OUT OF SIGHT, NOT OUT OF REACH The Global Scale and Scope of Transnational Repression CASE STUDIES China Demonstrators in Istanbul protest China’s mass internment of Uighurs and other Muslims held in “reeducation” camps. Image credit: Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images C hina conducts the most sophisticated, global, and comprehensive campaign of transnational repression in the world. Efforts by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to pressure and control the overseas population of Chinese and members of minority communities are marked by three distinctive characteristics. First, the campaign targets many groups, including multiple ethnic and religious minorities, political dissidents, human rights activists, journalists, and former insiders accused of corruption. Second, it spans the full spectrum of tactics: from direct attacks like renditions, to co-opting other countries to detain and render exiles, to mobility controls, to threats from a distance like digital threats, spyware, and coercion by proxy. Third, the sheer breadth and global scale of the campaign is unparalleled. Freedom House’s conservative catalogue of direct, physical attacks since 2014 covers 214 cases originating from China, far more than any other country. These egregious and high-profile cases are only the tip of the iceberg of a much broader system of surveillance, harassment, and intimidation that leaves many overseas Chinese and exile minorities feeling that the CCP is watching them and constraining their ability to exercise basic rights even when living in a foreign democracy. All told, these tactics affect millions of Chinese and minority populations from China in at least 36 host countries across every inhabited continent.57 The extensive scope of China’s transnational repression is a result of a broad and ever-expanding definition of who freedomhouse.org 15