Results from a Nationwide Survey on How the CCP is Attacking and Silencing Falun Gong in the United States
Falun Dafa Information Center | June 2026
Key Takeaways
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the world’s foremost perpetrator of transnational repression, deploying surveillance, physical attacks, and other tactics against their targets in the United States and around the world.1 For more than 26 years, the CCP has targeted Americans who practice the Falun Gong spiritual discipline. As millions of people who practice Falun Gong in China face brutal persecution, simply for following their faith and practicing meditation exercises, their American counterparts have also encountered the regime’s repression beyond China’s borders. Since 2023, there has been a notable rise in reports of harassment, violent threats, and other forms of transnational repression targeting American practitioners.
To better understand the current situation and its impact on the community, the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC) conducted an online survey of Falun Gong practitioners in the United States. From September 2025 to March 2026, the FDIC received 1,080 responses from across the country. This report documents the survey results with the aim of raising public awareness and informing government policy responses to this pressing human rights and national security issue. Its key findings include:
- A systematic, escalating campaign on American soil: The CCP is conducting a deliberate and widening campaign of transnational repression against American Falun Gong practitioners, one directed from the highest levels of the regime and documented in 30 states across the country. This report’s findings make clear that what is happening is not a series of isolated incidents, but a coordinated assault on the rights and freedoms of American citizens and residents.
- A nationwide community of American practitioners: The over 1,000 survey respondents who practice Falun Gong reside in 41 states, with the majority being U.S. citizens and highly educated. Nearly half reported having personally experienced persecution in China—including detention, torture, and forced labor—before coming to the United States, where many have faced renewed targeting.
- Surge in repression follows Xi Jinping’s 2022 directive: Survey results show an increase in physical attacks and reports of disinformation in recent years, with nearly half of respondents (48%) experiencing an incident of transnational repression over the past four years. This aligns with instructions issued by Xi to China’s public security organs in 2022 to intensify the global campaign against Falun Gong, especially in the United States.
- More than 600 cases reported since 2020: Drawing on survey responses and other documentation, researchers identified 646 encounters with transnational repression—including cases of physical assault, harassment, property damage, violent threats, surveillance, censorship, and reprisals against relatives in China. These tactics targeted practitioners simply for practicing their faith or engaging in activities like staffing information booths and joining parades.
- Shen Yun Performing Arts as a primary target: The CCP has explicitly named Shen Yun Performing Arts, a classical Chinese dance company founded by Falun Gong practitioners that performs for over one million audience members annually, as a key target for sabotage and discrediting. Performers and staff have faced bomb and mass shooting threats, vehicle tampering, harassment of relatives in China, and diplomatic pressure on theaters to cancel shows.
- Chinese officials involved in more than 130 cases: The People’s Republic of China (PRC) government agencies—including the Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of State Security, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs—were directly involved in 138 of the reported incidents. The repression in these cases included threatening phone calls from Chinese security agents, intimidation of family members in China, and harassment near Chinese consulates. Known CCP proxies based in the United States also engaged in harassment, smear campaigns, and assault.
- American institutions unwittingly enforcing Beijing’s agenda: The CCP’s propaganda and disinformation is increasingly infiltrating American society, deceiving U.S. institutions and opinion leaders into repeating its talking points and excluding Falun Gong practitioners from public life. Respondents reported 92 instances in which they were barred from parades, community events, or national conferences by U.S.-based entities because of their identity as Falun Gong practitioners.
- Resilience amid ongoing fears: The majority of American Falun Gong practitioners report feeling safe to practice their faith and speak out on behalf of those persecuted in China. However, over 60 percent are anxious about the CCP’s surveillance capacity in the United States. Nearly two-thirds of respondents also reported feeling negatively affected by a growing atmosphere of bias and intolerance.
- Gaps in American awareness and enforcement: Many of the cases cited by respondents have gone unpunished due to the anonymity of attackers, absence of reporting by victims, inadequate action by law enforcement, or insufficient laws to protect Americans from a foreign regime undermining their rights and co-opting American institutions. This report’s recommendations outline concrete steps that government, media, civic institutions, and ordinary Americans can take to address these gaps.