Emile Dirks

Chinese policymakers find themselves in the challenging position of trying to understand what the evolving relationship between the state and the business sector means for Asian interests, as the lines between the U.S. civilian and military apparatus are increasingly blurred. 😉

This man sounds like he is from mainland China. In the video, he is crying "help" in Chinese (“救命“). I'm so heartbroken for immigrants from China and around the world who are experiencing this. (Then one naturally wonders, "am I the next, with my strange name and my accent?")

I was encouraged to see the #G7 Leaders' Statement on Transnational Repression which also calls out mitigating harms around mercenary spyware 👇🇨🇦

www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/stat...

In Pictures: HK police deploy armoured vehicle on Tiananmen anniversary Police have deployed an armoured vehicle in Hong Kong's commercial heart, amidst an ongoing heavy security presence on the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

1/ Yesterday's Tiananmen crackdown anniversary: hongkongfp.com/2025/06/04/i... HKFP's full, on-the-ground independent coverage

Has crime fallen in Britain? | Jun 7th 2025 Edition Also this week, Oasis’s loud music, Generation X, Mark Twain, chessboxing

An irate reader writes in to The @economist.com:

"I was disappointed that there was no mention of the Wu-Tang Clan in your article on chessboxing"

www.economist.com/letters/2025...

The PRC Transnational Repression Efforts: Influence, Interference, and Legitimacy - Canada China Forum China’s efforts to exert influence beyond its borders have sparked global debates on the distinction between legitimate foreign influence and illegitimate foreign interference. While many states engag...

What exactly sets foreign interference apart from influence? On June 9, join the Citizen Lab’s @emiledirks.bsky.social for an online session that will explore the evolving landscape of China’s transnational influence and repression efforts.

Register here:
canadachinaforum.ca/2025/05/the-...

We unpack how targeting Chinese student visas could hurt US universities' finances & American innovation in 5 charts. With Liyan Qi, Ming Li.

So, 1 in every 4 international students comes from China. They make a larger share at some elite schools👇

t.co/zbxOCHiAsj

Followed, threatened and smeared — attacks by China against its critics in Canada are on the rise | CBC News An investigation by CBC News, in conjunction with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, reveals a pattern of rising surveillance, threats and smear campaigns by China to silence d...

🇨🇳 China's reaching across borders, including in Canada, spying on and harassing dissidents, ethnic groups, and politicians while threatening family members back in mainland China.

Hard to say for sure, but it feels to us like it's ramping up...

www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

The Life of Saint Xi | China Books Review China’s official Party press has published a series of oral histories about Xi Jinping’s career, from sent-down youth in Shaanxi to Party Secretary of Shanghai. They read more like hagiography than hi...

A truly stupendous read from Lucy Hornsby on the Xi hagiographies churned out by the Central Party School — all more revealing than one might think!

chinabooksreview.com/2025/05/29/s...

The PRC Transnational Repression Efforts: Influence, Interference, and Legitimacy - Canada China Forum China’s efforts to exert influence beyond its borders have sparked global debates on the distinction between legitimate foreign influence and illegitimate foreign interference. While many states engag...

With the US State Dept threatening to "aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students," this talk could not be more timely. I look forward to exploring foreign influence vs interference, TNR, & the need for principled support for all victims of state coercion. canadachinaforum.ca/2025/05/the-...

BTW what’s not understood sometimes is that, in #China, having “connections to the Communist Party” can be like joining Rotary, or joining the Party for a better job on the railways, or because everyone in your family signed up? The Party has 100 million members.

Mass biometric data collection from minors: another example of US law enforcement mirroring the dystopian practices of their Chinese peers.

Another reason why Rubio’s announcement is ridiculous: so many people have these kinds of connections to the party that are basically formalities or requirements for study/employment. This is not a carefully vetted security operation. This is an indiscriminate ban, and it’s incredibly bad policy.

Tbh I've been holding my breath expecting this to happen ever since the Stop CCP Visas Act was introduced.... But I'm still reeling and nearly incandescent with rage about it.

This is very concerning. The US govt has good reasons to be concerned about Chinese espionage, but broad bans not only undermine the rights of Chinese students, but also America's ability to lead in innovation. My past piece on how to effectively address the issue: www.chinafile.com/reporting-op...

