Inside China’s Largest Civil Disobedience Movement, and Why You Haven’t Heard of It: Larry Liu

[FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW] In China, a grassroots, underground movement of Chinese has been cutting through the communist regime’s censorship and propaganda machines—one pamphlet at a time.

Since the Chinese communist regime launched a nationwide persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual discipline 25 years ago, Falun Gong’s millions of adherents in China started creating secret underground print shops to expose the regime’s human rights atrocities.

All across China, they secretly distribute flyers, DVDs, and brochures en masse, hang posters in public areas in the dead of night, and circulate software to their fellow Chinese so they can circumvent China’s internet blockade. Those arrested face years in prison—as long as 15 years.

So who are these people? And why is their story critical to understanding China today?

In this episode, I sit down with Larry Liu, deputy director of the Falun Dafa Information Center.

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.   

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jan Jekielek: 

Larry Liu, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. 

Larry Liu:

Thank you for having me, Jan. 

Mr. Jekielek:  

Larry, recently the Falun Gong Protection Act was passed by a unanimous voice vote in the U.S. House of Representatives. Why is it important to pass legislation like this?

Mr. Liu:

The persecution of Falun Gong started in 1999. The House passed several resolutions in the past 25 years on Falun Gong, but this is the first legally binding bill on Falun Gong issues. It was passed right before the 25th anniversary of the persecution, so it’s very significant for Falun Gong communities around the world. It certainly gives a lot of hope to Falun Gong practitioners still suffering in China so that they can feel that they’re not alone. 

The leader of the free world is caring about them, and is trying to protect them. It also sets a good example for the rest of the free world to pass similar legislation in their countries. This bill also alerts Americans about the forced organ harvesting issue. It will alert the medical community in the U.S. not to collaborate or cooperate with the Chinese transplantation industry. It certainly will also help raise awareness among American patients, so that they will not unknowingly go to China for organ transplant and become accomplices of this heinous crime.

Many people have probably never heard about Falun Gong, but this persecution of Falun Gong is one of the longest-running and most brutal human rights atrocities in modern Chinese history. In response to this persecution, Falun Gong practitioners in the past 25 years have launched the largest civil disobedience movement. We can also call it an information freedom movement in modern Chinese history. But a lot of times, people have never heard of it. This legislation is making it more known, and it’s important to talk about it today.

Mr. Jekielek:

Please tell us more about this being the largest civil disobedience movement in Chinese history. What exactly is happening?

Mr. Liu:

I will start from the very beginning about Falun Gong, its history in China, and how the persecution started. I’ll give some history so that people can understand why there is a civil disobedience movement. Falun Gong is a spiritual practice rooted in the Buddhist tradition. It combines meditation, qigong exercises, and moral teachings, and is very similar to tai chi or yoga.

The core principles of Falun Gong are truth, compassion, and tolerance. We consider these universal principles that we try to live up to in our daily lives. It was first introduced to the public in China in 1992 and became the most popular qigong just within a few years because of its health benefits. Many people had their severe or chronic disease disappear after they practiced Falun Gong. Also, the moral teaching really helped give people some hope.

After the Cultural Revolution, a lot of the traditional values in China were destroyed, and the traditional culture was destroyed. People said, “This is the good, traditional part of China coming back.” At that time, even many Chinese government officials supported Falun Gong and practiced it themselves. Their family members practiced it. 

By early 1999, the Chinese government’s own estimate was that 70 to 100 million people in China practiced Falun Gong. That out-numbered the Communist Party membership, which was 60 million at that time. That raised an alarm for some core party members, as well as the independence of Falun Gong, because it was independent from state control. 

It was the largest independent civil society group in China at that time. Some of the CCP leaders considered it to be ideological competition. The former Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin started this crackdown to eradicate Falun Gong in July 1999, exactly 25 years ago this month, and it has continued to this very day. 

After the persecution started, many Falun Gong practitioners went to Beijing and their city and provincial governments to appeal. Hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of Falun Gong practitioners went to Tiananmen Square in Beijing to hold signs and banners. As time went by, we realized that didn’t work.

