It was in May 2013, almost exactly two years ago, that I first predicted that Zhou Yongkang, former security czar of China, would end up in detention, as part of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, that was just beginning to heat up back then.
Two years later, my powers of prediction proved accurate.
But there was one issue I brought up about Zhou Yongkang at the time, that is, he was heavily involved in the persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual practice. In fact, that’s how the entire faction of former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, of which Zhou Yongkang was a key player, kept an iron grip on power.
Now so far, Zhou is only being taken down on corruption charges. And that’s because if the CCP were to raise the crimes against humanity he perpetrated, well, that would mean the Communist Party would have to actually *address* those crimes against humanity--and admit they happened. In particular, Zhou was very likely involved in harvesting organs from innocent Falun Gong practitioners—that is, killing them specifically for their organs.
So far, those aren’t part of the charges brought against Zhou. However, top leadership may have found a way to do that without endangering the position of the Party.
Xi Jinping knows Zhou was involved in this organ harvesting--and to clarify, we’re talking about killing innocent people for their organs, not executing convicted prisoners. And how do I know Xi knows? For one thing, Chinese officials spy on each other all the time. In this NPR article, it describes how officials use information as insurance, as well as political and financial gain.
So Zhou Yongkang was involved in organ harvesting and the Party knows it too.
Top leadership would love to saddle the entire blame for that on Zhou Yongkang. Actually, what they would really love to do is never mention organ harvesting ever and hope that no one else will bring it up again, either. But that’s probably not going to happen.
There’s been a slow buildup of evidence on the issue, and more people are starting to pay attention. The Slaughter, by Ethan Gutmann, was published last year. It gives the macabre details of China’s organ transplant business. And last month, this independent documentary played on an Australian TV network, and it’s now even won a Peabody Award. This stuff is shining light on how the Party is killing prisoners of conscience for their organs--and every time it does, it gets media attention.
So if more people start questioning the issue of organ harvesting, the Party is going to need someone to take the blame. But how do you do that without exposing that the entire Party apparatus was in complicit support of organ harvesting the entire time?
Enter Huang Jiefu! In my recent episode, A Bit of Math Reveals China’s Horrifying Organ Transplant Secret, I talked about how Huang Jiefu, former Vice Minister of Heath and the current head of the Organ Transplantation Committee, has been promising to reform China’s organ transplant system. And how he’s been, let’s say, selectively manipulating data to show what a great job he’s been doing. But here’s the interesting thing.
Recently in an interview with Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television, he basically tried to pin the whole thing on Zhou Yongkang.
Now, to be clear, Huang did not explicitly say they’ve been using organs from prisoners of conscience, like Falun Gong. He talks about “executed prisoners.” But everything he’s done on this issue has been about using “executed prisoners” to cover up organ harvesting from innocent prisoners of conscience.
And Huang Jiefu has toed the Party line for so long. So why would he dare to comment like this?
It can only be that someone in charge wanted this interview to happen. Like an intentional leak. Someone wanted Huang Jiefu to talk about Zhou’s involvement with organ harvesting.
This way, when the world realizes the true horror of what the Party has been doing, authorities can blame it all on Zhou, launch an investigation, find out what they already knew, and then tie the proverbial albatross of organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience on Zhou, while showing the Western world how China is a country led by the rule of law, and everyone’s happy! Except Zhou.
This would give the Communist Party a way to deal with organ harvesting that makes it seem like it was all the doing of one or two corrupt individuals, rather the entire Communist Party’s latest campaign of mass killings.
And Zhou Yongkang makes a great scapegoat. Firstly, he’s already being brought down on corruption charges. Secondly, as China’s former security czar, it would seem he was high up enough to oversee nationwide organ harvesting, but not so high that the entire Communist Party could be blamed for it. A lot of people will probably buy this.
But here’s the problem. Research indicates that forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners begin in the year 2000. Zhou Yongkang was just a provincial Party secretary at the time. So there’s no way Zhou could have carried it out himself. In reality, to carry out a nationwide campaign that’s killed tens of thousands of innocent people for their organs—that takes an entire Party apparatus. And in the year 2000, the entire Party apparatus was controlled by Jiang Zemin.
So ultimately, this isn’t going to end with Zhou Yongkang. Zhou is part of the Jiang Zemin faction. And as long as Jiang Zemin is still alive he’s got a target on his back.
And what happens after that? Well, that’s hard to say. But at least this is a step closer to what I think is inevitable at some point. People will know that Jiang Zemin and the whole Communist Party are responsible for the organ harvesting of Falun Gong.
So what do you think about this whole mess? Leave your comments below!
