US Pledges to Push Back Against Chinese Transnational Repression, Protect Falun Gong

The United States will defend communities against coercion and intimidation from foreign governments, the State Department told The Epoch Times.

The State Department building in Washington on July 27, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

WASHINGTON—The U.S. government intends to push back against the Chinese communist regime’s transnational repression on U.S. soil and defend vulnerable groups such as Falun Gong practitioners, the State Department told The Epoch Times.

“We are committed to safeguarding our sovereignty, keeping our communities safe, and defending individuals from the overreach of foreign governments and regimes trying to silence, intimidate, harass, harm, or coerce individuals within our borders,” a State Department spokesperson said on July 21.

“CCP [Chinese Communist Party] repression extends far beyond China’s borders, as Chinese officials or their proxies threaten, harass, and intimidate critics of the CCP overseas, including in the United States.”

Falun Gong, a meditation discipline based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, quickly spread by word of mouth to reach an estimated 70 million to 100 million practitioners during the 1990s.

On July 20, Falun Gong practitioners marked 27 years of persecution by the CCP.

“The CCP promoted the Falun Gong movement in the 1990s, but since then has waged a campaign to eradicate the spiritual practice for political reasons, targeting practitioners and their families in China and around the world,” the State Department official said.

New York-based Falun Dafa Information Center, in a recent survey, documented more than 600 cases of transnational repression over a five-year period from 2020.

“The CCP perpetrates acts of transnational repression in the United States and other countries often targeting Chinese diaspora communities, particularly human rights defenders and activists, students, journalists, and dissidents, as well as Hong Kongers, Uyghurs and Tibetans, and followers of certain religious or spiritual groups, including Falun Gong,” the State Department said.

Heightening the concerns of transnational repression is a newly adopted Chinese ethnic unity law, which critics say will allow the Chinese regime to target people in the United States and beyond.

Falun Gong practitioners march during a parade calling for the end of the Chinese Communist Party’s 27 years of ongoing persecution against the spiritual practice, in New York City on July 19, 2026. Larry Dye/The Epoch Times

‘Enemy of Its Own People’

A bipartisan group of lawmakers has joined Falun Gong practitioners in marking the persecution anniversary.

The CCP, fearing that Falun Gong’s popularity threatened the regime’s power, began a brutal campaign to eradicate the practice on July 20, 1999. Untold numbers of practitioners have suffered arbitrary detention, forced labor, torture, and even death by forced organ harvesting.

“The Chinese Communist Party is a direct threat to the American way of life and the enemy of its own people,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a video.

Scott said the legislation he co-introduced in the House last year, the Falun Gong Protection Act, would enable the United States to impose sanctions on individuals responsible for or complicit in China’s state-sanctioned practice of forced organ harvesting.

“We can never stop speaking out and holding the government of communist China accountable for their horrific crimes,” he said.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) speaks during a press conference in the U.S. Capitol in Washington on July 11, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The bill passed the House in May 2025. The Senate version of the legislation, the Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act, advanced out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in June.

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who serves on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, applauded efforts to end the persecution.

“The Chinese Communist Party is terrified of freedom, and their violence against the Falun Gong will not be tolerated,” Wilson said in a statement.

‘Ongong Crime’

The Epoch Times broke the story in 2006 that the CCP was killing prisoners of conscience, primarily Falun Gong practitioners, by harvesting their organs for transplant surgeries.

The allegations have since been confirmed by independent investigators, including Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas, who documented the findings in his book “Bloody Harvest.”

David Matas (R) speaks at a rally after receiving the Friends of Falun Gong Human Rights award jointly with David Kilgour (L) on June 20, 2018 in Washington. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

In 2019, a London-based independent people’s tribunal, known as the China Tribunal, concluded that the Chinese regime had been forcibly harvesting organs from prisoners of conscience for many years, with Falun Gong practitioners as the primary victims.

The tribunal found that medical tests conducted specifically on Falun Gong and Uyghur prisoners were “highly suggestive of methods used to assess organ function.”

Jan Jekielek, senior editor at The Epoch Times, detailed the evidence in his bestselling book “Killed to Order,” published in March. The book explores how the Chinese regime’s industrial practice of forced organ harvesting became an estimated $9 billion industry.

Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), in a letter, called the CCP’s actions against Falun Gong “cruel and unjust.”

“The CCP routinely commits human rights abuses such as murder, organ-harvesting, mass false-imprisonment, and unconscionable torture,” he said, noting that these actions were done to “advance their communist ideology.”

“These genocidal acts are irredeemable and have no place in today’s world.”

Religious freedom is a right that has been “denied to practitioners of Falun Gong in China for far too long,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said.

“To be arrested, detained, or killed because of your beliefs, peaceful practices, or relationship to spirituality is unacceptable,” he said in a letter. “To stand up for humanity requires standing against persecution.”

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) speaks at Uptown Theater in Kansas City, Mo., on Nov. 8, 2016. Whitney Curtis/Getty Images

Four months after the persecution began in 1999, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) issued a resolution in 1999 condemning the abuse.

On July 21 this year, Smith said: “In spite of immense pressure and intimidation from a powerful authoritarian regime, the resilient spirit of the Falun Gong has not been broken.”

The persecution is “not a closed chapter of history,” but rather “an ongoing crime—and those responsible should know that they will face justice,” he said in a statement.

He called for the United States to “press for the release of every detained practitioner and sanction the CCP officials responsible for the atrocities committed against the Falun Gong.”

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 14, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

Transnational Repression

The Falun Dafa Information Center, in its June report, pointed to a 2024 Brooklyn parade where several Falun Gong practitioners were assaulted.

Another incident took place in the Flushing neighborhood, home to New York City’s largest Chinatown, in February. A man dressed mostly in black struck a Falun Gong practitioner in the back of the head, knocking her to the ground.

Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) said he was “deeply troubled” by such incidents.

“Any attempt by a foreign government to harass, threaten, or suppress individuals lawfully exercising their constitutional rights on American soil is unacceptable,” he said.

Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) speaks during the International Interfaith Conference, “United in Liberty: The Rise of Spiritual Diplomats,” on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Jan. 22, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

Bilirakis, who serves on the House Select Committee on the CCP, sponsored the Transnational Repression Policy Act in 2024. One of the provisions of the legislation calls for the U.S. president to impose property and visa sanctions on foreign actors found responsible for transnational repression.

Applauding Falun Gong practitioners for their courage in the face of the CCP’s campaign, Bilirakis said their commitment to truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance serves as a “powerful reminder that tyranny can never extinguish the human spirit.”

Reps. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) and Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) both said the persecution’s anniversary is a reminder of solidarity.

The United States has long supported religious liberty. This solemn day calls to mind the international community’s responsibility to promote accountability for human rights abuses and advance fundamental freedoms, Walkinshaw said.

Falun Gong practitioners participate in a vigil in New York City to mark 27 years of the persecution of Falun Gong by the communist party in China on July 20, 2026. Larry Dye/The Epoch Times