US Government Not Prepared for China’s Transnational Suppression: Human Rights Advocate

The America ChangLe Association in New York on Oct. 6, 2022. An overseas Chinese police outpost in New York, called the Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station, is located inside the association building. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

The United States government is not prepared to face the Chinese regime’s transnational suppression, according to human rights advocate Levi Browde.

“Unfortunately, by their own admission, our government, Western governments around the world really are wholly unprepared for this [act of the Chinese regime,] because normally, when they’re dealing with an adversarial country, it comes in the form of just their diplomats or their military or something like that,” Browde told “China in Focus” program on NTD news, The Epoch Times’s sister outlet.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has weaponized absolutely everything in their country, including their corporations, their citizens, and even overseas students to support this campaign of oppression, he noted.

As the executive director of the New York-based nonprofit organization Falun Dafa Information Center, Browde pointed to the cases of Falun Gong practitioners being harassed on U.S. soil to prove this point.

Levi Browde, executive director of the Falun Dafa Information Center, at a Falun Gong rally at City Hall in New York on May 11, 2016. The Epoch Times

Thuggery

“We had people here in Manhattan, whose apartments were ransacked several times. One of them actually had to leave and go into hiding, because of Chinese thugs, obviously, hired by the Chinese government and the consulate here was attacking them physically,” he said in the Oct. 8 interview.

In another cited case, an IT man who developed software that allows Chinese people to break through state censorship technology was beaten up and had his computers and hard drives stolen by Chinese-speaking people when he was at his Atlanta home.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline with meditative exercises and moral teachings centered around the tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. It grew in popularity during the 1990s leading to up to 100 million people practicing in China by the end of the decade. Perceiving this to be a threat, the Chinese regime in 1999 launched a nationwide campaign seeking to eradicate the practice.

“So this kind of thuggery has been a hallmark of their transnational repression,” Browde stressed.

But the suppression of Falun Gong abroad is far more sophisticated than that these days, he noted.

“They use their diplomatic corps all around the world to go after Falun Gong, pressuring our legislators, pressuring our governments or governors or mayors, not to support Falun Gong, not to speak out against the persecution in China,” he said.

Browde pointed out that American businesses, “including our media, have enormous deals inside China.” As a result, he said, “that has coincided with an alarming silence on the Falun Gong issue.”

Largest Whistleblower of the CCP’s Crimes

In his opinion, the CCP sees the Falun Gong community as an “existential threat.”

“This is the group that, first of all, was 100 million people strong, including military leaders, government leaders, that can expose them in a way that no other group can,” he contended.

Browde singled out a male Falun Gong practitioner identified as Fang Bin who acted as a citizen journalist in Wuhan, the city in China where the first cases of COVID-19 were reported.

“When COVID first hit in Wuhan, he became one of the leading and most visible voices reporting what was happening when the CCP was saying, ‘Ah, it’s very minor and nothing’s happening,” he said.

“He’s the one whose footage was showing body bags, piles of body bags, what was happening with the crematoriums, and that was on CNN, [and] all over the place,” he added.

Consequently, the journalist was quickly found, captured, and very likely still alive under the custody of the regime, according to the advocate.

“This community has become the single largest whistleblower of the CCP’s crimes on the world stage. And so it is a top priority and always has been for the CCP to silence the Falun Gong community,” Browde noted.

Reports continue to emerge that the rampant persecution of Falun Gong adherents by the Chinese regime, including brutal violence, detainment, and state-sanctioned live organ harvesting, is still ongoing.

Thus, America and the West should see the Falun Gong issue as a canary in the coal mine for “the regime’s capability and what they could do to the rest of us,” according to the advocate.

“That really is a demonstration of their capability and their will to violate every single international norm, if it’s gonna be about retaining their own power,” he said.

“And if we think this is going to stop, or it has stopped at Falun Gong, or some of the other dissident groups, that’s where we’re really going to run into trouble,” he argued.

Countermeasures

To counter the threat from the CCP, Browde suggested getting Chinese media and corporations operating in the United States registered as foreign agents.

“They should be monitored as foreign agents, because that’s really what they’re doing here,” he said.

The advocate pointed to the Falun Gong Protection Act (H.R.6319) and the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act (H.R.1592) that were introduced last year. Browde called for concerned Americans to contact their representatives asking them to support the bills.

“Because they can have a real impact on stemming or curtailing or hopefully stopping the horrific practice of organ harvesting in China, and also raising the visibility of Falun Gong,” he said.

“And if we raise the visibility of Falun Gong, we are raising the voice that is going to alert us as to the danger we’re under,” Browde added.