Former Top Medical Official Placed Under Investigation in China

Tourists visit the Xian Ming Dynasty City Wall in Xian of Shaanxi Province, China, on Oct. 16, 2007. (China Photos/Getty Images)

A former top figure in the Shaanxi Province health system has recently been placed under investigation by the province’s discipline and supervisory bodies.

On June 13, the Shaanxi Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission announced that Liu Baoqin, former director of the Shaanxi Provincial Health Commission, is under investigation for serious violations of the law, but didn’t elaborate on the charges.

According to public records, Ms. Liu, aged 61, a native of Shaanxi with a post-graduate education, has been working in the province for many years and was formerly the director of the Shaanxi Provincial Population and Family Planning Commission.

Starting in October 2018, Ms. Liu became the director of the Shaanxi Provincial Health Commission, retired from frontline duties in March 2023, and was subsequently appointed as a councilor to the Shaanxi provincial government.

The health commission directly oversees organ transplantations in related hospitals. Shaanxi Province is a major organ transplant hub—at least 139 medical personnel from 19 hospitals in the province are suspected of forced organ harvesting, according to the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG).

Under the CCP bureaucratic system, the National Health Commission certifies the qualifications for practicing organ transplants in medical institutions; provincial health commissions certify the qualifications of organ transplant surgeons, while county-level and above health commissions are responsible for the “supervision and management of organ donation and transplantation.”

According to a report from the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi‘an Jiaotong University (First Hospital), the 2024 Shaanxi Organ Donation and Transplantation Quality Control Center Work Meeting was held on June 11 in the Shaanxi capital city of Xi’an and attended by over 40 people. The meeting invited experts from China’s kidney, heart, lung, and liver transplant quality control centers to report on transplant data.

According to the report, in 2023, the number of organ transplants in Shaanxi Province included 557 kidneys, 403 performed by the First Hospital, ranking fourth in China; 54 hearts, 48 performed by the First Hospital, ranking fifth; 31 lungs, 30 performed by the First Hospital, ranking eighth; and 189 livers, 168 performed by the First Hospital, ranking 11th.

According to WOIPFG, the First Hospital has been a leading transplant center in China since establishing its Organ Transplantation Research Institute in 2001. The hospital conducts the most organ transplant surgeries in Shaanxi Province and assisted 23 hospitals in 13 provinces and cities in conducting tens of thousands of kidney transplants by December 2012.

According to the hospital, it had successfully performed more than 4,000 kidney transplants by 2015, more than 5,000 by 2019, and more than 6,500 by 2022.

The CCP claimed to have stopped organ transplants from executed prisoners starting in 2015. However, Dr. Torsten Trey, the executive director of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, has told The Epoch Times that there is no evidence that the practice stopped.

“According to China’s official numbers, about 50 percent of all registered donors signed up in 7 days alone... That is inconceivable and unprecedented,” Dr. Trey said.

A 2019 study published in BMC Medical Ethics journal said that “Beijing’s reported organ donation numbers don’t stack up and there is highly compelling evidence that they are being falsified.”

Forced Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Adherents

On June 15, the WOIPFG updated a report titled “Direct Evidence of the CCP’s State Genocide Crime by Harvesting Organs From Living Falun Gong Practitioners.”

The report stated it confirmed that starting from late 1999, under the order of CCP leader Jiang Zemin, the regime orchestrated a nationwide genocide of Falun Gong practitioners through forced organ harvesting, which has continued for 25 years and is ongoing.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, consists of moral teachings and meditative exercises and has been heavily suppressed since 1999. Adherents are subject to arbitrary detention, forced labor, and torture. Thousands have died in custody, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center.

“Before 1999, China had a total of only 135 liver transplants over more than 20 years, averaging only five to six per year. From 1991 to 1998, there were a total of 78 liver transplants, averaging 9.7 per year,” it reads.

“After the comprehensive persecution of Falun Gong by the CCP started in 1999, until 2006, there were 14,085 liver transplant surgeries in 8 years, averaging over 1,900 per year. ... The explosive growth of organ transplants coincided with the CCP’s systematic genocide against Falun Gong practitioners.”

A scene from "State Organs," a documentary that highlights the state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting in China, during a screening at Harvard University in Boston on March 7, 2024. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

As of October 2023, the WOIPFG has published a total of 866 audio files and more than 4,000 data sources it says are evidence of the CCP’s forced organ harvesting. Among them, 66 audio files directly prove the forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners, the group states.

In late 2014, the organization released a “List of investigation into medical personnel involved in the alleged forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in non-military system medical institutions in Shaanxi Province.”

The list disclosed 139 medical personnel from 19 hospitals in the Province. The First Hospital ranked first on this list.

“Although there is no evidence directly linking Ms. Liu to forced organ harvesting, as the director of the provincial health committee and directly responsible for the specific arrangements for organ transplantation in hospitals, she was at least indirectly responsible for the crime,” independent writer Zhuge Mingyang told The Epoch Times.

The CCP used the organs from Falun Gong practitioners to establish an organ-harvesting and transplantation industry, a massive and bloody industry chain more profitable than drug trafficking and arms sales, according to the WOIPFG report updated in June.

“With their insatiable greed, their dark hands are bound to extend into society. Therefore, everyone is in danger,” it reads.

China Missing Persons

An article published by the China Missing Persons Search Network in November 2020 stated, “China has 8 million missing persons every year.”

In June 2022, Xie Changyang, a 15-year-old boy in Xi’an City, vanished on his way home from school. Four months later, police found a body in the local Wei River downstream. Police confirmed through DNA comparison that the body was Xie’s. The autopsy report stated that both kidneys were missing.

Zhao Lanjian, a media professional who fled China, said that organ trafficking contributes to the massive disappearance of people in China.

“The lure of commercial interests and the drive for power have caused a large number of lives to disappear in a country with the world’s most extensive electronic surveillance,” he told The Epoch Times on June 18.

“The CCP’s national policy of industrializing organ transplantation is a cruel act that disregards human rights and the right to life.”

Xin Ning contributed to this report.