Ma Ruilin is a former mid-ranking Chinese Communist Party official who spent more than two decades inside China’s political and religious control system before fleeing to the United States in 2024. Once a deputy secretary within the United Front Work Department in Gansu province, he helped design and implement programs targeting religious communities, including Muslims and Christians. Today he lives in New York, where he runs a restaurant and speaks publicly about what he calls a vast surveillance apparatus.

Explaining why he defected, Ma said, “The system has always been evil. If you don’t leave, you’ll keep doing evil there.” He described years of growing guilt over his role, adding, “The longer I stayed within that system, the more I felt a sense of guilt. I always wanted to escape that kind of cage-like life.”

According to Ma, China’s domestic surveillance system is deeply integrated across government agencies and party departments. He said the United Front Work Department operates alongside state security and public security agencies as part of what he described as “‘one chessboard,’ all together, one whole.”

His work included building databases of mosques, clerics, and religious believers, as well as installing surveillance cameras that tracked attendance and behavior. These systems, he later realized, were used to punish ordinary citizens.

“I realized that the very systems I helped build in 2008 had become shackles for Muslims,” he said. “I had handed a demon’s whip to the state to use against my own community.”

Ma also said officials recruited informants inside religious communities and shut down mosques or removed Islamic architectural features such as domes. Surveillance technology expanded dramatically over time, especially after policies targeting Uyghur Muslims intensified.

“I know all the details, everything that happened in the Xinjiang camps, the little things, how cruel it was, how they did things, how they ‘managed’ people,” he said.

How China Monitors Chinese Citizens in the United States

Ma said the same tactics used inside China are now being deployed internationally. He confirmed that United Front operations extend into the United States and that informant networks exist overseas.

“There is definitely United Front work in the United States. This is beyond doubt,” he said.

According to Ma, Chinese authorities use community organizations, student groups, and hometown associations as channels for influence and surveillance. Some individuals are recruited through financial incentives or personal benefits. “There are too many ways to win someone over and corrupt them,” he said.

He also described internal documents showing that informants connected to the United Front had been arrested in the United States, reinforcing his claim that the network operates globally.

Why Muslims and Religious Minorities Face Greater Pressure

Ma’s experience as a member of China’s Hui Muslim minority shaped his understanding of how surveillance disproportionately targets religious groups. His department monitored mosques, tracked pilgrims, and collected data that could lead to imprisonment or political re-education.

He said the Chinese government maintains what he called a “systematic plan” against minorities. “The CCP has a systematic plan of genocide against minorities, and step by step they are implementing it — Uyghurs, Mongols, Tibetans, and Hui,” he said.

Policies became increasingly harsh after 2014, when authorities launched major crackdowns in Xinjiang. Officials from other provinces were reportedly sent there to learn new control methods.

“The message was look how Xinjiang manages it; you’re managing too loosely,” he said.

Central to Ma’s allegations is the United Front Work Department, a Communist Party entity originally created under Mao Zedong and expanded significantly under current leader Xi Jinping. Ma said staffing within the department “basically doubled” after 2019.

He described a vast informant structure extending across provinces and internationally. “Every provincial United Front Department has its informant network, targeting Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao,” he said.

Outside China, organizations linked to the United Front have been accused of harassment, intimidation, and influence operations, according to law enforcement and research groups cited in the reporting.

Xi Jinping Has Expanded the Program

Ma emphasized that surveillance and repression have intensified dramatically in recent years. He pointed specifically to the leadership of Xi Jinping as a turning point.

“It’s never been as severe as it is under Xi: so systematic, so intense,” he said.

He also claimed that many officials privately disagree with policies but publicly praise the leadership out of fear. “Based on my understanding, privately no one likes him. But on the surface, everyone has to praise him,” he said.

For Ma, speaking out carries enormous personal risk, including potential consequences for family members still in China. Yet he believes he has a moral obligation.

“What I’m doing now is my repentance, my apology,” he said. “I want to stand up in this era and give others some hope.”