The Chinese Communist Party’s Persecution of Falun Gong Poses a Threat to the United States

On May 12, 2023, Falun Gong practitioners held a grand parade in Manhattan, New York. (Dai Bing / Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP)

[People News] The Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of Falun Gong has continued for more than 26 years. Last year, the sudden escalation of transnational repression has unknowingly drawn the United States into it, posing an unavoidable threat to U.S. national security and the very foundations of the nation.

The fierce competition between the United States and China is not limited to the material realms of economics and the military. It also concerns a confrontation between justice and evil, religion and atheism, freedom and totalitarianism. America’s prosperity originates from its tradition of belief in God and its protection of religious freedom. If this were lost—if the country were even infiltrated and exploited by the CCP, binding believers to the cross—then even if the United States were to surpass the CCP economically or militarily, it would still degenerate into a nation of shame, no longer the God-blessed “City upon a Hill.”

The CCP’s Rapid Escalation of Transnational Repression

Since the CCP began persecuting Falun Gong in July 1999, it has exported this persecution to Falun Gong practitioners overseas.

Between July and September 1999, the apartment of U.S. Falun Gong spokesperson Ms. Gail Rachlin was broken into three times by CCP agents; on September 7, 2001, five Falun Gong practitioners were attacked outside the Chinese Consulate in Chicago.

After the initial frenzy of persecution, the CCP sought to avoid international attention and condemnation. It avoided directly mentioning Falun Gong, but behind the scenes it secretly formulated broader strategies. These methods were later exposed with the emergence of “whistleblowers” and leaks of CCP documents.

Former CCP Consul in Sydney Chen Yonglin revealed in 2005 that by 2000 the CCP’s war against Falun Gong had spread overseas, and that every CCP diplomatic mission was required to have at least one official responsible for Falun Gong matters. In 2024, CCP agent Chen Jun—sentenced to 20 months in prison—said that at the beginning of the persecution of Falun Gong, the “610 Office” gave him USD 250,000 to move to the United States to monitor Falun Gong, and thereafter paid him a monthly stipend of USD 52,000.

In 2015, then Minister of Public Security Meng Jianzhu stated that it was urgent to “take countries and regions where Falun Gong activities are serious, such as the United States, as the main battlefield.” Meng also said the CCP should use economic and trade relations to pressure Western countries to ban or restrict Falun Gong activities.

At the same time, participants in the CCP’s transnational repression also spread throughout China. A series of leaked documents from 2015 to 2018 showed that multiple provincial and municipal governments mentioned conducting “in-depth investigations” of overseas Falun Gong practitioners originally from those provinces.

For example, an internal document from Beijing’s Fangshan District Political and Legal Affairs Commission in 2018 showed that Fangshan District’s “610 Office,” a district-level unit, nevertheless possessed special privileges in foreign affairs, allowing it to directly go abroad to conduct anti–Falun Gong “diplomatic affairs,” with expenses directly covered by the Fangshan District government.

After Xi Jinping “purged” Zhou Yongkang, an active follower of Jiang Zemin’s Falun Gong persecution policy, during Xi’s first term, the persecution continued but weakened for a time due to the lack of top-down pressure. However, a reversal occurred during Xi’s second and third terms: according to CCP official documents and directives, suppressing Falun Gong has been explicitly listed as a core task for maintaining so-called “political security.”

Over the past two years, the CCP’s transnational repression targeting Falun Gong and Shen Yun Performing Arts in the United States has escalated sharply. Landmark events include The New York Times’ hostile reports on Falun Gong and Shen Yun, as well as lawsuits brought against Shen Yun by certain individuals.

On February 20, 2025, Shen Yun Performing Arts’ opening performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., encountered a bomb threat, shaking Washington.

Nina Shea, a leading American human rights and religious freedom expert and director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute, emphasized to The Dajiyuan that the severity of this round of CCP transnational repression is unprecedented since the Cold War.

