The communist regime is increasingly emboldened to go after Chinese dissidents and those who have been exiled or fled repression and now live in America.
China’s communist regime is extending its long arm of repression into the United States, a phenomenon that is “extremely dangerous” to Americans and poses serious implications for U.S. national security, a State Department official warned.
At an event hosted by the International Republican Institute on Oct. 9, Dafna Rand, the newly confirmed assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor, said Americans should be aware of China’s growing efforts to suppress dissenting voices on U.S. soil.
“The [People’s Republic of China (PRC)] has pioneered—and others have followed—a practice of transnational repression,” Rand said.
“Not only do they go after dissidents and political oppositionists and civil society and journalists and bloggers within the PRC, but now are emboldened to go after dissidents, and Chinese nationals, and maybe those who have been exiled or fled.
“This is extremely dangerous to the American taxpayer. This means that the United States is fair game for the PRC and others.”
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is known for using physical and digital threats and intimidation, coercion by proxy, technical espionage, and unexplained disappearances to carry out repression outside of its borders, the State Department said in a report published in April.
‘Effective Action’
Washington-based advocacy group Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC) applauded Rand for speaking out against the CCP’s transnational repression.
“There’s substantial commitment in the U.S. government to countering CCP [transnational repression], but effective action must follow the rhetoric more consistently,” the group wrote in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, on Oct. 10.
As an example of the CCP’s repression in the United States, HKDC pointed to its recent report on attacks against peaceful protesters during CCP leader Xi Jinping’s visit to San Francisco in November 2023. The group stated that it had “found little to no effective U.S. government response so far” to their report, even though the attacks “occurred in broad daylight” while President Joe Biden and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo were also present at the time.
The report, written by HKDC and Students for a Free Tibet (SFT), used open-source research and facial recognition technology and found that 12 leaders of CCP-influenced groups participated in the attacks in San Francisco during Xi’s visit.
HKDC and SFT offered several recommendations to the U.S. government in their report, including asking Congress to pass legislation related to combatting transnational repression and urging the Department of Justice to investigate China’s united front groups.
On Sept. 25, the House advanced the bipartisan SHIELD Against CCP Act (H.R. 9668) after a voice vote by the Homeland Security Committee. The House is expected to pass the bill when it reconvenes after the November elections, according to a statement from the office of Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), who co-led the legislation with Rep. Dale Strong (R-Ala.).
“The threats to our homeland from the Chinese Communist Party should deeply concern every American. These threats should not be tolerated and cannot go unchecked,” Suozzi, co-chair of the Congressional Uyghur Caucus, said in a statement on Sept. 26.
The legislation would require the Department of Homeland Security to establish a working group to access, identify, and counter homeland security threats associated with the CCP.
According to the language of the bill, the threats would include “malign influence operations and transnational repression targeting United States persons,” threats to U.S. critical infrastructure, and “exploitation of vulnerabilities in the United States export control regime.”
EU and Japan
The European Parliament also addressed the CCP’s transnational repression, as well as unjust imprisonment of Uyghurs in China, when it passed a resolution on Oct. 10.
The resolution urged Beijing to “immediately and unconditionally release Ilham Tohti and Gulshan Abbas, as well as those arbitrarily detained in China” and close down all internment camps in China’s far-western region of Xinjiang.
It also called on EU member states to “address the transnational repression of Chinese dissidents and Uyghurs on their territory and prosecute individuals responsible.”
Rushan Abbas, executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs, issued a statement saying that the resolution “marks an important milestone.”
“However, our struggle is far from over. The Member States must unite to ensure accountability for the PRC’s crimes and end the suffering of the Uyghur people,” Abbas, Gulshan Abbas’s sister, said.
The Chinese regime is also surveilling and harassing Chinese dissidents living in Japan, according to a report published by Human Rights Watch on Oct. 9. The report interviewed 25 Chinese nationals, including some from Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia, who participated in “peaceful activities that the Chinese Communist Party deems unfavorable or threatening to one-party rule” between June and August.
Most of the 25 said the Chinese police had contacted them or their relatives back home.
A person identified only as “F.G.” from Inner Mongolia was quoted in the report saying that Chinese police had intimidated his relatives, asking them to try to convince him that he was “committing a crime against the [Chinese] state,” ahead of his planned protest against Xi’s attendance at the G20 leaders’ summit in Osaka, Japan, in 2019.
“Chinese authorities appear to have few scruples about silencing people from China living in Japan who criticize Beijing’s abuses,” Teppei Kasai, Asia program officer at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
“The Japanese government should make clear to Beijing it won’t tolerate the long arm of China’s transnational repression in Japan.”