As the room for expression in China continues to shrink under Xi Jinping, many Chinese people are finding more tolerant political environments abroad. Some disenchanted Chinese citizens have made the difficult decision to “run,” embarking on perilous journeys in pursuit of better lives. Chinese students abroad have joined pro-Palestine encampments. Young Chinese women have organized feminist comedy groups and held political rallies. Together, they represent a growing new generation of migrants who are encountering both greater opportunities for engaging in intersectional political activism abroad and greater risks of transnational repression or being instrumentalized by the CCP. Several articles over the past few weeks have profiled some of these individuals.
In The Wall Street Journal on Saturday, Shen Lu described the trajectory of 27-year old Rei Xia and the growing diaspora of defiant young Chinese activists:
In late 2022, after [Rei Xia] joined widespread protests against Beijing’s strict Covid-19 restrictions, she was detained for more than five weeks and released on bail. Last year, as thousands poured into Shanghai’s streets on Halloween, she draped herself in sheets of white paper—a symbol against censorship during the year-earlier protests—and was again detained, this time for four weeks. In February, she left China.
In exile in Europe, Xia, who sports Goth-style makeup and outfits, has become an outspoken critic of the Communist Party’s totalitarian rule, part of a growing Chinese diaspora of young activists as the space for expression in China itself narrows.
[…] She fills her days with public talks and online discussions of the treatment of Uyghurs, Tibetans, jailed activists, journalists and others on the fringe in China.
[…] Unlike the mostly male dissidents of the Tiananmen generation, who in exile have focused on opposing Communist Party rule, the recent wave of young activists embrace a broader agenda, from women’s and LGBTQ issues to the rights of Uyghurs and Tibetans.
[Bin Xu, a sociologist who researches civil society at Emory University,] said that reflects the diversity within the young Chinese diaspora “who are exposed to various social and political thoughts and have more differential views about China and the world, instead of having a dichotomous worldview of China vs. the West.” [Source]
In May, Aorui Pi wrote for RADII about the feminist stand-ups redefining Chinese comedy on the west and east coasts of the U.S. and using humor to build safer communities abroad. Responding to why this phenomenon is emerging now, rather than during earlier waves of migration, Gigi, the co-founder of NZZY, or Nvzizhuyi, the first Chinese diaspora feminist support group, told Pi: “There are more middle-class international students immigrating to the U.S., and this generation of young immigrants truly cares about China’s agenda.” In The New Yorker last month, Han Zhang shared her own reflections on this new generation of Chinese migrants that has not only expanded its political horizons abroad, but also fostered solidarity through community-building:
[T]his is a coming-of-age story for a generation of Chinese people who looked outward for a better future. Many of them grew up absorbing that being a good Chinese person means submitting to one narrow set of values, behaviors, and loyalties. Years of living in two realities—the disillusioning crackdowns on civil society in China, and the rising hostility toward Asian immigrants overseas—have made them feel that they have to draw new allegiances or double down on old ones. “A lot of the more nationalistic form of overseas Chinese students organizing is less about their support for the Chinese Party state but more about an affirmation of their own Chinese identity when they feel quite alienated in a foreign country,” Yangyang Cheng, a law scholar at Yale, told me.
[…] Many of this cohort’s online gathering places emerged by accident, but since the white-paper protests began, more have been created with the express purpose of fostering solidarity. The names of these projects alone give an idea of how the diaspora is embracing its new identity. A news account for “dignified Chinese-language cultural life” is aptly called Dasheng, which means “a loud voice”; a new zine, “Mangmang”—an archaic term that describes the unfettered growth of wild grass in a field—advertises the slogan “an independent Chinese magazine without censorship”; a labor-organizing advocacy account uses the name Dagongren, a term that has historically referred to low-wage work, to foster solidarity between manual laborers and office workers. “I noticed that many people moved their focus from reacting with intense anger to community building,” Lynn, the New York programmer, told me in April. Recently, she and a few friends founded a company dedicated to helping incubate Mandarin-language podcasts, with ambitions to “reimagine talking freely.”