Unlike the past, this escalation of transnational repression is a top-down, organized, state-level attack, with directives coming directly from the highest levels of the CCP.

Australian-based legal scholar Yuan Hongbing. (Song Bilong / The Dajiyuan)

In October 2022, CCP leader Xi Jinping instructed, at a high-level secret meeting, the CCP Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission to coordinate the Ministry of State Security, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the United Front Work Department to formulate and implement a new international strategy targeting Falun Gong.

Renowned legal scholar and former Peking University Law School professor Yuan Hongbing told The Dajiyuan that Xi’s new strategy can be summarized as “one center, two basic points.” “The one center is to carry out character assassination and moral destruction against the founder of Falun Gong; the two basic points are to launch a public opinion war (media war) and a legal war against Falun Gong.”

Media War, Legal War, and Unrestricted Warfare on U.S. Soil

Direct attention from the CCP’s top leadership has injected new momentum into its transnational repression.

According to Xi’s instructions, in 2023 CCP agents in the United States attempted to bribe Internal Revenue Service (IRS) personnel in an effort to revoke Shen Yun Performing Arts’ nonprofit status.

In early 2024, a Taiwanese so-called “anti-cult” themed film became a box-office hit in mainland China. The CCP used the opportunity to once again escalate repression of Falun Gong domestically. Related footage and commentary from the film were then hyped by CCP overseas agents, reviving old smears insinuating that Falun Gong is an “X cult.”

Amid this wave of CCP-driven public opinion campaigning, the window of opportunity appeared ripe. Since August 2024, The New York Times has published more than a dozen articles attacking Shen Yun and Falun Gong.

Strangely, this American mainstream media outlet repeated CCP official rhetoric and terminology, portraying Falun Gong and Shen Yun Performing Arts as something “evil” to be avoided. Once published, these reports immediately became propaganda materials for the CCP to spread hatred against Falun Gong and Shen Yun at home and abroad.

This is by no means normal journalism. Interviewing only a few disgruntled individuals while ignoring the perceptions of the overwhelming majority of those involved, yet reaching conclusions similar to the CCP’s, is entirely different from the usual reporting style of Western media. Although the CCP accumulated trillions of dollars after joining the WTO and used money to buy off Western journalists and mainstream media to prevent them from reporting on the persecution of Falun Gong, at most these outlets would simply not report; they would not violate journalistic principles by openly attacking Falun Gong and Shen Yun. The New York Times’ publication of more than a dozen attack articles, astonishingly synchronized in timing with Xi’s plans, is highly unusual.

The New York Times also did not disclose its interest ties with CCP authorities. The English-language Dajiyuan previously reported that in 2001, The New York Times established contact with CCP leader Jiang Zemin, after which its reporting on Falun Gong entered a pro-Jiang mode.

In fact, The New York Times also failed to explain the connections between several plaintiffs who initiated lawsuits against Shen Yun and the CCP; most of them have clear records of traveling to mainland China. There are also questions regarding the family background of one of the paper’s main authors on these reports.

Veteran China watcher Phelim Kine of the Washington-based mainstream outlet Politico commented on X: “This is a propaganda coup in Beijing’s decades-long propaganda war against Falun Gong.”

The New York Times’ false reporting paved the way for the CCP to launch a legal war against Shen Yun on U.S. soil. In November 2024, a former Shen Yun student filed a lawsuit against Shen Yun, with the complaint heavily quoting The New York Times’ reports.

Like the media war, the legal war is also part of Xi’s cross-border repression plan.

The lawsuits against Shen Yun suffer from fundamental defects in fact and law.

Shen Yun’s attorneys stated that, first, the complaint rashly and arbitrarily presents hearsay and news reports as facts. All of these sources are unnamed and provide no reason for the court to consider them credible.

Even if the perceptions described in the plaintiff’s allegations were true, the lawsuit still lacks a legal basis.

