Xinjiang Camp Whistleblower Freed After US Asylum Win | China in Focus

Welcome to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Our top story. A massive sinkhole has suddenly opened on a busy road in Shanghai, China's largest financial hub. What caused it? Two Chinese-American female athletes are in the spotlight, not for the medals they won, but for the paths they took. Alyssa Liu won figure skating gold for the U.S., while Aileen Gu took freestyle skiing silver for China. A former NBA player calls Aileen Gu a traitor, but she says it's more about opportunity, not loyalty. I think Aileen Gu might consider to become a Chinese citizen, live there and to say what's like. And 48 hours after his release by ICE, a Chinese whistleblower with evidence of Beijing's alleged human rights abuses sat down with us last week. He crossed the U.S. southern border in 2021, hoping to escape persecution by the Chinese regime. A massive sinkhole appeared on a busy road in Shanghai on Wednesday, right above a subway construction site. Nearby buildings and construction materials have been swallowed into the sinkhole, which is estimated to be about 65 feet wide and 15 feet deep. Now, due to a ruptured underground pipe, some debris is floating in water, with the site located in a densely populated business area, just minutes by car from Shanghai's international airport. The incident has caused heavy traffic in the surrounding commercial area, but no injuries have been reported so far. Authorities say that a day before the collapse, a groundwater leakage was detected at the subway construction site. They're suspecting that the leakage caused the sinkhole. The Winter Olympics, many are comparing two Chinese-American female athletes, Aileen Gu and Alyssa Liu. Alyssa Liu competed for the U.S. as a figure skater and won gold. Meanwhile, Aileen Gu competed for China and took silver in the freestyle skiing final. Aileen Gu is now the highest-paid winter Olympian in the world. She earned an estimated $23 million in 2025 alone. Her income comes from partnerships with Chinese companies like the Bank of China, as well as Western brands. Both Aileen and Alyssa were born in the U.S. and are in their 20s, with each having a parent of Chinese heritage. Despite these similarities, the two took very different paths, sparking discussions online. In a post on X, former NBA player Eneskander Freedom called Gu a traitor. He wrote, She was born in America, raised in America, lives in America, and chose to compete against her own country for the worst human rights abuser on the planet, China. Get it? That's not neutrality. That's a choice. She chose to play for a country responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of its own people, and that is running concentration camps right now, instead of the country where she was born and given opportunity. Hudson Institute senior fellow Micah Svolik commented on Aileen Gu's criticism of President Trump and her silence on human rights violations by the Chinese Communist Party. He wrote, That says a lot about you. If you're an American athlete that leverages the freedom this country has given you to represent an authoritarian regime, that says even more. But Aileen Gu defended her decision to compete for China, saying she wanted to have a greater impact there than in the U.S., where there are fewer role models to look up to. Gu adds that she would like to become one of them in order to inspire Chinese people. She also denied that her choice was about loyalty to any particular country, saying it was about the impact she would like to have. And to unpack all of this, we spoke to Lily Tang Williams, survivor of Mao's Cultural Revolution. She's also a New Hampshire congressional candidate. Lily, thank you so much for joining us. Always great to see you. First, why do you think this comparison is getting so much attention? Well, that just sends a message to all the immigrants who brought their children, or their children were born in this country. We have a different kind of generations. Some are very in touch with China's history, and belongs to communism, think that's an evil ideology. But some just forgot their roots, and they're pro-CCP, maybe because their parents are pro-CCP. And also, it's self-interest driving. It's lots of money involved, and lots of commercial interest, and for the sponsors too. And I'm anti-CCP. I cannot even go to China, visit my family for past 11 years. And so when you look at these two young women, I will say that Ms. Liu is American patriot. It's not about you are Chinese-American, Korean-American. It's about if you embrace American ideals, that we love this country. But if you can just carry other countries' flag, and fight for other countries' team, I think Aileen Guo might consider to become a Chinese citizen, live there, and to say what's like. To your point, it is a tale of two choices, one using her American training to benefit China while raking in millions in sponsorships, the other declining to represent the Chinese Communist Party and choosing to represent America. What do these different choices tell us about the Chinese regime's influence and goals? Well, Xi Jinping's China dream is to use soft power and use the United