‘Pervasive and Aggressive’: Beijing’s Interference and Repression of Falun Gong Escalate in Canada

Falun Gong practitioners participate in a candlelight vigil, holding photos of fellow adherents who had died as a result of persecution in China, in front of the Chinese Consulate in Toronto on July 13, 2019. Handout

A comprehensive report details the Chinese regime’s 24-year foreign interference and extension of its repression of Falun Gong to Canada, highlighting its escalation and tactics to silence the group and stifle its human rights advocacy. The report also underscores these activities’ negative impact on Canadians as the regime advances its ideological goals.

The 130-page report, released by the Falun Dafa Association of Canada (FDAC) on Oct. 25, documents numerous instances in the country where individuals or entities engaged in physical and verbal assault, intimidation, harassment, and social exclusion of members of the spiritual practice of Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa.

These incidents, ongoing while dating as far back as 1999, have often been linked to the Chinese Embassy or Consulate or the foreign interference arm of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The FDAC report notes that, in pursuing the goal of “altering the public perception of Falun Gong, diminishing public support for its call for justice and human rights,” the CCP’s foreign influence operation “extends to and adversely impacts the general Canadian public as a whole.” This includes politicians and many other facets of civil, social, and political life in Canada.

Police detain a Falun Gong practitioner in Tiananmen Square as a crowd watches in Beijing on Oct. 1, 2000. Chien-min Chung/AP Photo

The report points out that Beijing’s foreign interference has evolved to become “more hidden and invisible.” Consequently, the Canadian public has limited awareness, resulting in a disproportionately inadequate response to its level of threat.

“The CCP has been intimidating and manipulating elected officials in Canada to prevent them from addressing rights abuses,” said FDAC representative Grace Wollensak at a press conference on Parliament Hill on Oct. 25.

“The CCP’s infiltration into Canada’s political system and institutions is extremely concerning, as it undermines the Canadian government’s ability to address and rectify the issue of interference itself,” she added.

Eroding Canadian Values and Governance

Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline rooted in Buddhist traditions. It consists of five meditative exercises along with moral principles centred on the tenets of “truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.”

Introduced to the public in China in 1992, it quickly gained popularity due to its health benefits. Official Chinese data estimated the number of Falun Gong adherents to be between 70 million to 100 million by the late 1990s.

However, then-Chinese leader Jiang Zemin perceived the practice’s popularity as a threat to the regime’s totalitarian control. In July 1999, he initiated a nationwide mass arrest and persecution campaign with the aim of eradicating the practice.

“This interference and repression are an extension of the CCP’s campaign to eradicate Falun Gong in China,” the report said. “The eradication campaign entails some of the worst human rights violations committed, including forced organ harvesting, which have been found to constitute crimes against humanity and potentially genocide.”

Grace Wollensak, representative of the Falun Dafa Association of Canada (FDAC), speaks at a press conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Oct. 25, 2023. The FDAC released its first-ever report on the Chinese Communist Party's foreign interference in Canada and transnational repression of the spiritual practice Falun Dafa, also called Falun Gong.

Ms. Wollensak noted that this campaign “not only threatens the safety and security of the Falun Gong community, it also erodes the fundamental values and the good governance of Canadian society.”

Influence Tactics

The FDAC report says that while the CCP’s repression spans multiple sectors within Canadian society, its influence over the government sector is “unprecedented.” Its tactics include sending defamatory letters to officials, spreading disinformation, and organizing rallies through organizations associated with the United Front Work Department, a Chinese agency primarily engaged in foreign interference.

An “alarming trend” is how these defamatory letters have evolved over time. Initially, they were sent directly by high-level diplomats from the Chinese Embassy and consulates. In recent years, they have shifted to involve individuals impersonating Falun Gong practitioners to send such letters under false identities.

The report cites a 2017 case where Liberal MP Judy Sgro, co-chair of Canadian Parliamentary Friends of Falun Gong, received a fraudulent email from an individual self-identified as “curry zhaoz.” The sender included an image of Ms. Sgro with an inappropriate backdrop and a statement that the image would be widely circulated to show her support for Falun Gong.

Another notable trend identified in the report is the growing reliance of these operations on front organizations. This entails recruitment of private businesses and civil organizations to help advance the CCP’s repression. Citing a Chinese studies scholar, the report said a total of 204 organizations in Canada have been identified as being affiliated with the United Front. The report did not reveal the scholar’s identity, saying that the individual preferred to remain anonymous.