In fact, Fei Tian Academy of the Arts is a religious boarding school established under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code (IRC), specializing in performing arts, and recognized by the IRS as a church-affiliated institution. As a religious school, requiring adherence to the school’s religious beliefs (including moral conduct standards), restricting media use to conform with the school’s beliefs, and regulating interactions between members of the opposite sex are common policies in most religious schools.

Shen Yun’s attorneys stated that religious doctrines warning believers that deviating from teachings may bring “spiritual consequences” is “completely permissible,” and that “this happens hundreds of thousands of times every day in the United States and is protected by the Constitution.”

Shen Yun’s attorneys stated, “They disregard the facts and attempt to portray religious belief activities as federal crimes.” “The purpose of that law (the human trafficking law) is to prevent human trafficking, not to be used to obstruct religious belief activities.”

Another fact that needs to be understood is that these lawsuits strive to deny Falun Gong’s religious status in the United States.

In fact, Falun Gong’s main text, Zhuan Falun, already states clearly that “qigong is cultivation practice.” It was called “qigong” in order to avoid persecution that could arise under the extreme-left ideological climate in mainland China at the time.

Documents from U.S. courts, government agencies, and human rights organizations all confirm that Falun Gong is a religious group.

Shen Yun’s attorneys stated that under U.S. law, whether a belief system constitutes a religion depends on its functional attributes. As confirmed by court rulings involving Falun Gong practitioners, Falun Gong is closely related to Buddhism and can be regarded as a branch of Buddhism. … The non-religious claims of Falun Gong’s founder stem from differences in the understanding of religion between China and the United States. In China, religion is often defined by formal requirements such as state recognition, fixed places of worship, and clergy. Falun Gong, however, is mostly practiced individually and does not possess the characteristics of Chinese religious practice.

On the evening of February 26, 2025, Shen Yun New World Company presented its seventh performance at the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, D.C., United States. The photo shows the exterior of the Kennedy Center. (Li Sha / The Dajiyuan)

In addition to the media war and legal war, Falun Gong practitioners and related organizations are facing direct threats, with activities disrupted or sabotaged. The CCP’s repression of Falun Gong and Shen Yun has escalated into “unrestricted warfare.”

According to the latest statistics from the Falun Dafa Information Center, from March 2024 to October 16, 2025, the total number of anonymous death threat incidents targeting overseas Falun Gong or impersonating Falun Gong practitioners has reached 193.

Since 2024, during Shen Yun’s global tour, multiple theaters have received bomb and shooting threats.

In September of this year, CCP hackers repeatedly impersonated The Dajiyuan, sending bomb and other threats to the White House and U.S. federal government; in October, the Dajiyuan’ headquarters office in New York also received a threatening letter containing white powder.

Piero Tozzi, chief of staff of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), told The Dajiyuan that this is not only criminal activity but also unrestricted warfare by the CCP against the United States—an act of war.

CCP Transnational Repression Undermines America’s Founding Principles

The CCP’s transnational repression against Falun Gong and Shen Yun within U.S. borders not only threatens U.S. national security but also endangers the foundational principle of religious freedom upon which the nation was founded.

America’s Founding Fathers believed that the United States was established under the guidance of “God.”

During the American Revolutionary War, General Washington experienced at least 67 desperate moments. Without God’s intervention, he would have fallen into “disaster.” In his first presidential inaugural address in 1789, Washington emphasized that no one could be more aware than Americans of the protection of divine providence—the invisible hand of God guiding every step of America’s independence.

James Madison, one of the Founding Fathers, likewise emphasized that when planning the Constitutional Convention he also witnessed the guidance of God’s hand, just as Washington had seen on the battlefield.

The Founding Fathers also believed that religion is the source of morality, and that human freedom ultimately also derives from religion.

Without religion, can morality truly be sustained? Reason and experience both warn us: if religious principles are discarded, national morality cannot possibly endure.

