The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is intensifying its transnational repression campaign against Falun Gong, especially in the United States, according to three whistleblowers with access to the regime’s internal information.
Beijing’s new strategy involves manipulating social media influencers and Western media to propagate misinformation and false allegations, with a goal to sow public discord and to trigger a U.S. law enforcement response against practitioners of the spiritual discipline Falun Gong, who have been brutally persecuted by the CCP for decades.
While Chinese dissidents in the United States have long been targeted by the CCP, the newest campaign appears to be unprecedented in its scale and sophistication, even “trending into unchartered territory,” according to a Aug. 7 report by the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC), a nonprofit documenting the CCP’s persecution.
“The Chinese regime has made a strategic decision to escalate its persecution against Falun Gong worldwide, expanding its propaganda, disinformation, and transnational repression activities to target Falun Gong more aggressively outside China, and especially in the United States,” the report reads.
“This appears to be the CCP’s endgame to finally destroy Falun Gong.”
CCP agents were ordered to feed “malicious” and “negative” information about Falun Gong to U.S. media outlets as well as social media influencers, according to the whistleblowers.
A cornerstone of the campaign is to manufacture the type of allegations that would most likely trigger an investigation by the U.S. government, according to information provided by the whistleblowers.
A previous effort ended with two Chinese men pleading guilty to bribery and to acting as illegal Chinese agents. The pair carried out a plot in which they offered $50,000 to someone they believed was an IRS official, in exchange for opening an audit on a New York-based organization run by Falun Gong practitioners. The official was actually an undercover FBI agent.
According to the whistleblowers’ notes from a June meeting held by China’s Ministry of Public Security at the provincial level, the regime seeks to “mobilize concealed agents to create and escalate the internal conflicts of Falun Gong, to expand nonstop the fighting strength, depth, and reach of [social media influencers targeting Falun Gong].”
Falun Gong practitioners take part in a candlelight vigil in memory of Falun Gong practitioners who passed away during 25 years of ongoing persecution by the Chinese Communist Party in China, at the National Mall in Washington on July 11, 2024. (Larry Dye/The Epoch Times)
“They must attract the continuous attention of the entire United States society, and force the U.S. government to strike on all fronts, eliminating the force of Falun Gong,” the notes read.
Two sets of notes, provided separately by two whistleblowers and reviewed by The Epoch Times, detailed the June meeting. One set of notes also revealed information from an earlier ministry meeting.
Meanwhile, CCP officials were authorized to “activate” their agents embedded within Falun Gong communities to stir up opposition and protests against the U.S. government and then “create some incidents” during the protests, in order to provoke U.S. authorities, according to the June meeting notes.
“That’s an alarming development,” said Bradley Thayer, a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy, expert on strategic assessment of China, and contributor to The Epoch Times.
“You have to worry about whether the U.S. government has the ability to filter that out.”
Whistleblower notes from a June internal report by the China CITIC Foundation for Reform and Development Studies reveal that the regime aims to “mobilize central state media resources, university think tanks and other unit resources [to] actively share defamatory information about Falun Gong with overseas media.”
The CITIC foundation is a part of CITIC Group, one of China’s largest state-owned conglomerates with substantial overseas holdings, indicating the attack also includes major non-state entities controlled by the CCP. The notes were provided to the FDIC by one of the whistleblowers and reviewed by The Epoch Times.
Military delegates during a session of the National People's Congress, in Beijing, in a file photo. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)
According to the whistleblowers, Ministry of Public Security staff members were ordered to “fully cut off communication channels between domestic and overseas Falun Gong” to prevent any more information about the persecution from getting out of China.
Falun Gong, a practice that includes slow-moving exercises and teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, was introduced to the public in China in 1992. By the end of the decade, an estimated 70 million to 100 million people had taken up the practice.
Then-CCP leader Jiang Zemin, who was intolerant of any group outside the Party’s control, launched a campaign to “eradicate” Falun Gong in 1999.
Since then, millions of people have been thrown in prisons, labor camps, and detention centers, facing brainwashing and torture in attempts to force them to give up the practice, human rights groups have reported. Several independent investigations have concluded that the CCP has been killing prisoners of conscience to fuel its lucrative organ transplantation industry, with Falun Gong practitioners being the primary source of organs.
The whistleblowers warned that the CCP has a large but unspecified number of agents within the overseas Falun Gong community.
The FDIC obtained testimony from a Falun Gong practitioner from Europe who was detained last year when visiting relatives in China. While detained, CCP agents tried to convince the person to get a job with an entity founded by Falun Gong practitioners in Europe and spy for the CCP. The person was promised generous pay and was even encouraged to keep making anti-CCP comments on social media to maintain appearances. A summary of the testimony was reviewed by The Epoch Times.
The regime has spurred its agents to “take advantage of the U.S. election and the conflicts between the two parties” to further its goals, according to the CITIC report notes.
The FDIC is urging the public and the U.S. government to scrutinize any outrageous claims regarding Falun Gong.
“It is urgent and vital that the U.S. government and broader public recognize that the actual source of seemingly ‘independent’ commentators and incidents is likely China’s security apparatus,” the FDIC said.
The U.S. Capitol in Washington on April 8, 2024. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)
The organization is also encouraging the U.S. government to enforce laws requiring registration of foreign agents and social media companies to “to detect and limit the spread of CCP disinformation targeting Falun Gong.”
