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Jasper Becker

WELL BEFORE HE walks in the door, Zhang Baosheng's devoted followers talk breathlessly and tirelessly of his supernatural powers and the veneration in which state leaders hold him.

'He has a direct line to President Jiang Zemin and to [Premier] Zhu Rongji,' says one woman. 'He is a state treasure, they never let him out of the country,' says another. 'No one else has special powers like him.'

The man they are talking about was the star of the Chinese military's own 'X-files' research programme which, for 16 years, sought to exploit the special powers of psychics for intelligence operations. It was run from a space research centre in a secret PLA compound in Beijing.

'His breath can raise the temperature by 3,000 degrees Celsius, he can cure anyone,' claims a third follower.

Another says: 'He enjoys the status of a minister, wears an army uniform and works in a secret government research facility.'

Finally, Mr Zhang, a poker-faced man, enters the room of one of Beijing's swankier hotels with a very preoccupied air. Over the course of lunch, he eats nothing and declines to confirm any claims, doing his best to maintain an air of mystery.

'Have you really met Jiang Zemin?' Silence. 'Do you really treat Zhao Ziyang [the disgraced former Communist Party chief] for his medical problems?' Silence.

Mr Zhang taps his feet nervously under the table and is unable to sit still for more than a minute or two, constantly getting up to mumble agitatedly into a mobile phone. At other times he stands up and leaves the room without explanation.

'Jiang is angry with him because he is too friendly with Zhao,' explains one of his followers. Mr Zhao has been under house arrest for 12 years since President Jiang replaced him as party secretary.

'Because of his powers, Mr Zhang sometimes behaves quite childishly . . . happy one moment, unhappy another,' says another follower.

Mr Zhang suddenly gets up from the table, thrusts a dumpling into his mouth, laughs, and walks off. 'He has never given an interview to foreigners,' says one of the entourage.

Finally, after reappearing and facing many more questions, Mr Zhang reluctantly admits he is 43 and comes from Benxi, the smoky steel town in Liaoning province. 'My father was party secretary of Xihu district of Benxi, my mother was an artist. They died one after another two years ago,' he said.

This was virtually the only information he offered during the nearly two-hour interview.

According to his official biography, Superman,  Zhang Baosheng was born in Anhui to very poor parents but was given to a couple in Benxi as a child. Before he was born, the biography says, there was a thunderstorm and a ball of light entered his house. His mother found she was pregnant the following day.

In 1983 he was taken to Beijing to cure Marshal Ye Jianying, the general who ousted the Gang of Four in 1976 and put Deng Xiaoping in power. Then aged 85, Marshal Ye had been ill for a long time.

Deputy governor of Liaoning province Ling Sheng, who wrote the foreword to the biography, bore witness to some of Mr Zhang's feats and was apparently a great believer.

With this kind of patronage, Mr Zhang's future was assured and he was made the centrepiece of a key military research project into paranormal powers. It was run by General Zhang Zhenhuan and Major-General Wu Shaozu, who were in day-to-day charge of China's military-industrial research budget. These men believed that some individuals could direct their qi  - inner force - and tap into the 'cosmic field'.

Evidence was apparently produced by researchers at Qinghua University, where General Wu graduated in physics. They published papers in 1987 and 1988 'verifying' that qi  could be sent over 2,000km.

Other psychics have since emerged. One, Yan Xin, was claimed to possess psycho-kinetic powers strong enough to transubstantiate fish through walls, change the weather and put out forest fires. One woman, Zhang Xiangyu, became very popular by alleging she could talk to extraterrestrial beings and cure any disease.

Doctors were employed at military hospitals to direct qi  to destroy all kinds of tumours or diagnose illnesses with their ears, or by examining patients with X-ray vision. Many were exposed as charlatans.

However, Mr Zhang's extraordinary connections appear to have sheltered him. With the prestige of the PLA - and the security of the state - at stake, General Wu allowed no one to undermine his protege's reputation.

Even after he failed tests organised by Professor He Zuoxiu in May 1988, Mr Zhang's reputation continued to grow.

'I had to watch his performance twice before I could expose it,' said Professor He, senior researcher at China's Theoretical Physics Institute and a fierce opponent of the X-files programme.

Mr Zhang relies on tricks such as bending forks, shaking pills out of sealed bottles, setting clothes on fire and restoring a name card to its original form after it has been torn to pieces. Before our meeting, Mr Zhang issued a set of instructions, specifying what should be brought along -  what kind of pills in what kind of bottle, and what kind of forks.

During the meal, the cutlery came and went until it was not clear which were the original forks. Mr Zhang then took three forks, stroked them, and with a flourish displayed them. The forks were twisted together. But marks on the handle suggested they may have been put in a vice.

Mr Zhang took the medicine bottle, rubbed it with his index finger and, shifting the bottle to his other hand, dropped white Aspirin tablets on to my hand. They appeared to have fallen through solid glass. In his most impressive trick, he appeared to make a mobile phone's SIM card disappear and then reappear inside the empty medicine bottle.

But Professor He maintains Mr Zhang does simple magic tricks, relying on sleight of hand.

'He couldn't make them work under laboratory conditions,' he said, holding up a square of sealed glass he manufactured in 1988 to test the power of Mr Zhang's X-ray eyes. The glass contained a message written on a sheet of paper, which Mr Zhang failed to read after numerous attempts.

'Zhang said my body had a strong magnetic field, so he could not perform normally,' Professor He said. 'So we tried another experiment.'

Public Security Minister Jia Chunwang supervised the next test. The writing was put in a sealed envelope but while Mr Zhang could leave the room, the envelope stayed put. When he left the room, Mr Jia opened the envelope at the request of the scientists. 'We found he had switched the letters - so the trick was exposed,' Professor He said with a laugh.

He also described with glee how, in fresh tests in 1998, he and his colleagues, using a glass bottle from their laboratory identified with a fingerprint inside, put in numbered pills and then sealed the top with glue. 'After four hours of shaking the bottle, not a single pill came out,' he said.

Although Mr Zhang failed all the tests he was set and the PLA's research programme was suspended, he continues to live in the Space Research Centre under the protection of senior leaders.

'He is very rich, with a villa and many cars,' says Professor He, who lives in a cramped and shabby high-rise block.

After the anti-Falun Gong campaign started in 1999, some of Mr Zhang's protectors lost their influence, including General Wu, who was forced to relinquish his post as head of the National Sports Commission. Mr Zhang now keeps a low profile but remains in demand by the rich and powerful. As we ate, people kept coming into the room, desperate to meet him.

Although Mr Zhang is not regarded as a threat, Chinese Central Television is preparing a series of programmes to expose those with 'special powers' to counter deep-rooted beliefs left unshaken by the anti-Falun Gong campaign.

Jasper Becker is the Post's Beijing bureau chief (jasper@a-1.net.cn)



Strange encounter of the X-files kind