The Founding Fathers knew well that among all the dispositions and habits leading to political success, religion and virtue are indispensable supports. History shows that religious faith not only grants individuals moral self-discipline—allowing people to trade freely even in a state of anarchy—but also sustains social norms and laws; small government depends on great citizens.

One of the Founding Fathers, John Adams, pointed out that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.” He said, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.”

Because freedom of belief is so important to the United States, in 1791 Congress passed the Bill of Rights, listing “religious freedom” as the first constitutional right enjoyed by U.S. residents, even before “freedom of speech.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has stated on countless occasions that for most people, religious freedom is the most precious of all inalienable rights, approaching the right to life itself.

It is precisely religious freedom—America’s founding principle—that has led the United States to prosperity and made it a radiant “City upon a Hill,” making America appear so different. This uniqueness lies in the fact that no other country, like the United States, takes the protection of human religious freedom as a governing philosophy.

The religious freedom granted by the U.S. Constitution is also the key to Shen Yun’s success in the United States. Shen Yun was born on American soil and is an embodiment of the American story.

When Chinese Falun Gong practitioners came to the United States as refugees, they had nothing but faith and resilience. With no government or corporate funding, Shen Yun relied entirely at its inception on selfless personal dedication and a sacred mission inspired by “Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance.”

Shen Yun artists practice Falun Dafa, which is also the source of inspiration for Shen Yun performances. In ancient times, Chinese artists practiced meditation, pursuing inner tranquility and a connection with the universe; today’s Shen Yun artists are inheriting this noble tradition.

Virtue must be constantly cultivated, practiced hour by hour and day by day. The Founding Fathers relied on families, schools, and churches to ignite the moral flame passed down through generations.

Fei Tian’s two arts schools are practicing the Founding Fathers’ vision. Through repeated training and touring, Shen Yun artists gain not only skills and confidence, but also purification and elevation under divine grace. As artists and honest citizens, they are exemplary in both private and public virtue.

In contrast to America’s protection of religious freedom, all communist and socialist countries view religion as a real threat, making it the first target to be eliminated or transformed.

Twentieth-century practice has proven that communist secular states built on atheism inevitably disguise themselves as gods. The former Soviet Union and communist China are clear examples—religion was completely eradicated, replaced by state theocracy and a political order that denies inherent human dignity.

Chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) (left), and founder, honorary chairman, and president of the Institute of World Politics John Lenczowski (right), spoke at an event in Washington on February 11, 2025. (Madalina Vasiliu / The Dajiyuan)

At present, the CCP is waging war on faith. There is absolutely no religious freedom in mainland China. All religions must accept the CCP’s ideology and slogans, replacing images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary with photographs of Xi Jinping.

Republican Congressman John Moolenaar said at an online hearing held by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) on October 16 this year, “The CCP suppresses religion, attempting to replace God with the state. The message it sends is very clear: worship the Communist Party, or pay the price. What it displays is not strength, but fear.”

Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback told The Dajiyuan, “For us, religious freedom is a foundational pillar of our nation. Without religious freedom, there can be no truly free, open democracy.”

“Religious freedom is the most powerful tool—it represents our core values and poses a fundamental threat to communist China,” he said. “This issue should not be viewed merely as a human rights issue, but as a national security issue.”

Kelly Shackelford, a member of the White House “Religious Freedom Commission,” told The Dajiyuan, “Religious freedom is our first freedom because our Founding Fathers understood that without religious freedom, all other freedoms will be lost.”

He said that totalitarian regimes will never allow citizens to pledge loyalty to a power higher than the government. They will apply all these violations of religious freedom to the United States. “That’s the huge difference between the U.S. and China,” he said. “We must fight desperately to preserve what America originally was.”

The CCP Sets Traps in the United States to Bind America

It is well known that the CCP rose to power through lies and deception. After taking power, it further falsified history, attempting to erase the Chinese people’s true historical memory. After the CCP eliminated all orthodox religions and sincere believers in traditional culture, such deception became unimpeded.

