In Repressing Falun Gong, CCP Tries to Reshape the Way Americans Think

Chinese influence operations covertly aim to manipulate people’s perspectives to favor the Chinese regime. Researchers at an event commemorating the 25th year of Beijing’s eradication campaign against Falun Gong highlighted how the Chinese communist regime is shaping Western narratives to suppress the faith group beyond China’s borders. They pointed out instances where Western media, editors, medical organizations, and theaters have been influenced by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to downplay or dismiss human rights abuses in China. The State Department has recognized this threat and made combating Chinese influence operations a global priority to protect the interests of the United States. The CCP’s strategy involves spreading misinformation and disinformation to sway public opinion in its favor, creating biases that could harm other nations’ interests. The regime’s efforts to vilify Falun Gong and manipulate Western perceptions reflect their broader propaganda war aimed at achieving their political goals. The CCP strategically targets sensitive issues in the West to push their narratives and discredit their opponents, as exemplified by their fabricated claims about Falun Gong to incite controversy. Despite warnings from the State Department, the CCP continues to deploy various tactics to suppress Falun Gong activities overseas and influence public opinion in their favor, especially in Western countries like the United States, which they consider a crucial battleground.

The CCP carries this out through “widespread propaganda and misinformation aimed at dehumanizing practitioners” and framing them as dangerous enemies of the state, according to Miles Yu, a China policy adviser during the Trump administration, who gave the keynote address at the June 17 event.

“This systemic vilification not only incites hatred and discrimination, but also serves to obscure the true nature of the [CCP’s] actions from the international community,” he said.

The CCP’s actions, according to Mr. Yu, “are in direct violation of international human rights standards.”

Mr. Browde said he has felt firsthand the power of the CCP’s hate campaign in the United States. Once, he said, he entered a shop in Manhattan’s Chinatown after finishing doing Falun Gong exercises in a nearby park.

The shop owner, excited to see a Western customer, looked at his shirt, which read “Falun Gong.”

“I’ll never forget the contortion on her face,” he said. “It was like she just saw a horror movie or something. She flinched. She turned around, and she went back to the store.”

Media Manipulation

Since most of us don’t have personal experience with all the issues we hear about, we have to rely on the media and other information channels to learn about them. This is why the CCP targets Western media to spread its messages, panelists said.

Mr. Browde noted several instances in which an outlet bought into Beijing’s narratives and quoted them verbatim without giving context.

“That’s very troubling when you take the CCP as a credible source for a group that they’re horrifically persecuting,” he said.

“The CCP knows that. And that’s how they can get an influence that they can actually change the way people think and feel.”

“The conclusion shows that very many people have died indescribably hideous deaths for no reason,” tribunal chairman Sir Geoffrey Nice QC said in delivering the judgment in June 2019.

What Ms. Tatlow’s testimony reveals has implications for multiple articles, Mr. Browde said.

The idea that a major media outlet “would listen to the Chinese government say that and make an editorial decision that this is no longer a story is deeply damaging,” he told The Epoch Times.

It also reveals “one of the most insidious parts” of the regime’s repression: to “convince Americans that the truth is not the truth on these fronts.”

“They don’t know that they’re helping a Chinese regime murder people for their organs. Why? Because either they were told a lie about it, or they never heard about it,” Mr. Browde said. “That’s how it hurts people, because they now have to think of the world—in this case, the organ heart organ transplantation industry—in the way the Chinese regime wants them to think about it.”

In the case of artistic expression, China’s diplomats have aggressively gone after New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts, which tours globally each year to showcase the best of Chinese culture through the ages, before communism. Some segments from modern-day China depict the persecution of Falun Gong.

The CCP often says that in China, Falun Gong is labeled a “cult,” a term it knows will provoke a reaction in the West.

“They’re trying to get into the heads of Americans and say, ‘You don’t want to see the show that’s put on by a cult,’” Mr. Browde said.

It’s a tool that the regime can weaponize against any person, institution, or country, he added.

This is why Americans should be vigilant against these types of threats as much as kinetic warfare, Mr. Browde said. The CCP seeks to control the United States without firing a shot.

“That’s really their end game,” Mr. Browde said.