The media blitz harked back to the Maoist mind-control campaigns of the 1960s. Horror stories about Falun Gong practitioners, like the tale of the teenager who killed his parents with a foot-long knife because he thought they were demons, peppered endless propaganda reports. The party sent hundreds of its members who had practiced Falun Gong to re-education seminars, and the People’s Liberation Army reported that a “vast number” of soldiers were “studying theories, refuting fallacies, distinguishing between right and wrong and fostering healthy trends.” To erase Li’s “evil instructions,” local authorities from Beijing to Inner Mongolia destroyed more than 2 million Falun Gong texts and tapes. Beijing blocked access to Falun Gong Web sites and issued an arrest warrant for Li, who lives in New York City. (The United States has no extradition treaty with China.)

What is Beijing so afraid of? Party officials first got spooked on April 25, when 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners quietly surrounded Beijing’s Zhongnanhai compound, where party bosses live and work, to complain about a critical magazine article. Prime Minister Zhu Rongji met with protest leaders on the spot, and was stunned to find among them party officials. Zhu calmly rebuked them, and the demonstrators dispersed. But President Jiang Zemin was irate, and fired off a midnight letter to key Politburo members. “I believe Marxism can triumph over Falun Gong,” he fumed.

Now there are murmurs in Beijing of a potential leadership crisis. The man with the most to lose is Zhu, the “economic czar” who has led China’s reform effort. Already under pressure for failing to win concessions from the United States over entry into the World Trade Organization, Zhu will see his reforms suffer if the crackdown stifles investment. He might also be tainted simply because he’s the only top official to banter with Falun Gong representatives. In the coming days, party bosses will meet at the seaside resort of Beidaihe for an annual powwow, where traditionally they consolidate policies, plots–and purges.