(Minghui.org) “China is at war with faith. It is a war they will not win,” said Samuel Brownback, former Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, at this year’s China Forum.

Brownback said that Falun Gong is the religious group that suffers the most severe persecution in China, and he believes the U.S. should show support for the practice. He called on the White House to meet with Falun Gong’s founder Mr. Li Hongzhi and declare that practitioners should have religious freedom.

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation held the annual China Forum in Washington D.C. on October 27 and 28, 2025. Participants included experts, scholars, and policymakers in the economy, trades, foreign affairs, national security, human rights, and political development. The purpose of the Forum is to help Americans understand the nature of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and key issues in U.S.-China relations.

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation held its annual China Forum in the Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington D.C. on October 27 and 28.

Brownback: The US Should Support Falun Gong and Stand Up to the CCP’s Persecution

Brownback is also a former U.S. senator and former governor of Kansas. He attended the forum on October 28. He observed that the CCP invests billions of dollars a year to oppress religion and that Falun Gong gets the worst of it. He said that, because the Chinese Communist Party has to control people, they feel that those who stand up to it are answering to a higher authority than the government: “Communism has attacked [people of faith] from its very outset in the most horrific, aggressive ways possible.

“For China, religious freedom is an existential threat. For us, it’s a foundational principle. You can’t operate a free and open democracy without having religious freedom. We should stand up against what China is doing, and we should be doing it very clearly.”

Samuel Brownback, former Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, former U.S. senator, and former governor of Kansas, addressed the China Forum on October 28.

Brownback continued, “And I think we should stand up for Falun Gong and the founder Li Hongzhi, who lives in the United States now. I think people in the White House should meet with him and declare that they should have religious freedom.

“[Religious freedom] should move from being just a human rights issue to a national security issue. For us, religious freedom is the most potent, powerful tool that we have. It stands for our basic values. It stands as a complete threat to communist China. The most organized domestic group inside of China that could stand up to the regime are people of faith, and they have been persecuted for decades. They have been slaughtered and killed for decades. The Chinese Communist Party has killed more of its own people than any other regime in the history of mankind, and nobody else is even close. They have done this, and they’ve got three genocides going on now.”

As Brownback pointed out, the CCP has been spreading lies to deceive the Chinese people and calls religious groups “foreign.” “The real carpetbagger in China is communism—that’s what was developed in the European industrial age and goes over to China. It’s the one that doesn’t fit. If you want to get authentic China, do what the Falun Gong want—they just want to take it back to a cultural civilization that China was for thousands of years. If you want to get rid of carpetbaggers, do that,” he said.

Congress Passed a Bipartisan Resolution to Condemn Live Organ Harvesting

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, former U.S. Representative from Miami, Florida, was a key speaker at the forum. Ros-Lehtinen served as a member of the House of Representatives from 1989 to 2019 and was the chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs from 2011 to 2013.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, former U.S. Representative, spoke at The China Forum.

Ros-Lehtinen spoke about H.R. 343 that she and her Democratic colleagues cosponsored. On June 13, 2016, the Senate unanimously passed the bill. which called on the CCP to end the practice of organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience and end the 17-year persecution of Falun Gong.

Ros-Lehtinen said at the forum, “When we passed H.R. 343 condemning the forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners of conscience, the vote wasn’t even close. This was Congress speaking with one voice. What the CCP is doing is barbaric, and we won’t look away.

“When I was in Congress, I made it my mission that America’s China policy be driven by our values, not by corporate profit margins. And I’m proud to say that this was never a partisan issue. Republicans and Democrats, we stood together because the moral urgency was obvious,” she said.

Confront the CCP’s Imminent Challenge

Ros-Lehtinen pointed out that, for too many years, people in the West felt that if they just engaged with China economically and brought it into the global trading system, the CCP would gradually liberalize, and trade would lead to reform. “Well, we were wrong, dead wrong,” she said. The CCP coerced other countries into being silent about its suppression of its critics in exchange for access to its vast markets. It plants disinformation to divide the United States and buys international organizations in an attempt to rewrite the rules.

“Let me be clear about what we’re facing. The CCP isn’t just another authoritarian regime keeping a lid on the scent within its borders. It’s an expansionist force trying to remake the entire international order to suit its interests, where might makes right, where sovereignty means nothing, and where human rights are bargaining chips.”

When talking about confronting the CCP’s challenges, she pointed out that Democrats and Republicans must maintain bipartisan unity, that they should use the Magnitsky Act to sanction every CCP official involved in genocide and persecuting religious believers. She urged the U.S. to stop investing in companies that build surveillance systems and exporting technology that help Beijing oppress its people. She also advocated help for dissidents, the brave souls inside China risking everything for a better future: “Amplify their voices, defend their families, give them refuge when they escape, fund independent media that can break through the Great Firewall, and reach ordinary Chinese citizens with the truth about their government.

“We remember what this is really all about. It’s not about the great power competition or economic rivalry. It’s about human beings,” she said.

Former senior U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen at the 2025 China Forum

Ros-Lehtinen was eight years old when her family fled communist Cuba. “I know what it’s like to live in the shadow of communism. I know the silence that follows when dissidents are crushed. I know the pain of separation from loved ones who could not escape. But I also know the power of hope... That hope exists in China today, and it will not die.

“Our job as Americans, as people who have tasted freedom, as members of a human family, is to stand with those who still live in darkness. We say to every victim of communism everywhere, ‘You are not forgotten. You are not alone. Your courage inspires us and we will never, ever stop fighting for your freedom.’”