ICIJ examination shows the scope of the transnational repression of the Chinese government

This week, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published “China Targets”, a 10-month, cross-border examination with dozens of media partners around the world on Beijings Transnational Repression. The resulting series of articles describe how Chinese authorities interpol “red notices” have instrumentalized in order to track down dissidents in overseas, and how CCP-oriented NGOs have provided the criticism of China on the UN-SCILLA ALECCI and the ICIJ team about an overview of their investigation in the UN-SCILLA “China's repression machine – and how Dissens destroys all over the world”:

As part of the study, ICIJ reporters coordinated on five continents to question goals and analyze their cases. ICIJ also checked a Chinese police book for the Chinese police book and confidential guidelines for domestic security officers from 2013. The reporters then compared the tactics described in the internal documents with the experiences of the 105 goals as well as with secretly recorded police queries as well as telephone calls and text messages between 11 security officers in China and nine targets. The comparison shows that the tactics recently used against the subjects reflected the guidelines for the control of people who are called threats by the security insurance.

Half of the goals surveyed by ICIJ and his media partners said that the harassment had been extended to family members at home who were asked one or more times by police or security officers. Several victims announced that their family members in China or Hong Kong were bothered by the police shortly after their participation in protests or public events in overseas. Sixty said they believed that they had been followed by Chinese officials or their deputies or the goals of monitoring or espionage. 27 said they were victims of an online smear campaign, and 19 said they received suspicious news or experienced hacking attempts, including the state actor. Some said their bank accounts in China and Hong Kong had been frozen. Officials of both the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of State Security – two of the Chinese authorities with secret services – were responsible for being breeding some of the goals and their families. Twenty -two people said they had received physical threats or were attacked by civilian KPCh supporters.

Most of the people interviewed by ICIJ and his partners said that they had not reported state -funded threats to the authorities in their assumed countries, and explained that they feared retaliation from China or could not help the ability of the authorities. Several of those who had submitted a report said that the police did not pursue their case or told them that they could not do anything because there was no evidence of a crime. [Source]

The ICIJ examination described the phenomenon of “Gongos” supported by Beijing (state-organized non-governmental organizations) that monitor and intimidate human rights activists that are critical of the Chinese government. During the UN Human Rights Council of the universal regular review (UPR) China last year, CDT reported that the number of organizations listed in China, which is listed in China, which are listed in China's UPR summary reports, in the course of two UPR cycles from 2013 to 2024 have almost tripled. Greg Miller, Jelena ćosić and Tamsin Lee-Smith reported in Washington Post in cooperation with ICIJ The extent of the Chinese NGOs at the United Nations that have hidden connections to the KPCH:

The ICIJ examination identified 106 NGOs, which have received UN accreditation and are registered in China or are connected to China. At least 59 seem to violate UN rules to ensure that NGOs in Geneva do not do so under the influence or pressure of the government.

More than 50 of the 106 NGOs contained language in Charter documents in which the loyalty promised to the KPCH, some recognized that it postponed the party because of decisions about hiring and financing, as the investigation stated. 46 listed directors or others in leadership roles that at the same time held positions in Chinese state authorities or in the KPCH. Records show that at least 10 received most of their funding from the Chinese government's sources.

[...]The number of Chinese organizations with UN references has almost doubled since 2018, the year of the first UN report on Xinjiang. Many of these organizations were formed at least a decade ago, but were only searched for after 2018 after the NGO accreditation. The increase reflects an effort that was supported by the Chinese President Xi Jinping and affects almost all government level in China.

[...]Last year, 33 Chinese NGOs made almost 300 appearances at the Human Rights Council meetings, such as the data collected by the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), an independent non -profit group. An investigation of her statements and her certificate was not a single instance in which any words had expressed that China could be interpreted as critical. [Source]

Ethnic minority groups are often the goals of the transnational repression of Beijing, as the ICIJ emphasized. In addition to the examination, there is a report by Citizen Lab, in which the Uyghur -language software was kidnapped to deliver malware, which was very well adjusted to achieve the target population of Uyghurs in exile. The report states that the cyber attack repeats a pattern of actors with Chinese government threatened threat threats that digitally target marginalized communities. At the beginning of this month, CDT documented further reports on the expansion of the digital repression of Tibetans of China, including those in diaspora, about a Chinese state digital forensic company that offers an insulting cyber operation training for the Tibet Police College from Lhasa. The Guardian, another ICIJ partner, recently unveiled an online campaign of transnational repression against Honggergers in Great Britain. The ICIJ partners also provided other local case studies.

Another focus of the ICIJ examination was the attempts by the Chinese party state to exploit interpol. The Chinese government has increasingly deployed Interpol Rednätungen to address a wide range of its citizens abroad, and China “does not seem to be among the countries that are currently corrected in interpol for the alleged abuse of the organization system,” wrote the ICIJ. Described together with other ICIJ partners Simon Leplâtre from Le Monde How interpol is used as a tool in the China's arsenal of transnational repressionWith the story of Huang Youlong (referred to as “H.”), a close trust of Jack Ma:

Like H., hundreds of people who viewed China as a representative of the interests have targeted abusive red communications. In cooperation with 42 media transactions and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), Le Monde examined several cases in which the use of Interpol China and the lack of protective measures within the institution illustrated. Despite the attempts to reform it, Interpol, based in the French city of Lyon, still lacks transparency in his procedures and never keeps countries that abuse it – a blessing for authoritarian regime.

Our investigation shows that Interpol is one of the components of the China Arsenal in repressive measures against his goals abroad, regardless of whether it is political dissidents, members of minorities that are suppressed in China – such as Uyghurs or Tibetans – Business Speople and Political State and Government Heads, either corrupt or the victims of purest.

[...]Ted Bromund, a researcher and expert in legal cases with Interpol procedure, explained that “Interpol is a tool. So it sends SMS to people. So they stabbed them physically. They cannot get away on the spot. [Source]

In response to the ICIJ examination of Bluesky, Jeremy Daum near China Law, she translated a thread that caution with the terminology and framework of the term “transnational repression” when considering adequate answers to the phenomenon:

🧵Happy to see the way China is bothered and questioned abroad – difficult to find the bandwidth today, but it remains a real problem that affects people's lives. Some thoughts that I have lifted elsewhere about how best to think about it: www.icij.org/investigatio……

-China law translate / jeremy daum (@chinalawtranslate.bsky.social) 2025-04-29t14: 53: 30.795z