China is exporting a surveillance empire built on U.S. technology. An AP investigation found Tibetans in Nepal are trapped under constant watch.
20.12.2025 16:15 — 👍 99 🔁 51 💬 4 📌 6
China is exporting a surveillance empire built on U.S. technology. An AP investigation found Tibetans in Nepal are trapped under constant watch.
20.12.2025 16:15 — 👍 99 🔁 51 💬 4 📌 630/With Myf Ma, @yaelwrites.com, @roosblad.bsky.social, Marshall Ritzel, Rebecca Blackwell, @byrontau.bsky.social, @garanceburke.bsky.social, and thoughts from @chinalawtranslate.bsky.social, Du Wen, @yaqiu.bsky.social, Holden Triplett, and many others who can't be named. Thank you.
15.12.2025 07:09 — 👍 10 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
…that’s the kind of charge that @nyrolaelima.bsky.social’s cousin faced. She was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for sending her parents in Australia money to buy a house - a vivid illustration of the potential of abuse of this kind of tech:
www.newyorker.com/culture/pers...
A side note on this story:
One of the other things we found is that this is the same sort of tool used to uncover so-called “terrorist financing,” which ensnared Uyghurs for sending money abroad - even for innocent things like sending down payments for a house
bsky.app/profile/dake...
33/Nonetheless, Li's willingness to speak out makes him singular among the thousands targeted by Fox Hunt and Sky Net. Few others, if any, have criticized the Party publicly.
Experts agree: Li and his family paid dearly for speaking out. "They see me as a traitor," Li says.
32/Li now lives in the Texas desert, with a Christian church also in exile. He continues to speak out against the Party. Some Chinese dissidents question Li, saying he only speaks out to gain asylum in the U.S.
Certainly, asylum would save him from prison. apnews.com/photo-essay/...
31/The state harasses lawyers Li hires to defend his family, warning them it’s a political case & the outcome is already determined.
A plainclothes officer stopped me from taking photos at the courthouse (photo below), saying a “sensitive political case” was being heard.
30/There's serious violations of due process. Interrogation transcripts are altered. The state refuses to provide evidence to lawyers. Details of the charges are secret. His relatives are convicted of receiving embezzled funds - before proving Li himself committed embezzlement.
15.12.2025 04:48 — 👍 7 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
29/Li and his lawyers don't deny potential conflicts of interest, but deny criminal charges of bribery and embezzlement.
His case is incredibly complicated, but case files I reviewed and 9 lawyers I spoke to show clearly that Li is being targeted for political reasons.
28/Another fascinating tidbit: Leaked docs show that software sold by a former IBM partner to the Chinese state includes functions tracking suspected prostitutes...
(Like corruption, affairs often aren't a problem for officials - until you're targeted)
27/(There is, indeed, a movie about Fox Hunt, that came out this year. Further back, a popular TV drama called "In the Name of the People" 人民的名义 also dramatizes the anti-corruption campaign)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LNJ...
26/Fascinating tidbit: A leaked photo of the internal police software used to hunt officials suggests the moniker “Sky Net” was inspired by “The Terminator."
Xi is known to be a Hollywood fan, & state media describes "Fox Hunt" arrests as cinematic, "like a Hollywood blockbuster"
25/Using family as leverage isn't new. In Maoist China, your family background was often your fate. The concept of punishment across "three generations" was common.
But with U.S. tech, police and Party investigators gained incredible visibility into everyone's ties and finances.
24/Experts say it's part of a broad pattern: Chinese authorities use family in China essentially as hostages, pressuring targets overseas.
They send agents to "persuade" targets to return. They stalk people from coast to coast, using night goggles and threatening notes
23/The Party arrests over 40 of his friends, family and former associates, including his pregnant daughter and elderly people suffering from cancer and heart disease. Three die in detention, his aunt is released in a vegetative state.
15.12.2025 04:42 — 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
22/The Party has a well-honed playbook, sharpened with decades of U.S. tech, that they use against Li. With surveillance across China & databases tracking calls, texts, banking data, it’s easy for police to pin anyone tied to Li.
Read our earlier story:
apnews.com/article/chin...
21/At this point, the central government and Xi himself gets involved, enraged that what they see as an act of betrayal by one of their own, according to four people I talk to and backed up by the Party’s public statements and actions.
They go after Li any way they can.
20/At this point, it's still a local power struggle, confined to Li's home province. But things escalate dramatically when Li decides to speak out again: Publicly, to anti-government media overseas.
He attacks the Party, calling it repressive & accusing it of a cover-up.
19/But Li’s past comes back to haunt him.
In 2020, his friend and ex-subordinate is arrested for criticizing the Party over COVID. Li is called and warned that associates of Xu – his former rivals in the Party – are going after him. In July 2020, he’s put under investigation.
18/In 2017, Li is allowed to retire and given his passport back. This is important because this is essentially the system issuing him a clean bill of health.
He leaves the country for cancer treatments, which I verified by reviewing his travel and medical records.
17/The common thread running through these cases?
The big crime isn't corruption. It's disobedience, disloyalty, betrayal.
If you read the charges, what's listed 1st is always about "forsaking ideals", "losing Party spirit", "betraying your original aspirations".
Corruption, adultery - that's 2nd.
16/
-Former Guangxi governor: Rumor is that he was involved in smuggling rare earths to the U.S. when China was using it as leverage in trade negotiations. Another betrayal.
-In contrast, ex-foreign minister Qin Gang - taken down after a scandalous affair - is now reported OK, in a low profile job
15/Take a few recent examples:
-The minister of agriculture: Rumor is that he was arrested because he didn't take Xi's orders to secure China's food supply safety seriously.
-Ongoing PLA purge: Rumors that China's missile readiness affected, secrets sold to the US. Xi was livid over the betrayal
14/In such an environment, the question of who gets targeted by the corruption crackdown is intrinsically a political question. If it was just about corruption, a lot more heads would roll.
Instead, it’s often about power struggles. Or increasingly, whether you’ve displeased Xi.
13/Anyone who's spent enough time in China hears the stories: dozens of luxury villas, obtained mysteriously. The wife-and-husband duo, one in business, one in politics.
Not naming names, but all I can say is that it is isn't just common; it's ubiquitous.
12/However, one thing I've learned is that many believe most higher officials in China are corrupt - '8 or 9 out of 10' is the popular refrain.
“You have no idea how many people want to bribe you,” ex-official Du Wen told me. “People will line up to give you money.”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk27...
11/Li goes into construction – almost certainly a violation of China’s civil code.
Li's relatives also profited when Li was vice mayor. His wife & siblings did construction business – a conflict of interest. It’s hard not to conclude they likely profited from their ties to Li.
10/After a year, investigators from Beijing come and uncover the full extent of Xu’s corruption. Xu is arrested and thrown in prison.
But at this point, Li is frustrated and quits the government. He spends three years under audit before he’s allowed to retire.
9/In 2012, Xi takes power and declares a sweeping crackdown on corruption. Months later, Li writes up a letter to report his boss.
He kicks off a power struggle. Things turn ugly. Xu threatens him & his siblings and forces them out of their state jobs.
8/Rather than investigate Xu, the Jixi authorities went after the protesters. Police said they were “strictly preventing” residents from complaining to the central government in Beijing, documents show.
Li was aghast.