The Chinese government wouldn’t listen to us. We felt that the best way to counter this persecution was to help Chinese people to learn the truth. A major component of this persecution is propaganda to demonize and dehumanize Falun Gong. All the media, TV networks, and thousands of newspapers were all demonizing Falun Gong 24/7. It was a propaganda marathon that really polluted a lot of Chinese people.

We felt that the best way to counter this persecution was to help people to learn the truth about Falun Gong and the persecution. Gradually, if nobody would cooperate with the CCP in this persecution, the persecution would naturally end. That’s why practitioners in China launched the largest information freedom movement in Chinese history. We estimate there are about 200,000 underground, family-run print shops run by Falun Gong practitioners. They print DVDs, brochures, booklets, and they pass out to their neighborhood, to their coworkers.

They do this to educate their fellow Chinese not only about Falun Gong and the persecution, but also about  the Communist Party—its history, its origin, how they lied, and how they exerted tyranny over the Chinese people for the last 70-plus years. It has really changed the hearts and minds of millions of Chinese people. 

I will give you one example. I have a close friend in China, and we talk from time to time over the phone. He’s older than me and he pretty much believed most of the things the Chinese government has said. When I talked to him about the Tiananmen Massacre June 4th, 1989, he said that the Chinese government did the right thing, because the state-run TV painted a very different story. They said that the students killed some of the soldiers and burned their bodies, and were responsible for those gruesome images.

Mr. Jekielek:

They made it sound like the students were the ones responsible for the atrocity.

Mr. Liu:

Yes, they made the students look like the villains, not the victims. They were also selling a social contract to Chinese people after the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Basically, if we can make you rich, we can give you economic growth and don’t touch politics. That’s the social contract a lot of Chinese people bought into at that time.

This included this friend of mine who said, “If the government didn’t maintain stability at that time, how could we have such economic growth?” That was the narrative from the Chinese government. I then emailed him some software developed by computer scientists here in America who practice Falun Gong. One is called FreeGate and the other is UltraSurf. I emailed him an encrypted copy so he could get around the firewall and access uncensored information. 

After he saw the photos, the documents, and the videos of the Tiananmen Massacre, he completely changed. He said that he was shocked that they did this kind of thing. But the younger generation of Chinese have never heard about the Tiananmen massacre. This is what Falun Gong practitioners from both inside China and outside China have been doing over the past 25 years to help Chinese people to see their own history. Many Chinese people can’t see through the CCP’s lies and don’t know their own history. 

I want to give you another example. Before the national security law was passed in Hong Kong in 2019 there was a big movement in Hong Kong. At that time many Falun Gong practitioners in Hong Kong told me that many Hong Kongers apologized to them. They said, “In the past, we didn’t believe you and we didn’t care about you and your plight. We didn’t believe what you said about organ harvesting. Now, we believe it, and everything you said is true.” 

When these things happen to you, then you will begin to realize that this is the true nature of the CCP. Similar thing happened during the Covid lockdown. Many Chinese people were really harmed by the pandemic and they were hit very hard by the iron fist of the CCP. At that moment they started to reflect on what they have believed for so many years, propagated by the CCP, and whether it was  true or not. That really helped to change a lot of Chinese people’s minds.

Mr. Jekielek:

This is a very unusual and unexpected long-term movement. The persecution of Falun Gong continued to be extremely serious for many years, with many dying and millions incarcerated. But in certain regions where the truth clarification by Falun Gong was greater, the persecution lessened a bit. The authorities would leave Falun Gong practitioners alone as a testament to this relentless truth clarification, as it’s called. 

Mr. Liu:

In 2017, Freedom House published a very comprehensive report, “The Battle for China’s Spirit.” There is one chapter on Falun Gong that is one of the most comprehensive reports on Falun Gong by a major human rights organization. When Falun Gong practitioners share true information about the persecution, they call it truth clarification. Overseas Chinese-speaking Falun Gong practitioners, including those in Taiwan and America, make phone calls to detention facilities and prison camps in China. 

