China

Safeguard Defenders [a NGO focused on human rights in China] is releasing its new handbook ‘Missing in China’ today in response to the growing number of foreign citizens arbitrarily detained in the authoritarian country.

The handbook is a combination of the organization’s extensive research in China’s repressive judicial system and the first-hand experiences of former detainees and their families. It offers readers with crucial insights and practical advice to deal with the detention of a loved one in China and aims to help them become the best possible advocates for their family member.

‘Missing in China’ is available to download here in English, Chinese and Japanese.

It includes information on what to expect from China’s law enforcement and judicial processes, how to retain a lawyer, how your country and consular services can assist, ways to engage with media and other possible allies, as well as other practical information.

While the majority of detentions of foreigners in China go unreported, some of the names that have made the news since 2018 include American Jeff Harper (2020); Australians Yang Hengjun (2019 to present) and Cheng Lei (2020 to 2023); Briton Ian Stones (likely 2018 to 2024); Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor (2018 to 2021); and Japanese Iwatani Nobu (2019).

In recent years, China has amended its counter-espionage and state secrets laws, markedly expanding both the scope of activities considered illegal and the ambiguity surrounding their interpretation. China has used these laws to target more than a dozen Japanese nationals and, for the first time last year, a South Korean worker in the country.

The authoritarian practice of using foreign citizens as bargaining chips in international relations became of such concern that Canada launched the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations on 15 February 2021. As of February 2025, 80 countries have signed on to the Declaration.

Yet, at the same time, those same nations often fail to provide adequate warnings to their citizens. While China was clearly on their minds when the Declaration against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations was drafted, most of the signatory country’s travel advisories do not reflect such a risk assessment.

Lawyer Chow Hang-tung was charged in 2020 for participating in a peaceful vigil commemorating protesters killed in the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, and charged again in 2021 after she asked people on social media to light candles in memory of the victims. She was jailed for 22 months for daring to commemorate their lives.

Chow also faces a potential 10-year prison sentence for “inciting subversion” under the NSL [China's National Security Law] over her role as former leader of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which organised the city’s annual Tiananmen candlelight vigil for 30 years.

Despite her imprisonment, Chow has continued to use her legal knowledge to defend rights, including in 2022 to secure the lifting of reporting restrictions on bail hearings. Most recently, Chow mounted a legal challenge to rules that require women – but not men – to wear long trousers year-round in Hong Kong prisons, where temperatures regularly exceed 30 degrees Celsius in summer. In the past, Chow has suffered retaliation for such advocacy, including repeated periods of solitary confinement.

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A new analysis of data on scanners drawn from AidData’s Global Chinese Development Finance Dataset reveals that China’s provision of aid and credit for the dissemination of customs inspection equipment abroad—from providers like Nuctech, a Chinese partially state-owned company—is extensive. Despite increasing scrutiny of Chinese equipment used in critical infrastructure like ports, scanners provided by Chinese companies and financed by Chinese donors and lenders are still being widely distributed around the globe. China’s global scanner distribution poses potential national security risks at global seaports, airports, and border crossings.

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China’s provision of customs inspection equipment is far-reaching: at least 65 low- and middle-income countries received this equipment financed via grants and loans from China between 2000 and 2022. The scanners can be found in locations ranging from Serbia and Albania in Eastern Europe, to Cambodia and Laos in Southeast Asia, to countries in Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Pacific. Over the past two decades, China provided at least $1.67 billion (constant 2021 USD) of aid and credit for customs inspection activities in recipient countries.

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Donations and zero-interest loans appear to be a deliberate business strategy of Chinese government entities to facilitate the acquisition, installation, and use of customs inspection equipment produced by Chinese companies. Of the 108 customs inspection equipment-related activities tracked, 89 (or 82.4%) constituted donations, with the remainder provided through loans from Chinese agencies for recipients to purchase scanners from China. 44 of these donations were financed directly by China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM).