Targeting Shen Yun
Much of the leaked information described the CCP’s strategy for sabotaging Shen Yun Performing Arts, a New York-based classical Chinese dance company that was founded by Falun Gong practitioners in 2006.Shen Yun is seen as a threat to the regime because it presents Chinese culture untainted by the regime’s influence, according to the FDIC.
“With a single performance, Shen Yun demonstrates the magnificence of Chinese culture before the rise of communism, and in so doing, offers a vision for how wonderful China could be without the CCP,” the report reads.
Shen Yun Performing Arts presents the beauty of traditional Chinese culture as it existed before communism. (Courtesy of Shen Yun Performing Arts)
Some of Shen Yun’s dance pieces depict modern-day stories, such as those of Falun Gong practitioners facing persecution in China.
The company has become a major cultural force, growing to eight dance ensembles, each with its own orchestra, that perform for an audience of about 1 million theatergoers a year. The Epoch Times is a media sponsor of the company.
Shen Yun has been a major target of the CCP, according to Casey Fleming, chief executive of BlackOps Partners and expert on cybersecurity, strategic risk, and corporate threat analysis.
“Just the presence of Shen Yun humiliates the CCP,” he told The Epoch Times.
The CCP’s new strategy focuses on creating allegations that could trigger an investigation of the performing arts company by the U.S. government, the whistleblower information indicates.
Casey Fleming, chief executive officer at BlackOps Partners Corporation, speaks at the Borderless Cyber conference in Washington on Oct. 4, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)
The vehicle for the campaign appears to be social media influencers, particularly two individuals who’ve been producing and promoting anti-Falun Gong and anti-Shen Yun content on YouTube in recent years.
One of them is a Japan-based former employee of a CCP-run media outlet. The other is a Chinese immigrant in the United States who has made various threatening comments toward Shen Yun personnel in his videos.
Last year, the FBI issued a warning to local officials in New York that the man was “potentially armed and dangerous,” after he was spotted near Shen Yun’s training center. He currently faces charges for possession of illegal firearms.
The whistleblower notes from the June meeting state that “all provincial-level governments [must] provide resources to fully support [the two influencers and others] to fight with Falun Gong.”
“Supply all malicious information on Falun Gong gathered by the Public Security internally,” the notes state.
The two YouTubers interviewed several disgruntled former Shen Yun artists who were fired from the company for violating policies or failing to make the cut artistically, according to the FDIC report.
“Seeming to hold a grudge toward Shen Yun, these individuals often mix blatant lies with distortions of true events or people to create a highly misleading picture of Shen Yun,’ the FDIC report states.
The FDIC said the “end result of these fantastical stories is a narrative designed to incite the U.S. population to turn against Shen Yun and Falun Gong.”
The New York Times Building in New York City on Feb. 5, 2024. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)
“There appears to be overlap between the interviewees speaking to [one of the YouTubers] and to reporters from the New York Times, raising questions as to whether the paper’s reporting is being affected by a CCP-supported smear campaign,” the FDIC report reads.
There has been an uptick in incidents targeting Shen Yun in recent months, the FDIC noted, including X accounts impersonating Shen Yun staff members and making “outrageous statements.”
Prior Attempts
The FDIC had previously documented more than 100 attempts by the CCP to sabotage Shen Yun, most often by pressuring theaters or government officials to cancel the company’s performances under threat of endangering relations with China.There have also been instances in which Shen Yun tour buses have had their tires slashed in such a way that they would have burst while on the road. Several incidents of trespassing and property destruction at the company’s campus in upstate New York have been reported. Artists’ family members in China have been persecuted.
The Costa Mesa Police Department detailed an “approximately 7-inch slash on the side wall” of a tire on a Shen Yun tour bus, on March 15, 2024. The tire was cut in such a way that it wouldn’t deflate but would burst when driven on the freeway. (Courtesy of Shen Yun security)
The two CCP agents who tried to bribe an FBI agent posing as an IRS official last May also sought to use an environmental lawsuit targeting Shen Yun’s training facilities and schools to “inhibit” their growth, according to court documents.
Meanwhile, an American with business ties to China has been filing meritless environmental lawsuits against Shen Yun in recent years.
In March, the Shen Yun campus as well as venues hosting its performances in the United States and Taiwan were targeted by a series of emailed bomb threats and a threat of a mass shooting.
The emails’ metadata, obtained by The Epoch Times, suggest that some of the threats came from real accounts at the Taiwanese Ministry of Justice. The culprit thus must have either gained access to the accounts, such as through hacking, or spoofed them to create the appearance of official emails, several cybersecurity experts told The Epoch Times.
“This would be way too much trouble for an individual who just has a problem with Shen Yun,” Fleming said.
Shen Yun dancers rehearse a classical Chinese dance routine at their facility in Orange County, N.Y., in this file photo. (Courtesy of Shen Yun)
Examining the metadata with his team, he concluded that the CCP was the most likely culprit, though he cautioned that a definitive attribution is a painstaking process that could take months.
“On the surface, you have to look at who’s got the most to gain, who’s got the biggest beef, and that’s the CCP, most likely,” he said.
Gary Miliefsky, a cybersecurity specialist and one of the founding members of the Department of Homeland Security, voiced a similar sentiment.
“If it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, if it looks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” he said via email. “I don’t want to get involved in international politics, but it’s obvious the source is not in Taiwan.”
