Prominent Falun Gong Coordinator in China Dies, Another CCP Agent Pleads Guilty in U.S.

Dear Reader,

I remember the grave day Zhiwen Wang was sentenced to 16 years in a Chinese prison. It was December 26, 1999, intentionally scheduled during the holidays when international media attention would be low. I can still picture the photo of him standing before a court in China. Up until that point, there had been no comparably publicized case, nor sentence of nearly that long, so it was a profoundly grave moment for our faith community.

Wang, a former volunteer coordinator of the Falun Gong Research Association, famously met with then-Premier Zhu Rongji during the peaceful April 25 Zhongnanhai appeal. He would become one of the most high-profile prisoners of conscience in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution of Falun Gong. Unfortunately, he died in Beijing on Oct. 16 under heavy surveillance. His daughter Danielle, a civil engineer from Texas who previously testified in Congress, believes his death was suspicious. Police reportedly monitored and filmed her father in the hospital until his final breath.

Also in this issue:

• A CCP agent in the United States has plead guilty, admitting his targets included Falun Gong.

• Two prominent lawmakers urged the Trump administration to hold Cisco Systems accountable for aiding the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong.

• At events in Washington DC and Pennsylvania, current and former U.S. officials voiced support for Falun Gong and condemned the CCP’s persecution.

• We highlight again the cases of California resident Karen Kang’s sister and nephew, who were arrested on October 31, 2022, just over three years ago.

To conclude, we share a short video featuring Danielle Wang’s efforts in the United States to rescue her father, Zhiwen Wang.

FEATURE STORY

What’s new?

On Oct. 16, Zhiwen Wang died in Beijing under heavy police surveillance. Once a volunteer coordinator for the Falun Gong Research Association, Wang spent 15 years in prison and was subjected to constant monitoring after his release. His daughter, Danielle Wang, reported that he was taken to the Capital Medical University Affiliated Beijing Shijitan Hospital against his will, where police guarded and recorded him until his final moments. She described his death as happening “under suspicious circumstances” and urged international reporting and attention of her father’s death to expose Beijing authorities for human rights violations and stifling free expression.

Why does it matter?  

As the Falun Dafa Information Center noted in the article about his death, “Zhiwen Wang’s story sadly epitomizes the CCP’s 26-year-long persecution against Falun Gong practitioners. An ordinary Chinese man, sentenced in a show trial to 16 years in prison and tortured, simply for helping organize fellow citizens to meditate and find spiritual fulfillment.”

Wang’s 1999 arrest—just one day before the official launch of the persecution—marked a turning point in Beijing’s persecution on faith. Amnesty International and the U.S. State Department repeatedly documented the severe torture of Wang in custody. Even after his release in 2014, Wang remained under house arrest, monitored by police and denied permission to travel to the U.S. His case was featured in U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China’s reports and recognized by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission’s Defending Freedoms Project.

What else do you need to know?

In 2016, Wang’s daughter finally reunited with him in Beijing after 18 years apart. However, when her father attempted to return with her to the United States, his passport was confiscated at customs, and he was again placed under house arrest.

Wang is survived by his daughter and son-in-law in the United States. The couple is grieving his death but is unable to travel to China, preventing them from holding a proper funeral in his hometown or paying respects with relatives.

TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION

Yaoning “Mike” Sun, 65, of Chino Hills, California, pleaded guilty in federal court on Oct. 27 to acting as an illegal agent of the PRC. U.S. prosecutors said Sun worked under the direction of Chinese officials to advance Beijing’s political interests in the United States, including targeting Falun Gong practitioners and other groups labeled by the CCP as “anti-China forces.”

Court documents show that in February 2023, Sun drafted a report to Chinese officials describing Falun Gong—along with Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang independence movements—as threats that had been “infiltrating” mainstream fields. He proposed mobilizing his Los Angeles network to “counteract those forces.” The plea deal covered only the charge of acting as an illegal foreign agent, while prosecutors dropped a conspiracy charge. Sun faces up to 10 years in prison at his February 2026 sentencing. Sun is at least the fourth CCP agent facing jail time in the United States since 2023 for targeting Falun Gong practitioners.

