Transnational repression by China

Transnational repression by China refers to efforts by the Chinese government to exert control and silence dissent beyond its national borders. This phenomenon targets groups and individuals perceived as threats or critics of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The methods include digital surveillance, physical intimidation, coercion, and misuse of international legal systems.

Background

From 2014 to 2022, Freedom House documented at least 854 direct, physical incidents of transnational repression globally, including assassinations, assault, abductions, detentions, and unlawful deportation. The People's Republic of China (PRC) was responsible for 253 of these incidents, making it the most extensive practitioner of transnational repression. The estimate was conservative, as non-physical incidents, such as threatening messages and phone calls, were common. Transnational repression conducted by China also escalated since 2014 under Xi Jinping. In 2024, Amnesty International stated that the PRC is increasingly threatening overseas activists' family members in mainland China with loss of jobs, retirement benefits, and physical freedom in order to gain compliance.

Target groups

Uyghurs

The Chinese government's transnational repression of Uyghurs includes detentions and forced deportations from countries like Thailand, Turkey, and Egypt, often without due process. Domestically, Uyghurs face passport confiscations in Xinjiang, limiting their travel. Abroad, they encounter digital surveillance and intimidation, where their families in China are sometimes being used as leverages. These actions are part of China's larger strategy in dealing with the Uyghur community under the banner "terrorism, infiltration, and separatism."

Tibetans

Tibetan communities in countries like the United States, Sweden, and the Netherlands report surveillance and intimidation from the Chinese government. Chinese agents are involved in monitoring and threatening Tibetans, affecting their ability to criticize China's policies towards Tibet. Family members in China are sometimes used as leverage. The Chinese government also disrupts traditional Tibetan refugee routes in Nepal to India, increasing the risk of repatriation.

Falun Gong practitioners

Practitioners of Falun Gong globally face intense scrutiny under China's expansive transnational repression efforts. Chinese operatives, bolstered by foreign pro-Beijing proxies, work to suppress the practitioners' efforts to highlight the ongoing persecution. These individuals have been subjected to a range of coercive tactics including cyberattacks, surveillance, harassment, defamation via misinformation campaigns, and physical violence. Notably, instances of detention involving Falun Gong adherents have been reported in several countries, including Thailand, Indonesia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, etc. A 2021 study by the Institute for Strategic Research (IRSEM) documented 79 separate instances of transnational repression targeting Falun Gong practitioners.

Hongkongers

Hongkongers are relatively new targets of transnational repression. Small scale repression has been found since 2016 and expanded significantly following Hong Kong's National Security Law in 2019. The erosion of democracy triggered a massive exodus. Until early 2022, over 100,000 Hongkongers went on exile with more expected to leave. Advocates that participated in the protests are especially targeted. They are being followed, harassed, and issued bounty.

Former Chinese government officials

Operation Fox Hunt and Operation Sky Net are part of Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign after he came into power in 2014. Their goal is to repatriate Chinese fugitives that fled abroad. The operation spans across 56 countries, including countries where China does not have extradition treaties, such as the United States and Canada. Kidnappings and other forms of coercion have been used to repatriate individuals.

Pro-democracy groups/Chinese critics

China targets the broad group of people with harassments, coercion, disinformation, and threats of violence and death. According to a CNN report on a Chinese online operation, "Victims face a barrage of tens of thousands of social media posts that call them traitors, dogs, and racist and homophobic slurs. They say it’s all part of an effort to drive them into a state of constant fear and paranoia."

Methods of repression

• Surveillance: Monitoring activities of diaspora communities, employing spyware, stalking, and hacking telecommunications networks.
• Intimidation and threats: Using family members in China to coerce individuals abroad, physical intimidation, death threats, and phone calls.
• Legal and diplomatic pressure: Misusing Interpol Red Notices and leveraging diplomatic ties to influence foreign governments.
• Digital harassment: Deploying cyber tactics to track and intimidate individuals.
• Control of mobility: Confiscating passports and controlling visa access to limit movement of target groups.

Notable cases

• January 2024: A British pianist YouTuber Brendan Kavanagh was confronted by a group of Chinese nationals in London's St. Pancras railway station. They asked him to stop his livestream and delete the video as they do not want to show their faces. Days after the incident, the piano, donated by Elton John, was sealed off and guarded, allegedly for maintenance. In protest, the pianist returned after the seal was removed with Winnie the Pooh plushie and references to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, both banned by China. He received various threats from CCP supporters online, including death threats.  
• December 2023: Hong Kong Police issued a 1 million Hong Kong dollar ($128,000) reward for information on five individuals involved in the 2019 Hong Kong protests against China's National Security Law, including a U.S. citizen. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken criticized this initiative, referring to it as a "bounty list," and expressed the United States' rejection of such attempts to intimidate and target those who advocate for freedom and democracy.
• May 2023: the U.S. Department of Justice charged Los Angeles residents John Chen and Lin Feng with "acting and conspiring to act in the United States as unregistered agents of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), conspiring to bribe and bribing a public official, and conspiracy to commit money laundering." The two were allegedly part of a PRC government-directed scheme that attempted to manipulate the Internal Revenue Service's Whistleblower Program in order to strip the tax-exempt status of a U.S. entity run by Falun Gong practitioners. Chen first filed a defective whistleblower complaint with the IRS. The two then paid $5,000 in cash bribes to a purported IRS official who was an undercover agent, and promised to pay substantially more for the official's assistance in advancing the complaint.
• April 2023: In a press release, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had charged 40 officers from China's national police in cases involving transnational repression schemes targeting individuals in the United States. These officers face charges related to illegal surveillance, harassment, and conspiring to coerce U.S. residents into returning to China. Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Department of Justice National Security Division commented that “these cases demonstrate the lengths the PRC government will go to silence and harass U.S. persons who exercise their fundamental rights to speak out against PRC oppression, including by unlawfully exploiting a U.S.-based technology company.”
• April 2023: Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping were arrested in New York City for operating an illegal police station on behalf of China's Ministry of Public Security. They were charged with “conspiring to act as agents of the PRC government as well as obstructing justice by destroying evidence of their communications with an MPS official.” The station, located in Manhattan's Chinatown, was shut down in 2022 when Lu and Chen became aware of the FBI investigation. The defendants were accused of various activities, including locating dissidents and a pro-democracy activist, under the direction of Chinese officials.
• April 2023: In a report published by the University of Sheffield, the authors noted several case studies of Chinese transnational repression of Uyghurs:

1. Najmudin Ablet traveled to Turkey from Xinjiang in 2016. His family members were later detained and sentenced by Chinese authorities. He was contacted by the Chinese police in 2019 offering him a glimpse of his family and proposing cooperation in exchange for their release, involving spying on Uyghurs in Turkey. Skeptical of their credibility, Ablet refused the proposal.
2. Erbaqyt Otarbay, an ethnic Kazakh from Xinjiang, endured conditions akin to those faced by Uyghurs during his internment from July 27, 2017, to May 23, 2019. Upon release, he was coerced into signing a nondisclosure agreement about the camp's operations. Despite this, Otarbay shared his ordeal upon his return to Kazakhstan, where he faced harassment from both Xinjiang and Kazakhstan authorities through calls and visits. Seeking refuge from this intimidation, he ultimately escaped to the UK, where he testified about his experiences at the Uyghur Tribunal on September 12, 2021.

• May 2016: A last-minute court ruling in Seoul canceled a series of music and dance performances by Shen Yun scheduled for the KBS hall. Shen Yun presents traditional Chinese culture, such as stories from classics and scenes from imperial dynasties, alongside portrayals of religious persecution of Falun Gong in today's world. The court's ruling explicitly cited “threats by the Chinese embassy aimed at the theater owner, including implicit references to financial reprisals if the shows go on as planned.”
• 2014: Operation Fox Hunt started under Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign. Chinese operators in the US had stalked, threatened U.S. residents and their relatives, including pressuring immigrants to become spies. The U.S. has been bringing cases against some Chinese operators with federal crimes.
• May 2005: Chen Yonglin, “a former PRC first secretary and consul in Sydney, Australia” defected to Australia. He spelled out the Chinese tactics to “monitor, harass, and disrupt the activities of ‘hostile elements,' " applicable to both Australia and the United States. Hostile elements referred to “Falun Gong members, Tibetan separatists, Uighur separatists, Taiwan pro-independence activists, and pro-democracy activists.” He described a specific case where China levied “quid pro quo economic pressure on Australian officials and lobbying pressure placed on Sydney-area education officials to deny public funding to a school whose principal was a Falun Gong member.”
• June 1990: Lin Xu, a former PRC consular official, testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee that Chinese Ministry of State Security officials visited the US following the Tiananmen Square massacre. They were assigned to “monitor and harass Chinese students within the United States who were perceived to have reformist or pro-democracy sympathies.”

Responses

Due to China's actions being perceived as intrusive to national sovereignty, they have prompted international backlashes with legal actions and calls for hardline measures and strict legal frameworks.

• U.S. lawmakers called for sanctions after Hong Kong bounties.      
• In 2023, the Justice Department charged 40 Chinese national police officers on accounts of transnational repression.
• The FBI's “The China Threat” page lists transnational repression as a major infringement of fundamental human rights. It provides a pathway to report such actions to the FBI. The FBI has also adopted a definition of the term, and launched a website for victims to report such acts by foreign governments.
• The U.S. has drafted reports and held hearings on China's transnational repression by the United States–China Economic and Security Review Commission, Congressional-Executive Commission on China, United States House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, etc.
• In a 2018 report, the United States–China Economic and Security Review Commission referred to China's attempts to suppress overseas protests and expression critical of the Chinese Communist Party as a conspiracy against rights.
• In 2022, the U.K. government established a Defending Democracy Taskforce. One of this Taskforce's goals was to address foreign states’ efforts to suppress free expression in the diaspora communities.
• The Transnational Repression Policy Act was introduced by a group of bipartisan Senators on March 16, 2023.
• The U.S. government under the Obama Administration warned and negotiated with China about their Fox Hunt operations on US soil.
• In February 2024, police in Istanbul, Turkey detained six individuals suspected of espionage activities against Uyghurs on behalf of China's intelligence forces, while searching for another suspect. The seven individuals were believed to have been spying on and obtaining information on notable Uyghurs as well as related associations in Turkey.

Civil society

In 2024, Madrid-based human rights group Safeguard Defenders launched a center to provide free legal assistance to dissidents and activists facing transnational repression by China.

See also

• China threat theory
• Conspiracy against rights
• Cyberwarfare by China
• Extraterritorial operation
• Interpol § Abusive requests for Interpol arrests

References