In June 2002, Chinese leader Jiang Zemin visited Iceland.
In September 2015, Xi Jinping travelled through Seattle and Washington.
In July 2014 and again during the 2018 G20 summit, Xi visited Argentina.
In April 2025, Xi travelled to Malaysia.
Now, ahead of Xi’s expected visit to India for BRICS, Indian media have reported another dispute involving Falun Gong.
Taken individually, the incidents differ greatly.
Taken together, they raise a question that has followed Chinese diplomacy for more than two decades:
Why does Falun Gong so often become a sensitive issue when senior Chinese leaders travel abroad?
First, what is Falun Gong?
Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, is a spiritual practice of meditation and five exercises, with teachings centred on Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. The CCP began a nationwide campaign against the practice in July 1999. Freedom House and Human Rights Watch have documented the subsequent persecution and the CCP’s efforts to counter Falun Gong both inside and outside China. Freedom House
The overseas dimension appeared remarkably early.
Iceland, 2002: the case that entered parliament
When Jiang Zemin visited Iceland in June 2002, Icelandic authorities took exceptional measures against people identified as Falun Gong practitioners.
Years later, Iceland’s own parliamentary records described practitioners being denied entry, prevented from boarding Icelandair flights and, in some cases, held after arrival. The parliamentary proposal stated that more than 200 practitioners were affected in one way or another and that Iceland’s Data Protection Authority subsequently found the government’s distribution of the identifying list unlawful. Icelandic Parliament
This is therefore not merely a Falun Gong account of an old incident.
It exists in Iceland’s official parliamentary record.
The episode became serious enough that Icelandic parliamentarians later proposed a formal apology and compensation.
The issue did not disappear after Iceland
Human Rights Watch published an extensive report in 2002 documenting Chinese diplomatic pressure relating to Falun Gong in a number of countries.
It described Chinese embassy efforts to weaken overseas support and examined episodes in Japan, Singapore, Europe and elsewhere. HRW recommended that foreign governments resist pressure to restrict Falun Gong practitioners’ basic rights of association and expression. Human Rights Watch
So Iceland was never the only episode.
It was simply one of the best documented.
United States, 2015
During Xi Jinping’s September 2015 visit to Seattle and Washington, Falun Gong practitioners publicly demonstrated along his route and outside venues he visited, calling for an end to the persecution.
Minghui reported the practitioners’ demonstrations in both Seattle and Washington. Minghui
Those reports establish the practitioners’ activities; they do not by themselves establish Chinese government interference.
However, later U.S. federal charging material cited by Freedom House alleged that individuals linked to an overseas Chinese police-station investigation had helped organise counterprotests against Falun Gong practitioners during Xi’s 2015 visit. Because this material originated in criminal charges rather than a completed conviction on that particular allegation, it should be described as an allegation in federal filings, not as a judicial finding. Freedom House
That distinction is important.
Argentina, 2014 and 2018
Minghui reported confrontations involving Falun Gong practitioners during Xi Jinping’s 2014 visit to Argentina, including an incident in which a person practitioners identified as a Chinese embassy official crossed a police cordon near a protest. The account says Argentine police confirmed the individual’s diplomatic identity. Without an independent Argentine record in this evidence file, those details should remain explicitly attributed to Minghui. Minghui
Four years later, during the 2018 G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Minghui reported that practitioners faced restrictions, banner confiscations and arrests while attempting to display Falun Gong messages near Xi’s delegation. One Minghui account attributed an additional restriction to demands by the Chinese Embassy. Again, because the detailed account here comes from practitioners, that attribution should not be silently converted into an independently proven government finding. Minghui
What the episodes do establish is that Falun Gong repeatedly became a visible point of contention around Xi’s overseas visits.
Malaysia, 2025
The most recent Southeast Asian case is especially relevant.
Minghui reported that Malaysian police arrested 76 Falun Gong practitioners at a private gathering on April 13, 2025, two days before Xi Jinping began a state visit to Malaysia.
According to practitioners quoted by Minghui, police repeatedly asked whether they knew Xi was coming and whether they intended to hold activities during his visit. Malaysian practitioners were released on the day Xi departed, while Chinese nationals were subsequently released within two weeks. Minghui
Minghui says practitioners suspected CCP pressure.
That suspicion is not the same as proof that Beijing ordered the arrests, and responsible reporting must preserve that difference.
But the timing and the reported questioning create an obvious subject for further investigation.
India, 2026
Now India has its own reported episode.
ThePrint says Chinese Embassy officials raised concerns over media organisations linked to Falun Gong and Tibet and the possibility that they might question the Chinese delegation at the September BRICS summit. ThePrint
Outlook subsequently carried the story and reported Beijing’s public opposition to Falun Gong-linked activity that it regards as hostile to China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Outlook India
There is currently no publicly established evidence that India has agreed to restrict those media organisations.
India therefore still has an opportunity to avoid turning a reported diplomatic concern into a civil-liberties controversy.
Twenty-four years separate Iceland and India. The issue did not sleep for twenty-four years.
That may be the most important point.
If the story were simply:
Iceland, 2002 → India, 2026
it would be reasonable to see two distant episodes.
The historical record instead contains repeated disputes involving overseas Falun Gong activity, diplomatic pressure, protests during Chinese leaders’ visits, allegations involving host-country authorities and, more recently, documented U.S. transnational-repression prosecutions. Freedom House describes the broader Chinese campaign as spanning decades and dozens of countries. Freedom House
The incidents are not identical.
They should never be presented as though they are.
But their recurrence makes one question difficult to avoid:
Why does a spiritual practice prohibited inside China continue to generate political sensitivity far beyond China’s borders whenever its practitioners can be seen or heard by Chinese leaders?
That is a question Indian journalists are well placed to investigate now.