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Nuctech Company Ltd. (同方威视技术股份有限公司) is one of the key companies involved in the provision of global inspection equipment, ranging from cargo and vehicle inspection to personnel screening. Its competitors include U.S.-based companies such as Rapiscan Systems, L3Harris Technologies, and Leidos, as well as European-based companies like Smiths Detection and Thales Group, among others.

Nuctech is a partially state-owned company that emerged from Tsinghua University in the 1990s. Its parent company is Tsinghua Tongfang (清华同方股份有限公司), a state-owned enterprise. China National Nuclear Corporation (中国核工业集团公司), an energy and defense conglomerate controlled by China’s State Council, is the controlling stakeholder of Tsinghua Tongfang and holds a 21 percent ownership stake in Nuctech. Nuctech is further connected to the state, as the company’s former chairman in the early 2000s now serves in the central government.

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Archived version

• Housing was more than 1/3 of China’s GDP at its peak in 2015; today it is just 20%. This is having a major impact on local government finances, as land sales are their major source of revenue.

Caixin, China’s main business paper, summed up the crisis:

“Chinese local governments are desperately seeking new revenue streams by leveraging government-owned assets to address mounting debt pressures and dwindling coffers. A document from Bishan District in Chongqing, southwest China, went viral online, outlining the formation of a “Sell Everything to Save the Day” task force aimed at monetizing state-owned assets."

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China’s property bubble was based on borrowed money, mainly financed through its ‘shadow banking’ system. Essentially, it was ‘subprime on steroids’:

• House price/earnings ratios reached an eye-popping 50x in Tier 1 cities like Shanghai.
• By comparison, in the US, New York prices were ‘only’ 14x when the US subprime bubble burst in 2008.

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The reason is that the state owned all land in China till 1998. So people have never been through the normal peaks and troughs of a property cycle.

Instead, as they began buying property for the first time, they assumed the government would never let prices fall. But today, this wishful thinking has been exposed.

Now, the shadow banking system is disappearing. And as the chart shows, local government debt is rising rapidly. Essentially, China risks falling into a debt trap, where new loans have to be taken out to service old loans.

Even worse [...] total debt is now >350% of GDP. The issue, as Prof Michael Pettis of Peking University noted in the summer, is that China’s stimulus programme has financed vast amounts of “non-productive investment.“

AND ITS POPULATION IS NOT ONLY AGEING, BUT FALLING

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It is highly unlikely that [China's current debt] could have been repaid even if the population was young and growing quickly. But China is at the other end of the spectrum, as the chart shows. Its population is now falling, and birth rates are half what they were before 1980.

The rise in China’s median age is therefore accelerating. This is now 40 years, double the level in 1980 before the One Child Policy was introduced.

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China is now inevitably going to get old before it gets rich. Its export-oriented economy is facing the prospect of major trade barriers, as the US and Europe look to preserve jobs for their own populations.

And so China’s overcapacity problem is getting worse rather than better, even in areas where it has global market leadership:

• [China's] solar industry has 80% of global demand, but is operating at just 45% of capacity.
• Its auto industry is operating at <50% of capacity. NIO’s boss says it is entering “the most fierce and brutal phase of competition.

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Archived

A proposed dam in China’s Medog county would be the world’s largest hydroelectric project, surpassing even China’s Three Gorges Dam, which is currently the largest dam in the world. The Yarlung Tsangpo, originating from the Tibetan Plateau, flows into India as the Brahmaputra River and continues into Bangladesh as the Jamuna. And not surprisingly, China’s ambition has alarmed downstream countries.

Reports suggest that this dam could significantly alter water flow patterns, affecting millions of people who depend on the river for agriculture, fisheries, and daily consumption.

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India, which relies heavily on the Brahmaputra River, is likely to face serious hydrological challenges. The river provides water to Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and other northeastern states, supporting nearly 130 million people and six million hectares of farmland. If China diverts or controls the river’s flow, India could experience unpredictable floods during monsoon seasons and severe droughts in dry months. A 2024 study published in the Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs warned that China could manipulate water releases, potentially affecting India’s economic and strategic interests. Indian hydrologists have expressed concerns that sediment flow, crucial for agriculture, may be blocked by the dam, reducing soil fertility in the northeastern plains.

