Last year about this time, I visited Tiananmen Square, mingling with tourists and day-trippers enjoying the warmth of the midday sun. As I reminisced about this historic spot, where students had erected their headquarters in 1989, a police van pulled over and I saw a more subdued form of protest and crackdown.
A middle-age woman in a purple sweater sitting a few meters away was questioned, brusquely, by two police officers. They grabbed her and led her into the van; she offered no resistance. The van took off, gliding past the marble pedestal that had been damaged by tanks and gunfire in 1989.
The incident troubled me. Who was this woman? What right did the police have to arrest her? How did they know if she was Falun Gong? Was I witnessing the heavy-handed suppression of religion, or was the Chinese government shrewdly nipping a dangerous cult in the bud?