A new law recently enacted by the Chinese regime is an attempt to legalize its transnational repression operations and has created a chilling effect on dissidents and political enemies within the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), analysts say.
A Standing Committee of the regime’s rubber-stamp legislature, the National People’s Congress, adopted the Anti-Cross-Border Corruption Law on Nov. 6, following the party’s top political meeting—the Fifth Plenum—which decided on “advancing full and rigorous governance of the party” to further tighten discipline as an internal purge continues to widen.
According to the regime, the law codifies and consolidates Beijing’s state agencies’ operations of tracking down and bringing Chinese individuals back to China who are suspected of corruption and fled abroad, as well as confiscating illegally obtained assets across borders. In the past, the Chinese regime’s overseas operations to take suspects back to China, such as “Fox Hunt” and “Sky Net,” relied primarily on case-specific task forces by individual agencies.
Wang He, a U.S.-based senior analyst and The Epoch Times columnist, told the publication that through the enactment of the new law, the CCP wants to provide a legal basis for requesting assistance and cooperation from Western governments, while presenting itself as based on the rule of law, he said.
“Western democratic countries have no extradition treaties with the Chinese communist regime and often refuse its requests to assist in apprehending suspects, due to the Chinese regime’s lack of judicial transparency, political persecution of dissidents and religious believers, death penalty, torture, and other human rights violations,” Wang He noted.
Wang Dan, a renowned Chinese dissident in exile in Taiwan and a student democratic movement leader in 1989, said in his talk show on YouTube that the new law “puts on a legal cloak” for controversial overseas operations.
He expressed concern that the law covers alleged corrupt behaviors across borders, which may leave room for Chinese legal enforcement agencies to expand their interpretations of their jurisdiction.
Through this law, the Chinese authorities might target financial transactions between overseas dissidents and their relatives or associates in China, designating the individuals involved as “persons of interest” in a case—thereby using economic investigations as a form of pressure, which creates a “chilling effect” on them, Wang Dan said.
Heng He, a U.S.-based senior China analyst and current affairs commentator, told The Epoch Times that the Chinese regime has been kidnapping and apprehending its targets abroad and has met with international criticism, and it therefore urgently needs new legislation to legitimize such operations.
In the past, the Chinese regime has conducted some “persuasion to return” operations overseas that involved stalking, making threats, or pressuring family members back in China to compel the individuals in question to return to China, Heng noted.
“Now, the new law will make it easier for Beijing to frame such actions as anti-corruption law enforcement,” he said.
Zhang Ting, a lawyer in China who used a pseudonym out of fear of reprisal, told The Epoch Times that the Chinese regime’s corruption stemmed from a lack of checks and balances on power and cannot be resolved by enacting another law.
He said such an anti-corruption law is “a tool for political purges, which is an extension of the CCP’s power struggles.”
Wang He noted that the CCP’s anti-corruption campaigns are selective, which is based on the officials’ “political loyalty” to the top leaders, and the act of “choosing a side” in the CCP’s infighting remains a key factor in determining who gets investigated and who receives protection.
“When targeting political rivals, Beijing can mobilize a wider array of government agencies to track down funds and seek assistance from abroad. The new law will become a legalized tool for power struggles,” he said.
Luo Ya contributed to this report.
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