They call those police and clarify the truth to them. They tell them that Falun Gong is not what they learned from the Chinese state-run TV, that these are good people, and that they shouldn’t be tortured. They say, “You shouldn’t follow the party rules, because when the party collapses one day, which may come sooner than you imagine, then you’ll have to take responsibility for what you did. It will be just like what happened in many political campaigns in communist history, like after the Cultural Revolution.” 

After the political campaign, those perpetrators became the scapegoats and were also punished. The practitioners are making phone calls to these police and telling them, “You will become the scapegoats for what you are doing, so don’t do these things.” Some of them listened and decided not to torture Falun Gong practitioners. 

There is another tactic that Falun Gong practitioners in China use, which can also be quite effective. They document what the local police or prison guards did in the prison. If they torture and abuse Falun Gong practitioners, they document that, and they post it publicly on a tree or at the public square at a great personal risk. Sometimes they even send a letter to their family members or their spouse or their workplace.

These people are also human beings. They did horrible things in prison behind the scenes, but they also have family and kids. They don’t want their kids to know what they did. If a family member ever found out what they did they would be ashamed, so they become more restrained. 

The other factor is the sanctions by the U.S. government. Both the Trump administration and the Biden administration’s State Department sanctioned a few Chinese officials involved in the persecution of Falun Gong. These sanctions help, because these CCP officials don’t know if they will become the target of sanctions. They also want to have their kids go to America to go to college. 

It’s very corrupt in China, so they have maybe a lot of money and they want to store it overseas. They have some assets here in America, so that made them worried too. These things could contribute to what you described. The persecution lessened a little bit in some local areas, but the overall policy remains the same. For over 25 years the persecution has not lessened at all.

 Mr. Jekielek:

Let’s go back to that legislation. There were two bills passed. The Falun Gong Protection Act this year, and last year, the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act, which is also related. Please tell us about the substance of this legislation.

 Mr. Liu:

The Falun Gong Protection Act is long overdue. There are a few components to it. One is the reporting component, and it asks the State Department, basically the executive branch, to have a report every year about forced organ harvesting issues in China. Another component is to have a statement of policy by the American government that the American medical industry will not cooperate or collaborate with the Chinese transplantation industry. 

Another component is that anybody involved in the persecution of Falun Gong, especially with forced organ harvesting, the U.S. government will deny them a visa to enter the U.S. and their assets in the U.S. will be frozen. The bill also asked the Secretary of State to determine whether the persecution of Falun Gong is a crime against humanity or genocide.

 Mr. Jekielek:

Why would it be important to distinguish between crimes against humanity, which is quite extreme, and genocide?

 Mr. Liu:

There is a difference in the level of the severity and also the intention. The severity of this persecution certainly meets the criteria of genocide, but there is also a factor of intention. Several scholars have designated this persecution as genocide. Nina Shea, Director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute, had an article in the National Review saying that CCP committed another genocide besides the Uyghur genocide, which is the persecution of Falun Gong. 

There is a very influential academic paper published in a journal of genocide studies titled, “Cold Genocide.” That paper stated this very profound concept of cold genocide, which is more behind the scenes. It takes a longer time, so it’s less noticeable. It not only destroys you physically, but also destroys a group psychologically and socially.

The Communist Party chief, Jiang Zemin, started this persecution single-handedly. All the other six members of the Politburo Standing Committee were not for this persecution at all. He single-handedly started this persecution. At that time, he wanted to completely eradicate Falun Gong from China in three months.

 Mr. Jekielek:

I want to emphasize that he used the word eradicate.

 Mr. Liu:

Yes, eradicate.

 Mr. Jekielek:

It’s a very strong word.

 Mr. Liu:

Yes. He said, “Completely eradicate Falun Gong in three months.” He thought he had picked an easy target because we practice tolerance, we don’t retaliate, and we don’t resort to violence. He knew that. We talked about benevolence and compassion, so he thought this is an easy group to target. He also wanted to use this political campaign to consolidate his power and to find out, “Who is with me, and who is not with me in the party? Who is loyal to me?” 