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China’s unilateral decision to build the Medog dam, without consulting downstream nations, raises geopolitical tensions in South Asia. The lack of a water-sharing treaty between China, India, and Bangladesh further exacerbates the situation. While China has provided hydrological data to India since 2006 and to Bangladesh since 2008, experts argue that such data-sharing agreements are insufficient in preventing potential water conflicts. India has expressed concerns about China’s control over transboundary rivers, with policymakers advocating for stronger diplomatic and strategic countermeasures.

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[Edit title for clarity.]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/29872454

Planes flying between Australia and New Zealand have been diverted as China conducts a closely-scrutinised military exercise in nearby waters that may involve live fire.

The rare presence of three Chinese naval ships in the Tasman Sea has put both antipodean countries on alert in recent days, with Australia calling it "unusual".

Australian airline Qantas told the BBC it "temporarily adjusted" the routes of its planes and other carriers have reportedly done the same.

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Australia and New Zealand have been closely monitoring the Chinese fleet - a frigate, a cruiser and a supply tanker - since last week, and have dispatched their own ships to observe them.

Earlier this week, New Zealand's Defence Minister Judith Collins said China had not informed them they would be sending warships to their region and "have not deigned to advise us on what they are doing in the Tasman Sea", according to the New Zealand Herald.

Meanwhile, Australia's Defence Minister Richard Marles said that the ships' presence was "not unprecedented, but it is an unusual event".

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The drill comes just days after Australia and China held a defence dialogue in Beijing where they had discussed military transparency and communication, among other things.

The two countries have seen several recent tense maritime encounters.

Earlier this month, Canberra said a Chinese fighter jet had released flares in front of an Australian military aircraft while flying over the South China Sea. Beijing said the aircraft had "intentionally intruded" into its airspace.

In May last year, Australia accused a Chinese fighter plane of dropping flares close to an Australian navy helicopter that was part of a UN Security Council mission on the Yellow Sea.

And in November 2023, Canberra accused Beijing's navy of using sonar pulses in international waters off Japan, resulting in Australian divers suffering injuries.

Archived

China has revised its policy on the administration of Tibetan Buddhist temples, focusing especially on Sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism with “a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation”, according to a Dharamshala-based Tibetan rights group.

China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs issued a revised version of its “Measures for the Administration of Tibetan Buddhist Temples” on Dec 1, 2024 – after being adopted on Sep 1 – and it came into force at the beginning of last month, said the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy Feb 14.

It said a major revision made in Article 4, which outlines the ideological framework within which the Communist Party of China (CPC) requires Tibetan monasteries to function, states:

“Temples and clergy should love the motherland, support the leadership of the Communist Party of China, support the socialist system, abide by the Constitution, laws, regulations, rules, and relevant provisions on the management of religious affairs, practice core socialist values, forge a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation, adhere to the direction of the Sinicization of religion, uphold the principle of independence and self-management, safeguard national unity, ethnic unity, religious harmony, and social stability, and promote the adaptation of Tibetan Buddhism to socialist society.”

Archived version

China's ageing population threatens key Beijing policy goals for the coming decade of boosting domestic consumption and reining in ballooning debt, posing a severe challenge to the economy's long-term growth prospects.

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"China's age structure change will slow down economic growth," said Xiujian Peng,  senior research fellow at the Centre of Policy Studies (CoPS) at Victoria University in Melbourne.

In the next 10 years, about 300 million people currently aged 50 to 60 - China's largest demographic group, equivalent to almost the entire US population - are set to leave the workforce at a time when pension budgets are already stretched.

The state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences sees the pension system running out of money by 2035, with about a third of the country's provincial-level jurisdictions running pension budget deficits, according to finance ministry data.

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Chinese society has traditionally expected children to support their parents financially as they age and often by living together to care for them.

But as in many Western countries, rapid urbanisation has shifted young people to bigger cities and away from their parents, prompting a rising number of seniors to rely on self care or government payments.

