DATE=1/19/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA-EXERCISE GROUP (L ONLY)
NUMBER=2-258201
BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=

VOICED AT:


INTRO:  A Hong Kong-based human rights monitor says 
China is planning to extend its crackdown on the Falun 
Gong exercise and meditation movement to a similar 
group.  VOA correspondent Roger Wilkison quotes the 
Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic 
Movement in China as saying a leader of the Zhong Gong 
group has been sentenced to two years in jail for 
illegally practicing medicine.

TEXT:  First there was Falun Gong, which Beijing last 
July branded an evil cult.  The Chinese government has 
tried several of the group's leaders and sentenced 
them to long prison terms.  It has also reportedly 
sent five thousand Falun Gong members to labor camps 
so that they can undergo re-education.

The next target, according to the Information Center, 
is Zhong Gong.  The Center, which keeps a close watch 
on dissent in China, says Beijing is planning to label 
Zhong Gong a cult, too.  It says the government has 
become convinced that Zhong Gong -which claims 20 
million adherents- could undermine the authority of 
the Communist Party.  That was the same reason for 
Beijing's ban on the much larger Falun Gong movement.

Whereas Falun Gong combines Buddhist and Daoist 
principles with traditional Chinese exercises called 
qigong, Zhong Gong is closer to the mainstream of 
qigong, which involves breathing exercises, meditation 
and slow, graceful movements of the body.

The center says the latest sign of the crackdown on 
Zhong Gong came last week with the sentencing of Chen 
Jinlong to two years in prison.  Mr. Chen was the main 
Zhong Gong organizer in eastern Zhejiang province.  
The court said Mr. Chen -a qigong master- touted 
himself as a healer and treated the sick even though 
he was not qualified as a doctor.

The center says the first sign that Zhong Gong was in 
the government's sights came last month when police 
raided the group's biggest training center and 
expelled two thousand people who were studying there.

It says Zhong Gong was so popular in the first part of 
the 1990s that one of its healers treated none other 
than President Jiang Zemin for arthritis and neck 
pains.

But the Center says that security officials eventually 
became worried that the movement was growing too fast 
and began investigating it more than two years ago.  
Now, it appears, Zhong Gong is on its way to becoming 
a new object of Beijing's wrath.  (signed)

NEB/RW/FC 



19-Jan-2000 07:04 AM EDT (19-Jan-2000 1204 UTC)
NNNN

Source: Voice of America
.