ExclusiveProtests Spark Across China Almost Daily in May

Welcome to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Our top story. Mass protests are breaking out daily in regions across China, and angry protesters have been spotted clashing with police officers. More on what's driving the social unrest. Harvard University is under a microscope over its cooperation with Chinese entities of concern. Lawmakers are pressing the Ivy League school to answer questions about military tech research and organ harvesting. Washington has fundamentally changed its approach to the Chinese Communist Party in the past decade. More on how and why. Tariffs and Trump 45 were the first real, I think, challenge to the Chinese Communist Party. And U.S. Health Secretary RFK Jr. released a video criticizing influence from China over the WHO. This comes as the U.S. prepares to withdraw from the organization. Mass protests are breaking out in several regions of China this month. They're driven by a number of grievances, and angry Chinese protesters have been seen clashing with police officers. In northern China's Hebei province, close to Beijing, thousands of villagers began a protest in front of local officials on Sunday. All of them had been forced to relocate after local authorities demolished their homes and took the land to build a state-owned airport. Now, resentment is bubbling over. The villagers took to the streets, voicing their dissatisfaction with the small apartments they were placed in as compensation. The protest has continued for more than a week. Over in southern China's Guangdong province, construction workers packed the office of one residential compound, complaining about overdue paychecks. The protests continued from daytime into the night, with multiple workers even sleeping on the floor in the office. In the aftermath of sky-high trade terrors between the U.S. and China, exporters are also protesting slowed business conditions. Hundreds of merchants in western China's Xinjiang region gathered over the weekend. That's to demand refunds for the fees they paid to set up booths at a trade fair, when the event proved unprofitable. Some of them reported that among 300 merchants, only three orders were secured across the entire fair. Police were sent to surround the protesters. A number of other protests also sparked last week. In one case, hundreds of unemployed workers gathered in front of a state building in northern China last Thursday, demanding social benefits they were entitled to, but that had been delayed. Another protest was held by victims of investment fraud. In central China, hundreds of people were seen clashing with police officers on Wednesday. They said their hard-earned savings had been stolen, after a company's executives conned them and disappeared with their investment money. Social unrest is rising across the board inside China. It's spurred on by poor economic conditions and suffering under the Chinese regime. We'll keep you updated as the situation develops. Lawmakers are raising concerns about Harvard's collaboration with Chinese entities of concern. In a 14-page letter, they questioned Harvard's president about collaborative research on military tech and organ transplants. NGD's Malina Weisskopf has more. Lawmakers are mainly worried about national security, the national security being at risk and human rights issues going on in China, the U.S. having involvement in that, not directly, but through Ivy League colleges such as Harvard, carrying on these partnerships with those Chinese entities of concern. So one main concern that the lawmakers raised in that letter that you mentioned is Harvard's partnership with Chinese entities, specifically that the U.S. has blacklisted. So in the letter, they mentioned one specific organization, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. That's a group that's involved in the genocide of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, which is why it was blacklisted by the U.S. in the first place. Now, this organization, the XPCC, joined Harvard at a Harvard-China health partnership as recently as 2024. Now, Harvard didn't publicize their involvement in this event, but lawmakers say that Chinese agencies actually mentioned XPCC's involvement with Harvard on this event specifically. Now, also they're raising concerns about recent organ transplant research that Harvard has worked with Chinese partners on, saying that there are seven papers that have been listed between 2022 and 2024, including one that was titled Transplantation of a Beating Heart of First and Man. Now, this is concerning for lawmakers because it's well documented that China has been involved in the forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience. We know that the House passed several bills over the years condemning that forced organ harvesting, even as recently as this passed Congress just a few weeks ago. So they're worried about research collaboration with Chinese universities. Those Chinese universities that they mentioned aren't blacklisted by the U.S. as of right now, but they're engaging in research on sensitive technology like artificial intelligence and robotics, things with military applications. Now, we know that this is becoming more of a focus for the House Education Committee and Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party because this is a part of a string of reports. Remember last week we reported that lawmakers wrote a letter to Duke University's president over its China-based campus DKU, which is connected to Wuhan Institute because of that same collaboration on that sensitive technology research. And before that, there was also a report from within Stanford about the CCP suppressing freedom of speech of students and using coercion tactics specifically to target Chinese students with families back in China in order to try to get them to cooperate with those CCP officials and sharing sensitive technology. So it's clear that lawmakers want to make this a focus and they're giving the Harvard president until June 2nd to respond to their questions that they've raised in this letter. Two U.S. bills designed to counter the Chinese Communist Party recently passed in Congress. It's one of many signs that America has fundamentally changed its approach toward the CCP compared to 10 years ago. We spoke to Jan Jekielek, host of American Thought Leaders, to discuss. Jan Jekielek, thank you so much for joining us. Great to have you on the show. So good to be here. I think I've never interviewed you, so this is quite fun. Well, recently we saw the House pass two bills aimed at countering China. One was called the Falun Gong Protection Act that passed by a unanimous voice vote, and the other was the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act