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INNOVATION WOES

China saw a rise in births after ditching the one-child policy but the recovery was far off pre-implementation levels and also short-lived. Fewer children were born in each of the past eight years, including 2023.

Demographers say the number of children in any economy is directly correlated with domestic consumption.

Archived

An Australian man says an extortion attempt at an electronics repair store landed him in a Beijing jail, where he was forced to confess to stealing his own phone.

Australian Matthew Radalj was running a clothing business out of Beijing in January 2020 when he left his apartment one morning to collect his phone from an electronics market, where he had dropped it off days earlier for repairs.

What happened next would land him in jail for nearly the next five years, the victim, in his retelling of events, of an extortion attempt and a justice system that convicts 99 per cent of those who come before it.

Under what he says were torturous conditions, he would be forced to confess to robbery charges for stealing his own phone and cash and to violently resisting arrest.

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Each morning, the inmates would be forced to march into the factory to the tune of Chinese Communist Party propaganda “red” songs. The lyrics are burnt into his brain: Wo ai ni zhongguo.

“It means ‘I love you, China’,” says Radalj. “The Chinese system is designed to extract as much suffering from you as possible. At a certain point, you’re not even human any more.”

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Radalj says when he arrived at the electronics market on January 3, 2020, the shop owner, a man called Wei, had more than doubled the agreed price to fix his smashed yellow iPhone 11 and put a new deal on the table. It was now going to cost him 3500 yuan ($767), but Wei’s friend would buy the phone for 1000 yuan and settle his debt. Radalj rejected the deal, paid the original price, took his phone and left.

But as he was exiting the market, he was set upon by security guards carrying pepper spray and electric batons. He fought back, he says, grabbing the pepper spray and using it on one of the security officers and stunning another with a baton he seized in the brawl before being chased into the street, where he was subdued by a mob.

“I had to basically fight for my life,” he says.

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After his arrest, Radalj says he endured cruel treatment at a detention centre until he agreed to sign a “leniency document” confessing to the robbery charges. He was left in rooms for long stretches with static playing through speakers, and he was forced to strip naked and go outside in Beijing’s sub-zero winter. For 10 months, he had no access to money, meaning he couldn’t buy a toothbrush, toilet paper or underwear, nor could he call his family or friends, who were becoming increasingly worried.

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Radalj says he was held in Beijing Number 3 Detention Centre for 504 days before being transferred to Beijing Number 2 Prison, where he spent 1230 days.

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Radalj’s story is an apparent example of how a confluence of circumstance, harsh laws and policing, and geopolitical jostling can conspire in a devastating way to leave foreigners at the mercy of China’s unflinching legal system.

His situation was worsened by the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, during which the prison was sealed off. It also made consular access difficult and soured the Australia-China relationship during the Morrison government era.

“Even in the police station, they were saying, ‘You’re Australian. This is China. Australia is not our friend’,” Radalj says.

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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/18637737

Archived

TLDR:

• China’s military has once again escalated tensions near Australia. A Chinese J-16 fighter dangerously engaged an Australian P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft, releasing flares just 30 meters away—the fifth such incident since 2022.

• Meanwhile, a Chinese naval flotilla, including a Type 055 Renhai cruiser, sailed near Australia’s northeastern maritime approaches, marking Beijing’s growing naval presence beyond the First Island Chain.

• While Canberra insists on respecting international law, China’s continued provocations raise serious concerns about regional stability. With China targeting smaller nations like Australia, how should Defence and the Albanese government respond to these growing threats?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/29809501

The Australian government revealed a week ago that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea and were approaching northeast Australia.

Defense Minister Richard Marles said Thursday that the Chinese ships — the naval frigate Hengyang, cruiser Zunyi and replenishment vessel Weishanhu — were “off the east coast of Australia.”

Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from China's military, the People's Liberation Army, was 150 nautical miles (278 kilometers) east of Sydney.

“There is no doubt that this is, not unprecedented, but an unusual event,” Marles [said].