[…] I remain persuaded by something that a professor in Hong Kong told me. “Now that we have stood together and seen each other, we know we are not alone,” she said. “It’s kind of like baptism. It may appear that after being submerged in water, one returns to secular life unchanged. But, in fact, your whole mind-set is different.” [Source]
Political activism often comes with risks, however. Dissident journalist Deng Yuwen, who fled from China to Philadelphia in 2018, has faced a relentless CCP-backed campaign of online harassment against his 16-year-old daughter. “There’s no question that this crosses a line that they hadn’t previously crossed,” said Darren Linvill, a founder of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson, whose researchers documented the campaign against Deng. “I think that suggests that the lines are becoming meaningless.” On X, over 5,700 posts have singled out his daughter with lurid and threatening messages, and on Facebook doctored images appeared with the face of Deng’s daughter superimposed on scantily clad women, advertising sex for $300. At least one post called for her to be sexually assaulted, offering a bounty of $8,000. Jesse Bunch at The Philadelphia Inquirer described how Deng’s local community support and the harassment campaign have strengthened his resolve to continue writing:
For Deng, who remains troubled by the harassment, the campaign is also a sign that his advocacy for free speech and a China unshackled from authoritarian rule is echoing in Beijing.
“I’m very angry, and meanwhile, there’s nothing I can do about it,” Deng said through a Mandarin interpreter at his home. “On the other hand, it proves I’m valuable enough for them to attack.”
[…] New York City was Deng’s initial destination when settling his family in the United States, though concerns over affordable housing led him to a Camden County community with a large and welcoming Chinese diaspora.
[…] “The way [the CCP] harassed me is not going to change how I write my articles,” Deng said. “They’re not going to hinder me in any way.” [Source]
Similar dynamics have played out in other countries, such as France. Earlier this month, Le Monde revealed that the French government quietly expelled the top two Paris-based officials of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) for their involvement in transnational repression. The expulsion order, which was withheld until after Xi Jinping’s visit to France in early May, followed at least two incidents in which MSS agents attempted to kidnap individuals in Paris and forcibly repatriate them to China. One incident targeted Ling Huazhan, a Chinese dissident who had publicly criticized Xi, and another targeted Gulbahar Jalilova, a Kazakh woman of Uyghur origin who survived a Xinjiang concentration camp and later testified about rape, forced sterilization, and other human rights abuses against camp detainees. In late June, the Paris municipal government announced it had found a location to permanently host the European Uyghur Institute, whose director, Dilnur Reyhan, rejoiced that it will “finally have its own site and be able to allow members of the Uyghur diaspora to meet peacefully in a stable ‘home.’”
Isabelle Attané and Giovanna Merli recently published a study quantifying the diversity of Chinese immigrants living and working in France, and concluded that Chinese immigrants “display wide-ranging profiles, social networks, and diverse pathways towards integration into French society.” But as more Chinese people move abroad in search of greater freedom and better opportunities, the CCP has also attempted to leverage this migration for its own geopolitical interests. Sun Yu from the Financial Times reported earlier this month that the CCP has created career incentives for Chinese people living abroad to actively promote Party propaganda in their host countries:
In a report published in February, a party secretary at the global affairs office of Shanghai University said it should train overseas student members to become “disseminators” of positive China stories and strengthen their belief in “listening to and following the party”.
In interviews, Chinese student party members in New York, Boston, California and Washington told the FT they followed the requests from party cells in China as they were keen to maintain their membership, which they saw as an asset for their career development.
China’s economic downturn has made government agencies and state companies, known for their high employment security and preference for party members, a top destination for young job hunters.
[…] “I need to stay in touch with the party so I can get good opportunities when I come back to China one day,” said a graduate student in Boston, who said he once raised talking points given by the party in class. The FT is withholding his name out of security concerns. [Source]
