Beijing’s Transnational Repression Hinges on Threats Against Families in China
Protesters rally in Tokyo to support the victims of a recent fire in Urumqi, the capital of China's Xinjiang region, November 30, 2022. © 2022 Hiro Komae/AP Photo
(Tokyo) – Chinese authorities are seeking to intimidate people from China living in Japan who take part in activities critical of the Chinese government, Human Rights Watch said today.
The Chinese government’s harassment of people from China, including those from Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia, and their family members back home, appears aimed at deterring members of the diaspora from protesting against the government or engaging in events deemed politically sensitive. The Chinese authorities have also sought out diaspora members to provide information on others in Japan.
“Chinese authorities appear to have few scruples about silencing people from China living in Japan who criticize Beijing’s abuses,” said Teppei Kasai, Asia program officer at Human Rights Watch. “The Japanese government should make clear to Beijing it won’t tolerate the long arm of China’s transnational repression in Japan.”
Between June and August 2024, Human Rights Watch interviewed 25 people from Hong Kong and mainland China, including from Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia, who were living in Japan. All had been involved in peaceful activities that the Chinese Communist Party deems unfavorable or threatening to one-party rule; such as holding public events to raise awareness about crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, promoting Tibetan culture, or having a reading club discuss a book by an activist from Inner Mongolia.
Most of those interviewed said that the Chinese police have contacted them or their relatives back home, pressuring them to end their activities in Japan. Several provided logs of messages from the Chinese social media platform WeChat, recordings of video calls, and CCTV footage that corroborated their accounts.
One person said they stopped participating in any politically sensitive in-person and online activities after receiving a call from Chinese authorities in 2024. Another who initially agreed to be interviewed later decided not to participate out of fear that Chinese authorities would retaliate.
Several ethnic Uyghurs from Xinjiang said that Chinese authorities contacted them through their relatives back home. The police then called them on WeChat and told them to either stop their anti-Chinese government activities in Japan or pressed them to share information about Japan’s Uyghur community, including the members of the advocacy group Japan Uyghur Association.
Several people from Inner Mongolia involved in promoting language rights and peaceful self-determination for Inner Mongolians, an ethnic minority, said that Chinese authorities had contacted them, often through their relatives back home.
A person from Tibet who promotes Tibetan culture in Japan said that when they went to the Chinese embassy in Tokyo to renew their passport, embassy officials told them they needed to return to Tibet to do so. A person from Taiwan previously involved in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy activism in a third country said the Chinese embassy sent them multiple invitations to “retrieve important documents.” Both people said they rejected the embassy’s recommendations, fearing they would be detained or face punishment.
Chinese authorities have violated the rights of Chinese nationals who return home. In 2023 Hong Kong police arbitrarily arrested a 23-year-old Hong Kong woman upon her return to the city for pro-democracy comments she posted online while studying in Japan.
Several people said they did not seek help from the Japanese police as they did not believe Japanese authorities could provide any remedy, or feared reprisals or making the situation worse for themselves and their relatives back home.
Human Rights Watch shared its findings and wrote to the Chinese embassy in Japan for comment, but they have not responded. Japan’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment, and the National Police Agency did not respond to a Human Rights Watch letter requesting information about their response to China’s efforts at repression in Japan.
In recent years, the Japanese government has become increasingly vocal about the Chinese government’s human rights violations, including raising the issue with Chinese officials, and with resolutions in parliament to monitor the cases.
The term “transnational repression” is increasingly used to refer to state actors reaching beyond their borders to suppress or stifle dissent. Nationals or former nationals living in another country, members of diaspora communities, and those living in exile are particularly vulnerable.
The Japanese government should recognize the threat posed by the Chinese government’s repression of Chinese nationals abroad, and help protect their basic rights by establishing a system for residents in Japan to report such incidents, Human Rights Watch said.
Such a system should have appropriate safeguards for individuals’ privacy, facilitate criminal investigations in cases in which Japanese law has been violated, and protect people who have contacted the authorities to report credible cases from deportation and extradition. People who face such pressure should be advised of their right to seek asylum or other forms of protection.
The Japanese government should call on the Chinese government to end its surveillance and threats against those living in Japan. On June 26 Japan joined 54 countries from all regions at the UN Human Rights Council in condemning transnational repression and pledging to hold those responsible to account. Japan should also coordinate with other governments and UN bodies to protect those at risk.
“Japan should review its policies to establish support mechanisms to help those facing Chinese government harassment,” Kasai said. “Japan should promptly establish a national system to investigate cases of transnational repression with appropriate safeguards for individuals’ privacy.”
© 2024 Human Rights Watch