Evidence — including a bombshell indictment this week of a senior New York political figure — is mounting that China is not content to run a police state just at home but is extending a long arm of repression and subversion into the United States, seeking to intimidate protesters, harass critics and silence dissent. China is using subterfuge and coercion to bully people on U.S. soil, openly defying American rights guarantees and rule of law. This behavior is a threat to open societies everywhere and cannot be allowed to continue without a strong response.
Another recent example: Revelations that Chinese diplomats and pro-China diaspora groups based in the United States organized demonstrations in San Francisco that harassed and silenced protesters opposed to Beijing’s policies when Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited the city last November. A six-month Post investigation found that, although there was aggression from both sides during the visit, the most extreme was instigated by pro-Chinese activists and carried out by coordinated groups of young men. Protesters against Mr. Xi were attacked with extended flagpoles and chemical spray, punched, kicked and had fistfuls of sand thrown in their faces. Demonstrators supporting the Chinese Communist Party and Mr. Xi tore down protesters’ banners and replaced them with Chinese flags. The pro-Xi forces also stalked protesters and used gloves with metal knuckles, metal rods and flagpoles in various scuffles, videos show.
The pro-Xi demonstrators had a right to express themselves, but not to use violence to deny others the same rights. The Hoover Institution’s Glenn Tiffert, a historian of modern China, told The Post that the Chinese Communist Party “mobilizes surrogates to ostracize, intimidate, surround and silence the activists” with a goal of trying to “isolate, bury and extinguish” others “so that it alone monopolizes the field.”
We called attention to this practice last year with the story of a Chinese American dissident artist in California whose work was destroyed by thugs hired by China. We also noted that China’s methods were growing more brazen. Beijing has been setting up outposts in other countries to hunt for dissidents. China is using cutouts, or third parties, to mask the secret role of its security services, a trend evident in criminal complaints involving Chinese transnational repression that the Justice Department has filed sinThe latest complaint, filed Aug. 26 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, charges that Linda Sun, formerly an aide to two New York governors, was secretly being rewarded by China’s government in exchange for her influence and taking actions on China’s behalf in New York state government. According to a 64-page indictment, she attempted repeatedly to block officials from Taiwan, the self-governing island that China considers a renegade province, from accessing the governor’s office. The indictment says Ms. Sun bragged that she had successfully prevented Taiwan’s representatives from meeting either Andrew M. Cuomo or Kathy Hochul — she had worked for both Democratic governors.
In 2019, the indictment alleges, Ms. Sun wrote invitation letters to a Chinese delegation that they could submit to the State Department in visa applications. When the Chinese changed the composition of their delegation, she issued the invitation again. However, she had no authorization to invite the delegation to New York, and the handwritten signature on the letter “was falsified,” the indictment says.
Ms. Sun was charged Tuesday with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), visa fraud, alien smuggling and money laundering conspiracy. Her husband, Chris Hu, was also charged with money laundering conspiracy, along with conspiracy to commit bank fraud and misuse of identification. Each pleaded not guilty. The government says the pair made millions of dollars from the influence scheme, which they spent on luxury houses and cars. Sun’s family also received gifts of salted ducks prepared by the personal chef of a Chinese consulate official, the indictment says.
The Justice Department is right to pursue the perpetrators of transnational repression. Calling attention to such outrageous behavior will help deter it. But the United States also needs to bolster the legal framework against it. FARA is essentially a registration and disclosure statute, an imperfect tool for fighting transnational repression. It could be strengthened to give law enforcement better tools to proactively identify and block repression by overseas despots. Freedom House suggested including transnational repression in the annual State Department human rights report. Several bills introduced in Congress, such as the Transnational Repression Policy Act, would help codify transnational repression as a crime.
China and other despotic nations must get the message: Not on our shores
