Image: Matas with poster presentation “Transplant Nurses and Transplant Law Reform” at the Transplant Nurses Associations Conference in Brisbane, Australia. Matas received communication from the Association prior to the conference that included an admonition that ‘no political grandstanding will be tolerated’- a warning uniquely directed at him and not issued to other presenters.

Chinese Transnational Repression in Australia and Forced Organ Harvesting

(Written version of remarks presented to a Parliamentary roundtable, Canberra Australia, October 28th, 2025)

by David Matas

“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.” ― Omar Khayyám

David Kilgour and I published in July 2006 a report concluding that there was forced organ harvesting in China with prisoner conscience victims, primarily practitioners of the spiritually based set of exercises Falun Gong. I live in Canada as did David Kilgour before his passing. After our report came out, each of us got to Australia only occasionally for short periods of time. During the visits, our work and I personally have been the target of what was or at least looked to be transnational repression on six different occasions.

1) On a trip to Australia, in August 2006, David Kilgour spoke about our report at a forum in Melbourne hosted by Liberal Party member of the Victoria Parliament Victor Perton. The Melbourne Chinese consulate sent a letter to all members of the Victoria Parliament asking them not to attend the forum.

2) Two years later, in August 2008, I was scheduled to speak at Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia. The booking was made a month earlier through a University staff person who said that everything had been cleared by superiors and that the University would notify all students and staff about the forum internally.

The organizers of the event were allowed to put up posters around the campus promoting the event, which they did. Less than the week before the event, the organizers received an e-mail advising that the venue was no longer available. The Vice Chancellor, when phoned, said that, no matter what was said, he didn’t care and said that the decision was final.

3) The August 2008 event was relocated to Broadbeach, Gold Coast, and was connected through the internet to participants in China, over 150 in total. The local as well as the internet participants asked questions after the formal presentation was over.

One of the internet participants was a Chinese government police official. This is the question, in translation, he asked me:

“Are you afraid of death? You are brutally interfering in our Party’s internal policies. Are you afraid of our revenge? Our revenge against you, we’ll take revenge against you, are you not afraid of that?”[1]

4) Two years after that, on a trip to Australia in a Saturday in October 2010, one of my hosts was the target of a drive-by shooting.[2] The Epoch Times hosted a public forum at which I spoke at the Queensland Taiwan Centre in Sunnybank, Brisbane. The offices of the Epoch Times were the victim of a drive by shooting on the prior Thursday afternoon.

Fortunately, no one was wounded, but the front plate glass window of the office had a prominent bullet hole and a spider web of cracks. The hosts attributed the shooting to hosting me.

5) I was scheduled to speak in September 2018 at a question and answer session after the screening of a documentary about Confucius Institutes. Confucius Institutes are university hosted Chinese government sponsored institutes which provide Chinese culture and language programs from a Chinese Communist Party perspective.

The screening and question and answer session were scheduled for Victoria University. Victoria University was and is the host of a Confucius Institute.[3]

Ten days before the event, the University of Victoria informed the organizers that the event had been cancelled. The reason given was that the room had been mistakenly double-booked and that neither that room nor others were available.[4]

The event was relocated to another venue. Investigators went to the originally booked venue at the time of the screening and saw that the venue was empty as were three other comparable rooms at the venue.

6) For this very visit to Australia, October 2025, I put in an abstract for the conference of the Australian Transplant Nurses Association, scheduled for Brisbane, October 23rd and 24th. The abstract was accepted for a poster presentation.

I then received an e-mail offer from one of the conference organizers to make instead an oral presentation as an invited speaker. The offer stated:

“The committee has taken into consideration the distance you will be traveling for the conference, and we would like to offer you the opportunity to present a 20-minute presentation as an invited guest. We truly appreciate your dedication to the Transplant Nurses’ Association.

If you have already registered for the conference and wish to present as an invited guest, please let us know so that we can arrange a refund for you.”

