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For years, China has purported to be a new type of great power: one that rises peacefully and respects the rights of other states rather than chasing the foreign domination of empires past. “China will never seek hegemony, expansion or a sphere of influence,†President Xi Jinping said in April.
Yet many of Beijing’s policies have a distinctly imperial feel. A case in point is a wide-ranging effort to give Chinese law enforcement global reach, and thereby hound the regime’s enemies wherever they may go.
The programs in question are known as Operation Fox Hunt and Operation Skynet. As ProPublica has reported, their stated purpose is to track down white-collar criminals who have sought refuge abroad. Yet in many cases, the real targets are dissidents or political foes of Xi.
Networks of Chinese agents have fanned out across countries around the world, usually without the knowledge of local authorities, to surveil and
apprehend wanted individuals, according to the US Justice Department and press reports. They often rely on heavy doses of coercion, reportedly using family members who still live in China — and are thus at the mercy of the Chinese Communist Party — as leverage to bring those individuals home.
Chinese officials say that these programs have nabbed more than 8,000 fugitives since 2014.
And China’s “fox hunters†are not simply stalking their prey in small, underdeveloped countries with weak law-enforcement capabilities. One unsuccessful operation, involving 19 agents and local accomplices, targeted a Chinese citizen living outside of New York City, according to US authorities. It was not, apparently, an isolated incident. Director Christopher Wray of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has said that “hundreds of the Fox Hunt victims that they target live right here in the United States, and many are American citizens or green card holders.â€
Operation Fox Hunt is part of a wider Chinese campaign to suppress dissent across borders. The Communist Party has, according to CNN and Freedom House, allegedly induced Asian states to arrest and repatriate Uyghurs who have fled from repression in western China.
There are credible reports that Chinese agents have sought to intimidate regime critics in Europe, and that the Beijing has kidnapped dissidents in Southeast Asia.
—Bloomberg