Shen Yun Performing Arts, with the mission of reviving traditional Chinese culture and “presenting China before communism,” conveys kindness and the beauty of tradition through every movement, expression, story, and piece of music. Audiences are immersed and marvel at this magical, border-transcending power.

For a CCP accustomed to brainwashing propaganda, this is like a thunderbolt from the blue—it feels that years of effort have been rendered meaningless.

The beauty and power displayed by Shen Yun come from the performers’ belief in Falun Gong’s principles of “Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance.” Therefore, the CCP views it as a competing worldview that challenges the CCP’s monopoly on ideology. Since beginning the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, suppressing Falun Gong has remained at the core of the CCP’s repression.

However, persecuting Falun Gong has also become the CCP’s Achilles’ heel. Once the world and the majority of Chinese people learn the truth about Falun Gong and oppose this persecution, they will condemn the CCP and oppose it, leading to the CCP’s collapse.

In January 2025, a CCP internal public security insider using the pseudonym Shen Liang revealed to The Dajiyuan that the CCP’s goal is to sue Falun Gong in the United States, gradually destroying Falun Gong’s reputation from individuals to the whole. As long as one case succeeds, it will trigger more chain reactions, ultimately causing the United States to deny Falun Gong and permanently cover up the crimes committed in China during the persecution. He said, “What the CCP fears most is U.S. support for Falun Gong and investigations into its domestic crimes—this is the CCP’s Achilles’ heel.”

Shen Liang said that after Trump’s election victory, the CCP’s attacks on Falun Gong clearly escalated and became more urgent, out of fear that Falun Gong and Trump might cooperate. Once the U.S. government officially supports Falun Gong and begins investigating the torture suffered by Falun Gong in China, that will be the CCP’s end.

Therefore, this round of transnational repression launched by the CCP on U.S. soil aims not only to suppress Falun Gong and Shen Yun themselves, but also to set traps in the United States—turning America into an accomplice in the persecution of faith and human rights, fundamentally undermining America’s founding principles and subverting the nation from within.

On November 20, 2025, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback was invited as a witness to attend a religious freedom hearing held by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC). (The Dajiyuan)

Once the CCP succeeds in persecuting Falun Gong in the United States, America will be morally hijacked by the CCP, and U.S. credibility and international leadership will be undermined. The crimes committed by the CCP will no longer be dared to be pursued, and the CCP will replicate its persecution of the Falun Gong religious group across the globe, thereby achieving its goal of arbitrarily bullying the world.

Brownback believes that for the CCP, religious freedom constitutes an existential threat. Within China, the only groups capable of resisting an authoritarian regime are people of faith—and for decades they have been persecuted and slaughtered.

Brownback stated, “Among these (religious belief) groups, the one the CCP fears most is Falun Gong.

“The reason is that Falun Gong is the most ‘indigenous’ group among all groups. It is like scattering wheat seeds in the soil of Kansas—naturally, they will grow. They grew to ninety million people within seven years. This terrified the CCP.

“So we (the United States) must truly work with Falun Gong practitioners.”

U.S.–China Competition Has Begun; the Falun Gong Issue Should Become Part of U.S. Policy

Today, the great contest between the United States and China has already begun. At present, the United States still holds the upper hand in the economic and military domains. But if Xi Jinping succeeds in dragging the United States into the criminal quagmire of persecuting Falun Gong, and if the United States cannot hold fast to religious freedom—the foundation of the nation—the United States will degenerate into a nation of shame, losing the luster of the “City upon a Hill.”

After praying before the cross for more than two thousand years, Western civilization should understand one thing—never again bind religion to the cross. One hopes that the United States will not have to pay a painful price to learn this lesson. U.S. authorities and the American people should be vigilant: the CCP is infiltrating and exploiting U.S. media and the judicial system to target Falun Gong groups and Shen Yun Performing Arts in the United States. Investigating and prosecuting Shen Yun Performing Arts is another historical reenactment of binding religious saints to the cross.

