Transnational Repression

We fight the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to silence dissent across the world.

Transnational repression is when governments reach beyond their borders to intimidate, silence, coerce, harass, or harm their overseas citizens or members of their diaspora and exile communities. It takes forms ranging from stalking to intimidation, harassment, online disinformation campaigns, assaults, or murder. According to the Freedom House, the Chinese Communist Party conducts the world’s most sophisticated, global, and comprehensive campaign of transnational repression. It targets many groups, including multiple ethnic and religious minorities, political dissidents, human rights activists, journalists, and former insiders accused of corruption.

How Hong Kong pro-democracy activist has been targeted as a victim of the CCP’s transnational repression?

Cases of transnational repression can be hard to track as they take different forms often unreported and unmeasurable, especially if it’s not direct or physical. Members of the Hong Kong diaspora have experienced intimidation, threats, stalking, and assaults at universities and public protests. In 2019, Hong Kong activist Frances Hui was targeted by Chinese agents who stalked her and monitored her activities. These incidents create a chilling effect on the entire diaspora who might fear expressing any criticism of the Chinese government, resulting in self-censorship.

Between 2023 and 2024, the Hong Kong government placed HK$1 million bounties on 19 overseas Hong Kongers based in the U.S., U.K. Australia, and Canada under the city’s National Security Law, including CFHK Foundation’s Frances Hui and Chloe Cheung. The Hong Kong government also revoked the Hong Kong passports of 13 of them.

The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices (HKETOs), located around the world, are key players in the transnational repression of Hong Kongers overseas. The HKETOs operate in host countries with quasi-diplomatic status to promote Beijing’s narrative, influence foreign policies, and monitor dissidents. In May 2024, the London HKETO was found to be involved in assisting the Hong Kong intelligence service in information gathering, spying on pro-democracy activists, and forcing entry into a residential home.

What can be done to address the transnational repression targeting Hong Kong dissidents?

In the U.S., a bipartisan, bicameral Transnational Repression Policy Act in Congress seeks to establish countering transnational repression as a foreign policy priority. The proposed bill mandates the administration to impose sanctions on perpetrators, develop a strategy to promote initiatives that enhance international awareness of transnational repression, address the issue, provide training to federal employees and law enforcement agencies, and conduct outreach to victims targeted by foreign governments.

Additionally, to address transnational repression against Hong Kong dissidents, governments should:

Make full use of the Global Magnitsky Act and other sanctioning authorities to hold bad actors accountable for intimidating and threatening overseas Hong Kongers, in cooperation with multinational allies.
Revoke HKETO’s diplomatic immunities and privileges and shut down the offices ultimately. In the U.S., Members of Congress had introduced the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Certification Act which would require the administration to certify whether HKETOs should merit certain privileges and immunities.
Codify and define transnational repression in the national criminal code.
Provide victims of transnational repression with emotional, personal, and legal support.
Provide training to law enforcement agencies, educators, and employers on handling reports of transnational repression.
Provide education for civil society and human rights defenders, especially those who are most vulnerable and subject to high risk of transnational repression, to better handle threats or actual violence and to take precautionary measures to protect themselves.
Coordinate with allies on intelligence and investigation to tackle any targeted global actions against dissidents.

“Transnational repression threatens not only the personal safety of individuals but a country’s national security overall. When the international community fails to develop a more reliable mechanism that holds bad actors accountable and protects its people from repression by foreign countries, we are undermining the work of governments and civil society to understand the strategies of these foreign countries and to address them correctly.”

– Frances Hui, CFHK Foundation Policy and Advocacy Coordinator

Our Impact

Aside from supporting the Transnational Repression Policy Act, CFHK Foundation staffer Frances Hui, herself the subject of a HK$1 million bounty by Hong Kong authorities as a result of her activism, has testified before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the U.S. Congress on Transnational Repression, as well as the Canadian Parliament, about her experiences of transnational repression at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. Both she and her colleague Chloe Cheung, who also has a HK$1 million bounty, continue to brief governments, politicians, and the press about their experience of transnational repression as activists wanted by the Hong Kong authorities.

Work We've Done on Transnational Repression

CFHK Foundation’s Chloe Cheung Testifies to UK Parliament on Transnational Repression

March 13, 2025

March 13, 2025 – Yesterday, Chloe Cheung, Public Affairs and Advocacy Junior Manager of the Committee for Freedom in Hong


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We fight the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to silence dissent across the world.

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Work We've Done on Transnational Repression

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