cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/47161025

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Within China, this technology helped identify and punish almost 900,000 officials last year alone, nearly five times more than in 2012, according to state numbers. Beijing says it is cracking down on corruption, but critics charge that such technology is used in China and elsewhere to stifle dissent and exact retribution on perceived enemies.

Outside China, the same technology is being used to threaten wayward officials, along with dissidents and alleged criminals, under what authorities call Operations “Fox Hunt” and “Sky Net.” The U.S. has criticized these overseas operations as a “threat” and an “affront to national sovereignty.” More than 14,000 people, including some 3,000 officials, have been brought back to China from more than 120 countries through coercion, arrests and pressure on relatives, according to state information.

“They’re actively pursuing those people who fled China. … as a way to demonstrate power, to show there’s no way you can escape,” said Yaqiu Wang, a fellow at the University of Chicago. “The chilling effect is enormously effective.”

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Li [the Chinese dissident now living in the U.S.] drew ire because as a former official, he knew well and exposed the inner workings of local politics, including naming names. While in the U.S., he also started what he called the Chinese Tyrannical Officials Whistleblower Center.

“China places enormous emphasis on the political discipline of even former officials and (Communist) Party members,” said Jeremy Daum, Senior Fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center. “So when one becomes a vocal critic of the country’s leadership, it doesn’t go over well.”

At a pro-democracy gathering in California in 2020, Li said, he was tailed and questioned by a stranger who knew his identity. That November, an activist secretly working for Beijing asked Li to a meeting and added him to a dissident group chat monitored by China’s police, a 2025 FBI indictment later revealed. In June, an FBI letter identified Li as the possible victim of a crime involving an unregistered Chinese agent.

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Li’s future in the U.S. is unclear. The Trump administration has paused all asylum applications. If he doesn’t return, he could face trial in absentia; if convicted and deported, he could face life in prison.

“Electronic surveillance is the arteries for China to project power into the world ... each step that every one of your relatives takes is being monitored and analyzed with big data,” Li said. “It’s absolutely terrifying.”

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Beijing tapped phones, seized assets and installed cameras outside the homes of friends and family. Some detained were denied surgery or other medical care, even those recovering from heart disease, cancer, and other illnesses. Li’s aunt was released from a hospital in a vegetative state with bruises on her head and all over her body. Even the Li family grave was dug up.

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Li’s friend, Kong, was sentenced to over a decade in prison for allegedly taking bribes. The party claimed he had watched porn and ignored his work, which they blamed for the spread of COVID in his district. Furious, Li kept speaking out.

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In February 2021, Li learned the Chinese government had asked Interpol to issue a Red Notice declaring to police worldwide that Li was a wanted man. Interpol retracted the Red Notice after Li filed a complaint.

Li began donning masks and hats in public and carrying multiple phones, wary of surveillance. He floated from safe house to safe house with Christians across the United States.

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Li is now cut off from friends and family, denied legal assistance and clueless even to the details of the charges against him. So he is once again resorting to speaking out — this time on YouTube.

Li acknowledges the situation seems hopeless. But he’s pressing on.

“Why am I speaking up?” he said. “Today, it’s me. Tomorrow, it might be you.”