Marles said Australian navy ships and air force planes were monitoring the Chinese ships’ movements through international waters that are in Australia's exclusive economic zone, the area beyond its territorial waters where a nation has exclusive economic rights.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/29808568

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[Tesla owner Elon Musk’s close involvement in the new U.S. administration could have a] potentially adverse side effect as China considers using Tesla as a pawn in trade negotiations.

Tesla car sales were flat in 2024, and to maintain its astronomic valuation, Musk has bet the automaker’s entire future on autonomy, both in the form of self-driving cars and humanoid robots, seeing them as a much more lucrative opportunity than the low-margin traditional business of selling cars. He now spends most of Tesla’s earnings calls talking up a future in which autonomous fleets of “Cybercabs” will roam the streets and replace human drivers. The company has slowly been rolling out its Full-Self Driving (FSD) tech through an optional add-on for current Tesla owners, with plans to begin testing a fully autonomous taxi service in Austin sometime this year.

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China is Tesla’s second biggest market, however, and the country has heretofore not allowed it to begin rolling out autonomous technology there. President Trump’s recent move to place 10% tariffs on goods exported from China has created an opportunity for the country to use the president’s confidant as leverage. From the Financial Times:

Chinese authorities are contemplating using the approval of Tesla’s autonomous-driving licence as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations with Trump, said two of the people with knowledge of the delay, adding that this was the main reason for the hold-up in granting the permit.

The approval could still come soon, depending on how trade negotiations developed, one of the people added. But another said that some people at the company believed a speedy consent was unlikely unless there was “a major breakthrough or concession” in trade talks.

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Archived

Here is the study (pdf).

TLDR:

• Recent suspicious activities conducted by the merchant vessels Shunxing-39 and Vasili Shukshin in the vicinity of Taiwan in early 2025 suggest possible collaboration between Chinese and Russian merchant ships related to the reconnaissance and sabotage of undersea communications cables that connect Taiwan to the outside world.
• Such activities follow from suspected undersea infrastructure sabotage operations conducted by Chinese merchant vessels in the Baltic Sea in 2023–2024, with strong indications of Russian assistance and coordination.
• Taken as a whole, this string of incidents suggests an increasing willingness by Moscow and Beijing to collaborate on maritime sabotage operations—include on attacks on third-party targets.

Taiwan's government warns its people of visiting China, Hong Kong or Macau. Former government employees, people who have participated in civil movements or criticized China, and those working on sensitive technologies are considered at high risk of detention or interrogation.

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The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday.

Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview.

On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia.

The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential repercussions for family and friends of the accused, Chiu said.

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Those who work in [Taiwanese] government agencies or institutions are often questioned on arrival in China for 30 minutes to four hours, and their suitcases and laptops might be searched, he said, adding that academics who support the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) are not exempt from such checks.

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[Edit typo.]

The Philippine Coast Guard condemned "dangerous" manoeuvres by a Chinese Navy helicopter Tuesday as it flew within three metres (10 feet) of a surveillance flight carrying a group of journalists over the contested Scarborough Shoal.

An AFP photographer on the flight described seeing the helicopter tail the plane before drawing near the left wing, close enough to see personnel aboard filming them.

The helicopter had been "as close as three metres" to the fisheries bureau aircraft, the coast guard said in a statement. The plane had been flying about 213 metres above the water on a mission to observe Chinese vessels in the area.

"Around 0839 hours, a People's Liberation Army Navy (PLA-Navy) helicopter ... performed dangerous flight maneuvers towards the BFAR aircraft. This reckless action posed a serious risk to the safety of the pilots and passengers during the MDA flight," the coast guard statement said.

The Scarborough Shoal -- a triangular chain of reefs and rocks in the South China Sea -- has been a flashpoint between the countries since China seized it from the Philippines in 2012.

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In December, the Philippines said the Chinese coast guard fired water cannon and "sideswiped" a government fisheries department vessel.

Manila released a video appearing to show a Chinese coast guard ship firing a torrent of water at the BRP Datu Pagbuaya.

Other footage apparently taken from the Philippine ship showed its crew shouting "Collision! Collision!" as the much larger Chinese vessel nears its right-hand side before crashing into it.