Front Work Department to infiltrate into America, not just Chinese-Americans communities, but in our schools, in our business, corporations, Hollywood, and politics. So I have been warning people for 10 years that they don't have a fire one shot. And they send their ideologies, and their spies, and their operatives in this country indoctrinate, and also offer them very good benefit to be pro-CCP. And I have been tracking this for 10 years, and we have Chinese companies in New Hampshire, too, to buy buildings, buy real estate, and have a business, and buy private university campuses, and to have their own international schools. One of them even said that they want to train China's future diplomats. I mean, look at what Jin Wu, like a state senator, minority senator leader in Texas, recently to say, hey, we are the majority. Minorities all team up together, have this anti-white sentiment, because white people are oppressors. He does not know what he's talking about. The real oppressors are the communists. So it's not about your race. It's about your ideology. So I'm hoping that people can say what kind of ideologies, and work better in the history, and what kind of Chinese-Americans that you want to call patriot. And as I said, if you love China so much, you should not be living in the United States. Go to China, to be in touch with Chinese regular citizens who have no free speech, who have no freedom, who have no religious freedom, to go there, to be in touch with reality, to show your native country patriotism. But get out of America, I will say to them. Aileen Gu is coming under a lot of criticism over her recent comments after she lost gold, saying, quote, sometimes it feels like I'm carrying the weight of two countries on my shoulders. Many pointing out that when she wins, the gold only goes to China. How useful is it to the Chinese regime to have popular people, in this case, an athlete, represent them on the world stage? You know, Chinese Communist Party has been recruiting talents in the U.S. for a while. And I mean, not just the athletes, but influencers and engineers and scientists, and offer them a benefit. And they do take advantage of people's family connections in China. And maybe they just are brainwashed not to know the true history and true colors of the Communist Party. I think it's absolutely disgraceful and shameful for her parents, to make her feel like a Chinese Communist Party and still the savior of China without the CCP, like Chinese people cannot have prosperity. I mean, it's just a total BS. Actually, America is the best country to provide the free market and opportunities for legal immigrants like me. But she was born here, she did not know. And our educational system don't teach her that. And if her parents don't teach her the true history of China, then of course, you know, she's a young lady who just doesn't know much. And she got a lot of endorsements and lots of sponsorships and make lots of money. And I still would advise her, maybe when she goes to China, live there for a while, and go to the countryside and talk to regular Chinese people, maybe she will know that America is actually the best country on earth. And she would love to come back and kiss the dirt. On the other hand, Alyssa says that in 2022, she found out that her family was being spied on by the CCP along with other Chinese dissidents in the US. It's reported that her father was a political refugee after the Tiananmen Square protests. Talk to us about how the Chinese regime pressures overseas Chinese dissidents, even their family members who are born and raised in Well, I would say it's a transnational oppressive regime. They use money, they use influence, they use politics, they even recruit people to run for them, get into the US government. And I have been warning people, while we are focused on China on the world stage, and fight the tariff wars, and the cultural wars, we have to mind our own country. They are here, and CCTV is showing every day. If you are Chinese American, you want to see Chinese language program, and they can have access to CCTV, which is China's propaganda show. And I have friends watch that all the time. And because they continue to miss China, and to allow themselves to be indoctrinated by the Chinese propaganda, it's very sad to me. It's like, how could your parents survive communism coming here, that you don't come here and embrace American values? So good for Ms. Liu's parents, who actually was a student leader, demonstrator in Tiananmen Square. So he, as a father, educated her daughter, right? Don't forget your past, and don't forget the history. The communism, the most evil regime in the world, America stands for freedom. So I'm so proud of Ms. Liu, an American patriot. And I'm proud of how she was educated by her own father. Lily Tang Williams, as always, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. February 3rd marks a special day for not only a Chinese family, but many US asylum seekers. Guang Heng was released last Tuesday, one week after a New York judge granted him asylum, following more than five months in immigration detention. He's a whistleblower who documented evidence of Beijing's human rights abuses against Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region. Guang sat down with NTD's Flora Hua less than 48 hours after his release from the immigration detention to unpack his journey. Let's dive in. This is Guang Heng. He was born in China and lived there for more than three decades. So what drove him to flee from his home country? It all started in 2020, when Guang traveled to China's Xinjiang region on a secret mission. So what prompted you to go to Xinjiang? Let's start from here. I read some reports on China's persecution of Uyghurs. Given my understanding of the Chinese regime, and as an ordinary citizen whose freedom of speech is restricted, I was sympathetic for what they were going through. I thought, all right, I could use my videos to provide testimony for their situation. Most of China's Muslim minority, the Uyghurs, live in the Xinjiang region of western China. The US and UK have accused China of genocide targeting Uyghurs. A million people have been reportedly detained in Xinjiang in nearly 400 so-called re-education camps. Beijing blocks foreign media from reaching the public, but Guang says he started bypassing censorship over a decade ago. In 2020, a BuzzFeed report on Uyghur persecution caught his eye. Having visited Xinjiang the year before, he was struck by the street controls and heavy police presence there. The report made me think maybe I should go back and make a video about this. Driving through the locations marking the news report, Guang found that some of the largest are in Urumqi, the biggest city in Xinjiang. You said these places look like detention facilities. Can you tell us what features made you think that they were detention camps? Many of them are located in Urumqi city. These sites had no names or signage and were under heavy security. There was a school with barbed wire on top of the walls, very unusual. What's more, some of the facilities Guang saw in person aren't even documented on Chinese maps. From what I remember, along that stretch of Gaoqiao Road, there was a massive camp. You can't find it on maps at all, but from the outside, it looks like any other prison. Guang recorded extensive footage and safely returned to his hometown in central China. The idea of publishing it, however, carried serious risks. At the time, I understood very clearly that if I published the video while I was still in China, I would definitely be arrested. That wouldn't just put my personal safety at risk, it would also erase everything I had filmed. And especially this film, no one would ever be able to see it. That was an outcome I simply couldn't accept. So he decided to leave China. After traveling through several countries in Latin America, Guang eventually crossed the U.S. southern border into Florida in 2021 and applied for asylum. Media and human rights groups say Guang's significant findings provide long-sought, on-the-ground evidence supporting claims of the regime's abuses. Meanwhile, across the Pacific, Guang's mother told me the family faced a coordinated campaign by the CCP a month after he released the videos in the U.S. Police interrogated his father and close relatives. At the same time, officers raided Guang's apartment and confiscated his computer. She says the CCP is closely watching Guang's trial. On the 17th, I received a text message from Guang's father saying that the police had summoned him again. A national security officer took him to their office and asked him some questions, saying, we know everything about your son in the United States. He's now going to be sent to a third country. We will eliminate Guang's household registration. Another twist for Guang came last year when ICE agents arrested him over illegal entry. He was initially in the process of deportation to Uganda, but his case quickly garnered attention. The House Select China Committee sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security urging for Guang's release. Two weeks ago, a New York immigration judge granted him asylum, citing a well-founded fear of returning to China. Looking back, I asked him whether he regretted visiting Xinjiang and publishing the videos. No. From the very beginning, the reason I made videos was to do something more meaningful, something more significant than just filming my own life. And that's how it's always been. Guang says he wishes the people in China to remain vigilant against the CCP's suppression. He adds that he's inspired by other Chinese dissidents, including civil reporter Zhang Zhan and the founder of the blog program Think, Ruan Xiaohuan. Both remain detained in Chinese prisons today. Flora Hua, NTD News. Coming up, Takaichi wins big in Japan's elections and President Trump unveils a new board of peace. Retired Marine Colonel Grant joins us to break down what these moves could mean for global politics and China's reaction. You've seen so many things come out of the White House, this White House, that everyone thinks are impossible and then something happens. So I'm in the wait and see mode, but not willing to dismiss it. More on that after the break here on China In Focus. Welcome back to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer, a major power shift in Japan following Sanai Takaichi's landslide snap election