In many cases, the government has tolerated the renaissance, and some government officials and Communist Party members have defied central government dictates by practicing religion openly themselves. Now, however, the Communists find themselves in a quandary. The struggle against Falun Gong, Catholics loyal to the pope, cults, Tibetan Buddhists and other independent-minded religious groups, the editor said, could very well be the defining political battle of the next few years in China. He and other analysts say they believe the party's program is already backfiring. The more the government squeezes the practitioners, the more it turns them into martyrs.
Religion has as good a chance as any development to move the process along.
A 1999 State Department report placed China near the top of a list of countries that suppress religion. The apparent increase in religious persecution follows a period in which China seemed to be growing more tolerant in spiritual matters. In 1998, China opened a dialogue with American clerics, and it signed the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. But as religion has become more widely embraced, the party has reacted with vain attempts to reassert control over the thoughts of its citizens. The Falun Gong crackdown, for example, has been accompanied by exhortations to the public to study Marxism and atheism.