Former Vice Mayor of Jixi, Heilongjiang: Step Up Exposure of the CCP’s Transnational Repression

September 8, 2020 – Li Chuanliang is interviewed by The Epoch Times in Los Angeles.
(File photo by Xu Xiuhui / Dajiyuan)

[People News] Since 2024, under the direct command of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping, the CCP’s state apparatus has suddenly escalated its transnational repression of Shen Yun and Falun Gong, adopting even more extreme and terroristic tactics.

According to interviews by Dajiyuan reporters Song Tang and Yi Ru, statistics from the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDI) show that in the past year (May 2024 – May 2025), there have been over one hundred anonymous violent threats targeting Shen Yun Performing Arts, Falun Gong practitioners, and supportive officials. These threats have included bomb attacks, shootings, sexual assaults, and murder.

In particular, the bomb threat against Shen Yun Performing Arts this February at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., shocked the U.S. political community.

Former deputy mayor of Jixi City, Heilongjiang Province, Li Chuanliang, told Dajiyuan that Falun Gong promotes Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and especially in a country like the United States—where religious freedom is protected—many people practice Falun Gong, and Shen Yun’s world tours are widely loved and recognized. “The CCP will never allow this,” he said. “It cannot let you outshine the CCP’s fake ‘red culture,’ so it must crack down.”

Li stated that the CCP will attack anything people regard as right, good, and true, including many political dissidents as well as the “White Paper Revolution,” the “Fireworks Revolution,” the “White Hair Movement,” and so on. “Because these can shake the CCP’s evil rule, it becomes extremely vicious.”

“The CCP is a Satan-level demon,” he said.

In an interview this May, Li remarked that in today’s China, if you show even a little human dignity or a hint of faith—whether by producing or distributing the Bible, or simply reading it—you can be arrested. “Falun Gong is a belief,” he added, “and even lawyers defending Falun Gong practitioners are detained.”

Li himself is also a victim of the CCP’s transnational repression. In August 2020, after he first spoke publicly in Dajiyuan, the CCP’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection opened an investigation against him the following month. Four years later, a CCP court accused Li of job-related crimes involving assets worth over 3.1 billion yuan.

Now living in exile overseas, Li and his legal team firmly maintain that the case is political retaliation. They say the authorities deprived him of his right to a defense in order to fabricate charges against him.

Transnational Repression as a CCP State Strategy

At present, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) transnational repression is personally driven by the highest levels of leadership. In October 2022, CCP leader Xi Jinping, at a political and legal affairs meeting, formulated a new global strategy to crack down on Falun Gong, including public opinion warfare and legal warfare.

Li Chuanliang stated that, based on the information he has obtained, the CCP has now elevated transnational repression to the level of a national strategy.

He explained that this transnational repression is directed from the top down, extending to all relevant departments such as the Ministry of State Security, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Justice, and the Propaganda Department, employing a full range of measures including media warfare, legal warfare, and violent tactics.

“It’s not just overseas; it starts inside China. They have concrete tactical plans domestically, as well as internationally, including comprehensive plans targeting people and assets,” he said.

According to leaked documents from Henan, Shaanxi, Hubei, Jiangxi, and Hunan provinces, as early as 2015–2018, the CCP carried out “in-depth investigations” of overseas Falun Gong practitioners from these provinces, collecting “intelligence” on them—such as personal backgrounds and information on relatives in China—and ordering the establishment of databases. These records were later used to carry out personal attacks and exert psychological pressure as part of “transnational repression.”

Li noted that elevating transnational repression to the level of CCP national strategy means it has become a political operation.

“In essence, this is equivalent to warfare, which makes it extremely frightening,” he said. “Its purpose is to consolidate the Communist Party’s totalitarian control—not only over China domestically but also over the world.”

Li added that media warfare is one of the CCP’s most important tools and weapons in transnational repression. It is now part of a high-level strategic arrangement, with CCP ministries having formed a transnational repression operations command center to coordinate efforts—such as deciding which groups to target at certain times and by what means.

“This model exists both domestically and abroad—so-called media suppression, media trials, and media attacks—then combined with legal measures. They will design traps,” Li explained.

On October 14, 2024, CCP media reprinted a People’s Court Daily article that unusually devoted an entire page to an announcement from the Mudanjiang Intermediate People’s Court, alleging that former Jixi City Vice Mayor Li Chuanliang had assets worth over 3.1 billion yuan, with 1,021 properties seized—thus initiating a “media trial” against him.

Since the CCP launched its transnational repression campaign in spring 2024, The New York Times has published 12 consecutive articles attacking Falun Gong and Shen Yun Performing Arts.

Li warned that this could have a major impact: first, by creating public misunderstanding; second, by fostering fear of the CCP’s transnational repression among the public.

On June 17, 2025, G7 leaders issued a joint statement condemning transnational repression, saying that it “undermines national security, state sovereignty, the safety and human rights of victims, and the principles of international law.”

The Need for Greater Exposure

Branding Falun Gong as a “cult” is a long-standing propaganda weapon of the CCP—serving as both a pretext for persecution and a means to defame, incite hatred against, dehumanize, and marginalize Falun Gong practitioners, thus excusing the persecution of millions.

Li stated that religious freedom is protected in the United States and that greater emphasis should be placed on Falun Gong practitioners’ religious status.

“People shouldn’t just look at the propaganda—they should look at reality, at the true situation. Falun Gong has made very real contributions in morality, culture, and human rights. Shen Yun promotes Chinese culture; Falun Gong’s media outlets have become mainstream international outlets; many of Falun Gong’s themed events are excellent—these are contributions to the world in themselves,” he said.

Li stressed that many people still lack awareness of the CCP’s transnational repression strategy and that the exposure of its various methods is still insufficient, leaving many deceived. He called for the creation of a platform to counter CCP transnational repression and to step up efforts to expose its tactics.

“Recently, U.S. congressmen have proposed a transnational repression bill. I hope it will move forward quickly and become an enforceable, actionable law,” he said.