win. Here at home, a new U.S. foreign policy idea is drawing attention as President Trump's board of peace and China's response spark global debate. We spoke with retired Marine Colonel Grant Newsham, a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy and author of When China Attacks, for more. Grant Newsham, thank you so much for joining us. Great to have you back on the show. I'm always glad to be here. Now that Takaichi's coalition has swept the snap elections, winning a super majority, you've actually seen 19 different prime ministers in Japan. What can we expect in Japan under Takaichi now that she has that super majority? You have immensely popular. She got a huge amount of the vote and conservative candidates got like 85 percent of the seats, but the actual votes was a huge majority compared to what you usually get. And she is somebody who comes in with an actual platform. She has ideas of what she intends to do. She's actually started doing it in the short time she's been in office. And usually when you have Japanese prime ministers, they come in with a slogan. And if you ask them, well, what are you going to do? They would really generally be at a loss. They would say, well, I'll ask my chief of staff or I'll ask the government what I'm supposed to do. And with her, and I saw this quote in an article about the election, and it was a young Japanese lady who was interviewed. She says, well, Takaichi says things clearly, and it's about that simple. So she's got a plan. She's going to try and implement it. And this is something that the Japanese people often respond to very well when they see leadership. We've seen China responding rather negatively to the election, trying to make sure the status quo and peace remains. Speaking of peace, though, there's a lot of focus on President Trump's new board of peace. China was invited but has rejected to join, saying it wants to stay and it remains fully committed to the United Nations. What do you make of the board of peace and what message that is sending to China? Well, at some point, one has to actually respond to things President Trump suggests or starts doing and say, well, it's never been tried before. Let's see how it works. I think it is a reaction to the inability of the United Nations to really accomplish much. The United Nations has been working on Gaza for decades, and how well has it done? And that, I think, was the original purpose of the board of peace, was to come up with a way to really develop Gaza and deal with this problem that has only gotten worse over the years, hasn't gotten better. And you bring in people with money, people with some ideas, business people, and see if you can actually create some economic prosperity as a way to defuse these rather deep-seated animosities. Now, how it's actually going to work in practice, hard to say, but since Marco Rubio's involved, I suspect it has a fighting chance. But it is something that has just gotten, let's say, people who are used to everything that's been done for the last 70, 80 years as the only way to do it. It's really got their hair on fire. So President Trump has come up with something different, and we'll see what he can do. Speaking of the UN, there's been a lot of reporting over the years, especially with the countries where China has a big presence, whether that's Belt and Road or other initiatives and influence campaigns, that a lot of those countries, a lot in Africa, vote along with China, especially when it comes to human rights issues where they don't expose it. Could the board of peace be something that actually creates change, unlike what we've seen with the UN? Well, you never know. The UN has simply gotten so ridiculous when you have countries like Iran, for example, China on the Human Rights Commission. And you do have to ask yourself, well, what has it produced? What is this class of people? What have these organizations produced? It's not a very good scorecard. And you never know. The board of peace, it's got its work cut out for it to try and displace something that is so established as the United Nations and other international organizations. If it has some immediate success, well, maybe it just might, over time, become a replacement, an alternative. I used to collect for UNICEF as a child on Halloween. At some point, you have to say, well, these organizations don't really do what they're supposed to do. So it's a long shot, and it's one of many things, many initiatives that the Trump administration has going. But one never knows. But as I said, you've seen so many things come out of the White House, this White House, that everyone thinks are impossible, and then something happens. So I'm in the wait-and-see mode, but not willing to dismiss it. Well, Grant Newsham, as always, thank you so much for joining us. Well, thanks for having me. I always enjoy the opportunity. That's all for today's China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. If you have any feedback on the show or have something you'd like to see us cover, send us an email at chinainfocusatntd.com. We'd love to hear from you. For on-the-clock original news coverage, visit us at ntd.com or download our NTD app. Thanks for watching. See you tomorrow.