曾幾何時，美國人需要飛越半個地球才能親身領略到中國國家安全機器的鐵爪。但現在再不需要了。由於過份急於摧毀任何可能對他們的專制政權構成威脅的民衆運動，這些日子，中國的當權者們不僅正在拼命地對他們本國13億國民進行着異乎尋常的迫害，而且將同樣的手段延伸到了美國的領土上。

尤其要提的是，北京試圖將其臭名昭著的精神標準推行給美國的幾百個市長，不論城市大小，從洛杉磯，到巴爾的摩，以至伊利諾州的考恩貝特（Cornbelt）。北京的這個跨國計劃甚至影響到了象「皮歐利亞星報(Peoria Journal Star)」這樣的地方報紙。該報說去年4月26日「一個例行的看來無害的對於中國的一個宗教團體的褒獎，卻將伊利諾州的一些市長卷進了本與他們無關的外交關係的領域中。」

皮歐利亞星報所指的「宗教團體」，就是北京最明顯的打擊目標：法輪功。法輪功也叫法輪大法，10年前在中國開始傳播。他顯然對數千萬的人有着巨大的吸引力，他們想尋找比已經破產的腐朽的共產主義意識形態更能讓人滿意的信仰。
1999年4月，一萬多名法輪功學員在靠近天安門廣場的共產黨首府進行和平請願以後，中國的統治者就稱其爲「XX」，並開展了剷除法輪功的運動。從此，中國政府對法輪功學員開始了前所未有的監禁和酷刑，並屠殺了許多中國國內的法輪功學員。華爾街日報記者伊恩ܧ約翰遜因在他的系列報導中記錄下了中國政府的這些虐待行徑，而於去年獲得了普利策獎。報導包括了陳子秀的案件－－這位58歲的婦女因拒絕放棄法輪功而在中國政府的監禁中被毒打折磨致死。

中國境外的法輪功學員，做出的順理成章的反應就是通過尋求支持來針對這場鎮壓。這就也成了美國的市長們如何被牽扯進來的原因。一直以來，美國的市長們已經廣泛形成了一種禮儀式的習慣，爲各式各樣的團體，各種主題或者不同項目的慶祝日子頒發種類不同的褒獎公告。在美國，法輪功學員向很多市長申請褒獎狀，以表彰他們的活動。

中國政府不滿足於對在中國的法輪功學員的迫害，他們還要求美國官員拒絕在美國的法輪功學員，甚至要求他們在這裏－－美國的土地上迫害法輪功學員。採用的方法往往是，某位來自中國駐華盛頓大使館或者是（各地）領事館的中國官員通過寫信、打電話、或者是登門造訪，把嚴重誤導性資料與恐嚇戰術結合起來，在一些情況下還暗示着詭詐的外交與商業壓力。

比較典型的例子是桑地市市長蘭迪.福培爾（Randy Voepel）的經歷。桑地市（Santee）是加州聖地亞哥郡邊緣的一個只有58000人口的小城市。一年多前，福培爾先生收到了新上任的中國駐洛杉磯領館總領事藍裏軍（音譯）的一封信。信中首先致以熱烈的問候，然後就直接了當地將法輪功運動描述爲營造恐慌局面「末日論」教派，說如果美國置之不理，最終會「危害社會穩定」。他在信中還寫到中國「願意與貴市建立和發展友好關係」，但暗示這需要滿足中國的願望。藍在信中進一步慫恿「不要給予法輪功以任何形式的褒獎和支持」，並極力主張禁止法輪功註冊成爲任何形式的正式社團。

福培爾先生的反應很不一般。他是參加過越戰的老戰士，非常重視美國的自由。福培爾先生在回信中寫道：「你的信令我本人感到寒心到了極點。我實在震驚於一個共產黨國家會不惜耗費如此大的精力來壓制我們國家一貫接受的東西（自由理念）……我對中國和世界其他地區的中國人民懷有極大的敬意，但我必須坦誠相告，我實在憂慮於貴國政府對人權的壓制，你（在此信中）提出的要求恰恰證實了這種人權壓制」。隨後，福培爾先生向法輪功頒發了一份市長公告，褒獎法輪功。

其他一些官員，比如前加州薩拉託嘎市市長斯坦.保格斯安，以及伊利諾州許多小城鎮的市長們都頂住了來自中國的壓力。但是，也有許多市長在壓力面前屈膝了，這些人包括舊金山，西雅圖，巴爾的摩和洛杉磯的市長，這些市長們在1999年時將已經頒發給法輪功的褒獎狀又收回去了。類似的例子，還有密西根州威斯蘭德市（Westland）的羅伯特.托馬斯市長，他去年取消了他所宣佈的3月4至9日的「法輪大法周」。他在隨後寫給法輪功申請人的一封信中解釋道：「我收到了中華人民共和國駐芝加哥領事館的資料，資料中說明了你們組織的性質……因此我決定取消我的公告。」同時他還「盡責地」將信件複印件送往中國駐芝加哥領事館。

