The Chinese communist regime remained a major perpetrator of transnational repression in 2024, according to the latest data released by the U.S. human rights organization Freedom House.
The Chinese regime was one of the leading perpetrators along with Uganda, Cambodia, Russia, and Iran in 2024, the organization said. The transnational repression targeted exiled political activists, journalists, former regime insiders, and members of ethnic or religious minorities, according to the Freedom House report.
“Transnational repression continues to threaten democracy, freedom, and security globally,” Yana Gorokhovskaia, research director for strategy and design at Freedom House, said in a statement.
Lai Rongwei, CEO of the pro-democracy nonprofit Taiwan Inspirational Association, told The Epoch Times on Feb. 8 that the Freedom House report “feels very real and credible” to him.
“Because Taiwan is at the forefront of China’s threats, China’s various means of infiltration ... are currently taking place in Taiwan and becoming more and more severe,” he said.
Lai said that since 2019 and 2020, after the Chinese regime’s violent suppression of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and protests against its extradition law, many Hongkongers have gone to Taiwan to escape the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) surveillance and persecution.
“During events held by some Hong Kong associations in Taiwan and events commemorating the June 4th Tiananmen massacre in Taiwan, you can see many of the CCP-supported and pro-China groups come to the scene to cause trouble,” he said.
Lai said that his organization has long observed the CCP’s transnational repression and that the regime employs both formal and informal methods to carry out overseas repression.
“The formal [methods use] diplomatic and economic means, such as economic sanctions, trade sanctions, and economic aid, to force the governments of other countries to follow China’s position,” he said.
The Chinese regime also uses technological means to target overseas dissidents, such as monitoring their online activities and hacking their phones, and dispatches China’s national security agents to track down its so-called enemies overseas, according to Lai.
“They also use local agents in some pro-China groups in the local societies of various countries, including spies and informants that they’ve developed. The local agents may also be some pro-China people in society who have been bribed by the CCP for a long time,” he said. “These people are there to help increase the CCP’s influence locally. And they go to various occasions and events to harass and counter those who they think are unfriendly to China. Many people, from politicians to civilians, have been harassed by them.”
“In order to implement its long-arm repression, China has resorted to every possible means, including using national security and intelligence agencies, to target these people,” said Yeau-Tran Lee, an adjunct professor at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan, referring to people who have left China in recent years, including victims of persecution and political dissidents.
“The CCP has so many intelligence and security agents. After Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement was put out in 2019, a large number of the CCP’s agents were transferred overseas, which has increased the CCP’s transnational repression in other countries.”
Yao-Yuan Yeh, professor of political science and international studies at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, said that the CCP’s transnational repression has the effect of “[making] people feel that China’s spies are not only in China, but also abroad everywhere.”
“This can produce a chain effect, silencing those who may be dissatisfied with the Chinese regime abroad, whether they are Chinese or foreigners today, and preventing them from speaking out on the internet. This creates self-censorship through the terrorizing actions [of transnational repression],” Yeh told The Epoch Times on Feb. 9.
Yeh said that each country needs to “consciously prevent or reject the CCP’s transnational repression” on its soil.
On an international scale, Yeh said that the United Nations and other international organizations should strongly condemn the CCP for its repression tactics.
“In international relations, when there’s [a] human rights violation, the most important thing to do is to speak out to expose it, telling all other countries how many evil things this country has done,” he said.