In a 2014 deputation, Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former head of the Asia-Pacific unit at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), flagged several organizations suspected of engaging in assisting CCP operations and outlined a simple way for Western counter-intelligence agency to identify CCP agents or co-opted organizations.

Typically, they would be invited to meetings hosted by high-level Chinese officials or on all-expenses-paid trips to China. And they would often express support for Beijing, even in situations involving human rights violations or contentious events such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, during which the regime opened fire on students and pro-democracy activists.

Hate Propaganda

To justify its oppression of Falun Gong, the report says the Chinese regime has waged a massive hate propaganda campaign, using state-controlled media to vilify the practice and its followers and to restrict external sources of information.

A notable example is the Jan. 23, 2001, “self-immolation” incident broadcast by the CCP’s official mouthpiece, Xinhua News Agency. In the broadcast, five people were seen setting themselves on fire on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Xinhua immediately claimed they were Falun Gong practitioners who burned themselves in a religious suicide attempt, even though suicide is counter to the practice’s teachings. The so-called self-immolation was used by the CCP to slander Falun Gong. 

Although the video contained various inconsistencies and was later challenged by international researchers and media as being staged, Xinhua’s coverage served as a significant CCP propaganda victory. Many Chinese citizens began reporting their coworkers, neighbours, and even family members who practised Falun Gong, believing the group to be genuinely dangerous.

The FDAC notes that the regime’s indoctrination has extended to Canada, shaping Canadians’ attitudes to conform to Beijing’s stance toward the practice.

Chinese police officers take away a Canadian Falun Gong practitioner after he participated in a peaceful protest on Tiananmen Square in Beijing in November 2001. Ng Han Guan/AP Photo

A Chinese police officer approaches a Falun Gong practitioner who is holding a banner bearing the Chinese characters for “truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance,” the core tenets of the Falun Gong spiritual practice, on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Courtesy of Minghui.org

In an incident detailed in the report, an Alberta woman was arrested in Toronto on Aug. 20 after verbally and physically assaulting a 78-year-old Falun Gong adherent named Zhou Chuanying. Ms. Zhou frequents the CN Tower to distribute flyers and raise awareness about Beijing’s persecution of Falun Gong. On that day, the woman confronted Ms. Zhou and mocked and swore at her and then grabbed the flyers away from her.

The report also said the Chinese Embassy in Canada is known to have dedicated sections on its website for promoting anti-Falun Gong propaganda. Moreover, it documented several incidents involving the Chinese Embassy and consulates disseminating hate propaganda. In the early 2000s, the Chinese Consulate in Toronto prominently displayed anti-Falun Gong posters on the walls in the area where visa applicants waited.

The report also raises concerns about the “significant role” played by Chinese-Canadian media and social media platforms like WeChat in spreading CCP hate propaganda against Falun Gong. Among various cases mentioned by the FDAC was Montreal-based La Presse Chinoise, which the report said has been “replicating defamatory materials from the PRC in almost every issue of its paper” against Falun Gong since 2001.

These findings align with the observations of Victor Ho, former chief editor of Sing Tao Daily. In a recent interview with The Epoch Times, Mr. Ho delineated three types of media Beijing employs to exert influence overseas and extend control over the Chinese diaspora: overseas branches of Chinese state media, outlets originally from Hong Kong that have yielded to Beijing’s influence, and overseas media established by Beijing-aligned Chinese groups.

Recommendations

The FDAC proposes a series of recommendations in response to the CCP’s foreign interference and transnational repression. The association is calling on the Canadian government to publicly condemn the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong and urge an end to this repression in China and its extension to Canada. It also asks the government to publicly express support for Falun Gong and invite practitioners to testify before parliamentary committees.

Another recommendation is to ensure diplomatic accountability by sanctioning Chinese diplomats and mission officials found to be involved in infiltration and repression activities in Canada. The report also highlights the need for robust legal mechanisms, such as the proposed foreign agent registry, to identify and penalize individuals or organizations working on behalf of the CCP.

The FDAC’s recommendations also include boosting transparency, by regularly publishing reports to highlight incidents and penalties related to the measures taken to counter foreign interference and repression; as well as educating officials at all levels of government on the CCP’s tactics and recognizing and countering the regime’s propaganda.

The report quoted the response of former Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin, who defected to Australia in 2005, when he was asked why the CCP is invested in the extension of the persecution of Falun Gong overseas.

Mr. Chen stated: “The Chinese Communist Party has always relied on violence, lies, and advocating atheism to maintain its power. They could not understand Falun Gong practitioners’ peaceful efforts to protect their freedom of belief. … Now they feel they can’t let people know about what has been done to Falun Gong in China.”