I accepted the offer. I was asked for a photo and bio to add to the program, which I sent. I was then told by e-mail:

“We are going to slot you in on the Friday afternoon from 15.40 to 16.00. I will send you the final version of the program very soon.”

In a later e-mail, I was told:

“On behalf of the Transplant Nurses’ Association, thank you for kindly agreeing to speak at our TNA Transplant Symposium. Please see attached your Speaker Letter. We will organise a refund for your registration today.”

The attached Speaker letter stated:

“I am writing to you on behalf of the Transplant Nurses’ Association to thank you for kindly agreeing to speak at our TNA Transplant Symposium ‘Inspiration and Education Leads to Innovation’ on Friday 24th October 2025, for our afternoon Organ Donation Session. I would like to confirm the following details:

Day and Date: Friday 24th October 2025.

Time of Presentation: 15:40 – 16:00.

Topic: Transplant Nurses and Transplant Law Reform (please confirm title)

Participant Group: Approximately 110 health professionals (predominantly nurses) who work in the field of organ donation and transplantation.

Venue: Pullman Hotel, Brisbane,Corner of Ann & Roma Streets Brisbane, QLD, 4000

Transport: Parking is limited at the conference venue, please confirm if you would like a taxi voucher.

Facilities will be available for power point presentations. Can you please advise me of any extra audiovisual/special requirements that you may have.

We would appreciate it if you could forward your presentation to Leata Masefau at Encore Events Technology: Leata.Masefau@encore-anzpac.com prior to the 23rd October 2025.

Thank you again for your participation in our transplant symposium, your time and knowledge is greatly appreciated and we look forward to seeing you on the day. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us.”

Shortly after that, I received an e-mail from another conference organizer of the Transplant Nurses Association stating:

“In consultation with our National Executive team for Transplant Nurses Australia, we are unable to offer you an oral presentation time slot.

All other abstract / poster submissions are not allocated an independent time slow, so therefore we need to comply with these guidelines for fair & equal opportunity.

Additionally, can you please provide us with a copy of your poster which you would like to display? All poster presentation are required to be reviewed prior to the meeting to ensure they comply with inclusion guidelines.”

I wrote back asking: “I wonder if the decision on an oral time slot would be different if I withdrew my poster submission.” The answer I received was “Unfortunately no, as you are not an invited speaker.” That of course was inaccurate and the author of the e-mail knew it was inaccurate since she was part of the e-mail stream which had invited me.

The e-mail went on to say:

“All abstract oral time slots have been allocated. If you withdraw your poster, you will not be presenting at all. We can refund your registration if this is the case.”

I wrote back stating:

“Please send me a link to the inclusion guidelines. I could not find them on the organization website.”

I did not receive a reply.

I prepared a poster. I then sent an e-mail to the Transplant Nurses Association stating:

“I prepared the attached poster. It contains the abstract plus some Australia and UK information. I was not able to find anything about poster size, font, orientation or other guidelines, but I did not want to delay sending this to you. If there is anything you would liked changed let me know.”

Again there was no answer.

On arrival in Brisbane, I had the poster printed out and sent this e-mail.

“I am now in Brisbane and have had the poster printed out. Let me know when is the appropriate time to take it to the conference venue for posting. As I indicated earlier, I am happy to make changes if any are necessary, and reprint.”

I then received this reply:

“As the conference is so small, and 5 posters only being displayed, you will arrive for the conference as per program – 08.00 Thursday & then it will be displayed after we see you.

The National Executive Board of the TNA have agreed that you can present your poster as long as the following is adhered to:

Poster presenters are given a set time to stand in front of their poster (eg 10 mins) and the attendees can ask them questions during this time only. They do not get time to present at the lectern.

The only hand outs permitted are a copy of the poster- absolutely nothing else can be distributed.

We do not permit anyone using our national education conference for political grandstanding – this will not be tolerated. No additional personnel that might be affiliated can attend the conference or venue.”

