In China, Suspicions of Forced Organ Harvesting Shroud a Long List of Missing Teens

15-year-old Xie Changyang went missing on June 2, 2022. Almost a year later, police said the teen's torso had been found, minus head, limbs, and both kidneys. Here, a photo of the teen is displayed on his father's van, with an appeal for truth in the case. Renminbao/video screenshot

Thousands of youngsters go missing in China each year. The list of disappearances has fueled suspicions that children and teens are feeding China’s thriving organ transplant business.

Exact numbers are lacking, but it was estimated in 2013 that 200,000 children and teens disappear in China each year. According to a recent list circulating on social media, from Jan. 20 to Jan. 28, at least ten people disappeared, ranging in age from 10 to 35. Half were in their teens.

Highlighting the uptick in disappearances is a list from November 2022, which detailed a total of 21 disappearances over four months. The missing ranged in age from eight to 17.

Concerned parents hope for the safe return of their children, but fear the worst, that their loved one’s body will be found without organs—an increasingly common occurrence.

Teen’s Body Is Found, Minus Kidneys

On Jan. 3, a Weibo post described the case of 15-year-old Xie Changyang, who disappeared on June 2, 2022. The teen’s mutilated body was found in a river months later. The post included a link to a video made by the boy’s father, appealing for justice in the mysterious case.

The post was quickly censored, but not before it had made its way to international social media.

Using a pseudonym for fear of retaliation, Huang He, one of Xie’s relatives, told The Epoch Times that the 15-year-old schoolboy had studied martial arts for six years and was very strong.

According to Mr. Huang, Xie was a student at a vocational and technical school near his home in Xi'an, in China’s northwestern Shaanxi Province. On June 1, 2022, the school moved to a remote suburb about 12 miles away.

One day later, Xie disappeared.

Mr. Huang recalled that the school was usually under strict management, and students could only go home with permission. However, on June 2, students were informed that they could go home after school as the next day was the Dragon Boat Festival, a holiday.

Strangely, the school did not inform parents beforehand, Mr. Huang said.

Xie’s mother works in a restaurant and finishes work at 10 pm. His father, a truck driver, would not be home until midnight. Because neither parent could drive Xie home from school, he told his mother he would take a bus home. That was the last contact his parents had with him.

The Epoch Times was unable to reach the school for comment.

Xie’s parents reported their son missing the next day, Mr. Huang said. Twenty days later, the police said they had found nothing. Then they refused to investigate further. Finally, more than six months later, they agreed to investigate after repeated pleas from Xie’s family.

In May 2023, police told Xie’s father that a DNA match had identified a mutilated body, found in a local river several months prior, as his son.

Shockingly, when Xie’s father saw the body, it was missing the head, neck, and limbs. Further, according to an autopsy report posted on social media, both kidneys were missing.

According to the report, the head, the neck, and the limbs of the deceased “fell off naturally under the force of gravity after decomposition.” The police said they ruled out the possibility of a violent death.

Mr. Huang, however, remains unconvinced. He suspects police are covering up the true cause of death. “The body had been in the water for so long; was he thrown in, pushed out, or did he fall in by himself?”

“He is a human being, not an animal; at least let the child have a whole body,” said Mr. Huang.

Rare Blood Type Made Him a Target

On the evening of Oct. 14, 2022, 15-year-old Hu Xinyu disappeared from his boarding school in China’s Jiangxi Province. The local police and thousands of volunteers searched fruitlessly.

Photos of Hu Xinyu, including an image captured from a school security camera shortly before the teen disappeared. Wiki Photo

Improbably, after three months, local police announced that Hu had committed suicide by hanging himself with his shoelaces, just a few hundred feet from the school.

Hu’s case continues to draw widespread attention as new facts come to light.

In a Jan. 29 Epoch Times article, commentator Zhou Xiaohui cited officials within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), who said sources in the Jiangxi public security system confirmed Hu was indeed subjected to organ harvesting, and that “this is not a secret within the Jiangxi government.”

