Recognition and understanding for China's reforms in the field have increasingly grown overseas, said Wang Haibo, director of the China Organ Transplant Response System, which coordinates organ distribution and sharing.

In early February, a Chinese team led by Huang Jiefu, chairman of the China National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee, was invited to the Pontifical Academy Summit on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism at the Vatican, and the team briefed the gathering on the changes China has made.

In 2005, Huang, then vice-minister of health, first made known at a World Health Organization meeting on organ transplantations that more than 95 percent of transplanted organs used in China came from executed prisoners.

The Falun Gong seized on that information to attack China, Fraser said.

China introduced a series of measures to end the practice and in 2010 set up a public organ donation system. Five years later, it banned the use of organs harvested from executed prisoners.

Fraser said those changes were made, not because of international pressure, but "because the Chinese authorities are very keen to try and maximize the total number of organs that are available to help the patients".

By the end of last year, China had provided 9,996 organ donations since 2010, and by April 10, more than 174,000 Chinese had filed their consent to serving as organ donors, Wang said.

A recent survey, he added, found that more than 70 percent of the Chinese public supported organ donation.