最近，中國甚至厚顏無恥到了向猶他州鹽湖城的市長施壓。鹽湖城目前正在舉辦奧林匹克運動會。中國也將於2008年舉辦奧林匹克運動會。上個月，中國大使館的使團副團長何亞非（音譯）拜訪了鹽湖城市長羅基.安德森（Rocky Anderson）。去年，安德森市長向法輪功頒發了褒獎狀。何先生在給安德森先生的「安全通報」中就法輪功問題發出了警告。法輪功也跟許多組織一樣向市長辦公室提出了在奧運會期間進行和平示威的申請，2月7日，安德森先生讓法輪功示威活動如期進行。一位市長髮言人說，示威是如此的和平，以至於我們認爲法輪功的唯一問題就是「他們行走得太慢了」。

確實有六名法輪功學員採取了有點進攻性的抗議方式，爲的是駁斥中國所謂的國際社會「譴責法輪功XX」運動，因爲中國官方新華社的網站標誌上就是這樣寫着。北京市市長劉淇本月初去參加奧運會，在舊金山機場轉機時，他們把依據「1789年外國人侵權賠償條例」和「1992年酷刑受害者保護條例」起訴的法律文件送達到他的手上，指控他在北京縱容對法輪功學員濫施酷刑。中國外交部譴責這起訴訟是「卑鄙的伎倆」。劉先生去年曾宣佈，北京爲籌備主辦2008年奧運會，將「堅決粉碎法輪功和其他XX」。現在他本人尚需應訴。

很顯然，結合着打坐、煉功和超自然觀點的法輪功不一定符合每個人的胃口。然而，美國的精神本身就是以個人的自由選擇爲核心的，不僅市場生意如此，在信仰方面也是這樣。中國的消滅法輪功運動甚至搞到了美國領土上，這不僅僅是與美國的原則相違背的問題，這也是與中國在更大範圍的活動相呼應，中國國家安全機構由於極端懼怕任何可能對北京的一黨專制構成威脅的事物，已經把它的觸角悄悄地伸進了美國無數華裔社區，用盡辦法威脅中國學者，騷擾流亡的中國異見人士和威脅那些支持臺灣成爲世界上唯一成熟的中國民主政體的人們。

布什總統今明兩天在北京訪問，將與中國領導人尋求共同的立場。但屆時也是提醒江澤民主席及其同志們的一個好機會：迫害和平的精神運動是一種醜陋、殘酷、尷尬的惡習，本該在中國內部就盡力除掉，而大可不必拿到世界其它地方來現眼。

Will Chinese Repression
Play in Peoria?
Beijing's campaign against an "evil cult" comes to America.

BY CLAUDIA ROSETT
Thursday, February 21, 2002 12:01 a.m. EST

Time was when Americans had to travel halfway around the world to feel the steely touch of China's state security apparatus. No longer. In their fervor to trample any grassroots movements that might challenge their power, China's rulers are hustling these days to share their bizarre, oppressive tactics not only with their own 1.3 billion citizens, but with folks all across America.

In particular, Beijing has been offering its own nasty brand of spiritual guidance to hundreds of American mayors, in big cities and small towns, from Los Angeles to Baltimore to the Illinois Corn Belt. This Beijing outreach program has even played in such local papers as the Peoria Journal Star, which noted last April 26 that "a routine, seemingly harmless proclamation recognizing a Chinese religious group has thrust a group of Illinois mayors into the unlikely realm of foreign diplomacy."

Beijing's most visible target, the "religious group" to which the Peoria newspaper refers, is the Falun Gong. This spiritual movement, also known as the Falun Dafa, began spreading 10 years ago inside China, where it evidently holds huge appeal for tens of millions seeking some form of faith more gratifying than the bankrupt and corrosive state ideology of communism.

After some 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners staged a peaceful demonstration in April 1999 in front of Communist Party headquarters near Tiananmen Square, China's rulers condemned it as an "evil cult" and embarked on an official campaign to wipe it out. Since then, China has racked up quite a record of jailing, torturing and in scores of cases killing Falun Gong followers inside China. The Wall Street Journal's Ian Johnson won a Pulitzer Prize last year for his stories documenting such Chinese government abuses, including the case of Chen Zixiu, a 58-year-old woman who was beaten and tortured to death in Chinese state custody for refusing to renounce Falun Gong.

Falun Gong followers outside China have responded--reasonably enough--by seeking gestures of support. Which is how America's mayors get into the act. It is a widespread and largely decorative habit of U.S. mayors to issue all sorts of proclamations, celebrating a great welter of groups, themes and causes of the day. Falun Gong practitioners here in America have asked many mayors in recent years to issue proclamations honoring their movement.