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The Chinese government has increasingly imposed arbitrary restrictions on people’s internationally protected right to leave the country, Human Rights Watch said today.

Chinese authorities are requiring citizens from locales they broadly consider to be high risks for online fraud or “unlawful” emigration to submit additional paperwork and obtain approval from multiple government offices during passport application processes. Those not meeting these cumbersome requirements are often denied passports. The government has long restricted people’s access to passports in areas where Tibetans and Uyghurs predominantly live.

“While many Chinese citizens enjoy international travel, the right to leave China appears to be restricted for growing categories of people throughout the country,” said Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities are going beyond existing restrictions on Tibetans and Uyghurs to limit the travel of people throughout China under the guise of anti-crime campaigns.”

All Chinese citizens can apply for “ordinary passports” (因私普通护照) with an identity card. However, in recent years, police agencies responsible for issuing passports have increasingly subjected applicants from dozens of locales to a more cumbersome process. This conclusion is based on official complaints filed by those affected as well as social media posts by residents, travel agents, and overseas employment agencies in those locales.

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Archived

Here is the study The Silent Withdrawal (pdf).

In The Silent Withdrawal, Dian Zhong - research fellow at the Hoover History Lab specializing in the comparative political economy of development with a focus on gender dynamics - reveals a striking reversal in China’s once-celebrated gender equality, as women increasingly withdraw from the workforce despite higher education levels. Highlighting the policy missteps and the unintended consequences of pro-natalist measures, alongside the transformation of feminism from state collaboration to a force of resistance, Zhong calls for bold reforms to reconcile women’s economic empowerment with demographic challenges, steering China toward a more inclusive future.

Key takeaways:

• A Quiet Crisis in China’s Workforce: Despite education gains, Chinese women are retreating from the workforce, facing widening wage gaps, underrepresentation in leadership, and mounting family pressures—a stark contrast to global gender equality trends.
• Policy Missteps Deepen Inequality: Government efforts to encourage fertility have inadvertently marginalized women economically, worsening labor discrimination and gender disparities.
• Feminism Evolves Under Pressure: Once a partner in state-driven agendas, feminist activism in China now stands at the crossroads of domestic demands and global scrutiny. Facing mounting pressures, it has transformed from collaboration with the state to a force of active resistance.
• Balancing Demographics with Inclusion: Inclusive policies are urgently needed to align women’s economic roles with the nation’s demographic challenges. Without such reforms, China risks losing the valuable contributions of female human capital while facing an impending demographic crisis.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/29657247

Tesla is victorious in almost every court case thanks to a justice system that acts as the long arm of the Chinese Communist Party.

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Tesla has sued more than a dozen journalists and even its own customers, weaponizing a legal system that operates as an extended arm of the Communist Party regime.

In every case where a ruling has ensued, Tesla won its lawsuit. One of the few open cases remains—related to Zhang Yazhou, more on that below—and that is only because she is appealing the verdict handed down against her.

Moreover, of the 81 civil judgements in which Tesla owners sued the company over safety and quality issues or contract disputes, only nine were victorious.

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[Tesla owner Elon] Musk can count on a powerful ally. China’s second-highest ranking official behind president Xi Jinping is none other than the man that helped Elon Musk build his massive Chinese vehicle factory: state premier and former Shanghai party boss Li Qiang.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/1973426

Archived

China has on Feb 13 sought to reject a Swiss government report suggesting that it has been cracking down on Tibetans and Uyghurs living in Switzerland under the globally condemned campaign of transnational repression. It has sought to castigate the report’s findings as “false information”.

China routinely rejects offhandedly any report criticizing its human rights record, especially when it concerns Tibetans and Uyghurs, claiming it inherently amounts to interfering in its internal affairs.

The Swiss government report published on Feb 12 expressed “suspicion” that China was inciting Tibetans and Uyghurs living in Switzerland to spy on and exert pressure on members of their own communities, while also engaging in other forms of “transnational repression”, such as cyber-attacks and surveillance.

The report was based on the results of a University of Basel study commissioned by the Federal Office of Justice and the State Secretariat for Migration. The investigation was carried out In response to a parliamentary postulate.

