News Analysis
In response to The New York Times’s recent attempts to smear the spiritual practice Falun Gong and its affiliated groups through a series of articles, a Chinese scholar emphasizes the need to view these reports within the broader context of the global threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He also points out that Falun Gong practitioners outside of China have played a key role in exposing the CCP’s abuses and inspiring a grassroots movement against its authoritarian rule.
In a recent interview with the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times, Chinese scholar Yuan Hongbing said The New York Times’s attempt to discredit organizations founded by Falun Gong practitioners and the practice itself is not an isolated incident but rather a coordinated effort aligned with the CCP’s propaganda campaign both inside and outside China.
“Other than The New York Times, several bloggers have published a series of commentaries on Falun Gong that go beyond standard critique and have aligned with the CCP’s propaganda campaigns, contributing to the Party’s broader attacks against Falun Gong,” he said.
Yuan is also a former law professor at Peking University who lives in exile in Australia. He has remained connected to Beijing’s top political circles and has long studied the CCP’s authoritarian regime.
CCP Escalates Persecution of Falun Gong
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, was first introduced to the public in China in 1992. Its moral teachings and five meditative exercises exploded in popularity, and by the late 1990s, official estimates put the number of people practicing Falun Gong at between 70 million and 100 million.
In July 1999, the CCP, out of fear that the practice’s popularity would undermine its totalitarian rule, launched a sweeping campaign to eradicate the practice. Since then, millions of practitioners have been arbitrarily detained in prisons, labor camps, and other facilities, with hundreds of thousands having been tortured while incarcerated, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center.
Yuan said the CCP has been using all its power and the regime’s resources to eliminate Falun Gong in China and abroad. He had previously disclosed to The Epoch Times that according to his insider sources, Chinese leader Xi Jinping approved a new strategy in 2022 to attack Falun Gong globally through media warfare and other ways.
The CCP’s media warfare involves spreading disinformation via social media influencers and Western media outlets. The goal is to discredit Mr. Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, and media outlets founded by its practitioners, according to Yuan and his sources. The CCP’s global propaganda machine seeks to shape public attitudes and perceptions toward Falun Gong.
Yuan said the cultural organizations and media outlets established by Falun Gong practitioners should not be seen as merely commercial ventures. Instead, he said, they represent a noble cause in opposing communist rule, as the Party threatens not only the Chinese people but all of humanity.
The China expert warned about the gravity of the situation, saying that the CCP’s influence has deeply infiltrated democratic countries, reaching almost every corner of society. He said that prominent and influential media outlets, particularly The New York Times, have “become mouthpieces” for the CCP.
Yuan noted that for the past six months, the New York Times has published reports that appear to parrot the recent wave of smear campaigns on Chinese social media targeting Falun Gong, Shen Yun Performing Arts, and The Epoch Times. He said the reports and some Chinese influencers and bloggers distort the facts about Falun Gong and its affiliated groups and “deliberately mislead the public.”
A Dec. 29 New York Times report claims that Shen Yun “has become a repository of vast wealth for Falun Gong,” amassing wealth at the expense of its dedicated supporters.
Yuan said this claim is misleading.
“When we look at the hit articles from The New York Times or those individual bloggers against Falun Gong, it’s clear they are evaluating these media organizations and cultural initiatives purely from a commercial standpoint, which is completely off and doesn’t reflect the reality of their operations.”
Shen Yun said in a statement: “The Times’ fixation upon our company cash reserves seems misplaced, perhaps stemming partially from an ignorance of what it takes to actually run an organization like Shen Yun.
“Unlike a vast majority of performing arts companies in the world, we have no corporate sponsors, no regular government support, and no active member donation program. We survive the old-fashioned way: by the value our product brings to consumers.”
The New York Times, according to Yuan, completely fails “to understand that Falun Gong practitioners and their affiliated organizations, in their unwavering pursuit of freedom of belief—not just for themselves but for all Chinese people—have shown extraordinary dedication and courage.”