I have attended and presented at a number of conferences and have not in the past brought additional personnel with me or distributed materials or engaged in political grandstanding. These warnings were not based on my past behaviour. The reference to affiliation is unclear. Affiliated with whom, with what?

The text of the poster presentation I prepared for the Conference, which was posted on a poster board at the Conference, (with citations added here,) was this:

Transplant Nurses and Transplant Law Reform
Introduction
An independent people’s tribunal concluded in 2020 that the mass killing in China of practitioners of the spiritually based set of exercises Falun Gong for their organs for transplants was certain, beyond doubt.[5] Twelve United Nations human rights experts in 2021 found the evidence about forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China as extremely alarming, of utmost concern.[6] Many countries have laws addressing transplant tourism and organ trafficking abroad. However, Australia does not.
Aim
The object is to inform the Australian Transplant Nurses Association (TNA) of the legal and ethical issues surrounding transplant tourism from Australia in order to allow the Association to develop policies on the matter.
Body
The Constitution of the TNA provides that one of the objects of the Association is to contribute to national policy in respect of organ transplantation.[7] The Charter of the Association provides that one of its objectives is to respond to issues affecting the practice of organ transplantation.[8] The TNA Strategic Plan 2025 sets out a mission to explore and promote professional and ethical issues.[9]
An Australian Parliamentary Committee in November 2018 produced a report on organ trafficking and transplant tourism with recommendations. One recommendation was mandatory reporting by health professionals, to an appropriate authority, knowledge that a person under their care has received a commercial transplant or one sourced from a non-consenting donor, whether in Australia or overseas. Another recommendation was that there be an amendment to existing legislation to prohibit trafficking in human organs which would apply whether the trafficking occurred within or outside Australia. To date, the recommendations of the Report have not been implemented.
Conclusion
With transplant tourism and organ trafficking abroad, there is a problem. And there are solutions. Information about the issues would assist TNA in getting engaged in the issues.
Australia
Australian Government response to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee report: Migration Amendment (Overseas Organ Transplant Disclosure and Other Measures) Bill 2023 September 2024
Recommendation 7 – Compassion, Not Commerce
The Sub-Committee recommends that the Australian Government amend the Criminal Code Act 1995 and any other relevant legislation insofar as offences relating to organ trafficking:
include trafficking in human organs, including the solicitation of a commercial organ transplant
apply to any Australian citizen, resident or body corporate
apply regardless of whether the proscribed conduct occurred either within or outside of the territory of Australia; apply regardless of the nationality or residence of the victim, and
apply regardless of the existence, or lack thereof, of equivalent laws in the jurisdiction in which the offending conduct occurred.[10]
Response: The Australian Government accepts this recommendation in principle.[11]
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom in 2022 amended its Human Tissue Act to give extraterritorial effect applying to nationals and permanent residents to the prohibition in that Act against commercial dealings in human materials for transplantations.[12] The UK in 2024 enacted a regulation (The Human Tissue Act 2004 (Supply of Information about Transplants) Regulations 2024, Section 4), requiring transplant nurses who become aware, in the course of their profession, of an organ transplant having taken place outside the United Kingdom, where the organ recipient is either a UK national or habitual resident, to report to a government authority detailed information about both the organ recipient and the organ source.[13]

Poster presentations occurred during the Conference lunch hours. There were four presentations on the Thursday lunch hour and two presentations on the Friday lunch hour.

I asked each of the other five presenters whether they had received a request from the organizers to send the organizers their posters in advance of the Conference so that the organizers could determine whether the posters met the organization’s institutional guidelines. All of five of them indicated to me that they had received no such request.

I further asked each of the five whether they had made any requests to the organizers about what the organizers wanted to see in terms of the format or content of their posters. The answers I received was that all requests were answered and addressed only size and orientation.

I also asked the other five whether they had received any instructions or warnings or advice about what should or should not be said during the poster presentations. All of them said they had received no such communication.

So, it was apparent that the justification the organizers gave for withdrawing my speaker invitation, that all poster presenters had to be treated alike, was false. I was being treated differently. The withdrawal of the speaker invitation had some other undisclosed explanation.

The Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Perth in March 2024 sent letters to elected officials to prevent attendance at a dance performance. The letter stated:

“I am writing to you to stop any Liberal MLC [Member of the Legislative Council and MLA [Member of the Legislative Assembly] from attending the so-called artistic performance ‘Shen Yun’, which takes place at His Majesty’s ‘theater from 19 to 23 March, 2024. …

This performance is organized by the affiliated institution of the cult Falun Gong, which has nothing to do with religion. The cult fabricates and propagates anti-humanity and anti-science fallacies. It also vigorously engages in anti-China propaganda aimed at destabilizing Chinese society and overthrowing the Chinese government. As early as 1999, the Chinese government lawfully banned the Falun Gong cult.

The so-called ‘Shen Yun’ performance is fundamentally nothing but a political tool used by Falun Gong cult under the guise of ‘spreading Chinese culture’, to conduct anti-China propaganda, expand its influence and amass wealth. It tarnishes and distorts traditional Chinese chattier, deceives and harms the mind of the audience, and in the long run. does harm to China-Australia relations as well as China-WA [Western Australia] cooperation.

As a result, I kindly request you to make sure that no Liberal MLC and MLA would propagate or attend the performance any more.

Your cooperation would be highly appreciated.

Long Dingbin

Consul General of the people’s Republic of China in Perth.”

The letter is filled with inaccuracies. For instance, there was no law in 1999 or since banning the practice of Falun Gong. There was only a Chinese Communist Party announcement telling the Chinese population to stop practising the exercises.

However, the reason this letter is mentioned here is not to rebut its inaccuracies but rather to note its tenor and vocabulary. It is not that different in tenor and vocabulary from the final e-mail from the Transplant Nurses Association.

The Chinese Consulate refers to a dance performance as a political tool. The final e-mail from the Transplant Nurses Association counsels against my political grandstanding.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is accepted everywhere, applies everywhere. It is not political grandstanding or a political tool. Drawing attention to the mass murder of innocents, providing information about the need to put in place standards and mechanisms to prevent their continuation and bring the perpetrators to justice are not politics. They are human rights. Respect for human rights is not a factional issue; it is universal.

Accusations of human rights violations can sometimes be political. Sometimes violators accuse those they identify or imagine as politically opposed to the violators to be guilty of human rights violations in order to discredit their actual or perceived opposition. That is indeed the case with the Chinese Communist Party and practitioners of Falun Gong. The Party fantasized a political component to this practice, even though there is none. What triggered this Party paranoia was the widespread popularity of the practice before the repression, the connection of the practice with Chinese traditions, in contrast to the ideology of the Party which is a Western import, and the spirituality of the practice, in contrast to the Party, which is atheist. The accusations of the Party against the practitioners were, of course, not those, but rather a wide variety of fantasized barbarities and cruelties.

Here, as elsewhere, the difference between fantasy and reality is the facts. The accusations of the Party against the practice of Falun Gong have no factual foundation. One independent investigator after another has found the victimization of practitioners by the Party to be certain, beyond reasonable doubt. Simply repeating these evidence-based findings is not political. Trying to suppress them is.

In the absence of the lack of a clear indication from the Transplant Nurses Association why they did what they did, there are two overlapping explanations for their behaviour. One is that the leadership of the Transplant Nurses Association has become a vehicle for transnational repression. Whether they are reacting to requests and demands coming to them directly or indirectly from the Chinese Communist Party or have internalized Chinese Communist Party propaganda to the point where it has become their own point of view, the result is the same.

The fact that so much has happened to me in Australia despite the relatively small time I have spent in Australia makes me wonder and worry about the extent to which people who live in Australia all the time are subject to transnational repression. Transnational repression in Australia appears to be a major problem.