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In its report, the Swiss government recommended examining a series of measures concerning prevention, coordination and awareness-raising. It also wanted to raise awareness among all federal, cantonal and communal services likely to be involved in transnational repression.

China is accused of carrying out a campaign of genocide in East Turkestan (Xinjiang), the homeland of the Uyghur, in the name of combatting religious extremism, and the obliteration of Tibetan culture and identity in the name of Sinicization in Tibet. It is also routinely criticized at the UN Human Rights Council both for its systemic violations and poor response to calls for accountability by its expert investigators.

Just over a year ago, Chloe Cheung was sitting her A-levels. Now she's on a Chinese government list of wanted dissidents.

The choir girl-turned-democracy activist woke up to news in December that police in Hong Kong had issued a $HK1 million ($100,000; £105,000) reward for information leading to her capture abroad.

"I actually just wanted to take a gap year after school," Chloe, 19, who lives in London, told the BBC. "But I've ended up with a bounty!"

Chloe is the youngest of 19 activists accused of breaching a national security law introduced by Beijing in response to huge pro-democracy protests in the former British colony five years ago.

In 2021, she and her family moved to the UK under a special visa scheme for Hong Kongers. She can probably never return to her home city and says she has to be careful about where she travels.

Her protest work has made her a fugitive of the Chinese state, a detail not lost on me as we meet one icy morning in the café in the crypt of Westminster Abbey. In medieval England, churches provided sanctuary from arrest.

Hong Kong police issued the arrest warrant on Christmas Eve, using the only photo they appear to have on file for her – in which she is aged 11.

"It freaked me out at first," she says, but then she fired back a public response.

"I didn't want the government to think I was scared. Because if Hong Kongers in Hong Kong can't speak out for themselves any more, then we outside of the city - who can speak freely without fear- we have to speak up for them."

[...]

China's Bounty targets

• July 2023: Eight high profile activists are named including: Nathan Law, Anna Kwok and Finn Lau, former politicians Dennis Kwok and Ted Hui, lawyer and legal scholar Kevin Yam, unionist Mung Siu-tat, and online commentator Yuan Gong-yi.
• December 2023: Simon Cheng, Frances Hui, Joey Siu, Johnny Fok and Tony Choi
• December 2024: Tony Chung, Carmen Lau, Chung Kim-wah, Chloe Cheung, Victor Ho Leung-mau

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/29611732

Archived

Several private Chinese companies have begun operations in temporarily occupied areas of Ukraine, supplying essential equipment and helping rebuild destroyed factories, reports the Ukrainian media outlet NV, suggesting that these business activities likely have the backing of the Chinese Communist Party.

Chinese entrepreneurs from varying sectors such as energy, agriculture, and light industry are traveling to these regions to form joint Chinese-Russian companies and are actively seeking local workers.

"Currently, Russians lack the financial resources to develop the captured Ukrainian territories, prompting the Kremlin to seek Chinese investment," stated Pavlo Lysianskyi, Director of the Institute of Strategic Studies and Security.

Since the spring of 2023, companies from the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk have appeared at China's "Canton Fair" in Guangzhou. For instance, Artom Zhykharyev, "advisor to the general director" of the "state company 'Nadra'" from the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, visited industrial equipment plants in Beijing, Zhengzhou, Jinan, and Taiyuan. By 2024, the Chinese company Liming Heavy Industry Science & Technology is expected to supply various industrial equipment, including stationary crushers and vibrating feeders.

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The media reports that the Chinese are aiding Russians not only in rebuilding the devastated industries of Donbas but also by supplying equipment to mines occupied by Russia in Torez, Snizhne, and Khrestivka. Moreover, Russia is seeking to connect the highway "Rostov-on-Don — Mariupol — Melitopol — Simferopol," which it is actively constructing, to an international transportation corridor "Europe — Western China."

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Cross posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/29556998

UK-based lawyers have spoken out about being targeted by the Chinese state and its supporters in a campaign of intimidation including surveillance, hacking of bank accounts and rape threats.

