During a recent military parade in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Russian President Vladimir Putin was caught on a hot mic saying to Xi Jinping, his Communist Chinese counterpart, “Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become, and (you can) even achieve immortality.” Xi responded: “Some predict that in this century humans may live to 150 years old.”

Currently, there is no credible medical basis to suggest that continual organ transplantation can reverse the aging process, but when the two most important totalitarian leaders in the world consider this prospect, we should listen because there may be more going on than meets the ear. The overtones are ominous, and the conversation takes on added significance in the wake of a report by the United Kingdom’s Daily Telegraph that the Communist Chinese Party, or CCP, is opening six medical facilities for organ transplantation in the Xinjiang autonomous region by 2030.

Xinjiang is set to become the organ transplant destination center for privileged CCP members, wealthy Chinese nationals and well-heeled international clients. Transplant teams of surgeons, anesthesiologists and related medical personnel are being recruited to serve the elite clientele, who will pay exorbitant sums to receive an organ — money added to the coffers of the CCP.

Xinjiang is a large remote area in western China, far from the metropolitan hubs of the East. Why was it selected as the organ transplant center? Likely because of a basic principle of organ transplantation: It is far more efficient to bring organ recipients to where the donor organs are rather than transport organs long distances and risk they will not be serviceable. (This is especially true of perishable key organs such as the lungs, liver and heart.) And Xinjiang is home to large numbers of Uyghurs, a persecuted Muslim minority, who are apparently a convenient source of readily available organs.

At least half a million Uyghurs are estimated to be in prisons or detention centers in Xinjiang and, if reports from international agencies can be believed, they are the victims of forcible organ harvesting— the practice of removing organs from victims without their consent. They will likely become unwilling organ donors serving a burgeoning new medical industry in China. There have been credible reports for over a decade that the CCP has been killing prisoners in this isolated region and removing their organs. Reports suggest that in some cases, the prisoners are still alive when their organs are removed, and some of them may be imprisoned merely as a pretense to securing their organs.

In America, little attention has been paid to the practice of forcible organ harvesting. It was barely noted in the American news media that in May, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2025, imposing sanctions on anyone who takes part in stealing human organs or facilitating forcible organ donation.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., made it clear this legislation was directed at the CCP and Xi: “Every year under General Secretary Xi Jinping and his Chinese Communist Party, tens of thousands of young women and men — average age 28 — are murdered in cold blood to steal their internal organs for profit or to be transplanted into communist party cadres — members and leaders.”

Consider the enormity of the hot mic conversation between Putin and Xi in Tiananmen Square, which reveals the absurd logical extension and utter barbarity of the totalitarian socialist state. Even the most nefarious villain in a James Bond movie would not consider snatching the organs of a powerless imprisoned minority population. Sometimes, truth really is stranger than fiction.

It is a chilling proposition, but the organs of the Uyghur prisoners in Xinjiang are not their own; those organs belong to the state. And if the hot mic conversation is any indication, they belong to the venal leaders of the state in their quixotic quest to cheat death.

____

Dr. Cory Franklin is a retired intensive care physician and the author of“The COVID Diaries 2020-2024: Anatomy of a Contagion as It Happened.”

___

©2025 Chicago Tribune. Visit at chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.