Former U.S. Intelligence Official: CCP Uses Cognitive Warfare to Attack Falun Gong

On November 13, 2025, Dr. Anthony Vinci — former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Deputy Director for Capabilities at the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and a former senior U.S. intelligence official — spoke at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., introducing his new book The Fourth Intelligence Revolution: The Future of Espionage and the Battle to Save America. (Li Chen / The Dajiyuan)

[People News] Dr. Anthony Vinci, formerly CTO and Deputy Director for Capabilities at the NGA under the U.S. Department of Defense and a former senior intelligence officer, told The Dajiyuan on November 13 that the CCP’s use of U.S. social media to attack Falun Gong and the Shen Yun Performing Arts is an initiation of a “cognitive war” on American soil.

According to Dajiyuan reporter Li Chen in Washington, D.C., Dr. Vinci suggested that the U.S. government should take investigative and prosecutorial actions to stop the threat of this kind of “cognitive war” by the CCP; he recommended providing training to Chinese Americans and the general American public to improve people’s ability to identify false information.

Since March 2024, The New York Times has published more than a dozen articles attacking Shen Yun and Falun Gong. One of those articles was a Chinese-language piece attacking Shen Yun. That article was widely reposted and became the most-shared New York Times article on the social media platform X over the past year.

Regarding the mass spread on X of misleading articles attacking Shen Yun, cybersecurity expert Rex Lee said: “This looks like a state-level organized automated bot attack.”

Previously, noted legal scholar and former Peking University law professor Yuan Hongbing told The Dajiyuan that Xi Jinping ordered an upgrade to cross-border persecution of Falun Gong, primarily implemented through “public-opinion warfare” (media war) and “legal warfare.”

Using fake social-media accounts to attack Falun Gong and Shen Yun is a CCP-initiated “cognitive war”

On the CCP’s use of fake U.S. social-media accounts to spread misleading New York Times articles attacking Falun Gong and Shen Yun, Anthony Vinci told The Dajiyuan, “I don’t know the specifics, but that sounds very consistent (with the CCP). It really sounds like something they would do, and it fits their strategic intent — namely, leveraging human information collection and artificial intelligence (AI) to conduct a ‘cognitive war.’”

He said, “Essentially, this is part of their ‘cognitive warfare,’ aimed at changing people’s perceptions and, in a sense, covertly threatening the public to alter their behavior. This is very unfortunate.”

The Falun Dafa Information Center stated that, according to information leaked from a meeting of the CCP Ministry of Public Security in June 2024, the CCP’s goal is to “completely eliminate Falun Gong worldwide” and to force the closure of the Shen Yun Performing Arts.

In July 2024, another leaked source revealed a similar strategy: according to documents from the state-owned China CITIC Reform and Development Research Foundation, the strategy aims to deceive and mislead global internet users’ perceptions of Falun Gong. The CITIC Reform and Development Research Foundation instructed sending defamatory information about Falun Gong to foreign media and manipulating search engine results related to Falun Gong.

So how should the U.S. respond to this CCP-initiated “cognitive war”?

Dr. Vinci suggested responses on two fronts: at the U.S. government level and by improving public discernment.

U.S. government should investigate and sue to stop CCP’s spread of false narratives in the U.S.

He said U.S. law enforcement should protect Falun Gong practitioners and Shen Yun performers living in the United States from CCP attacks. “(U.S.) law enforcement should protect Chinese Americans’ rights from interference by CCP security organs.”

“You are Chinese American citizens; you live here; you are American citizens. Foreign countries, including China, should not harass you or send organizations like (the CCP’s) United Front Department to act against you. You should be protected like any other American citizen,” he said.

Beyond media war and legal war, the CCP has also launched various personal attacks against overseas Falun Gong practitioners. According to the Falun Dafa Information Center’s latest statistics, from March 2024 through October 16, 2025, the total number of anonymous death threats targeting Falun Gong or impersonating Falun Gong practitioners has reached 193 incidents, including threats of shootings, bombings, arson, and murder against Shen Yun performers. Many incidents occurred in the United States.

Dr. Vinci suggested that the U.S. government should conduct a serious investigation into the CCP’s “cognitive war” and other human-rights–violating actions carried out in the U.S. and should stop them. “I think the (U.S. government) should investigate CCP organizations carrying out human-rights violations or illegal acts within the United States in order to protect Chinese American citizens. That would be a good thing; they should do it,” he said.

“(U.S.) law enforcement should handle these issues the same way they would protect any American citizen.” “(The U.S. should) investigate, prosecute, and stop these things from happening,” he said.

Provide training so the general public can identify CCP “cognitive war”

Dr. Vinci also recommended providing training to Chinese Americans and ordinary Americans so they can recognize the threat of CCP “cognitive war.”

He said, “The public — including Chinese Americans living in the U.S. — should be trained to recognize these threats; get tools to help see through these operations so they can make their own judgments by comparing information and identifying which accounts might be fake (on social media) targeting them.”

“Journalists and citizen journalists can help expose these information operations and spread the word so others in the community know what is happening.”

“That’s also a focus of my book,” Vinci said. In his new book The Fourth Intelligence Revolution: The Future of Espionage and the Battle to Save America, he emphasizes how ordinary Americans should discern intelligence-related information to safeguard America’s democratic system.

Dr. Vinci currently serves as a part-time senior fellow in the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for New American Security (CNAS), and as a managing director of a private equity fund. He is the founder of several digital-technology companies and sits on the boards of or advises multiple emerging tech and national-security companies. △