Your editorial on the handling of the Falun Gong by the Beijing Government (South China Morning Post, April 25) was striking in its boldness, particularly its closing observations that persecution 'will not bring it to a halt. Eventually the Government may recognise the best guarantee of social order is individual freedom.' Striking, because of recent criticisms the Hong Kong media have suffered because of all the coverage of matters regarding the hair-trigger 'Taiwan question'.
As a long-time foreign observer of China - I lived in Hong Kong from 1985-88, in Macau from 1990-1994 and now live in Guangdong province - it has often seemed to me that official reactions have had precisely the opposite effect than that intended. The violent end to the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 looms as perhaps the chief example in New China: many of the wishes expressed by the protesters then are realities today, though one presumes the Government's crushing of the counter-revolutionary rebellion - as it pleased the authorities to consider it - was intended to stifle and prevent the fulfilment of precisely those wishes.
It is not fair to suppose that every member of the Government is a dullard, nor that every member of the Communist Party is an opportunist.
One hopes the level heads persevere, in spite of hysterics that may take place in Zhongnanhai or elsewhere. That you see fit to print an editorial such as this is encouraging.
KURT T. FRANCIS Shunde, Guangdong