Is The New York Times the CCP’s Mouthpiece?
Yuan noted that one way the CCP spreads its communist ideology is by infiltrating media outlets in democratic nations, a critical part of its broader strategy to expand its totalitarian influence worldwide.
He noted that since the onset of the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, The New York Times has largely ignored the issue.
A report published by the Falun Dafa Information Center in March 2024 analyzed 159 articles from the New York Times since 1999. The research revealed that between 1999 and 2002, 76 percent of articles contained factual errors or negative depictions of Falun Gong practitioners.
In 2019, The New York Times’s former Beijing correspondent, Didi Kirsten Tatlow, testified that the newspaper prevented her from reporting on the CCP’s organ harvesting. She revealed that her request to expand the scope of coverage to include organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience, in addition to death row inmates, was ignored and rejected by her editors.
From this perspective, Yuan said it appears that The New York Times has become a key platform for the CCP’s influence over American culture and public discourse.
This is not the first time the paper has turned a blind eye to rights abuses. In the 1930s, reporter Walter Duranty dismissed reports of widespread famine in the Soviet Union caused by the Soviet regime’s policies.
The paper once called Mao Zedong, the founder of communist China, a “democratic agrarian reformer,” and the former Cuban leader Fidel Castro “democratic.”
Exposing ‘CCP’s Tyranny’
Yuan said the attacks on Falun Gong practitioners are central to the CCP’s propaganda campaign, driven by fear of their unwavering opposition to the Party’s totalitarian rule for more than two decades.
“By exposing the truth and publishing works like ‘Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party,’ Falun Gong practitioners have awakened the Chinese people to the reality of the CCP’s tyranny,” he said.
The Epoch Times’ editorial series, “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party,” exposes the CCP’s bloody history and provides an in-depth analysis of its deceptive, violent, and rogue nature across politics, economics, culture, and faith.
The series also sparked a grassroots movement by Chinese people, both in and outside of China, to sever ties with the CCP and its affiliated organizations.
“Through their efforts, Falun Gong practitioners have further helped the Chinese people to recognize the true nature of the CCP, delivering a powerful ideological blow to its rule,” Yuan said.
“This is the main reason why the CCP harbors such deep hatred toward Falun Gong practitioners and continues to attack them.”
‘CCP’s Rule Is a Curse on China’s Future’
Yuan believes the CCP should be taken down for three reasons.
The first is the CCP’s heinous crimes against humanity. Yuan said that from the moment the CCP took over China in 1949, it carried out a form of cultural genocide, targeting various ethnic groups and destroying “the spiritual foundation, the soul, and the cultural identity of the Chinese people.”
Yuan pointed out that over the past seven decades, nearly 100 million people have died as a result of the CCP’s political movements, military crackdowns, and judicial persecution. The Chinese people, he said, are effectively political slaves, deprived of their fundamental human rights.
“History has demonstrated that the CCP’s rule is a curse on China’s future,” he said.
He said the end of the CCP’s tyranny is a critical issue for the Chinese people, noting that unless the CCP is removed, China’s future will continue to descend into ruin. He believes that any effort opposing the CCP’s rule or advocating for its end is a just cause and aligns with the fundamental interests of the Chinese people.
The second factor is the global spread of communist ideology under Xi. Yuan said this expansion has become “the most dangerous enemy of freedom and democracy for mankind.”
In recent years, it has become a consensus in the international community that the CCP represents a direct threat to human rights and global peace.
The third factor is the CCP’s ongoing brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, which Yuan describes “as one of the worst human rights disasters of the 21st century.”
“For more than two decades, Falun Gong practitioners have shown extraordinary resilience and courage in defending their freedom of belief against the oppressive CCP regime. Their commitment is both inspiring and deeply moving,” he said.
“The various media outlets run by Falun Gong practitioners have played a crucial role in exposing the CCP. Their efforts to oppose the CCP’s tyranny represent one of modern China’s most significant and impactful acts of defiance.”
Haizhong Ning and Luo Ya contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times