The barristers, from Doughty Street Chambers in London, say there has been a coordinated and concerted campaign against them since they began acting for the jailed Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and media mogul, Jimmy Lai, three years ago.

Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC said she had received threats via email and social media of dismemberment, rape and death, which have extended to her family in recent months.

“I had a threat to rape one of my children because of my work,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s just an individual or if that’s someone who’s state-linked. What I do know is that if you have a campaign which is led by state authorities to say this lawyer is not to be trusted and they’re undermining the Chinese state by engaging in legal work with the United Nations, it sends a green light to [its supporters] to send material like that.”

As the leader of Lai’s international legal team, Gallagher has been targeted the most, including “hundreds” of attempts to hack her bank account. There has also been so-called “privilege phishing” – attempts to seek to persuade those who are targeted to divulge sensitive information, which the Bar Council has also warned about. Sometimes it is through emails created to appear to have been sent by Gallagher, or her contacts or colleagues.

China’s media frequently use remarks by Taiwanese commentators in Douyin (抖音) — the Chinese version of TikTok — posts to propagate negative images of Taiwan, a Taiwan Information Environment Research Center report says.

In October and November last year, the months before and after the US presidential election, the 20 most cited Taiwanese figures were Alex Tsai (蔡正元), Li Cheng-chieh (栗正傑), Julian Kuo (郭正亮), Herman Shuai (帥化民), Lu Li-shih (呂禮詩), Hsieh Han-ping (謝寒冰), Lai Yueh-chien (賴岳謙), Dale Jieh (介文汲), Chang Yen-ting (張延廷), Yuan Chu-cheng (苑舉正), Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋), Ho Han-ting (侯漢廷), Eric Chu (朱立倫), Lee Sheng-feng (李勝峰), Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯), Tang Hsiang-lung (唐湘龍), Tung Chih-sen (董智森), Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄) and Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), the report said.

...

Commentators specializing in military affairs such as Li, a retired major general, Shuai, a former KMT legislator, Lu, a former navy lieutenant commander, and Chang, a retired air force lieutenant general, made the top 10, marking a sharp rise from the same period in 2023, the report said.

The most covered topics were Chinese military power or cross-strait warfare (51.69 percent), “US skepticism theory” (24.83 percent) and “cross-strait familyhood” (13.77 percent), it said, adding th

...at war-related quotes made up the majority.

China is nervous.

Beijing has recently started a barrage of fire against the Dalai Lama; it has not happened for years on this scale. The attack seems to target the ‘foreign’ audience, as it was mainly posted in English by CGTN through a series of several articles and two videos (featuring a well-known Indian Communist).

But what is CGTN, or China Central Television (CCTV)? It is an English-language news channel under the control of the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This explains many things.

On February 1, four articles appeared denouncing the Tibetan religious leader: “Unmasking the Dalai Lama: The root of darkness in old Xizang”.

Of course, it was also an occasion to ‘sell’ Tibet’s new name, Xizang. Beijing’s ‘friends’, like Pakistan and Nepal, have already started reporting about ‘Xizang’ and no more about Tibet or the Land of Snows.

...

Why [China's] renewed aggressiveness now?

The first reason could be the forthcoming 90th birthday of the Tibetan leader. In 2011, in a long statement speaking about his succession and the return of the 15th Dalai Lama, he had announced that he would give details about his ‘return’ when he turns 90 years old.

...

Another reason for Beijing’s frustration and anger is that the attack on India in May 2020 in Eastern Ladakh has shown Beijing’s military limits, while at the same time triggering a never-seen-before development of India’s northern borders (ie, the construction of new roads, providing better communications with telecom towers in remote areas, the adoption of the Vibrant Village Scheme for border settlements, and a general revitalisation of local faith, in particular Tibetan Buddhism in the Himalaya).

The last is taking place at a time when China is pushing for the ‘sinization’ of the same Buddhism (which is the opposite of the Buddha’s profound teachings). All these factors probably concur to make Beijing nervous; an insecure China can be an aggressive China. India needs to be watchful.