NEWS

Two senior lawmakers—Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) who co-chairs the CECC and Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI) who chairs the House Select Committee on the CCP—urged the Trump administration to support Falun Gong practitioners’ long-running lawsuit against Cisco Systems, Inc., accusing the U.S. tech giant of helping the CCP persecute the spiritual group. In an Oct. 29 letter to U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, Smith and Moolenaar asked that the administration back the plaintiffs and recommend the Supreme Court deny Cisco’s request to dismiss the case.

The lawsuit, filed in 2011, alleges that Cisco customized surveillance technology for China’s “Golden Shield” project to identify, track, and target Falun Gong adherents—knowing the system would be used for arrests and torture. Among the evidence supporting these claims are internal presentations used by the company. A 2023 federal appeals ruling allowed the case to move forward under human rights statutes, which Cisco is now challenging before the Supreme Court, according to AP .

The lawmakers said the allegations reflect a grave abuse of U.S. technology and contradict Congressional intent. “American companies must not be complicit in furthering the CCP’s human rights abuses,” they wrote, calling for accountability and a clear stance that U.S. firms cannot profit from repression abroad.

NEWS

At recent events in Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania, both current and former U.S. officials voiced strong support for Falun Gong practitioners and condemned the CCP’s decades-long persecution of the group.

Former U.S. Ambassador for Religious Freedom Sam Brownback called on the White House to take a “bold moral stand” by inviting Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi to meet with senior officials, according to Vision Times . Speaking at a forum hosted by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation on Oct. 28, Brownback declared, “The CCP is at war with faith—and it’s a war they are destined to lose.” He said Beijing’s campaign against Falun Gong represents “an evil never before seen on this planet,” citing torture, deaths in custody, and forced organ harvesting.

In Pennsylvania, State Senator Doug Mastriano announced plans to introduce a resolution condemning the CCP’s persecution and transnational repression, according to Epoch Times . “Silence in the face of evil is complicity,” he said. Democratic State Senator Sharif Street added, “No group of people, Falun Dafa or any others, should be persecuted for their beliefs.”

Together, the officials urged stronger U.S. action to defend faith and human dignity, with Brownback emphasizing, “Religious freedom isn’t just a human-rights issue—it’s a national security one.”

Last Halloween, the Falun Dafa Information Center published the story of Karen Kang and her family’s ordeal in China.

Karen, a U.S. citizen living in California, has not heard from her sister, Shumei Kang, or her nephew, Gu Zhang, since their arrest on Oct. 31, 2022, for distributing flyers exposing the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong. Both were secretly sentenced without family notification, and their current whereabouts remain unknown.

Karen has appealed to U.S. officials for help. Congresswoman Linda Sánchez urged then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken to press Chinese authorities for their release, while Piero Tozzi of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China highlighted their case at a Capitol Hill rally.

In this video published in 2020, Danielle Wang shares her deeply personal journey to rescue her father, Zhiwen Wang, a longtime Falun Gong practitioner imprisoned by the Chinese regime for his faith. She recalled the devastating day in December 1999 when she saw his face on international news—sentenced to 16 years in prison alongside other Falun Gong practitioners. As a teenager living abroad, Danielle was heartbroken and lived for years in fear and uncertainty, not knowing if her father was alive or safe.

Despite the pain, Danielle found strength through her own practice of Falun Gong’s principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. She realized that staying silent would mean her father’s suffering—and the broader persecution—would remain hidden. Determined to act, she began publicly advocating for his release, using the freedoms available to her in the United States to speak out.

“Any persecution against these three principles [Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance] is wrong, and shouldn’t be allowed,” Danielle said. In 2016, she was able to travel to China and see her father, but Chinese authorities would not allow him to leave the country despite a valid passport and visa.