He laid out a three-pronged strategy to persecute Falun Gong—defame their reputation, bankrupt them financially, and destroy them physically. He granted the police the power to destroy them physically. That’s the part we’re talking about. I will give you some statistics. In 2009, in the annual State Department Human Rights Report, they estimated about at least half of labor camp inmates in China at that time were Falun Gong practitioners. The Laogai Research Foundation, which specializes in studying forced labor in China, estimated that at that time, about 3 to 5 million inmates were in Chinese labor camps. Half of that is 1.5 million. That was the snapshot that year. 

But if you look at the last 25 years, millions have been detained in labor camps and various detention facilities. The documented death cases from the prosecution have surpassed 5000. These are only the people where we actually know their name and the details of how they died. Their family member agreed to send that information overseas. But the real number could be many times higher.

Mr. Jekielek:

You’re talking about 5,000 cases where there is detailed information about exactly what happened to the person, who did it, and how they died. In these kinds of situations in the human rights field, this is often very difficult information to obtain.

 Mr. Liu:

I can give you one example. In December 2022, a 30-year-old radio host from Sichuan province, Pang Xun, a very handsome, bright young man, died in prison just because he handed out a Falun Gong pamphlet. People reported him to the police and he was sentenced to five years in prison. Two years into his prison term, he was tortured to death. There’s a video of  his dead body with bruises on his face and body. In the background we can hear his mother crying and saying, “Pang Xun, I’m going to seek justice for you. It went viral on X and got maybe half-a-million views. Radio Free Asia and some other media reported on it. This is just one of over 5000 documented death cases.

 Mr. Jekielek:

There was an unwritten rule initiated by Jiang Zemin that Falun Gong deaths would be considered suicides in the prison. This is not only a persecution to eliminate a physical body, this is also a persecution to eliminate a faith. How can you eliminate something from people’s hearts and minds?

Mr. Liu:
They will force you to renounce your beliefs, and if you refuse, they will torture you. They give you a simple choice. If you sign some documents renouncing Falun Gong, stating that it is evil and that you will no longer practice it, you may be spared. However, if you refuse, they will resort to any means necessary to torture you. They may even use your family members to pressure you into giving up your beliefs. This persecution is particularly insidious because it aims to eradicate moral values and faith from a person’s mind. Compassion and tolerance, the fundamental principles of Falun Gong, are portrayed as evil.

The consequences of such a society where compassion and forbearance are deemed evil are devastating. The moral fabric of society is torn apart. This is exactly what is happening in China right now. The persecution of Falun Gong not only destroys the lives of its practitioners, but also inflicts immense damage on the entire society due to the decline in moral values.

Job performance is tied to the persecution as well. For policemen and prison guards, their performance is judged by how many practitioners they convert by coercing them to renounce their beliefs. Bonuses and salaries are often linked to this performance as well. This is not only one of the most brutal and extensive human rights atrocities in modern Chinese history, but it is also likely something you have never heard about. Why? Because the Western media has largely remained silent on the persecution of Falun Gong.

I recall a book by sociologist Andrew Junker, published in 2019 by Cambridge University Press, titled “Becoming Activists in Global China.” In this book, he acknowledges that Falun Gong is one of the most severely persecuted groups, if not the most. He also explores why the West has largely ignored this issue. He points to two reasons—secular bias and fear of retaliation from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Falun Gong is a spiritual practice rooted in Buddhist tradition, which may cause people to be biased against it. Additionally, any form of study or reporting on Falun Gong, even if objective, often faces significant retaliation from the CCP. Scholars and media organizations need access to China, visas, and the ability to stay in the country, and their parent companies may have substantial business interests in China. They are fearful of jeopardizing these relationships.

For instance, in 2001, the publisher of The New York Times had a meeting with Jiang Zemin, the party chief who initiated the persecution of Falun Gong. Shortly after, the New York Times website became unblocked in China, when it had previously been blocked. These two factors, as Andrew Junker said, created a blackout on Falun Gong issues. He used a very interesting metaphor of having one eye poked out by the CCP, with the other eye covered by our own hand.

Mr. Jekielek:
Having spoken to a number of experts over the years, the persecution of Falun Gong was not taken very seriously by free liberal democracies in the West. If people had opened their eyes and seen what was happening, they might have gotten a hint of what would happen to other groups, such as the Tibetans, the people of Hong Kong, and the Uyghur people. There has been an almost total media blackout on the persecution of Falun Gong.

