Human rights advocates, investigators document CCP’s transnational repression

FORUM Staff

Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-linked intimidation, harassment and violence during CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s visit to San Francisco, California, sought to silence criticism of Beijing’s repressive policies. CCP supporters appeared to coordinate actions that ranged from stealing protest signs to beating demonstrators, according to investigations by The Washington Post newspaper, and the Hong Kong Democracy Council and Students for a Free Tibet.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which has arrested dozens of people accused of harassing and harming United States residents on behalf of the CCP, is investigating the violence surrounding Xi’s November 2023 visit, officials told The Post.

The San Francisco attacks illustrate the CCP’s “global pattern of … attempting to reach beyond its border and suppress parts of its diaspora advocating against the CCP and ongoing rights abuses in Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and mainland China,” the newspaper reported, citing the U.S. government and human rights groups.

Targets of such transnational repression include political and human rights activists, dissidents, journalists, political opponents, and religious or ethnic minorities. Among myriad examples:

• Tibetan exiles in Australia, Belgium, India, Nepal, Switzerland and the U.S. say the CCP monitors their communication with people in Tibet and attempts to curtail activism by threatening family members back home, reported the India-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy.
• Uyghurs who have escaped repression and mass incarceration in China’s northwestern Xinjiang province face online harassment and cyberattacks. As of 2022, CCP agents or proxies had used the internet to threaten and surveil Uyghur communities in 10 North American, Asian and European countries, according to The Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, which documented nearly 3,000 such incidents.
• Beijing has forced thousands of purported criminal suspects to return to China from over 120 countries, using harassment, intimidation and kidnapping, according to Spain-based human rights group Safeguard Defenders. The organization says China’s “deeply flawed and politicized” judicial system makes it impossible to tell whether criminal accusations have merit.
• The CCP has abused Interpol, a global police organization through which members can issue alerts, known as “red notices,” about their most dangerous criminals. Other nations’ police are asked to apprehend the suspects for extradition. The CCP, however, has misused red notices to track down political dissidents.

Globally, democratic countries are countering Beijing’s transnational repression by documenting, deterring and prosecuting offenders. In 2023, the U.S. Justice Department charged 40 officers in the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) national police with harassing Chinese nationals in the U.S. Additionally, two men were charged with operating an illegal PRC police station in New York “to monitor and intimidate dissidents and those critical of its government,” according to prosecutors.

Citing foreign interference concerns, Australian authorities in 2024 ended an agreement that allowed PRC police to operate in the country.

Australia and the U.S. have established channels for reporting transnational repression, which Safeguard Defenders calls a best practice for protecting human rights. Canada has taken steps toward creating a similar system.

In a June 2024 statement condemning transnational repression, 45 United Nations members resolved to support targets of abuse, strengthen information sharing and impose costs on accountable nations.

“When states reach beyond their borders to silence or coerce dissidents, journalists, human rights defenders, and others, national sovereignty, democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms are undermined,” they stated. “Transnational repression creates an atmosphere of fear and imperils civil and political liberties, the global rules-based order, and mutual respect among states.”