The Chinese government, not content with persecuting the Falun Gong in China, has responded by urging local U.S. officials to shun or even persecute them right here in America. The approach, made variously by letter, phone call or personal visit from a Chinese official based at China's Washington embassy or one of its numerous consulates, tends to combine gross disinformation with scare tactics and, in some cases, slyly implied diplomatic and commercial pressure.

Typical is the experience of Santee, Calif., a city of 58,000 on the outskirts of San Diego County. A little over a year ago, Mayor Randy Voepel received a letter from the newly arrived Chinese consul general in Los Angeles, Lan Lijun. Mr. Lan's letter began with a cheery greeting and rolled right along to describe the Falun Gong movement as a "doomsday" cult that creates "a panic atmosphere" and if left unchecked in America could end up "jeopardizing your social stability." Noting that China would "like to establish and develop friendly relations with your city"--and implying this would require complying with China's wishes--Mr. Lan's letter went on to urge that "no recognition and support in any form should be given to the Falun Gong" and urged banning them from registration as any kind of official organization.

Not so typical was Mr. Voepel's reaction. A Vietnam War veteran, he wrote back: "Your letter personally chilled me to my bones. I was shocked that a Communist Nation would go to this amount of trouble to suppress what is routinely accepted in this country. . . . I have the greatest respect for the Chinese people in your country and everywhere else in the world, but must be honest in my concern for the suppression of human rights by your government as evidenced by your request." Mr. Voepel then issued a mayoral proclamation commending the Falun Gong.

Some other officials, such as former Saratoga, Calif., mayor Stan Bogosian and a raft of mayors in Illinois, have stood up to China's pressure. But many have kowtowed, including the mayors of San Francisco, Seattle, Baltimore and Los Angeles--all of whom in 1999 rescinded proclamations they had issued for the Falun Gong. In Westland, Mich., last year, then-mayor Robert Thomas designated March 4 through 9 as Falun Dafa Week, but later explained in a letter to the Falun Gong petitioners, which he dutifully copied to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago: "I have received information from the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Chicago, explaining the real nature of your organization. . . . I hereby rescind the proclamation."

China has been brazen enough to pressure even the mayor of Salt Lake City--currently hosting the Olympics, as Beijing is slated to do in 2008. Last month the Chinese Embassy's deputy chief of mission, He Yafei, paid a call on Mayor Rocky Anderson, who had issued a proclamation last year honoring the Falun Gong. As part of a "security briefing" for Mr. Anderson, Mr. He's message included warnings about the Falun Gong, one of many groups that had applied for permission to hold a peaceful demonstration during the Olympics. Mr. Anderson let the demonstration go ahead, on Feb. 7. It was so peaceful, says a mayoral spokesman, that the sole problem with the Falun Gong was that "they walked very slow."

A half dozen Falun Gong practitioners did engage in a somewhat more aggressive protest against China's international "Condemn Falun Gong Cult" campaign, as the logo goes on the official Web site of China's Xinhua state news agency. When Beijing's Mayor Liu Qi arrived in the San Francisco airport earlier this month, en route to attend the Olympics, they served him with papers for a lawsuit filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789 and the Torture Victims Protection Act of 1992, for letting grave abuses against Falun Gong followers go unchecked in Beijing. China's Foreign Ministry has denounced the lawsuit as "a nasty trick." Mr. Liu himself, who announced last year that Beijing in preparing to host the 2008 Olympics would "resolutely smash and crack down on Falun Gong and other evil cults," has yet to respond.

Obviously the Falun Gong, with its blend of meditation, exercise and otherworldly visions, may not be everyone's cup of tea. But the soul of America itself centers on allowing individual choice, not only in market transactions, but in matters of faith. China's campaign to snuff out the movement even on U.S. soil not only runs counter to American principles. It also fits into an even larger pattern in which Chinese state security, with its desperate fear of anything that might challenge party dictatorship in Beijing, has snaked its tentacles into numerous communities in the U.S., trying in various ways to intimidate China scholars, harass exiled Chinese dissidents and bully supporters of the world's only full-blown Chinese democracy, on Taiwan.

President Bush is in Beijing today and tomorrow, seeking common ground with his Chinese hosts. It would also be a good moment to remind President Jiang Zemin and his comrades that persecution of a peaceful spiritual movement is the kind of ugly, cruel and embarrassing practice that they need to be trying to shed inside China itself--not share with the wider world.

Ms. Rosett is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. Her column appears Thursdays on OpinionJournal.com and in The Wall Street Journal Europe as "Letter From America."

原文網址：
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/cRosett/?id=105001666