Mr. Liu:
Exactly. Fang Bing, a citizen journalist in Wuhan, shot some videos at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, showing the people who had died in Wuhan hospitals, and posted them online. Many international media outlets reported on it, but they failed to mention that he was a Falun Gong practitioner and had been jailed before for practicing Falun Gong. He was eventually sentenced to three years in prison for posting the Covid-related videos online, just before the Beijing Winter Olympics in January 2022.

There is another story about Xu Na, an artist in Beijing. Her husband, Yu Zhou, a renowned folk musician in China, had been tortured to death prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and international media had reported on his death. These  families have experienced two Olympics, with one member dead and another sentenced to eight years in prison. These are just two examples of citizen journalists.

But I want to address your previous question about the consequences of ignoring Falun Gong. Some people may think, “The persecution is happening a world away from me. What does it have to do with me?” I would like to share one story. In December 2012, an Oregon woman named Julie Keith bought a Halloween tombstone kit from Kmart for her daughter’s birthday. When she opened it, she found a letter stuffed inside, written in choppy English.

The letter stated that the product was made in a Chinese labor camp called Masanjia, where the workers were imprisoned for their belief in practicing Falun Gong. They described being tortured and forced to work long hours in harsh and dirty conditions. The letter pleaded for the recipient to bring it to an international human rights organization. Julie Keith posted about it on Facebook. Later, the Oregonian, the largest newspaper in Oregon, reported on it. Following that, international media outlets also reported on it.

There’s an amazing story about this. About a year later, some international reporters found the person who wrote the letter, Sun Yi, who had been released from the Masanjia labor camp. Later, a documentary was made about this incredible story called “A Letter from Masanjia.” It’s available on Amazon, iTunes, and all the regular platforms. Watching that documentary made me think about all the things I buy from department stores like Walmart and Target.

Most of them are made in China. How many of those items were made by a fellow Falun Gong practitioner in a labor camp? They endure extreme hardship, work in a harsh and dirty environment with only four hours of sleep, and are subjected to torture. Have we ever considered that? This persecution is far closer to Americans’ living rooms than we think.

Another example is the issue of organ harvesting. David Matas is one of the leading investigators on forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. Basically, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been harvesting organs from prisoners or those sentenced to death. This has been happening since the 1980s and it’s actually legal in China. However, after the persecution of Falun Gong started in 1999, there was a massive increase in organ transplants.

Chinese hospitals started doing way more transplants, and this aligns perfectly with the timeline of the persecution of Falun Gong. When hundreds of thousands, or maybe even millions, of people were sent to detention and concentration camps, the world mostly turned a blind eye. In 2006, news about organ harvesting started to emerge with the Huffington Post’s reporting. Many people were skeptical at first, but over the years, more and more evidence has emerged, and gradually people started to believe it.

In 2019, an independent investigation called the China Tribunal was held in London, led by Sir Geoffrey Nice, the lead prosecutor in the Milosevic trial in the 1990s. The China Tribunal spent a year studying all the evidence on forced organ harvesting. In 2019, they concluded that forced organ harvesting has been occurring on a significant scale in China for a long time, with Falun Gong being the primary source of organs.

That same year, the China Tribunal testified before the United Nations Human Rights Council. In their testimony, they estimated that hundreds of thousands of people, mostly Falun Gong practitioners, have been killed for forced organ harvesting. This is in addition to the 5,000 documented deaths we previously discussed, which are only the ones we have information about. The true number of victims remains unknown. These estimates are based on various data, including the number of transplants and executions in China.

The prisoners of conscience, primarily Falun Gong practitioners, have been treated like cattle and have closed the gap between the demand for organs and the available supply. In China, it can take three to four years to find a matching organ, such as a kidney, liver, or heart. However, individuals with money can obtain organs within a few weeks to a month through the international organ tourism market in China. They can simply find a match from the organ database drawn from living people imprisoned in various concentration camps.

