(Beijing – June 9, 2025) On Monday, June 9, the official website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) announced that Gao Yichen, former Deputy Minister of the Ministry of National Security and former Deputy Director the Office of the Central Leading Group of Prevention and Handling of Cult Issues, is under investigation for “serious violations of discipline and law.” He is currently undergoing disciplinary review and supervisory investigation by the CCDI and the National Supervisory Commission.
Gao Yichen’s Role in China’s Security Apparatus
According to public records, 75-year-old Gao Yichen previously served as Deputy Minister of China’s Ministry of State Security. Starting in 2005, he held the position of Deputy Director of the Central 610 Office. Later that year, he also became Deputy Secretary-General of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, concurrently serving as Deputy Director of both the Central Office for Stability Maintenance and the Central 610 Office.
The 610 Office: Origins and Mission
Overseas media have reported that the Central 610 Office, established on June 10, 1999, by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was created specifically to persecute Falun Gong. The office is comprehensively responsible for the day-to-day operations of the CCP’s crackdown on Falun Gong. Gao Yichen is deemed to bear inescapable responsibility for the repression carried out by this entity.
International Characterization and Legal Concerns
The U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China has described the 610 Office as an “extra-legal agency” under the direct orders of the CCP’s leadership, tasked with coordinating the suppression of Falun Gong across various government organs.
Notably, three successive Chinese premiers—Zhu Rongji, Wen Jiabao, and Li Keqiang—as well as former Vice Premiers Huang Ju, Han Zheng, and Wang Yang, reportedly never signed appointment and removal orders for full-time director and deputy director roles in the 610 Office. This detail highlights the Office’s unofficial and opaque operational structure.
Expansion of Targets and Continued Scrutiny
According to reports from U.S. think tanks, the 610 Office expanded its targets in 2003 to include other religious or qigong groups deemed harmful to society by the CCP, including house church Christians, Buddhists, and other spiritual or religious groups. The office has long faced external scrutiny due to its lack of transparency.
A Voice of Dissent: Gao Zhisheng’s Testimony
Gao Zhisheng, a former “Top Ten Lawyer” honored by China’s Ministry of Justice, once described the 610 Office as a “triad organization more powerful than the regime itself, capable of manipulating and mobilizing all state resources, wielding a kind of power that no country on this planet has ever possessed since the beginning of civilized nations.”
(ChinaAid Association)