It also shows that the one-child policy effectively had zero to do with China‘s fertility-rate decrease; Colombia saw similar levels of development, urbanization and education of women and got the same outcome without the cruelty. Fertility decline is a product of prosperity, not of coercion

Why is Trump doing these favors for "adversaries?" Rather than directly transactional or a 3D chess move, the simplest answer is most likely: Trump has the authoritarian's mind. Shutting off sources of decentralized, independent information makes innate sense to him, as it does to Xi and Maduro.

Cyberattack against Uyghur rights activists shows hallmarks of Chinese repression tactics, researchers say - ICIJ Citizen Lab found the advocates, including some featured in ICIJ’s China Targets investigation, were targeted with malicious software disguised as a Uyghur-language tool.

New report from @citizenlab.ca found that Uyghur rights activists were targeted by spearphishing campaign, including advocates featured in @icij.org's #ChinaTargets investigation.

www.icij.org/investigatio...

BREAKING: For over a year, SFT worked with the ICIJ to contribute to this groundbreaking global investigation exposing China's tactics of transnational repression used to silence Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hong Kongers, and Chinese dissidents around the world.

Weaponized Words: Uyghur Language Software Hijacked to Deliver Malware - The Citizen Lab Our investigation of a spearphishing campaign that targeted senior members of the World Uyghur Congress in March 2025 reveals a highly-customized attack delivery method. The ruse used by attackers rep...

Today my @citizenlab.ca colleagues also published a report on how threat actors have hijacked Uyghur language software to surveil members of the World Uyghur Congress. As the authors note, "this campaign shows the ongoing threats of digital transnational repression facing the Uyghur diaspora."

WATCH: Beijing’s strategy to crush dissent around the globe - ICIJ ICIJ’s China Targets investigation exposes the mechanics of the Chinese government’s global repression campaign against its perceived enemies and the governments and international organizations that a...

Accompanying the report is a video on "the mechanics of the Chinese government’s global repression campaign against its perceived enemies," which includes a few more quotes from me.

A sobering new investigation by @icij.org showing the scale and severity of Chinese state transnational repression. I'm briefly quoted alongside victims, activists, and experts.

Weaponized Words: Uyghur Language Software Hijacked to Deliver Malware - The Citizen Lab Our investigation of a spearphishing campaign that targeted senior members of the World Uyghur Congress in March 2025 reveals a highly-customized attack delivery method. The ruse used by attackers rep...

New report out @citizenlab.ca A spearphishing campaign against senior @uyghurcongress.bsky.social members as part of ongoing digital transnational repression against the Uyghur diaspora. citizenlab.ca/2025/04/uygh... 1/3

We thought we had seen an end to #China’s illegal forced televised #confessions of foreigners. But in early April, CCTV's domestic and international arms broadcast the forced confessions of 3 #Filipino expats.

We analysed the videos: safeguarddefenders.com/en/blog/afte...

Great profile of Chai Jing, a once celebrated state media journalist now working outside of China's censorship regime.

The Real Lesson of SignalGate A surveillance arms race has poked a gaping hole in national security.

"Were any of the Houthi Signal group members compromised at the time they discussed the Yemen attack plans? Frankly, it would be shocking if they were not."

My latest in @foreignaffairs.com on "The Real Lessons of SignalGate"

www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

Compare with China, a famous photo of Uyghur internment camp detainees first published by a Xinjiang government social media account in 2017

JUICYJAM: How Thai Authorities Use Online Doxxing to Suppress Dissent - The Citizen Lab A sustained, coordinated social media harassment and doxxing campaign – which we codenamed JUICYJAM – targeting the pro-democracy movement in Thailand has run uninterrupted, and unchallenged, since at...

NEW @citizenlab.ca report!

"JUICYJAM: How Thai Authorities Use Online Doxxing to Suppress Dissent" by @fittarelli.com M. Scott, and Kate Wongsapakdee

citizenlab.ca/2025/04/how-...

"Marco Rubio’s twitter bio used to boast that he was banned from China...The implication of Rubio’s boast was that an authoritarian state could not handle criticism from those who believed in democratic values. It turns out that this was wrong. Rubio was taking notes."

Today we are proud to launch the Hong Kong Accountability Archive (HKAA), an independent database of videos from the 2019 pro-democracy protests aimed at protecting freedom of peaceful assembly by preserving evidence of human rights violations. Watch this promo for more on the project.