Whistleblower leaks from high-ranking sources within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have pulled back the curtain on an expansive and coordinated effort to suppress Falun Gong practitioners beyond China’s borders – including in the United States. The leaked documents expose how the CCP manipulates media narratives, weaponizes legal systems, and targets organizations linked to Falun Gong, a spiritual group that has long faced brutal persecution in China, including forced organ harvesting.
At the center of these revelations is a high-level CCP meeting of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission in 2022, attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping. According to the leaked documents and insider accounts, Xi voiced frustration over the CCP’s failure to neutralize Falun Gong’s overseas activities. He reportedly instructed officials to ramp up efforts to “completely, and on an international scale, suppress Falun Gong’s momentum.” This directive placed the Ministry of National Security in charge of executing this transnational crackdown.
Professor Yuan Hongbing, a former Beijing University law professor and an expert on CCP strategies, corroborated these findings with insights from his sources inside the CCP. “I got this information from two sources. One was from people with a conscience in the CCP system,” he revealed. “I must also verify it through other channels before I disclose it. So, I have another source for verification, and that’s the members of the CCP’s Red Second Generation Families. Some of these Red Second Generation Families have extreme dissatisfaction towards Xi Jinping, even hatred.”
The documents reveal two primary tactics in this campaign: influencing global public opinion and leveraging legal warfare. The goal? Silencing Falun Gong practitioners, discrediting their organizations, and stamping out their advocacy internationally.
Yuan highlighted the extent of the media infiltration. “The CCP mainly relies on using money to bribe some of the key figures in the media such as editors-in-chief, reporters, famous journalists, etc,” Yuan claimed. “To infiltrate the overseas media, the CCP set aside an amount of money called the Overseas United Front funds. This money is specifically used to pay key people in various places overseas.”
Yuan emphasized the need for vigilance regarding CCP influence on international media, warning that “some of the media in our free democratic societies have been reduced to a tool of the CCP tyranny by smearing, attacking, and suppressing Falun Gong.”
Beyond media manipulation, the CCP has intensified its legal tactics. “The government of China has a lot more money than individuals whom the government might sue for libel,” said David Matas, an international human rights lawyer and investigator of forced organ harvesting. “And litigation can cost a lot of money, even if the person sued succeeds. So, lawfare can be effective in silencing criticism.”
According to Matas, the strategy of “lawfare” – using legal systems to intimidate and silence critics – is particularly effective because of the vast financial resources the CCP can deploy. This tactic has extended to countries like the U.S., where lawsuits have been filed against Falun Gong practitioners and their advocates to suppress their voices.
Matas further elaborated on the CCP’s broader strategy of avoiding direct references to Falun Gong while still targeting the group behind the scenes. “The leaked documents help to explain phenomena that are otherwise inexplicable. For instance, the Government of Canada imposed sanctions on eight Chinese Communists because of their repression of Falun Gong, Uyghurs, and Tibetans. The Government of China responded by imposing sanctions on 20 individuals (I was one of them) and two entities involved in pursuing human rights for Uyghurs and Tibetans. Falun Gong was not mentioned. The silence was part of an overall strategy of not mentioning Falun Gong.”
The CCP’s manipulation extends far beyond its own borders, using every available channel to influence perceptions and policy. Freedom House, in a 2021 report, found that “China conducts the most sophisticated, global, and comprehensive campaign of transnational repression in the world.” Its tactics range from physically assaulting dissidents to conducting espionage and harassment campaigns. Its targets include not only Falun Gong practitioners but members of “sensitive” ethnic groups such as Uyghurs or Tibetans, and even former CCP officials now living abroad.
In early February, a “Snapshot” issued by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security alleged that “cases of CCP-related espionage and acts of transnational repression throughout the U.S. have expanded rapidly.” It cited dozens of cases in the past two years in which different people were indicted for acting on the CCP’s behalf to influence political positions, run undisclosed “overseas police stations,” and spy on U.S.-based dissidents.
Professor Wendy Rogers, chair of the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China’s International Advisory Board, expressed concern about the medical community’s failure to address these abuses. “The global medical community has failed to act to prevent forced organ harvesting because many of its members have taken Chinese assurances at face value. Western doctors assume that the ethical norms that govern organ donation in the West apply in China,” she said. Rogers urged medical institutions to cut ties with Chinese counterparts unless there is full transparency around organ procurement.
The CCP’s suppression of Falun Gong is regarded by experts as one of the most egregious human rights violations of the 21st century. Yuan did not mince words when describing the scale of the atrocities. “The tyrannical CCP, acting as a political mafia group, has committed a series of unforgivable crimes against humanity. Under the CCP’s tyranny, there were already almost 100 million people of different ethnic groups who died unnatural deaths,” he said.
Legislative efforts such as the “Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act” in the United States offer a glimmer of hope for accountability. The bill would mandate that forced organ harvesting be included as a topic in the State Department’s annual human rights reports on foreign countries, while also providing for sanctions on “foreign individuals that fund, sponsor, or otherwise facilitate forced organ harvesting or trafficking in persons for purposes of removal of organs.”
According to Rogers, “The ‘Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act’ is a great initiative in terms of preventing U.S. citizens from engaging in transplant tourism. Other states are considering similar legislation, which is a positive move.” She emphasized the need for governments to inform themselves and push for action through diplomatic channels and international bodies.
Matas echoed this call for accountability while acknowledging the considerable obstacles. “One obstacle is disbelief. Many people find it hard to believe that this abuse is happening. Another obstacle is the nature of the evidence – not too little, but too much. It takes a lot of time and effort to go through it,” he said. Despite these challenges, he is optimistic that justice is achievable through national legal systems asserting universal jurisdiction.
Yuan, meanwhile, remains hopeful that dissent within the CCP itself could eventually dismantle Xi Jinping’s authoritarian grip. “There are a lot of people who are willing to pass on information from the CCP system to the international community,” he said. “Hopefully, it will facilitate the dismantling of Xi Jinping’s personal dictatorship soon. This is their psychological motivation to send out some information.”
As the world grapples with the revelations from these leaked documents, one thing is clear: the CCP’s efforts to silence dissent extend far beyond China’s borders, posing a serious threat to freedom, human rights, and the integrity of democratic societies worldwide.