The extraction of organs from these individuals is done for profit, leading to their death. This system, known as forced organ harvesting, is distinct from illegal organ trade in other countries where individual donors willingly sell their organs. In China, it is a state-sanctioned industry coordinated between the police, security apparatus, and hospitals.

David Matas, the lead investigator on forced organ harvesting, stated that if the international community had paid enough attention to this issue and forced the Chinese healthcare system to be more transparent, the coronavirus pandemic could have been prevented.

Mr. Jekielek:

He’s saying that if we understood the moral reality surrounding medicine and biomedical research in China, we wouldn’t have engaged with them.

Mr. Liu:
My interpretation has two main points. First, there is significant engagement and collaboration between the Chinese medical industry and the United States. This collaboration has helped the development of the transplantation industry in China, which has involved many doctors who were trained in the U.S. Additionally, the pharmaceutical and medical industry in the U.S. has collaborated extensively with China in this field.

The second point is about transparency. Currently, we allow China to deceive us and cover up unethical practices in their healthcare system. We need to hold them accountable and demand transparency. One way to achieve this is through international pressure, such as the banning of Chinese transplantation papers by certain medical journals. By forcing them to be more transparent, we can prevent them from easily covering up incidents like the onset of the coronavirus. The Chinese Communist Party’s cover-up of the Covid-19 outbreak has resulted in the loss of countless lives that could have been saved.

Mr. Jekielek:
Indeed, these collaborations should have been approached with greater caution and scrutiny.

Mr. Liu:
Exactly. Why would we believe the Chinese government’s narrative that the virus is not transmitted from person to person? The World Health Organization initially made the same claim. It is important to note that the WHO is also involved in protecting China regarding the issue of forced organ harvesting. All of these issues are interconnected.

Mr. Jekielek:
Recent reports have emerged regarding forced organ harvesting in Xinjiang province, which essentially amounts to murder for organs.

Mr. Liu:
That’s the concerning part. If we do not stop the persecution of one group, it will eventually spread to other groups. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” This concept is not just theoretical. For instance, the tactics used against Uyghurs in Xinjiang were developed and tested through the persecution of Falun Gong. Many top officials in Xinjiang who carry out these persecutions were once involved in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. The same tools, such as torture methods and psychological abuse, were utilized in both cases, as well as the forced renouncement of beliefs.

The tactics they developed during the persecution of Falun Gong, they later applied to Uyghurs. They also targeted underground Christians in family churches and house churches. Furthermore, they are now doing the same tactics in Hong Kong. If we give the CCP a free pass, they will simply move on to another group. Each time they do, the threat will become closer to us. For example, if they turn their attention to Taiwan, it will be much closer to us, breaking our first line of defense. This is their strategy.

Mr. Jekielek:
Could you please tell us about what you do and how you ended up here?

Mr. Liu:
I am actually just a volunteer. Human rights work is something I do in my free time. My full-time job is as a senior statistician, or what is now commonly referred to as a data scientist. I was born and raised in Liaoning Province, in the northeastern part of China. I attended Tsinghua University in Beijing for college. After graduating in 1995, I came to the United States to pursue my PhD studies at Washington University in St. Louis.

It was during my summer break, in July of 1999, exactly 25 years ago this month, when the persecution began in China. The Chinese government banned Falun Gong, and overnight, thousands of people were affected. State-run media launched propaganda campaigns to demonize Falun Gong. I couldn’t believe it. I thought the Chinese government had misunderstood us. They believed we had a political agenda or desired political power, which was never the case. Falun Gong has never sought political power.

When I saw news of practitioners going to Beijing to appeal, even my own mother getting involved, I felt a strong sense of responsibility. Since I couldn’t go back to China, I decided to take action in Washington. Together with a group of students, we went to the Chinese embassy and protested there daily for three weeks. We wanted to clarify that we were not trying to overthrow the Chinese government; we simply desired the freedom to practice our faith. However, as the persecution intensified, we realized that the Chinese government did not misunderstand us. Actually, they were determined to continue the persecution.

We eventually discovered that the most effective way to counter this persecution was to assist Chinese individuals and society in understanding the truth about Falun Gong. By providing accurate information, we could help change the distorted narrative perpetuated by the CCP-controlled media. People need to learn the truth and counter the propaganda narrative of the Chinese government. If nobody cooperates with the persecution, it will end.