that passed 406 to 1. The one vote against it was Republican Massey. But how significant is this, two bills in three days? Well, it's enormously significant. For someone who's been following this issue for almost 20 years now, it was basically in 2006 that I was convinced that this was actually a real thing, because this forced organ harvesting or really murder of innocent prisoners of conscience for their organs, it sounds like this wild conspiracy theory. It sounds like something made up to make someone look bad. It's something that people don't want to ever believe could be happening. According to David Mace, one of the lead researchers, an evil yet to be seen on this planet. Basically, especially at the federal level, people have been avoiding this issue, especially in the United States, for quite a long time. It's only really been in the last few years that this issue has really gotten play at the level of laws as opposed to resolutions where it's been touched on in the past. So hugely significant. There's actually even a third bill that was actually signed into law in Arizona. It's a that basically prevents Medicare or insurance from paying for people getting transplants in China. Arizona becomes the fifth state to enact such legislation. So it's actually a huge weak for these issues in the U.S. It does seem like there's almost a change in the way the U.S. is doing policy or highlighting human rights. In the past, you often hear the U.S. talking about it but not really taking legislative action, as you're mentioning. It seems there's almost a third bill in the works here as well, kind of in line of what you're just talking about in terms of Arizona. This bill is interesting because it does what these five bills that have been passed in the states, most recently Arizona, do, which is basically prevent people from being paid by insurance and Medicare for transplants they would get in communist China in an attempt to reduce that transplant tourism side of the whole operation. I want to dig into the bipartisan support, because as you just mentioned, the House Select Committee on the CCP is a bipartisan group. In terms of support for these bills so far have been quite bipartisan. It's actually interesting. The China issue, for years and years, for decades, it was almost like a bipartisan consensus on the Kissinger Doctrine, this idea that, of course, me being a little bit glib here, but if we pump enough money into China, they're going to become like us. It's going to become a democracy. Somewhere around that time, 2016, 2017, 2018, there was the beginnings of a major shift in the understanding of communist China and this realization that they really weren't playing fair, that they were really against America. Even a lot of the policies that were developed during Trump 45, including some of the tariffs, the tariffs and Trump 45 were the first real challenge to the Chinese Communist Party. They're forcing them to do something they didn't want to do. There's this idea that you don't really want to hurt the feelings of the Chinese. You don't want to have them lose face. They're very, very good at setting things up in a way that would always work out their version of the win-win, which is two wins for me, so to speak. This was the first time. The Biden administration actually kept some of these policies, and it did represent a major shift. So I do think there is a bipartisan perception. That's why this legislation is passing. The Falun Gong Protection Act unanimously, the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act, one vote missing. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just delivered sharp criticism of the World Health Organization, or WHO, calling it a dying organization. He highlighted far-reaching Chinese influence over the WHO as a key reason for the U.S. decision to resign. A message was played for global health leaders in Geneva on Tuesday. Take a look. This all became obvious during the COVID pandemic when the WHO, under pressure from China, suppressed reports at critical junctures of human-to-human transmission and then worked with China to promote the fiction that COVID originated from bats or pangolins rather than from a Chinese government-sponsored research at a bio lab in Wuhan. Current reports indicate that the number of deaths for COVID-19 reach at least 7 million worldwide. The Trump administration slammed the WHO for its handling of the global health crisis and lack of independence from China. When President Trump took office in January, he quickly signed an executive order to pull the U.S. out of the WHO and cut U.S. funding for it. Trump attempted to resign from the WHO in 2020 during his first term. But due to a one-year resignation notice, former President Biden was able to withdraw that decision when he took office. Notably, China's population is over three times larger than America's, but China contributes less money to the organization. Looking back on 2020, the WHO also ignored warnings from Taiwan about COVID-19 when it first emerged. The island shared its concerns with the organization weeks before China admitted the outbreak was happening. Despite Taiwan's openness to cooperate, the island has also been repeatedly blocked from joining the WHO. That's largely due to pressure from China, which continues to influence the organization's decisions. Meanwhile, the recent meeting in Geneva focused on how the WHO plans to handle the upcoming funding gaps left by the U.S. resignation. The U.S. is set to officially withdraw from the WHO in 2026 following the required one-year notice. Coming up, Taiwan President Lai Ching-de marks one year since taking office. He says Taiwan is willing to communicate with the Chinese Communist regime, but also intends to strengthen its own defense. The Chinese Communist Party's espionage has reached a new level, one never before seen in the West. A retired senior intelligence officer had this to say. They've leveraged their society. They've leveraged their state-owned enterprises. They've leveraged companies through things like the national intelligence law of China to make them responsive and responsible for collecting information globally. More details after the break here on China In Focus. Welcome back to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Taiwan President Lai Ching-de says Taiwan is willing to communicate with the Chinese Communist regime, but he added that the island would also strengthen its defense. He spoke on the first anniversary of his presidency. We will continue to strengthen our national defense capabilities, whether it is through foreign military procurement or building resilience in our national defense. Secondly, we will continue to strengthen our economic