By Tenzin Nyidon
DHARAMSHALA, July 31: The Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC) and Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) on Tuesday released a new joint report titled “Exporting Repression: Attacks on Protestors During Xi Jinping’s Visit to San Francisco in November 2023”. The report meticulously documents 34 extensive cases of transnational repression (TNR) executed by the supporters of Chinese Communist Party against protestors during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to San Francisco from November 14 to 17, 2023, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
Spanning 160 pages, the report provides a detailed chronological narrative of the attacks, drawing primarily from interviews and testimonies of 26 protesters and one journalist, most of whom were victims of TNR. It unveils the mobilisation and transportation of CCP’s united front groups across the US to San Francisco, where they engaged in acts of assault, harassment, and intimidation. This created a pervasive atmosphere of fear and hostility against Tibetans, Hong Kongers, Uyghurs, and Chinese democracy activists, including individuals as young as 16 years old, for demonstrating their opposition to Xi and the CCP.
“During the 11 years since Xi took power, while he has relentlessly chipped away at any remaining spaces to advance democracy and freedom, community organisers and youth activists fighting against China’s colonial rule have learned one crucial lesson: we can stand together, or perish alone. In our shared struggle, we bring our cross-movement spirit from the streets of San Francisco to this report,” stated HKDC Executive Director Anna Kwok and SFT Executive Director Pema Doma in the report’s foreword.
The report also scrutinised the response mechanisms of US policymakers and law enforcement authorities at both federal and local levels. “Despite strong awareness of CCP TNR at the federal level and a general commitment to countering it, agencies were unprepared to do so in San Francisco. Local law enforcement authorities exhibited a lack of awareness of TNR, were often unresponsive when alerted to the attacks, and took little and inadequate action in response to the attacks. The result was that protesters were insufficiently protected and perpetrators have not been held accountable,” the report stated.
The report calls for a thorough investigation into the issue, providing 18 recommendations directed at the White House, the Department of State, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Congress, state and local authorities, and the United Nations. These recommendations include investigating whether the united front groups in the US are operating as unregistered foreign agents of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), implementing vetting processes for diplomatic visas issued to PRC applicants, screening for connections to TNR activities, offering protection to groups in the US subjected to TNR, and enacting legislation to create resources to combat TNR.