The other explanation for the behaviour of the Transplant Nurses Association is a split which has developed in the global transplant profession. Transplant volumes shot up astronomically in China in the early 2000s shortly after the Chinese Communist Party announcement of the repression of the practice of Falun Gong and the mass arbitrary indefinite detention of those Falun Gong practitioners who refused the Party dictates to stop the exercises, recant their beliefs, renounce the practice and denounce their colleagues.

At the time David Kilgour and I first published our work in July 2006, the Chinese health system was running four different transplant registries one each for liver, kidney, heart and lung. Individual hospitals reported their transplant volumes directly to the registries. The liver transplant registry was located in Hong Kong and posted publicly accessible aggregate volumes. The other three registries were located in mainland China – kidney and heart in Beijing and lung in Wuxi. The data on the other three sites was accessible only to those who had registry issued login names and passwords.

One could see, indeed one can still see, since the postings have been archived, that liver transplant volumes shot up dramatically shortly after the mass arbitrary indefinite detention of Falun Gong.[14] The official Chinese Government explanation for transplant volumes at the time was that all transplants came from donors.[15] Yet, China did not have a donation system and did not even allow live donations except from one close relative to another.

This huge jump in publicly reported transplant volumes made the Chinese Government realize that their narrative of sourcing organs from donors was no longer tenable. From December 2005, there were conflicting statements from different Chinese ministries on the sources of organs for transplants.[16] In November 2006, shortly after the initial publication of the report David Kilgour and I wrote, the Government of China as a whole agreed to a switched narrative, stating instead that organs for transplants were coming almost entirely from prisoners sentenced to death who donated their organs before their executions to atone for their crimes.[17]

This narrative shift, though, created its own problems, concerns from the global transplant profession. The Transplantation Society noted in a November 2006 statement China’s prominence in organ transplantation, and observed that “Almost all organs are likely to have been obtained from executed prisoners.”[18]

It would have been more accurate to have said “Almost all organs are likely to have been obtained from prisoners of conscience killed through organ extraction.” The new Chinese government narrative shift was not plausible for at least two reasons.

One reason was that the number of prisoners sentenced to death would have to be huge, a multiple of the organs transplanted, since not every person can be a source of organs for every patient. For transplantation to be effective, the organ source and the patient would need to have blood type compatibility and ideally even tissue type compatibility.

Another reason was that Chinese law requires execution within seven days of sentence.[19] Chinese officials do not necessarily respect all laws punctiliously. Yet, it would be wrong to assume that laws which support the narrative of transplant reform are respected and that only laws which do not respect that narrative are not.

A third reason is that China at the time had no national organ distribution system. The number of those sentenced to death would not only have to be huge, but to be huge everywhere in China, to allow for transplants everywhere. Falun Gong practitioner detention numbers were huge everywhere. There is no evidence that this was true for those sentenced to death for their crimes.

The Transplantation Society did, nonetheless, attribute the significant increase in volume to sourcing from executed prisoners for two reasons. One was that there was no independent investigation by The Transplantation Society at the time about what were the sources of organs; they were just relying on Government of China statements.

The other was that The Transplantation Society did not distinguish between execution, a legal act following a court death sentence, and killing. Even though, of course, the Government of China and its legal system knew the difference, killing and execution, for many non-lawyers, are synonymous.

The November 2006 statement of The Transplantation Society included guidelines from its Ethics Committee. One guideline provided that studies involving patient data or samples from recipients of organs or tissues from executed prisoners should not be accepted for presentation at The Transplantation Society Meetings. Another guideline provided that collaboration of The Transplantation Society with clinical studies should not be considered if the study involves recipients of organs or tissues from executed prisoners.

