 José Nuñez, medical officer in charge of global organ transplantation at the World Health Organization, noted that China is reaching global standards in organ transplantation, and believed that in a few years, China will be leading the field.Ethan Gutmann, a journalist and China expert, concluded that organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience became prevalent in the northwestern province of Xinjiang during the 1990s, when members of the Uyghur ethnic group were targeted in security crackdowns and “strike hard campaigns.”

By 1999, Gutmann says that organ harvesting in Xinjiang began to decline precipitously, just as overall rates of organ transplantation nationwide were rising.The same year, the Chinese government launched a nationwide suppression of the Falun Gong spiritual group.