development, grow in Taiwan, and sell our products to the world. We won't put all our eggs in one basket. Lai also outlined other topics, including national security. He pledged to continue strengthening Taiwan's defense through both international military procurement and domestic innovation. On trade policy, Lai highlighted Taiwan's strategy of deepening economic ties with democratic partners beyond the United States. He also spoke of the expanding presence of American companies AMD, NVIDIA, and others in Taiwan. He said they can strengthen the island's economy. The Chinese Communist Party's espionage efforts have reached a new level, one never before seen in the West. We spoke to Nicholas Eftemiadis, a retired senior intelligence officer, to discuss. He's also the author of the book Chinese Intelligence Operations and Tactics. You do just have your second edition book where you cover over 850 known cases of Chinese espionage operations inside the U.S. You use that to showcase China's whole-of-society approach, as you just mentioned. Give us a sense of what exactly that is. How does that compare to, say, the way other countries do espionage? It's completely different. It's not expansive. I teach this to counterintelligence agents all the time, that there's a very traditional way Western intelligence services and others have operated. That is basically within their own lanes, targeting foreign governments, targeting foreign military technology, targeting foreign secrets. That has been the standard of espionage for more than half a century. China has broken that mold completely. They've leveraged their society, they've leveraged their state-owned enterprises, they've leveraged companies through things like the national intelligence law of China to make them responsive and responsible for collecting information globally. This is not just the traditional secrets. Now it's economic information, it's social information, it's societal information, it's technologies. It really is political views. Gosh, we've seen so much of that. It's tracking political leadership in countries in Belgium, in Europe, in the United States. It's vastly expansive from what we've been used to as espionage services. As you mentioned in the book, there's that theory of the thousand grains of sand, which is how China or Chinese Communist regime, I should say, conducts their espionage. With all the different cases though, 850 plus, what case stood out the most to you? That's a tough one. It sort of depends why. I think what stood out to me most is two things. Xu Yanjun, who was the Ministry of State Security officer that the FBI lured into going to Belgium and then had him arrested and deported to the United States. It did because he had hundreds of thousands of documents on his server from his phone, Apple phone, ironically stored in the United States. Including letters to his mistress, comments about his leadership, his personnel file from the Ministry of State Security. No one's seen this in the intelligence ever. It was virtually a treasure trove of information. That case certainly stands out for how much he was doing, how many contacts he had, how many people he was looking, trying to recruit. At the same time, extraordinary reach on the person. His creativeness and his innovation in combining cyber collection activities with human collection, specifically against the French aerospace company Saffron and against General Electric in the United States. Extraordinary trade craft that we learned by the MSS and doing a very professional job from the capture of this guy. Then there were also the new cases that have come about. Just in the past couple of years, we see Thomas Chow and Patrick Way, who's currently being tried in San Diego. Both enlisted Navy personnel. Corbyn Schultz, just convicted intelligence sergeant in the U.S. Army. And we see this different form of trade craft evolving, literally managing and running people, approaching them, recruiting them, paying them, doing everything online. Perfectly safe for the case officers involved. As you mentioned, given China's whole of society approach, you lay out six steps at the end that the U.S. and allies could take to begin to counter this. So give us a sense of those. Well, I think, as I mentioned in the book, that former Director Ray of the FBI would talk about how they have two new cases of Chinese espionage a day, once every 12 hours. And that includes economic espionage, of course. So times 365, 730 cases a year. Each one will take months to get through. So my point in the book is, you're not going to arrest your way out of the situation. You need to find another way. That's when I come up with some ideas listed on, let's take a new approach on how we deal with this, because what we're doing isn't working, period. So part of that strategy is developing an overall strategy for the United States. Asking ourselves, asking our political leadership, where do you see this relationship in 15 years? How do we make it into a relationship that's actually mutually beneficial and work towards it? And then holding them in a sense of deterrence, doing this with our allies, because it's going to be much more difficult for the U.S. to do it alone. But using leverage and using deterrence to tell the CCP, your economic espionage is unacceptable. That theft of that massive transfer of wealth is unacceptable. Your cyber activities are unacceptable. And every time you do that, you target, as in salt typhoon, right, target our critical infrastructure. Every time we detect that, they're going to be penalties. We're going to kick state-owned enterprises off the stock exchange. We're going to boycott you. We're going to sanction you. You know, for everyone who steals technology, there's going to be a no-fly list, just like there is for terrorism. No, you're not going to, if you're a professor and you're stealing, you know, research, guess what? You can't come to Europe. You can't come to the United States. You can't publish articles there. And for an academic, that's pretty, that's pretty devastating for a career. So those are the types of measures that we have to put in place to assure deterrence and push China towards acting in a more acceptable legal way, you know, like the rest of the world. Definitely a lot here for sure. Nick Eftimianis, as always, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me again. It's been a pleasure. That's all for today's China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. If you have any feedback on the show or have something you'd like to see us cover, send us an email at chinainfocusandntd.com. We'd love to hear from you. For on the clock original news coverage, visit us at ntd.com or download our NTD app. Thanks for watching. See you tomorrow.