Mr. Jekielek:
You’re a Falun Gong practitioner yourself. How did that happen?

Mr. Liu:
When I was studying at Tsinghua University in Beijing, several qigong masters came to visit.

Mr. Jekielek:

For those who aren’t familiar with the concept of qigong, can you explain what it is?

Mr. Liu:
Qigong is a generic term that covers many different styles. Tai chi can be considered a form of qigong. While many involve breathing techniques, Falun Gong does not. It is a slow and meditative exercise that many practice for its health benefits. It can improve your health and energy levels.

Falun Gong is more than just physical exercise and health benefits; it also has a spiritual component. In the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a qigong boom in China with hundreds of different schools and masters. The scientific community in China was open to qigong at that time due to its ties to traditional Chinese medicine and beliefs.

In 1995, one year before I came to the U.S., my mother in China wrote me a letter. She had practiced various forms of qigong but never strongly recommended any until she started practicing Falun Gong. She described it as different from the others because it was completely free of charge and focused on principles like compassion and tolerance. She also mentioned that her chronic stomach problem was improving. This caught my interest.

Around the same time, a schoolmate of mine at Washington University in St. Louis attended a Falun Gong lecture in China. He started hosting nightly video series lectures at his house, so I attended and began practicing. Reading the Falun Gong philosophy, I felt that it answered all the questions I had in my life. As a science and math major, it deepened my understanding of science from a broader perspective. Falun Gong also increased my energy levels, improved my health, and helped me sleep better. It provided a spiritual path that tangibly elevated my mind and body.

Mr. Jekielek:

You were talking about what the CCP does to all sorts of groups, not just Falun Gong. They follow these groups overseas and attempt to influence them.

Mr. Liu:
The persecution is not limited to just within the Chinese border. It’s here in America and takes many forms. In the early years, they engaged in physical attacks. For instance, they broke into the apartment of a Falun Gong volunteer coordinator, Dr. Peter Yan Li, who is one of the key computer scientists involved in developing software to circumvent the Chinese internet firewall. They almost beat him to death and confiscated all his computer hard drives, but they did not touch any money, cash, or jewelry. Obviously, they were after information.

This happened frequently. In 2008, a mob of Chinese agents attacked Falun Gong practitioners on the street in Flushing, New York. I remember the Chinese Consul General in New York, Peng Keyu, was caught on tape admitting to instigating these mobs. However, the tactics have become more sophisticated. The CCP has certainly learned and refined their skills in transnational repression.

For example, last year the Justice Department indicted two CCP agents for attempting to bribe a purported IRS official, who was actually an undercover FBI agent. They were trying to bribe this supposed IRS official to revoke the non-profit status of Falun Gong-affiliated organizations, such as Shen Yun, a performing arts group funded by Falun Gong practitioners in New York. They are trying to use the American system to their advantage and interfere with Falun Gong here.

I remember back in 2005, a senior Chinese diplomat in Sydney, Australia, Chen Yonglin, who was the first secretary of the Chinese consul general at that time, defected to the Australian government. He revealed that he knew of about a thousand CCP agents and informants working for the CCP in Australia. Australia’s population is only about one-tenth of the U.S. population, so the true number in the U.S. could possibly be many times higher than a thousand. More recently, another former CCP agent defected in Australia and testified that based on his information, some of these agents are paid, while others are not.

There is a leaked document from the Chinese government, specifically a 2017 document from the CCP branch in Henan Province. This document outlines the CCP’s strategy for combating Falun Gong both inside and outside China. For example, they state that they will use their economic and diplomatic influence, as well as the ancestor city program, to restrict Falun Gong’s activities. They say, “Overseas, we plan to develop non-governmental sources, such as China-friendly scholars, experts, and journalists, to speak on our behalf. We also aim to influence foreign media to align with us on Falun Gong issues.”

