Repressing across Borders: Is China Distinctive?

• In Event: The New Illiberalism? 21st Century Technologies of Repression and Retrenchment

Abstract

Transnational repression is when governments reach across its own domestic borders to threaten, surveil, and harass, citizens residing in a foreign state. When this happens, it can threaten democratic institutions and the national sovereignty of the foreign state. Many authoritarian and illiberal states engage in transnational repression, including Russia, Iran, Turkey, and India under Modi. This study investigates the case of China, the world’s most powerful authoritarian state with the capability to, and a track record of, engaging in transnational repression against a range of targets outside of its borders. The Chinese government has partnered with foreign governments and international organizations like Interpol to extradite citizens, publicly harassed overseas activists, and privately threatened citizens for their on- and offline activities.

This study compares these practices to those of other authoritarian and illiberal states in order to ask if China’s transnational repression is distinctive and if so, how. Based on a combination of interviews with Chinese diaspora members who have experienced transnational repression and databases of corrupt officials, ethnic minorities, and others who have been targeted, this study provides a qualitative assessment of China’s transnational repression under Xi Jinping (2012-present). By comparing China’s typology of transnational repression to those of other regimes including Russia, Iran, Turkey, and India, this study contributes a comparative typology of the coercive tools that states use when targeting groups outside of its borders.

Authors

• Diana Fu, University of Toronto

• Emile Bernard Dirks, University of Toronto