The U.S. State Department’s latest Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, produced by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, delivers a stark warning about the Chinese Communist Party’s expanding reach in silencing dissent both inside the country and far beyond its borders. The China section, released on August 12, describes what it calls “wide-ranging ways Beijing’s campaign takes form,” noting that these actions include “assaults, harassment, hacking, anonymous threats, and bullying through proxies.” The report draws heavily from research by the Washington-based nonprofit Freedom House, which has concluded that Beijing is responsible for “the most comprehensive and sophisticated” transnational repression campaign in the world.
This campaign is not limited to dissidents within China’s borders. It actively targets people abroad, including ethnic Uyghurs, spiritual practitioners, political dissidents, foreign journalists, and even Chinese students and faculty studying outside China. In some cases, the CCP has co-opted other countries’ institutions to force individuals back to China, where, according to the report, they face “danger of persecution.”
The report also recounts high-profile incidents, such as the November 2023 protests during Xi Jinping’s visit to San Francisco for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. According to the State Department, “protesters organized through Chinese foreign influence programs attacked pro-democracy activists with flagpoles and chemical spray.” In another example, the Justice Department indicted two men for allegedly harassing and surveilling a victim, including installing a tracking device on the victim’s car and slashing their tires, in an effort to stop them from protesting Xi’s trip.
Top Five Most Egregious Forms of Repression
1. Mass Detention and Cultural Erasure of Uyghurs and Other Muslim Minorities
The report documents what it calls “genocide and crimes against humanity” committed against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other minority groups in Xinjiang. Since 2017, more than one million have been detained in extrajudicial “re-education” camps, prisons, or forced into daytime-only indoctrination programs. The State Department describes these centers as designed “to instill patriotism and erase their religious, cultural, and ethnic identities.” Reports show plummeting birth rates after 2018, linked to “forced abortions, forced sterilizations, involuntary intrauterine device insertions, and pregnancy checks occurring at detention centers.” In addition to physical control, authorities have imposed strict bans on cultural expression, including growing beards, wearing veils, or teaching religion to children.
2. Transnational Repression and Forced Returns
China’s repression extends far beyond its borders. Freedom House recorded approximately 250 direct acts of transnational repression between 2014 and 2022, including physical attacks, surveillance, and kidnappings abroad. The State Department recounts that during Xi’s 2023 San Francisco visit, “counterprotesters and pro-Xi groups were reportedly arranged by the CCP’s United Front Work Department’s foreign-influence program” to intimidate demonstrators. In other cases, Chinese agents have pressured foreign governments to return individuals, sometimes misusing INTERPOL notices. The report cites the case of an undercover agent who admitted to a 15-year career targeting dissidents overseas, including being ordered to locate a Falun Gong practitioner in Thailand using photos of the man’s home and family.
3. Targeting Journalists and Suppressing Press Freedom
The CCP maintains what the report calls “tight control of all print, broadcast, electronic, and social media,” often censoring or manipulating news to serve government interests. Journalists face arrests, surveillance, harassment, and sometimes disappearance. As of 2023, Reporters Without Borders listed 108 journalists in detention, including Swedish publisher Gui Minhai and Australian journalist Yang Hengjun, the latter sentenced to a suspended death sentence on espionage charges. According to a survey by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China, “81 percent… experienced interference, harassment, or violence” while reporting. One French reporter and filmmaker were threatened from a China-based phone number after airing a documentary on Beijing’s attempts to forcibly repatriate a dissident.
4. Arbitrary Detention and Enforced Disappearances
The CCP uses tools such as “Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location” and liuzhi detention to hold individuals without charge, often in secret. These detentions are frequently accompanied by torture and other abuses. The report states that many cases amount to enforced disappearance, leaving families without information on their loved ones’ whereabouts. Examples include retired Uyghur doctor Gulshan Abbas, missing since 2018 after her sister spoke out against CCP policies, and Hong Kong journalist Minnie Chan, who vanished in 2023 while covering a security forum in Beijing. The system is designed to intimidate and silence political dissent, with charges often based on vague offenses like “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”
5. Coercive Population Control and Gender-Based Abuses
China’s family planning policies remain a tool for social control, especially over minority populations. The law limits most couples to three children, but the report details how “ethnic and religious minority women, particularly Uyghurs, were often subjected to coercive population control measures not applied to Han Chinese.” These measures include mandatory pregnancy checks, forced sterilizations, and abortions. Authorities impose heavy fines or detention on those exceeding birth limits. The result has been a steep decline in minority birth rates since 2018, a change the report links directly to intensified coercive policies in Xinjiang.
Reaction to the Report
Human rights advocates have responded with both support and concern. Nina Shea, a longtime commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, said the report “only scratches the surface of the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights atrocities and violations.” She argued that the document should include dedicated sections on “China’s surveillance system as a method of control,” the social credit system, forced ethnic assimilation, and “forced organ harvesting and other coerced bio- and medical interventions.” Shea also noted that omitting Justice Department cases against Chinese agents in the United States targeting religious and political groups was “a major oversight.”
Others have pointed out that while the 2025 revisions aimed to improve readability and align with legislative mandates, the reduction in coverage on certain abuses risks downplaying the scale of violations. The State Department itself acknowledges that these findings represent conditions in 2024, before the current administration took office, but the changes do not lessen the urgency of the threat.
The message from the report is clear: the CCP’s repression is not confined within China’s borders. Its reach is growing, its methods are becoming more sophisticated, and its willingness to challenge international norms is increasing. The report warns that without a coordinated global response, these tactics will continue to expand, threatening the safety and freedoms of individuals far beyond China’s frontiers.