The Transplantation Society, through a combination of advocacy and action, eventually, in 2015, generated a shift in the Chinese Government narrative of sourcing of organs from executed prisoners back to its original narrative of sourcing organs from donations. In the interim, with the collaboration of foreign transplant professionals, China enacted in 2007 a prohibition on sourcing organs without consent or for payment and a requirement that living donations come only from relatives,[20] initiated a donation system in 2010[21] and designated in 2013 a short list of specific hospitals allowed to do transplants.[22]

What specifically triggered the narrative shift back to donations was events of 2014. In that year in July, The Transplantation Society refused to allow 35 Chinese participants to attend its Congress in San Francisco. For an October Hangzhou, China transplant conference, many invited overseas transplant experts failed to attend.[23] The Government then announced in December that starting January 1, 2015, China would stop sourcing organs from executed prisoners.[24]

It is typical of the ignorance and misinformation about China that this announcement is often stated to be a legal ban. However, like the repression of Falun Gong, the announcement of the ending on January 1st, 2015 of sourcing of organs from executed prisoners, was not the result of any change in the law. It was just a Chinese Communist Party/ Government of China assertion.

The December 2014 announcement, as well as not indicating a change in the law, was contradictory about ending sourcing of organs from prisoners. In addition to asserting that “China will stop using executed prisoners as a source of organ transplants”, the statement asserted that “Prisoners are still among the qualified candidates for donations”.

The December 2014 explained the contradiction by asserting that prisoner organs “will be registered in the computerized system [for organ donations] instead of being used for private trades”. Even if that were so, entering data into a computer system about prisoner organ donations is far different from ending prisoner organ donations.

The changes in the Chinese transplant system from 2006 to 2015 were all cosmetic. During the interim and since, the primary source of organs remained prisoners of conscience. The Government of China, though they stated, in, as noted, a contradictory fashion, that they had stopped sourcing organs from executed prisoners, never stated they had stopped sourcing organs from prisoners of conscience. Indeed, they never stated they had started harvesting organs from that source.

Though, after 2006, a law was enacted prohibiting organ sourcing without consent, a 1984 law allowed sourcing organs from prisoners without their consent or the consent of their families as long as the bodies were unclaimed.[25] The December 2014 contradictory announcement on the cessation of organ sourcing from prisoners observed that “it is questionable whether the prisoners are making the agreement [to donate their organs] out of their own will”.

The statement noted that the 1984 law “has become an unspoken rule” that “using their organs” (the organs of prisoners) without their consent or the consent of their family is acceptable “to ease the demand in the market”.

The December 2014 statement indicated that the 1984 and 2007 laws would be amended “to make voluntary donations the only source of organs”. Yet, as of the date of writing, in November 2025, the 1984 law remains unrepealed, remains, in the words of the December 2014 announcement, an unspoken rule that using the organs of prisoners without consent is acceptable.

In China, when it comes to organ sourcing, there are spoken rules. And there are unspoken rules. When it comes to finding out what is happening with organ sourcing in China, having regard to the spoken rules is insufficient. Having regard to the unspoken rules is necessary.

One of the unspoken rules is that organs can be sourced from prisoners without consent to meet the demand for organs. Moreover, that demand is inexhaustible. So, it is an unspoken rule that the mass sourcing of organs from prisoners without consent is acceptable.

The Chinese State Council in 2023 updated the 2007 regulation on organ donation and transplantation.[26] In the 2023 update, the 1984 law is still not mentioned. Nor does the new law say anything about prisoners.

The Government of China has produced data showing significant numbers of donations from their donation system. Yet, investigations have shown that the donation numbers the Government has produced were “systematically manipulated and falsified” and that there are “low rates of consent for organ donation”.[27]

There was little incentive to make charitable organ donations when organs were being sold at high prices to transplant tourists and wealthy and well-connected Chinese, despite the law to the contrary. As well, there is a Chinese cultural tradition that the dead should be buried or cremated whole.

The Chinese government announcement that they were stopping the sourcing of organs from executed prisoners generated a split in the transplant profession. There were those who felt that, as of January 1, 2015, Chinese transplant abuse had ended because the Chinese Government had said what their foreign transplant interlocutors wanted to hear and made the legal and institutional changes their foreign transplant interlocutors had suggested.

There were others who observed that, despite the superficialities of Chinese change, investigations showed that the actual abuse continued. Unless and until the Chinese government, for transplantation, respected the World Health Organization principles of transparency, traceability and openness to scrutiny[28] and respect for those principles showed that the abuse had stopped, those on the other side were convinced that the abuse was continuing.

