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William Saunders: I’m aware there’s a big debate right now among people of slightly different political views about whether to regulate the AI or not regulate it, and how, you know, whether that’s— and the people who are not in favor of a lot of regulations say the government already has all these tools. So should people be asking, like, , Department of Justice, you know, or the State Department to use these tools that already exist to respond to the problem? I mean, for instance, one problem might be, if what the CCP did was not illegal. If it’s illegal, then the, the state’s attorneys general or the Department of Justice should take action.
If it’s not illegal, then there should be a law passed to make it illegal. So, which are you asking, though? Do you think a law needs to be passed? Is this now illegal, what you’ve described?
Mark Yang: There are certain dimensions to this, right? Regarding the general AI debate, I think because how nuanced and how new this thing is, it really takes a lot of careful deliberation, careful consideration, and political innovation to really arrive at a point where we can reasonably contain some of the risks while still keeping things available to some extent.
But then really finding this degree really will take a lot of time, trial and error, and then innovation to really achieve that. However, in the more immediate sense, I think it’s exactly like you put it, right, that there needs to be a push – which is already happening to some degree – about criminalizing transnational repression.
Because right now, right, there are so many things that the CCP is doing. They’re trying to utilize this kind of gray zone, that they’re targeting groups overseas, and they’re finding ways that they cannot be criminalized in some ways. So by criminalizing transnational repression, identifying and then trying to find innovative ways to really target these behaviors, we’ll really strengthen our abilities to protect our American citizens and to really protect our national security too. Because as we’re seeing that there are intelligence cooperations, intelligence operations over there that is happening, and it is trying to impact our national security and impact our national security and impact our American citizens.
Cynthia Sun: Yeah. Just for an example, there have been multiple people, whether they’ve been green card holders or American citizens, who have been sentenced for working for the Chinese Public Security Office. And so ,even though they were sentenced, they were only sentenced for a scant 14, 18, 20 months. And there’s been multiple cases.
And they’ve all been released, but the American citizen still has his citizenship. The American green card holder still has his green card. That hasn’t damaged their citizenship in any way. And even though their loyalty and their actions indicate that they’re working for a foreign national government who’s by all means our competitor, they still get to reap the benefits of Social Security, of being able to buy land here, being able to work here.
It just doesn’t make sense because there’s just no law that will do more.
W: Yeah, I mean, one of the things that our center and Guangcheng talks about is the CCP represses human rights in China and abroad, and that’s what we mean by this transnational repression. I want to mention to you two, though, I was recently in Europe and there was a table— if you can see this, I know people listening can’t see it, but it’s a pamphlet from Falun Gong, and there was a big table, and the pamphlet is pretty good.
It explains both what Falun Gong is, but also about the terrible organ harvesting that is practiced by the Communist Party against Falun Gong and others. They had petitions there to be signed. It’s called the G7+7 Petition, which was to get people to sign a petition to different countries, I guess, in the West, to tell them to do something to stop this organ harvesting. And I was very impressed. Obviously, I’m glad they’re doing it, but I think Falun Gong is really doing a great job getting this information out there. And there were a lot of people there from Falun Gong who were demonstrating different kinds of practices, etc.
Are you aware of this?
C: Yeah, so that’s actually been, I don’t know if I can call it a pastime, but whenever I go on vacation with my family to a new country, I’m always like looking out for local Falun Gong practitioners because there are practitioners in 110 countries, including Fiji or even, like, random small Micronesian islands that you would never think of.
And a part of our faith now has become, it’s not only our faith, but we have to carry on and tell the stories of our brothers and sisters in China. There’s kind of that responsibility to be a torchbearer and really expose the CCP. Because I don’t know if it’s just, like, individual responsibility or as a group, as a community, we feel like we need to do something and, like, get out of our houses.
You know, there’s that gung-ho energy about it. But you’ll see in every country there will be Falun Gong practitioners. For example, I went to Puerto Rico in May with my family, and in San Juan, there was this lovely couple that were meditating in the park. And so my mom and I joined them, and we had a lovely conversation.
But it’s just interesting how, like, in every country around the world, everyone still has that human goodwill or, like, that ability to, even though you have different cultural backgrounds and ethnic backgrounds and even language, you might not be able to communicate, but you’re still like, “I’m cheering you on. We’re gonna stop the persecution together.”