It’s not surprising if one day a major media outlet publishes an article attacking Falun Gong or Shen Yun, with information provided by CCP agents or through guided investigations and facilitated reporting. This is part of their playbook of unrestricted warfare. They employ various strategies, including lawfare, to counter not only America on the military front, but also to manipulate the legal system, media, and public opinion.

They may employ individuals to file lawsuits, as has happened with Shen Yun. Some people, who have spent years in China, return to the US to initiate baseless lawsuits accusing Shen Yun of environmental violations. They exploit the American system, targeting tax issues and media, in an effort to create a negative portrayal of Falun Gong and advance their own narrative. Their tactics are sophisticated and often difficult to discern.

Shen Yun is a dance performance company that many people have seen advertised. However, the company has faced extensive transnational repression. They have been targeted with cyberattacks, and their touring buses have experienced multiple instances of tire slashing. Although the cuts were not deep enough to immediately deflate the tires, they posed a significant risk when driving on highways. 

These insidious acts were not carried out by Asians or Chinese, but by local thugs hired by the CCP. Furthermore, in March of this year, the transnational repression against Shen Yun escalated. Both the theaters where Shen Yun performed and the company’s headquarters in New York received bomb threats and mass shooting threats.

It is bewildering to consider why the Chinese Communist Party fears Shen Yun, which is considered a world-class Chinese performance. Many people ask why they are so afraid of a production that showcases traditional Chinese culture and values. Chinese audience members often express pride in their culture after seeing the show, stating that they have never witnessed such beauty in China itself, but only in America.

The show’s tagline, “China before Communism,” presents a different China, one that is free, spiritual, moral, and peaceful. It sharply contrasts with the CCP’s political propaganda, media manipulation, and indoctrination through education. The concept of China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has become deeply intertwined in the minds of many Chinese people. When Western governments criticize human rights abuses in China, it can be hurtful for 1.4 billion Chinese people. However, Shen Yun has managed to separate the concept of China from the CCP.

As a result, the CCP feels that its legitimacy in representing China and Chinese culture is being challenged. They can no longer claim to be the sole protector of Chinese civilization and culture. This is the main reason why they fear Shen Yun. They have resorted to various tactics to sabotage the show, such as using diplomatic and economic influence to pressure countries and theaters into canceling it. Unfortunately, they have succeeded in several vulnerable countries. Additionally, they have engaged in transnational repression, filing lawsuits against Shen Yun and attempting to strip its nonprofit status by bribing IRS officials.

The persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese regime has lasted for 25 years. The Falun Dafa Information Center recently released a report titled “25 Years of Persecution and 25 Years Too Long.” This report not only provides an overview of the persecution over the past 25 years but also focuses on the current situation. Despite narratives claiming that Falun Gong has been crushed in China, internal CCP documents tell a different story.

These documents, including work plans, directives, and reports indicate that Falun Gong remains the primary target of the CCP. In 2020, the Minister of Public Security explicitly stated in a speech that severe crackdowns on Falun Gong would be a top priority. In 2021, the Ministry of Public Security confirmed that Falun Gong is still a top target, surpassing Xinjiang, Tibet, and other areas of enforcement. This indicates that the CCP’s efforts to eliminate Falun Gong have unequivocally failed after 25 years.

Another significant finding in the report is that the persecution is ongoing and relentless. In just over two years, from 2022 to the present, there have been over 1,700 new sentencing cases of Falun Gong practitioners, with the longest sentence being 15 years. Tens of thousands of practitioners remain in custody, and there are new confirmed death cases every two or three days.

Mr. Jekielek:

The Falun Gong Protection Act has passed the House with a unanimous voice vote. What’s next for the bill?

Mr. Liu:
Now that the bill has passed the House, it has been brought to the Senate. I hope the Senate can pass the bill as soon as possible so that it can reach the president’s desk and be signed into law before the end of the year. That’s what we’re really hoping for.

Mr. Jekielek:
Larry, any final thoughts as we finish up?

Mr. Liu:
Yes, I will say this—25 years of persecution is far too long. It’s time to put an end to this persecution. It’s time to eliminate the CCP.

Mr. Jekielek:
Larry Liu, it’s been a pleasure having you on the show.

Mr. Liu:
Thank you for having me.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.