Freedom House In their pursuit of activists, autocrats seek to infiltrate, sow division, and introduce suspicion in diaspora communities. The recruitment of informants, whose primary purpose is to collect information, has the effect of isolating people from others who share their language or cultural traditions and on whom they rely for community. The possibility that members of their community are working for the Chinese state leads many Uyghurs—a group that has been relentlessly targeted by Chinese officials for decades, and for whom repression in China has intensified dramatically since 2017—to maintain their distance from each other in the United States.16 Mustafa Aksu, a Uyghur who lives in Washington, D.C., observed that concerns about infiltration in the community stoke fears about how activism in the United States, even quiet, communitybased work, can make the situation of people’s relatives back in China worse.17 Another Uyghur, Ferkat Jawdat, who has vocally campaigned on behalf of his family in China, noted: “In the community, some people have moved away because they are worried that others may be passing some news or information to China.” These fears of infiltration are not unfounded. There are documented cases where members of the Uyghur diaspora were pressured to act as informants while abroad.18 Beijing’s efforts in the United States are also not limited to Uyghurs; authorities also pursue Hong Kongers, Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners, people accused of financial crimes, and critics of the authorities more broadly. In 2020, an ethnically Tibetan New York City police officer was charged with acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government and trying to collect information on New York’s Tibetan diaspora. In addition to affecting people’s individual rights and freedoms, transnational repression is increasingly threatening the democratic processes of the United States. In March 2022, the FBI unsealed criminal indictments that included charges against a member of China’s Ministry of State Security, who had hired a private investigator in New York to collect information on a former 1989 Tiananmen Square protest leader who was running for a seat in the US House of Representatives. The Chinese agent sought information that would damage the candidate’s political career. Failing that, he suggested to the private investigator that damaging information could be manufactured or that the candidate could even be physically attacked to prevent him from participating in the election.19 The goal, as detailed in the indictment, was to stop the candidate from “drawing attention to himself or his political speech.” 20 This marked a new and strikingly bold attempt to stop criticism of a foreign state by an American citizen in the United States, and is emblematic of China’s expanding and aggressive campaign of transnational repression that targets many diverse diasporas from Uyghurs to Hong Kongers and Han Chinese dissidents. The resilience of activists, dissidents, and political exiles in the face of transnational repression is striking. Activists uncowed, but in need of support The resilience of activists, dissidents, and political exiles in the face of transnational repression is striking. Samuel Chu summed up his decision to continue his work despite harassment by the Chinese government in this way: “It’s not because I think I’m braver or more courageous than anybody else. It’s just that I knew what I needed to do to build an organization.” Despite the emotional toll that repression has taken on the individuals Freedom House spoke to, no one had stopped their activism. Many hoped that the US government would do more to help them. Ferkat Jawdat has been campaigning for his mother to be allowed to leave Xinjiang and join the rest of her family in the United States for years.21 A father of three, he knows what it is like for a parent to be unable to see their children. Jawdat continues his work, but he struggles with what to say to his mother: “Every time I call her, I don’t know what to say…It could be easy for the State Department…They can say [to China] ‘Our door is open. Just let her go.’” While it may not always be that simple, Jawdat expressed a common sentiment among interviewees, that the US government should more actively protect targets of transnational repression. freedomhouse.org 5