TNR Watch: Exposing Beijing’s Transnational Repression

In recent weeks, indictments and investigative reports have again highlighted the diverse range of tactics employed the Chinese government to intimidate critics beyond its borders. Host countries should hold Beijing accountable while safeguarding the rights of people in the Chinese diaspora. 

Indictments: On May 30, the US Justice Department announced that grand juries in California and Wisconsin had indicted a British national and a Chinese national for interstate stalking directed against a US-based critic of the Chinese government. The defendants, John Miller and Cui Guanghai, allegedly sought to stop the critic from protesting President Xi Jinping’s visit to San Francisco as part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in 2023. In addition, the indictments accused Miller and Cui of offering money to other individuals—who were in fact working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)—to dissuade the victim from sharing images of their artwork depicting Xi. 

Media investigation: News of the indictments came only weeks after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released “China Targets,” an investigation into Beijing’s extraterritorial targeting of dissidents and members of minority groups. This ICIJ series, which draws on interviews with 105 people in 23 countries, examines the Chinese government’s weaponization of Interpol to pursue a businessman with political connections, its enlistment of government-organized nongovernmental organizations (GONGOs) to defame human rights defenders at the United Nations, and its use of local law enforcement to silence activists who protest Xi’s foreign visits, among other topics. 

Many of ICIJ’s findings echo Freedom House’s own research, which has identified the Chinese government as the perpetrator of the world’s most comprehensive campaign of transnational repression, accounting for 272 of the 1,219 global incidents of direct, physical transnational repression recorded in our database since 2014. In addition to targeting outspoken activists and journalists, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) works to stifle the free speech and association rights of students from China on campuses around the world.

Do no harm: Recent announcements that the US government intends to “aggressively” revoke and restrict visas for international students to prevent possible coordination with the CCP overlook the fact that students from China are themselves at the greatest risk of being targeted by Beijing’s surveillance and intimidation. Any categorical or indiscriminate ban on Chinese students could ultimately harm US government efforts to address legitimate concerns about foreign espionage and transnational repression on college campuses, as it would discourage students from coming forward to report suspicious behavior and cooperate with authorities. The recent federal indictments and ICIJ reports remind us that the CCP regime’s transnational repression campaign is both far-reaching and insidious. Effective responses must be equally ambitious but also calibrated to uphold the rights of targeted populations.