Building a global anti-transnational repression network of $3 million: U.S. pushes law enforcement collaboration from human rights reports to overseas pursuit of authoritative nations

The way the U.S. government deals with “transnational repression” is changing: in the past it was mainly written in human rights reports, and now it has begun to invest in funding to build transnational law enforcement and civil cooperation networks.

The U.S. State Department’s Democracy, Human Rights and Labour Office launched the Global Coalition Against Transnational Repression on July 16 this year, with applications expiring on August 12.U.S. government public documents show that the total funding of the project is $2,960,039 and plans to fund a global project lasting 24 to 36 months with the core goal of strengthening the ability of partner governments, law enforcement agencies and civil society to identify, record and respond to transnational repression.

The U.S. State Department’s definition of the issue is quite clear: Authority regimes cross borders to intimidate, harass, repress or harm overseas immigrants, dissidents, journalists and human rights defenders. This means that an action can also enter the policy framework of transnational repression, even if there is no abduction or violence, as long as it uses state force to force overseas residents to stop their legal expression.

Beijing, on the other hand, has long opposed the concept being used in China, emphasizing China's lawful fight against crime, safeguarding national security, and accusing Western countries of interfering with China's internal affairs on human rights issues.The core of the dispute between the two is not whether the Chinese government can investigate real cross-border crime, but whether China's national security and political control borders can extend to other countries.

A special report released by the U.S. Congress and the Executive Committee on China in June this year listed China as an important perpetrator of global transnational repression, and listed ways to threaten families of Hong Kongers, Uighurs, Tibetans, Chinese dissidents and other critics, digital harassment, legal warfare and pressure to return home.

The new State Council project further changes the path of response. Open documents require projects to establish regional coordination conferences, law enforcement and civil organization training mechanisms, information sharing platforms, and tools to identify transnational repression.This means that an intimidation phone call, a threat to family or a suspected agent tracking from overseas activists may no longer be just an isolated human rights story in the future, but can access a case identification system shared in several countries.

The most effective part of China’s transnational repression is often not public violence, but rather uncertainty: making a person living in Europe or the United States uncertain who the photographer is, making people with families still in China worried that their public speech will have consequences for relatives, and gradually losing confidence inside overseas communities due to suspicion of infiltration.

From Beijing’s point of view, these overseas political activities may involve Chinese sovereignty, national security and so-called “anti-China” activities; from a democratic country’s legal point of view, if a foreign government restricts the expression of legal residents in its territory by threats and covert agents, it affects the sovereignty and criminal jurisdiction of the country where it is located.

This is also the place where real conflict occurs.

The U.S. funding is not enormous, but the institutional significance is far greater than the amount itself.When transnational repression shifts from diplomatic statements to police training, evidence preservation, case databases and cross-border law enforcement cooperation, Beijing’s cost of relying on fear of victims and information isolation to implement overseas control will be significantly increased.

The meaning of the border line is that when a person leaves China, the laws of the country where he is located should determine what he can say, rather than continue to be decided by the political red line of the Communist Party of China.