Residents of Shilibao Village in Dalian, Liaoning Province recently disclosed to The Epoch Times that in recent years, they have discovered what appear to be human bones and remains on nearby mountains multiple times, with reports of missing children. Local authorities have been unresponsive to their calls for action.
In recent reports by various media outlets, there have been allegations of opaque practices in China’s organ transplant procedures. According to a report by Kunming Daily on November 6th, more than 30 departments and over 100 medical staff at the First People’s Hospital of Kunming simultaneously carried out 31 surgeries for organ and tissue retrieval and transplantation in a single day. The report mentioned that two organ donors from Chuxiong donated multiple organs and tissues, with Chief of Hepatobiliary Pancreatic Surgery at the North Hospital, Zhao Yingpeng, stating that the surgeries would continue late into the night.
However, overseas observers have questioned the hospital’s vague statement of organs coming from “two donors” without disclosing their names or registration sources, sparking skepticism from the medical community and public opinion. A physician commented online, “With over 30 surgeries in a day but only two donors, how is that possible?”
From a different perspective, residents in the Shilibao area of Ganjingzi District, Dalian City, Liaoning Province have witnessed the opaque reality. Mr. Zhao, who enjoys climbing, told The Epoch Times on November 10th that this spring, while exploring a mountain 50 kilometers away, he stumbled upon what appeared to be unidentified human remains. Describing the discovery, he said, “I got out of the car to find a place to relieve myself, went into the woods, and saw two bones, along with a black plastic bag nearby. The bones seemed chewed on by animals, and there was a very dirty piece of cloth. I suspected it was human remains.”
When asked by reporters if he reported it to the authorities, Mr. Zhao replied, “No.” He explained, “We often find these unidentified objects resembling bones on the mountain, but no one responds when we call the police. We suspect they might be from a hospital or laboratory, but they should handle them properly. Why throw them on the mountain?”
Mr. Zhao mentioned that similar unidentified remains have been found on other mountains as well, but the local police station “never bothers with such things,” and over time, residents have just warned their children to stay away from them.
Several interviewees have mentioned that there used to be a “body processing factory” in Dalian in the past, which was often linked to the plasticization of corpses and organ sources. Public records show that German scholar Gunther von Hagens established a biological plastination company in Dalian in 1999, specializing in human specimen production. The company closed around 2012 due to policy adjustments.
Subsequent reports by foreign media outlets indicated that the factory employed graduates of medical schools to handle chemical processing and plastination of bodies. According to a report by The Epoch Times website a decade ago, a Korean man named Mr. Lee, who claimed to have worked at the factory, stated in an interview in South Korea that the factory was connected to then-Communist Party Secretary of Dalian, Bo Xilai, and his wife, Gu Kailai, with questionable sources of bodies. These claims were not officially confirmed by the Chinese government.
Controversies surrounding body processing and organ transplants in the Dalian area have also appeared in documents from international human rights organizations. In June 2021, UN human rights experts issued a statement regarding allegations of organ harvesting in China, questioning the transparency of organ procurement channels and the voluntariness of donors. The Chinese government has denied such accusations.
Another resident of Ganjingzi District in Dalian, Mr. Jin, recalled that a couple of years ago, children found what appeared to be human bones while foraging for mushrooms in the mountains. He said, “We often hear about children going missing here, some in their teens. Parents go out to work, and the children stay with their grandparents.” He mentioned that local media had never reported on the disappearances, stating that “even if they did, it wouldn’t make a difference.”
Reporters attempted to contact the Ganjingzi District Government Office and the Social Governance Office of the Dalian Bay Street in Ganjingzi District, Dalian City, but received no response. A staff member from the Shilibao Town Government claimed they were “not aware of the situation,” and the on-duty personnel at the police station stated they had “no records of receiving any reports.”
Following the incident of 31 organ transplants in a single day at a hospital in Kunming, Yunnan, where officials only declared that the transplants were carried out “according to law” without addressing the source issue, public attention has gradually shifted to the institutional level.
At the grassroots level in mainland China, public trust in the system is collapsing. The accounts of residents in the outskirts of Dalian and the news of the transplant surgeries in Kunming expose the mismanagement of remains and the opaque nature of organ distribution. These seemingly unrelated events point to the same problem – the blurred line between organs and corpses within the system.
A retired scholar from the Department of Medical Ethics and Law under the School of Medical Humanities at Peking University stated to reporters, “When bodies are viewed as resources rather than remnants of life, the entire system of opaque operations deviates from the baseline of humanity.”
He added, “The black-box nature of organ transplants not only reveals an ethical vacuum within the healthcare system but also reflects institutional inaction. When regulatory bodies choose to consolidate control under the guise of ‘safety’ rather than establish an open and verifiable tracking mechanism, transparency becomes the first principle to be sacrificed.”
Scholars generally agree that the greatest issue in Chinese organ transplants lies in transparency. Without open source files, third-party auditing mechanisms, and societal oversight, any “innovative transplants” will struggle to escape a crisis of trust.