Investigation Finds Chinese Communist Party Control Extends Across China’s Organ Transplant System

NEW REPORT IDENTIFIES TRANSPLANT SURGEONS HOLDING SENIOR PARTY POSITIONS AND
QUESTIONS WHETHER CHINA’S CLAIMS OF REFORM CAN BE BELIEVED
News highlights

Source : https://endtransplantabuse.org/media-release-report-red-flags-ccp-control/

• New investigative report reveals how Chinese Communist Party (CCP) control is embedded throughout China’s medical establishment and organ transplant sector, raising serious questions over official claims of comprehensive reform.
• CCP control over hospitals has intensified since 2018. Party Secretaries are senior to hospital directors and medical staff.
• China’s transplant oversight bodies, hospital ethics committees, organ procurement organisations and professional associations all operate within a CCP-controlled Party-state hierarchy. There are no independent mechanisms for supervision and accountability.
• Doctors who are CCP members, including transplant surgeons, take a lifelong oath of loyalty, obedience and secrecy to the CCP that can conflict with their ethical duties to patients and the public.
• Researchers identified 19 cases across 12 provinces in which transplant surgeons or centre directors are CCP members, including six who hold senior Party leadership positions within their hospitals and others who are internationally prominent.

[October 20, 2026] — A new investigation published today details how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is embedded throughout China’s medical establishment and organ transplant sector. The study identified 19 cases across 12 Chinese provinces in which transplant surgeons or centre directors are also CCP members, raising questions about political control, independent oversight and claims of reform in China’s organ transplant system.

In six of those cases, the individual was the hospital’s Party Secretary or Deputy Secretary. Several of the identified surgeons and centre directors also lead programmes or hospitals in regions with large populations of prisoners of conscience, including Uyghurs in Xinjiang and Falun Gong practitioners in northeastern China.

The findings and surgeon profiles are detailed in  Chinese Communist Party Control: The Party’s Hold on China’s Medical Profession and Transplant Sector. The investigation was authored by China researcher Sarah Cook and published by the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC). The report is the first in a new “Red Flags” investigative series.

The study maps the extent of CCP authority over China’s organ transplant system. It examines how pervasive political control, enforced Party loyalty and lack of independent oversight undermine claims of reform. In these conditions, unethical organ sourcing could be continuing yet remain concealed.

“Every entity that Chinese officials present to international audiences as ostensibly independent or as a ‘third party’ is in fact a node in the same Party-controlled system,” said Cook.

Drawing on Chinese hospital websites, government sources, academic papers and an interview with a former doctor from Liaoning Province, the report documents how, under official regulations, the Party secretary outranks the hospital director and clinical leadership. It shows how Party

penetration of public hospitals has intensified since 2018 under directives from the CCP Central Committee.

Doctors who are CCP members take the same lifelong oath as other cadres: to carry out the Party’s decisions, observe its discipline, protect its secrets, remain loyal to the Party and “never betray the Party.” The report finds that violating these commitments can carry more severe personal and professional consequences than breaching medical ethics.

 

“The entire chain of activity—from the identification of a potential organ donor, through procurement and ethical review, to allocation and transplantation—occurs within institutions operating under the CCP’s direct political leadership. The circularity is total,” said Cook.

No external point of verification

The investigation finds that CCP members also dominate the leadership of bodies that oversee transplantation, including the National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee (NODTC), the Chinese Medical Association and hospital ethics committees. Organ procurement organisations operate inside hospitals and under those hospitals’ Party leadership.

The result, the report argues, is a system in which the institutions that would be expected to identify or investigate unethical organ sourcing remain accountable to the same political authority that directs the medical establishment.

This structure, according to the investigation, undermines assertions of independent regulation and leaves no external mechanism through which claims of voluntary organ sourcing, ethical compliance or genuine reform can be reliably verified.

Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers, clinical ethicist and Chair of ETAC’s International Advisory Board said, “Chinese transplant doctors are placed in an impossible situation. Their professional ethical obligations can be overruled by state-enforced demands for CCP fealty. In this CCP- controlled system, we cannot accept assurances of reform, as no part of China’s transplant oversight system operates independently of the Party-State hierarchy.”

Incentives run against disclosure

The report also examines the consequences for Chinese medical professionals who might encounter evidence of unethical organ sourcing or seek to expose it.

It contrasts the Party-dominated structure in China with systems elsewhere in which independent regulators, professional bodies and whistleblower protections create an expectation to report violations.

In China, a doctor who encountered evidence of non-voluntary sourcing would face the hospital Party committee as the first line of authority. Raising concerns outside the institution could expose the doctor to Party disciplinary action, extralegal detention under the liuzhi system, or criminal charges for revealing state secrets, according to the report.

A former internal medicine doctor from Liaoning Province, now outside China, told researchers:

“Chinese people live in an environment filled with the CCP’s culture. Under the terrifying pressure of the CCP, everyone knows—if you yourself dare to speak up, you’d be the next to disappear.”

The investigation concludes that these combined pressures create a system in which the incentives to participate in or conceal potential abuses are structurally stronger than those encouraging medical professionals to protect victims or expose wrongdoing.

It does not treat these conditions as proof that abuses are continuing. Rather, it concludes that the mechanisms needed to enable and conceal such abuses remain in place.

Without institutional independence, transparent oversight and real protection for those who expose wrongdoing, the report argues that official claims of reform in China’s transplant system should not be taken at face value.

Carefully evaluating China’s claims of reform

In March 2020, the independent China Tribunal concluded that forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience had occurred on a substantial scale in China, identifying Falun Gong practitioners as the principal source. It also found evidence of medical testing on detained Uyghurs, raising concerns about their potential use as an organ source.

Cook’s report is the first publication in a new “Red Flags” investigative series addressing potential indicators of ongoing transplant abuse in China between 2020 and 2025. The series comes as international transplantation collaborations with China rise and foreign governments weigh new legislation.

Chinese authorities maintain that donations are voluntary and that the system has been reformed, though no external source has confirmed this.

A 2022 legal advisory report and policy guidance by international law firm Global Rights Compliance has previously flagged legal and human rights risks associated with transplant collaboration involving China.

The new report includes recommendations related to separating CCP political authority from clinical decisions and calls for action from foreign governments and international civil society. This includes medical institutions, journals, and professional societies who collaborate with Chinese hospitals and doctors on transplant-related activities.

Read / download the full report:  https://endtransplantabuse.org/red-flags-investigative-series

Media enquiries:

Susie Hughes, International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China info@endtransplantabuse.org

Report author Sarah Cook available for interview (US time zones)

sarahgcook@proton.me

linkedin.com/in/sarah-cook-1a86636

About The International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC)

The International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC) is a non-partisan, nonprofit organization founded in 2014. The coalition consists of lawyers, academics, ethicists, medical professionals, researchers and human rights advocates dedicated to ending forced organ harvesting in China.

ETAC has become a leading organization on forced organ harvesting, providing a base for initiatives around the world, bringing greater scrutiny and awareness to transplant abuses in China.

Visit  https://endtransplantabuse.org/

About the Author

Sarah Cook is a China human rights researcher, founder of China Rights Analytics and Advising LLC, and author of the UnderReported China newsletter. She previously served as Research Director for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at Freedom House, where she authored five special reports on authoritarianism in China and Beijing’s foreign media influence.

A more detailed bio and her recent writings can be found here:

https://underreportedchina.substack.com/about