The teenager’s school, the Jiangxi police, and the media were all complicit, Mr. Zhou alleged.

Pulling from a variety of sources that also included Hu’s family and his diary, Mr. Zhou detailed the probable timeline of the tragic case, beginning with a school physical that revealed that the teen had a rare blood type. Subsequently, it appears he was targeted as an organ source for a powerful person who needed a transplant. His school was most likely involved in the arrangement, Mr. Zhou said, noting that Hu was admitted to the private school even though he failed the entrance exam.

The price of Hu’s organs is said to have been an astronomical 100 million yuan ($14 million).

Brain-Dead Donors Praised

Coincidentally, January saw a wave of publicity in Chinese state-controlled news media concerning brain-dead organ donors.

On Jan. 21, Guangzhou Daily reported that a 3-year-old girl was in a car accident on the eve of her third birthday. The child, Xixi, suffered severe head injuries and was pronounced brain-bread, the paper reported, noting that her mother donated Xixi’s liver, kidneys, and corneas.

The same day, Hunan Daily’s Huasheng Online reported on Chen Haidong, 48, whose family “decided to donate his organs after a sudden cerebral hemorrhage led to brain death.”

On Jan. 11, the Qilu Evening News posted on Weibo that 20-year-old university student Ding Shaotong had fallen while riding his bicycle, leading to serious injuries and a diagnosis of brain death. The report praised Ding’s parents, who “helped their son donate” his heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and corneas, giving seven recipients new life.

On Jan. 10, the same outlet reported that Xiaojun, a 16-year-old boy from Jiangsu province, was the victim of a car accident and was ruled brain dead. “His parents donated his lungs, liver, kidneys, and corneas to six patients,” the report noted.

On Jan. 5, Chinese media reported that the parents of a 22-year-old Hubei resident had donated “all the solid organs and tissues that can be used: heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, pancreas, and corneas,” as well as their son’s liver after he was pronounced brain dead.

Chinese netizens questioned the large number of brain deaths being reported in Chinese news media and cast doubt on whether the accidents that led to the brain death were authentic. “Can a fall also lead to brain death?” one asked on social media.

Brain-Dead Patients and Forced Organ Harvesting

A large number of hospitals in mainland China have been accused of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience, persecuted groups such as Falun Gong adherents, and other missing persons.

On Jan. 2, Chen Jingyu, a lung transplant specialist and vice president of the Wuxi People’s Hospital, said in a Weibo post that in 2023, he had performed 370 lung transplants, an average of more than one transplant per day. Dr. Chen previously boasted that organs donated by brain-dead patients were the hospital’s “only source of organs.”

Brain death is generally defined as the irreversible cessation of all functions of the brain. Brain-dead patients are critically important to the organ transplant industry.

“From the point of view of organ transplantation, brain-dead patients are living bodies,” Wang Zhiyuan, chief of the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong,  told The Epoch Times Chinese edition, explaining that brain-dead patients rely on a ventilator to maintain their breathing and heartbeat for a certain period after the loss of brain function and the cessation of spontaneous respiration.

After cardiac death, organs quickly become unsuitable for transplant due to lack of blood circulation. Although brain-dead patients are legally dead, heart and lung function continues with the help of machines, keeping organs fresh until the moment when they are removed from the patient’s body.

In 1968, a Harvard Medical School report defined brain death as a “new criterion for death.” Obsolete criteria for the determination of death were limiting the supply of organs available for transplant, the report argued. The new definition—which has become increasingly controversial—opened up a whole new source of organs for transplant.

Mr. Wang told The Epoch Times that “The CCP has formed a whole system of ‘live harvesting’ to kill people, which has become a black industry chain, not only to renew the lives of senior CCP officials but also to sell organs to other countries.

“The CCP cannot stop this system by itself due to the huge profits involved. Furthermore, their greed is only increasing, and the targets of live organ harvesting are now starting to include the general public.”

“Anyone in mainland China could be the next victim of the CCP’s crime of live organ harvesting,” Mr. Wang said.

Xin Ning contributed to this article.