Commentary
The existence and normalization of forced organ harvesting from living donors is a hard thing for anyone raised on Judeo-Christian ethics to confront, let alone those trained in the medical bioethics developed since the Nuremberg trials. In this book, author and Epoch Times Washington Bureau Chief Jan Jekielek, famous for the “American Thought Leader” interview series, slowly and carefully walks the reader down a path paved with specific examples, making it impossible to look away and avoid the truth of the crimes against humanity that have been normalized by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
But that is really just the prelude, a point of entry to the central journey that forms the backbone of this book. By examining this specific set of crimes, the creeping complicity of the western transplant community and the academic and pharmaceutical industry that has enabled them, Jekielek reveals the intentional weaponization of corrupt practices by the CCP as one key component of its policy of unrestricted warfare against the United States, the ultimate consequences of utilitarian ethics applied to public health, and the hidden hand of the CCP in advancing the globalist policies of the World Health Organization (WHO).
The work starts out by focusing on the horrors of organ harvesting, but the real reason this is a must-read is the moral, logical, and political clarity of its critique of the naïve, corrupt bargain at the heart of Henry Kissinger’s China doctrine.
“Killed to Order,” set for publication by Skyhorse and currently available for pre-order, exposes the CCP’s forced organ harvesting industry. The book draws on survivor testimonies, evidence, and analysis to argue that the CCP systematically murders prisoners of conscience—primarily Falun Gong practitioners, but also Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Christians—for organs on demand, serving both as persecution and a profit-driven tool for elite longevity.
Structured in two parts, the book first details the history, mechanisms, and evidence of this “new form of evil” under communism, including how the CCP instrumentalizes society and makes complicity widespread. The second part explores global implications, such as unrestricted warfare, transnational corruption, and why the U.S. must confront China as its greatest adversary.
The prologue illustrates the issue through the fictionalized story of a Western patient unwittingly benefiting from a “China option” transplant, only later realizing its horrific source.
Initial reviews include praise from human rights experts, historians, and China analysts, emphasizing the book’s role in highlighting ongoing atrocities and calling for action.
The book opens with Jekielek’s personal journey into the issue, sparked by a 2006 rumor of a secret concentration camp in Sujiatun, China, where Falun Gong practitioners were allegedly held for organ extraction. He interviews “Annie,” the ex-wife of a neurosurgeon involved in the operations, who describes an underground facility holding thousands for live harvesting. Corneas, kidneys, livers, and skin are removed from living victims, with bodies incinerated to erase evidence. A veteran military doctor corroborates this, revealing 36 similar camps across China, treating detainees as “economic assets.” The prologue sets the tone: this is an industrial-scale “kill-to-order” system enabled by the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong since 1999, when Chinese leader Jiang Zemin labeled it an “evil cult” and vowed its elimination.
Jekielek highlights the psychological barrier to believing such horrors, drawing parallels to Holocaust denial, and introduces the “China option” as a euphemism for sourcing organs from prisoners of conscience.
The prologue to “Killed to Order” frames the horror of forced organ harvesting from the living by placing the reader in the lived reality of thousands of Western patients who face the grim reality of modern organ matching lotteries. With empathy, the author walks us through the logic of medical tourism-based transplantation.
He then introduces readers to a horrific epiphany: the seemingly miraculous abilities of Chinese transplantation centers to acquire recipient-matched organs depends on maintaining a population of captive living human beings to be organ harvested on demand. It then reveals an even darker underlying reality; having developed this capability and infrastructure, China’s ruling party is now exploiting prisoner organs to advance the lifespan of aged oligarchs.
The author’s overall assessment is both starkly blunt and deeply humanitarian, and sets up the body of the work:
“There are still many unanswered questions about China’s forced organ harvesting industry. Questions with grave implications for the future of medicine, the future of morality, and the future of the free world. But thanks to the tireless work of investigators, reporters, and unbelievably courageous Chinese whistleblowers, we know far more than we did two decades ago. We know for certain that Falun Gong, Uyghurs, and other groups are still being targeted. We know that the Chinese Communist Party will stop at nothing to ensure its own survival. And we know that Western elites and Western media are being steadily co-opted—made complicit in the CCP’s crimes against humanity.
“At the end of the day, that is what this is: a crime against humanity, and we must not allow ourselves to forget the human element.”
The body of the text is divided into two sections: “Part I: A New Form of Evil,” and “Part II: The Global Implications of China’s Forced Organ Harvesting Industry.”
Part I: A New Form of Evil
Part I of “Killed to Order,” titled “A New Form of Evil,” exposes the CCP’s systematic forced organ harvesting as an industrialized form of genocide rooted in totalitarian control. Beginning with whistleblower accounts like “Annie’s” revelations of secret camps where Falun Gong practitioners are held for live organ extraction, it traces the CCP’s long history of mass killings under Mao and beyond, illustrating how the regime instrumentalizes healthcare, law enforcement, and society to dehumanize and exploit targeted groups such as Falun Gong adherents, Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Christians. Through survivor testimonies, like Cheng Pei Ming’s harrowing escape after partial organ removals, and a timeline of mounting evidence from reports such as the Kilgour-Matas report and the China Tribunal, the section analyzes why communist systems—especially the CCP’s “regionally administered totalitarianism”—foster such horrors by prioritizing party supremacy, incentivizing complicity, and viewing human lives as resources for profit and elite longevity.