As early as 2004, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Resolution No. 304, addressing CCP transnational repression for the first time; on May 24, 2025, Texas’s “Anti-Transnational Repression Act” became formal law, explicitly defining transnational repression as a criminal offense.

A recent special report by the Washington-based think tank the Heritage Foundation shows that transnational repression not only threatens human rights but also endangers the sovereignty of the United States and countries around the world, while current U.S. countermeasures remain insufficient.

The report finds that perpetrators often operate remotely, hiring local enforcers in the victims’ countries to carry out harassment or intimidation. Even if these “locals” are arrested, they are merely disposable pawns; they usually know very little about the overall operation or command chain, making it nearly impossible to trace the mastermind.

Such acts are rarely prosecuted, in part because, viewed individually, they are not “major crimes” sufficient to attract law enforcement attention, and law enforcement agencies are often preoccupied with more urgent public safety and national security threats.

Many transnational repression acts fall below the threshold of applicability of existing U.S. criminal law, or carry penalties that are too light to create sufficient deterrence.

The report believes that enacting a law specifically targeting transnational repression would provide prosecutors with a clearer legal framework, make convictions more consistent, and ensure penalties are more appropriate. To ensure effectiveness, such a law should focus on transnational repression itself and avoid tacking on unrelated provisions.

Experts believe that in the current U.S.–China competition, the CCP’s transnational repression activities in the United States can precisely be used by the United States to apply pressure on the CCP.

Independent researcher and former China Research Director at the well-known Washington nonprofit organization Freedom House, Sarah Cook (right second). (Caroline Li / English-language The Dajiyuan)

China expert and former Research Director for China at Freedom House, Sarah Cook, told The Dajiyuan that when CCP security agencies trample at will on the rights of U.S. citizens, refugees, and national security on U.S. soil, it sends a signal to Xi Jinping: the United States is unable to defend itself. This will weaken U.S. deterrence on many other issues.

She suggested that demanding Xi Jinping stop Beijing’s transnational repression activities within the United States should rightly become a core component of U.S. policy.

“Even if this does not immediately stop Beijing’s transnational repression, such a move would demonstrate strength, showing that Trump fully understands the CCP’s deceptive strategies, understands what the regime is capable of, and sees through propaganda slogans such as the CCP’s ‘non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs.”

Cook said, “Such a stance is not only candid, but will also play an important role in tariff and fentanyl negotiations.”

For the CCP, the Falun Gong issue lies at the core of its interests; for the United States, religious freedom should be incorporated into U.S. strategy.

Brownback stated, “The CCP is waging war on faith, and it is also waging war on us, the United States.”

He said, “Religious freedom is our most powerful weapon in today’s struggle (the U.S.–China conflict). We must truly incorporate religious freedom into U.S. strategy. It is clear that the CCP’s fear of religious freedom far exceeds its fear of U.S. aircraft carriers or nuclear weapons.”

“Religious freedom is a national security imperative. We must shift our thinking from ‘this is a human rights issue’ to ‘this is a national security issue,’ and clearly categorize it as a national security issue.”

“We must truly transform our strategy regarding religious freedom,” he said. Religious freedom is at the “core” of U.S.–China relations.

Brownback put forward the following four specific recommendations:

1. Incorporate the issue of religious freedom in China into U.S. national security strategy toward China.

2. Develop a national security strategy, supported by the United States and other countries, to support religious freedom within China.

3. Use economic sanctions similar to the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act to counter the CCP.

4. President Trump, Vice President Vance, Secretary of State Rubio, and Secretary of Defense Hegseth should meet with exiled leaders of persecuted groups, including Falun Gong, Christians, Muslims, and Buddhist groups.

(The Dajiyuan)

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