedom of religion, freedom of belief and freedom of conscience."

Boucher said the United States was saddened that five Falun Gong members set fire to themselves in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in an attempted group suicide on Tuesday. One of the five died of her injuries.

Falun Gong preaches a mixture of Taoism, Buddhism and traditional Chinese breathing exercises. It has shocked the Communist Party with its persistence and ability to organize protests.

Hundreds of police patrolled Tiananmen Square frisking and checking the identification of Chinese tourists on Thursday.

Police apparently prevented a repeat of incidents on Wednesday, when at least three Falun Gong practitioners managed to sneak onto the vast plaza in a new act of defiance.

Fire extinguishers were lined up at points around the square after Tuesday's dramatic protest in which a man and four women doused themselves with petrol and set themselves ablaze.

Xinhua said one of the women died but there has been no word on the condition of the others.

Chinese-language state media made no mention of the fiery protests even though they have reported previous alleged mass suicide attempts by the group. The sole official account appeared on Xinhua's English-language wire service.

Xinhua said those who set themselves on fire had been "hoodwinked by the evil fallacies of Li Hongzhi," the New York-based Chinese founder of Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa.

The sight of police punching and kicking elderly Falun Gong demonstrators iTiananmen Square has become commonplace since the movement was banned in July 1999 as a threat to social stability and Communist Party rule.

Repeating Beijing's assertion the group is a doomsday cult, Xinhua said: "Falun Gong has claimed nearly 1,700 lives of practitioners who went insane, committed suicide or refused medical treatment."

Chinese authorities fear the reported torture and deaths of Falun Gong members detained by police could derail its bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee will inspect the city in February and vote on a host city in July.

Boucher said that in talks with China the United States would be frank about its concerns on human rights.

China's rights record, especially in the sensitive area of religious freedom, has been a constant irritant in relations with the United States.

Other hot button issues include Taiwan, trade and the sale of weapons and other military equipment.

One of the first tests of the Bush administration's approach to China will come in an upcoming meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva, where it has often pressed for a resolution critical of the Chinese government.

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