The Chinese medical system has seen dozens of officials terminated from their jobs due to a widespread “anti-corruption” campaign. This happens as worldwide attention has focused on the forced harvesting of human organs by the CCP. (Photo composition by The Epoch Times)
By Justin Zhang
Since the start of 2022, the Chinese medical system has seen dozens of people terminated from their jobs due to a widespread “anti-corruption” campaign. The cleanup has affected numerous officials within government and clinical hospitals. This happens as worldwide attention is being focused on the forced harvesting of human organs by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Japanese political commentator Chao Jie told The Epoch Times “the live harvesting of organs is beyond the moral limits of humanity. The purge of officials in the health care system today can also be considered a kind of retribution.”
During the tenure of former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin (1993–2003), the CCP began its brutal persecution of the Falun Gong community, which fueled a rapid expansion of the human organ transplant industry.
Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, is a spiritual discipline that involves meditative exercises and a set of moral teachings centered on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. It expanded in popularity in China in the 1990s leading to an estimated 70 million to 100 million adherents by the end of the decade. Deeming this popularity as a threat, then-leader Jiang initiated a sweeping persecution campaign against Falun Gong adherents aimed at eliminating the practice.
In 2000, as part of the repression campaign, the CCP began systematically harvesting and selling organs from detained Falun Gong practitioners. The medical system became deeply involved in forced organ harvesting. In the years that followed, the CCP medical system dramatically reduced the time required to find a suitable donor organ to just days or weeks. Meanwhile, in the United States, the waiting period for a heart can range from 180 days to years.
CCP Cleans House in Medical Industry
After Xi Jinping took office in 2012, he started an “anti-corruption” campaign to purge rival Jiang Zemin’s faction. In recent years, many medical officials associated with the Jiang faction began losing their jobs.
From January through August of this year, the CCP’s medical system cleanup led to the dismissal of dozens of high-ranking officials—from central medical administration to grassroots clinical hospitals and local government medical departments.
Among those dismissed was Chao Baohua, director of the Stroke Prevention and Control Committee and second inspector of the National Health Commission. He was taken away for investigation on July 29. Specific reasons have not been announced.
Wang Binquan, former director of the First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, was expelled from the party and public office on July 22. He was accused of conducting serious duty violations and accepted various bribes.
Zhang Zhikuan, party secretary and director of the Beijing Food and Drug Administration, was placed under supervisory investigation, the Chinese government reported on March 27. He is suspected of serious disciplinary violations.
Zhou Jin, former director of the First Hospital of Harbin Medical University, was expelled from the party on June 23. A long list of accusations included “power-money” and “power-sex transactions” and huge bribes.
Forced Organ Harvesting Continues to Draw World-Wide Attention
Although this stepped-up “anti-corruption” campaign might indicate otherwise, forced organ harvesting continues and remains a focus of world attention.
The CCP’s long history of harvesting the organs of Falun Gong practitioners is well known outside of China. An analysis in the July 28 issue of England’s Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics suggests that China violates the criteria for determining brain death before organs can be removed.
Entitled “Cases Abusing Brain Death Definition in Organ Procurement in China,” the article cites Chinese medical journals that describe organ procurement methods and concludes that some donors were neither brain dead nor heart dead when organ harvesting was initiated.
The article references one organ procurement method in which doctors induce cardiac arrest so as to perform a cardiac resection on people whose hearts are fully functional. It states, “These heart-beating donors were not heart-beating brain-dead organ donors. This means that the condition of these donors neither met the criteria of brain death nor that of cardiac death. In other words, the ‘donor organs’ may well have been procured in these cases from living human beings.”
Telltale Short Waiting Period
The short waiting period for organs in China is thought by many to indicate that people are being detained so their organs can be harvested on demand.
Consider the example of Mu Jiangang, a teacher at Lanzhou University. On April 8 this year, he suffered a sudden heart attack and was admitted to the hospital for emergency care. Doctors later determined he needed a heart transplant after a newly inserted heart stent failed.
On May 6, Mu was transferred to Wuhan Union Hospital, one of China’s top organ transplant facilities. He was promptly put on the waiting list for a heart transplant. Four days later, Mu’s heart transplant was completed.
Surfeit of Organs
In addition to China’s exceptionally short waiting time for a suitable organ, some Chinese transplant patients are offered multiple organs simultaneously.
In June of 2020, Sun Lingling, a 24-year-old Chinese national living in Japan, was flown to China’s Wuhan Union Hospital for a heart transplant. Within 10 days, the hospital found four suitable heart candidates.
The first heart became available on June 16, but the surgeon performing the operation decided its coronary artery was unsuitable. The heart was rejected. The second heart was received on June 19 but was also rejected because Sun Lingling was feverish that day and the procedure had to be postponed.
Two additional hearts arrived at the hospital on June 25. The surgeon selected one and rejected the other as not sufficiently strong.
Dr. Torsten Trey, Executive Director of Doctors against Forced Organ Harvesting, told The Epoch Times the ready availability of not one, but four hearts for a transplant patient was “beyond imagination.” However, these cases are happening in China on a daily basis.
Mu Jiangang’s case was reported by the Chinese media because his colleagues were raising funds for his surgery cost. Sun Lingling’s story was reported as Chinese propaganda, to illustrate the regime’s supposed superiority over Japan. Official media outlets carried headline stories touting Lingling’s brief wait for a transplant, compared to the lengthy waiting period in Japan.
Ellen Wan contributed to this article.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of NTD Canada.