Statement Ahead of Xi Jinping’s September 24 State Visit to Washington

As President Trump prepares to receive Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the White House this week, the Falun Dafa Information Center respectfully urges the president to raise two concerns regarding Falun Gong—one related to American sovereignty and the freedoms of people living here, the other concerning American families separated by the persecution: 

1. Stop the Chinese Communist Party’s transnational repression of Falun Gong inside the United States.

The Chinese regime’s efforts to extend its persecution of Falun Gong onto American soil have intensified over the past five years. In that time, U.S. federal courts have convicted at least six agents of the Chinese government for covert work in the United States. Falun Gong practitioners were among the principal targets of these operations, which involved surveillance, infiltration, and schemes to strip the community of its standing and legal protections here—in one case by weaponizing the U.S. legal system itself.

Two convicted agents, John Chen and Lin Feng, attempted to bribe an undercover agent posing as an IRS official into revoking the nonprofit status of Shen Yun Performing Arts, the world-renowned New York-based company founded by Falun Gong practitioners. On a recorded call, Chen explicitly stated that the purpose of the bribe was “toppling the Falun Gong.” Court filings include a photograph of Chen personally shaking hands with Xi Jinping. 

Chen’s co-defendant, Feng, further admitted that the two had surveilled the Falun Gong community surrounding Shen Yun’s headquarters to collect information that “would be the basis for a potential environmental lawsuit meant to inhibit the growth of the Falun Gong community” locally. 

Separately, PRC diplomats and consular officials have written directly to American theaters pressing them to cancel Shen Yun performances, including in Seattle, St. Louis, Little Rock, and other cities.

Another convicted agent, Lu Jianwang, sent fifteen people to Washington, D.C. to confront Falun Gong practitioners demonstrating during Xi’s 2015 visit, following instructions from the Chinese consulate. During another Xi visit to San Francisco in 2023, pro-Beijing counterprotesters, some of whom had their hotels and meals paid for by the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles, surrounded, harassed, and in some cases beat peaceful demonstrators, including Falun Gong practitioners.

These incidents are operations by a foreign totalitarian regime that undermine the religious freedom, free expression, and physical safety of people living in the United States. The attempt to weaponize the American legal system against a religious minority is a threat to U.S. sovereignty and national security. We ask the president to tell Xi Jinping directly that these operations must end, that such acts are unacceptable, and that they will continue to be prosecuted as the crimes they are. We further ask that Falun Gong practitioners who gather peacefully in Washington, D.C. during the upcoming visit be protected.

2. Free imprisoned practitioners with U.S. relatives and let them reunite with their loved ones.

We ask the president to raise by name:

• Wang Youmei, 61, and Tong Shuying, 55: arrested together in Wuhan, Hubei Province, on April 15, 2026, and held at Wuhan No. 1 Detention Center. Wang’s daughter Alisa Zhou is a U.S. citizen and accountant in Maryland; Tong’s sister Tong Shuzhen lives in New York.
• Zhou Deyong, 65: arrested in 2021 and sentenced in 2023 to eight years in prison. His wife and son live in Florida. He appears in the State Department’s annual human rights report on China and on the Freedom of Religion or Belief Victims List maintained by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

We ask that these three individuals be released and permitted to leave China to join their families in the United States. We ask that the same permission to depart be extended to former Falun Gong prisoners of conscience with American relatives who have been released but remain barred from leaving China.

The persecution of Falun Gong is now in its twenty-seventh year. This week offers a rare opportunity for President Trump to raise this issue directly with Xi Jinping. A few sentences could bring Americans’ detained family members home, press for an end to this persecution, and make clear that its reach stops at America’s borders.