Question: I have a question regarding China and Falun Gong. I lived in China in 1998-1999, and during that time I saw many people in parks practicing the Falun Gong exercises and meditation, because it was legal and safe to practice. And I know that the government supported it in the beginning, in the early '90s. So my question is, why did former President Jiang Zemin in July 1999 ban Falun Gong?

LaRouche: The problem here is, we should not get involved, from the United States, in developments like that in China. It should be treated, essentially, as none of our business. Chinese culture is a complicated one; simple in some respects, but complicated in others. It is totally counter-productive for us to be involved in that kind of operation.

Now, the problem is, there was an operation from the United States, and elsewhere, in China, as an intelligence operation utilizing this particular sect. And, therefore, that's the other side of the contamination. The fact that the thing was being run in part, from outside China by the United States, would get the Chinese government, immediately to react. The way the Dalai Lama operation is being run, is part of the same thing: causes an immediate reaction. The United States government should be trying to develop an order among nations; an ecumenical order, not a utopian system, under which you arbitrarily impose certain rules that we choose to try to impose. Don't impose rules. We are trying to set up an ecumenical relationship among states and among cultures. We should not be meddling in things that are none of our business. What we should be doing, is concentrating on adoption of common principles amongst states. And leave it to the individual nations and their conscience to apply those principles.

We are not so smart, in the United States. Our government is not so smart that it's qualified to judge other countries. We should not try to judge them. Some things have to be judged, especially when we're meddling, when we're meddling. We should stop the meddling. But, no, we should actually not take any position on this thing. I know there are facts about the U.S. intelligence and other intelligence operations into China. These should not have occurred. We should not be choosing subversive movements, of any kind, in China. We are trying to develop cooperation with China. We are trying to find cooperation, for example, among the countries of Asia for long-term security and economic development. We are trying to get cooperation right now with China and Russia--those of us who are sane--in dealing with the North Korea-South Korea situation. We want the Sunshine Policy to go through. We do not want to dictate to North Korea its internal policies. We want to find a smarter way of approaching the problem. Therefore, we need cooperation among these countries. And, when we go in and meddle, and try to pick issues and nag them, we just make things worse. That's the general thing. We shouldn't be involved. And people who get all excited about it--I say, "Okay, look, if you want to purify something, how about getting Cheney out of the U.S. government?"

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