The conflict between those two positions was displayed at a United States House of Representatives Congressional hearing on Chinese organ transplant abuse held in Washington DC in June 2016. Dr. Francis Delmonico, a former president of The Transplantation Society and an active interlocutor with the Government of China on transplant reform, and I were witnesses. Committee co-chair, Representative Chris Smith asked Dr. Delmonico:

“In 2016, how do you independently verify [Chinese government claims that there is no transplant abuse], when there has been such a backdrop of terrible duplicity, lies, and deception on the part of this government? Trust and verify; how do you do it?”

Dr. Delmonico responded in part: “I’m not here to verify, that’s not my job.”[29]

It would have been unreasonable to have expected Dr. Delmonico to have independently repeated all the research on Chinese organ transplant abuse that had already been done. Yet, it would not have been unreasonable to expect the doctor to be familiar with that research, which was unambiguous, all pointing in the same direction, that the abuse continued.

The answer, at best, of Dr. Delmonico was incomplete. A proper answer would have been, “I’m not here to verify that transplant abuse in China has stopped, that’s not my job. It is the job of the Government of China to verify that transplant abuse has stopped. And they have not done that yet.”

Dr. Delmonico, those who worked with him and those who agreed with him have had, one can assume, the best of intentions. Nonetheless, objectively what they have done is to help the Chinese transplant abusers construct a more plausible form of denial for that abuse than the abusers were able to construct on their own.

The China Tribunal in 2020 wrote that those interacting with the Government of China should appreciate that they “are interacting with a criminal state”. Foreign transplant professionals who believe that the Chinese legal and policy reforms are more than cosmetic have failed to muster this appreciation.

China’s Great Leap Forward, in 1959 to 1961, killed 23 to 30 million innocents.[30] China’s cultural revolution killed an estimated 1.6 million victims.[31] The number killed at the TianAnMen Square massacre of 1989 was, according to the British Embassy in Beijing, at least 10,000.[32] Those unfamiliar with the history of Chinese Communist Party mass atrocities are ill placed to appreciate the evidence of this particular mass atrocity, the mass killing of prisoners of conscience for their organs.

The split in the profession is highlighted by a policy of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) published in 2022.[33] That policy, issued more than seven years after the Government of China claimed that sourcing organs from executed prisoners had ceased, states:

“Given the body of evidence that the government of the People’s Republic of China stands alone in continuing to systematically support the procurement of organs or tissue from executed prisoners, submissions related to transplantation and involving either organs or tissue from human donors in the People’s Republic of China will not be accepted by ISHLT for presentation or publication.”[34]

The Transplantation Society, meanwhile, has gone in the completely opposite direction. The 2006 ethics statement the Society posted on their website is gone since October 2024, a change introduced by current president John Fung, an American transplant surgeon with a history of training in the US foreign transplant surgeons.[35]

Well, is that split in the profession the explanation for the strange behaviour of the Australian Transplant Nurses Association? Is the explanation transnational repression? Is it both?

We are left to guess. But whatever the answer is, transnational repression in Australia is serious and a much more serious effort has to be made to combat it. A good start would be a national inquiry, undertaken by the Senate of the Australian Parliament.

Also, the fact that Chinese authorities are saying what some people in the global transplantation profession want to hear should not justify a claim that Chinese transplant abuse has ended. Nor should the making of cosmetic changes to the Chinese system without the Chinese authorities’ allowing independent verification of organ sourcing.

If there is more of an effort in Australia to combat transnational repression and less gullibility about the changes to the Chinese transplant system the authorities claim to have made, then perhaps, in a future conference of the Australian Transplant Nurses Association, another speaker could address the scourge of cross border transplant abuse without being accused of political grandstanding. One can hope that day will come.

REFERENCES

Chinese Transnational Repression in Australia and Forced Organ Harvesting

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