GENEVA: To hunt down critics of the Chinese regime living abroad, Xi Jinping’s government has expanded its global reach, extending surveillance and intimidation far beyond China’s borders. Even institutions such as the United Nations (UN) and Interpol have not been spared, endangering the lives of dissidents worldwide.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) revealed China’s brazen attempts to harass activists, including at the UN headquarters in Geneva, the heart of the international human rights system. The UN report detailed how Beijing engaged in intimidation and reprisals within international organizations — a sign that transnational repression is now a deliberate foreign policy tool. Experts said the report reflects a new UN recognition that authoritarian states use such tactics to silence critics abroad.
The UN reprisals report also mentioned repeated retaliation against two senior employees of the Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC) — a Washington-based nonprofit supporting democracy. The ICIJ earlier reported that Carmen Lau, HKDC’s senior associate, was repeatedly targeted for her UN involvement.
In December 2024, the Hong Kong government labeled Lau and HKDC’s Executive Director, Anna Kwok, as “fugitives,” offering $130,000 bounties for information leading to their arrests. Both women had their passports revoked. Lau had earlier faced an arrest warrant in 2021 over alleged election interference.
Adding to the evidence, the UK-based organization Article 19 recently released a report documenting China’s systematic campaign to silence dissent abroad. Based on interviews with 29 members of diaspora communities, the report detailed the involvement of the United Front Work Department, embassy staff, and online influencers in monitoring and intimidating critics.
Outspoken opponents of China’s human rights record — especially Hong Kongers, Tibetans, and Uyghurs — remain in the crosshairs of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which seeks to discredit or suppress international protest movements.
In another alarming case, the IndieChina Film Festival in New York City was abruptly suspended after organizers and filmmakers reported harassment and threats to themselves and their families back in China. Human rights activists alleged that the Chinese government reached around the globe to shut down a film festival in New York City, which is a reflection of Beijing’s ill intent to control what the world sees and learns about China.”
Similarly, US authorities recently reported that Chinese agents recruited a retired New York police officer to help locate and intimidate a former Chinese official and his family, coercing them to return home and face alleged corruption charges.
The ICIJ’s investigation, “China Targets,” uncovered how Beijing’s global campaign of repression has expanded under Xi’s leadership. Over a ten-month period, journalists interviewed Chinese, Hong Kong, Tibetan, and Uyghur dissidents who described widespread intimidation. Belgian intelligence confirmed that Chinese diplomats photographed and filmed demonstrators during pro-Tibet and pro-Uyghur protests in Brussels, while families in China were pressured to silence relatives abroad.
Reports from Belgium stated that Beijing had demanded the removal of a Taiwanese flag displayed near the European Parliament in 2022. Belgium officials complied, taking it down in early 2023 to avoid diplomatic friction. Belgium’s State Security Service later warned that cases of transnational repression are rising, though many remain hidden because victims fear retaliation. In December 2024, Belgian authorities held a special inter-agency meeting to raise awareness of the threat. Available reports suggested that the Chinese embassy in Brussels continues to insist that issues concerning Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet are “purely internal affairs,” accusing dissidents of undermining China’s sovereignty with foreign support.
Exiled Voices Under Threat
Joseph Tay King-kei, a Canada-based former Hong Kong actor turned activist and politician, has become a symbol of this repression. Hong Kong’s national security police placed a bounty of one million Hong Kong dollars on his head late last year. A vocal critic of Beijing’s 2019 pro-democracy crackdown and the 2020 National Security Law, Tay’s story reflects the growing risks faced by dissidents even in democracies.
Tay was not alone. Alongside him, five other activists — Tony Chung Hon-lam, Chung Kim-wah, Carmen Lau Ka-man, Victor Ho Leung-mau, and Chloe Cheung Hei-ching — were charged under the same law and given similar bounties. Through his online platform, HongKonger Station, Tay continues to speak out, despite being accused of “inciting secession” and “colluding with foreign forces” — two of four vaguely defined crimes under the law, along with subversion and terrorism.
Since the law’s implementation, Hong Kong police have issued international arrest warrants for 34 individuals abroad. None have been extradited, yet the psychological and digital harassment they face remains relentless. Tay’s family in Canada received 24-hour police protection after online attacks, while his relatives in Hong Kong were detained and coerced into cooperating with Chinese authorities.
Another activist, Dennis Kwok Wing-hang, a former Hong Kong lawmaker and Canadian citizen, faced similar threats after being hit with a HK$1 million bounty. Kwok has since moved to the United States for safety, warning that authoritarian regimes are now “reaching into democratic territories” and influencing what citizens can say or do even within free societies.
The Human Rights Watch accused the Chinese and Hong Kong governments of using national security laws to silence the diaspora. Bounties of HK$1 million each were placed on 19 exiled Hong Kong activists living in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia, and their passports were revoked. Amnesty International condemned Chinese courts for weaponizing vague national security laws to silence human rights defenders. In its report, Amnesty said China’s judiciary plays a central role in sustaining repression by rubber-stamping convictions against peaceful activists, journalists, and lawyers — often merely for their words, associations, or international connections.
It is imperative that countries unite to hold China accountable, enforce stronger safeguards for activists, and ensure that no authoritarian regime can terrorize its own nationals on foreign soil. A collective international response against Beijing’s expanding shadow of repression is the need of the hour to protect freedom of expression and dissent.
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