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China’s efforts in US and elsewhere to reach and silence critics merit greater attention: US panel
- Passport controls, smear campaigns and abuse of Interpol cited as tactics Beijing has employed, annual congressional report reveals
- China waged ‘multi-year campaign of transnational repression against critics, Uygurs, and others to stifle criticism’, it says
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An influential panel advising Congress on human rights and rule of law developments in China is urging greater attention be paid to Beijing’s efforts to reach and silence its critics in the US and around the world.
Beijing has relied on passport controls, cyberattacks, intimidation, smear campaigns, spying, threats to family members still in China, and abuse of Interpol – a global police clearing-house that issues “red notices” directing local police forces to arrest international fugitives pending extradition – according to an annual report by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) released on Wednesday.
The report comes as Washington has increasingly scrutinised the activities of people of Chinese origin in the US and seeks to adopt a “whole-of-government” response to foreign governments’ stalking, intimidating, or assaulting their citizens and diaspora abroad, a practice described as “transnational repression”.
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“The People’s Republic of China continued a multi-year campaign of transnational repression against critics, Uygurs, and others to stifle criticism and enhance control over emigrant and diaspora communities,” the report said.
The CECC is a bipartisan, bicameral body created by Congress in October 2000 and tasked with submitting an annual report to Congress and the US president.
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