Strategy Insights Ep 100: Authoritarianism Weaponized.. Not Even Safe Abroad！

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Professor Ming's Strategic Insights. In the past few weeks, we called attention to two new laws promoted or put forward by Beijing government, which are NUPPA, so-called National Unity and Progressive Promotion Act, and AMIIS, so-called Administrative Measures on Internet Information Services. The second one is still under draft, but it's going to put into effect pretty soon. And we also identified several characteristics which run contrary to the more civilized legal systems, such as very vague and controversial legal languages contained in these two laws, and the contents and the scope are so broad, and they even constitute what we call the catch-all charges, and they encourage informing or denunciation, and they have retroactive applications, and sometimes we call it retroactivity, and most seriously, transnational repression. In fact, Beijing has been implementing some of these measures long before the introduction of these two new laws. The most prominent case is what they've been doing against Falun Gong. Beijing's transnational repression against Falun Gong falls into five categories, including a combination of diplomatic threat and economic pressure, illegal overseas law enforcement, transnational internet threat, and digital surveillance, and targeting and punishing their relatives still inside China, and lastly, weaponization of law enforcement mechanisms. We are going to discuss them one by one. In terms of diplomatic threat and economic pressure, we often see that the Chinese diplomats abroad usually use trade cooperation, investment, or even diplomatic relations as a leverage to ask or to demand foreign governments or foreign businesses to cooperate with them, especially to countries in Southeast Asia, Midwestern Asia, and part of African countries. They demand these countries to cancel the legal or legitimate registration of Falun Gong, or the associated associations, to ban their parade or assembly, and their practice in public parks, and things like that. And in some cases, they even force the foreign countries to help them to deport the Falun Gong practitioners or to extradite them back into China. And I'm sure you have heard of the Shen Yun Performing Arts, which is a very glamorous show around the world. And Chinese diplomats frequently harass and try to intimidate the performance of this famous group. They send letters and emails or even phone calls to foreign governments and parliament members of foreign countries and even the theaters to intimidate the performance of this group. And in addition, they even pressure the mainstream mass media around the world or the big businesses around the world, asking them to cancel the show or cancel the advertisement that Shen Yun Performing Arts put on their media. And as for the businesses, they threaten to cut off their access to the Chinese market, and so on and so forth. And that was the first aspect. The second aspect is their illegal overseas law enforcement. We all know that Beijing has tried to set up or to establish overseas secret police stations. The most notable case is in New York City. And in London and in Paris, we've heard similar cases. They try to monitor and try to photograph and try to gather information or intelligence about Falun Gong practitioners and the associations or agents or medias that they established through these so-called overseas services stations. And sometimes they recruit agents or even spies to collect information about Falun Gong practitioners. And sometimes they try to steal the membership rosters, event plans, and financial records. And in some extreme cases, they even try to buy off some local groups or agents or sometimes individuals to harass individuals or activities of the Falun Gong practitioners. And thirdly, since the use of the internet has become so popular, their digital surveillance or digital attacks against Falun Gong and associated activities or agencies become very popular. They even conduct state-level so-called advanced persistent threat against Falun Gong practitioners by conducting DDoS attacks and illegal access to service of Falun Gong practitioners, global news agencies, global news websites, and human rights, data banks, and things like that. And they monitor the discourses of overseas Chinese communities using a Chinese-based platform such as WeChat, the most popular platform. And they even deploy massive social media bot-logs to flood online discourses or discussions with false information or misleading messages to attack Falun Gong and the associated agencies or websites. And naturally, spywares and phishing emails are the tools common for them to use targeting Falun Gong and Falun Gong practitioners. And fourthly, targeting and punishing Falun Gong practitioners' family members still in China has been proven the most effective measures being taken against Falun Gong practitioners. If Falun Gong practitioners who stay overseas participate in any kind of open activities or file a lawsuit, human rights lawsuits, or even just making a news report, members from Beijing's MSS, Ministry of State Security, would hunt down their family members in China, be that their parents, their children, or sometimes even their relatives to intimidate them. And very concretely speaking, the pensions of their parents could be reduced, held off, or even completely cut off. And some people experienced the cases of their family members' government jobs being completely fired. And in some extreme cases, some of the family members inside China being detained or even put behind bars for several weeks or even months. And all these activities, as we mentioned, have violated the laws of their resident countries. And the fifth or the last category has to do with weaponization of a foreign law enforcement mechanism. For instance, there have been cases of abusing the so-called Interpol to send out or to issue red notices or red notes against Falun Gong practitioners and try to brand them as criminals, try to extradite them back to China. And there have been cases like that. But fortunately, it went unsuccessful. And sometimes in some cases, they try to bribe the resident countries' government officials to achieve their purposes or to file what we call strategic lawsuits against public participation. There have been many cases like these, but in some cases, they did achieve their purposes. So it's really an unfortunate thing for both the Falun Gong practitioners and also the resident countries. But fortunately, as cases like these have become more and more obvious, some of the leading countries such as the United States, Canada, and the G7 countries have already clearly identified these activities as transnational repression. And some of the PRC agents or even spies were identified or being charged as conducting illegal activities in foreign countries. As a matter of fact, there's a lot more cases of transnational oppression or transnational repression against Falun Gong, but due to the limit of time, we can only talk about this much at this point. And in the end, let me make a few observations to conclude our discussion. First of all, it may be a surprise for you to hear when I tell you that actually there's not a single law in China which identifies Falun Gong as an illegal activity or illegal organization or things like that. That is to say, what they've been doing against Falun Gong is an outright violation of their own law and their own legal system. And secondly, naturally, the measures they take to punish or to persecute Falun Gong are illegal, including arrest, fine, detention, physical torture, or targeting and punishing their family members, and so on and so forth. Not to mention the horrific crime of forced organ harvesting, which we did not have time to discuss in length in this program. And let me remind you, this kind of crimes have already spread to countries outside of China, most notably in Southeast Asian countries. And that's why, lastly, I want to call your attention to remain vigilant that Beijing's transnational repression, be that made against Falun Gong or at political dissidents or people like in the Uyghur in Tibet or in Mongolia, is a straight violation or sabotage of resident countries' law, democracy, and even sovereignty. That's something that we must be very vigilant of. Well, that's all I want to share with you today. And hopefully, we have time for some more next time. I hope you like it. And please share it with your friends and click the icon bell so that you get the on-time notification. That's all for today. I'll see you next time.