You talked about erasing boundaries earlier in regards to the CCP, but I think Falun Gong practitioners around the world are doing the same thing. It’s transnational, like this human rights effort, and I think with this effort there’s no doubt that we’re going to see a day where the persecution does end.
W: Yeah, again, I would say for the U.S. citizens who are listening, religious freedom is the first freedom enshrined in our own Constitution. It’s fundamental to a democratic process, so it’s important that we try to help those in China who are being denied religious freedom or political freedom, but particularly religious freedom.
And it’s a denial that this Communist Party is even-handed about in the sense that they deny it to everybody, and they deny it to everybody because they don’t want anything to be more important than the Communist Party. And, really now, Chairman Xi. So it’s very important if you care about people in other countries at all, if you are a Christian or a Buddhist or a Falun Gong member or a Muslim, you know, they’re Uyghurs and others who are being oppressed.
So they’re equal opportunity bad guys. They deny religious freedom to everybody. So whoever you are listening to this, somebody of your approach to religious freedom is being denied by the Communist Party, and they’re trying to deny yours here in the U.S. So it’s a major, massive problem.
I suppose if somebody had first listened to this and this is the first time they heard of the Falun Gong and Falun Dafa Center, how would they get more?
I’m sure you’ll give us a web address we can put in the notes. So for anybody who wants to learn more.
C: Yeah, we’re also active on social media, Falun Info Center. We’re on every major social media channel. We’re also on YouTube. But yes, you can find our most recent news and updates on our website. And, I mean, if you go to any China human rights event in DC, you’ll probably see us in person as well.
M: That’s right. Yeah, feel free to come over and chat.
W: Any last things you want to say for our listeners?
C: I think the biggest thing would probably be there’s a bill in the Senate called the Falun Gong—
M: And Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act.
C: Yeah. So it’s gotten— the name’s gotten a little longer since February, but essentially this protection act will do some of the things that we were talking about earlier. They’re going to start an executive annual report on organ harvesting, on perpetrators, on anyone complicit. And so we’ll be able to systematically track organ harvesting for the first time in history because there wasn’t a law banning complicity in organ harvesting before on the federal level.
M: And at the same time, it is asking the president to generate a list of perpetrators for visa sanctions, property sanctions, which will really deter all these actions for forced organ harvesting. And this is really to protect every single group. You know, we’re talking about Uyghurs, Falun Gong practitioners, house Christians more increasingly, like recently.
C: American patients.
M: Yes. Basically all the people that are impacted by this, and it will offer protection over there. And now this bill has gained tremendous momentum. Right now there are 10 bipartisan co-sponsors evenly split across the aisle, and then they are trying to make their way onto the floor very, very soon.
So fingers crossed that, you know, this is going to pass during this Congress, and we do have strong faith that it will, and that, you know, the administration has showed a lot of support during this entire process too. So yeah, very, very looking forward to it.
W: Mark, do you have the name of the bill or the current number by which it’s referred?
M: So it is called S.4009, Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act.
W: Okay, that’s pretty straightforward. So the listeners, you should note that and tell your representative to support that. I’ve been involved in this work for more than 25 years, and these reports about organ harvesting used to be dismissed as fantasy, but they’re true. And it’s a horrible thing, killing somebody to take their organs or to kill them by taking their organs to sell them to somebody else.
In my mind, it’s impossible to conceive of a human rights violation any worse than that. I mean, you kill one person to sell their organs to another person. or to put them in powerful officials’ bodies so they can live forever in their dream world. So I encourage everybody to look into that.
Okay, well, look, thanks a lot. Really glad to have you guys on again.
C: Thank you so much.
M: Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure.
W: Glad to have you. Anybody listening, remember, you can go to our webpage, humanrights.catholic.edu, and you can sign up for these podcasts, The Barefoot Lawyer Reports. And we’ll see you here next time.
The Center for Human Rights has published countless articles and reports on issues facing China, the U.S., and the world. In a 2023 report, Emily Burton examines the continuing influence of Confucius Institutes in American universities, exposing how many have rebranded rather than truly severing ties with the Chinese Communist Party. To read her report, go to our research and analysis page on humanrights.catholic.edu.