David Tobin

Xi and Putin stand shoulder to shoulder as China casts itself as an alternative global leader | CNN Chinese leader Xi Jinping made a veiled swipe at the United States on Monday as he criticized “bullying practices” and cast his country as a new leader of world governance, at a time when President Do...

Shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, I was asked to write an essay on Russia's relations with China. I did and I argued that this would happen. The essay was subsequently withdrawn by the publisher on the grounds that it was "off topic".

edition.cnn.com/2025/09/01/c...

Happy to recommend people who would likely be interested.

Chinese university students told to spy on classmates, report says Lecturers are also being harassed, the report finds, as ministers say threats will not be tolerated.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

China: Overseas students face harassment and surveillance in campaign of transnational repression Chinese and Hong Kong students studying abroad are living in fear of intimidation, harassment and surveillance as Chinese authorities seek to prevent them from engaging with ‘sensitive’ or political i...

www.amnesty.org/en/latest/ne...

Obviously British universities are underfunded but political interference by China's party-state is also very real.

www.scmp.com/opinion/worl...

Events

The report was discussed in detail at the Preventing Transnational Repression workshop and group recommendations are also available here:

sites.google.com/sheffield.ac...

🚨 New research report 🚨

“Preventing Transnational Repression: the case of the Uyghur diaspora”

By David Tobin and @nyrolaelima.bsky.social

sites.google.com/sheffield.ac...

21 years later and this reads almost like prophecy.

2004. "The dynamics of penetration and resistance between the centre and what still remains an indigenous periphery can be expected to generate at the same time both increased sinicization and increased ethno-national unrest."

www.jstor.org/stable/20192...

The problem is that there is no practical solidarity but there is a lot of hostility.

Can 'China Studies' still be trusted? It is generally agreed that Britain needs to improve its China capabilities. But what happens when institutions responsible for building those capabilities are compromised by the Chinese Communist Par...

The discussion on Chinese political interference in British academia is long overdue. But it will all be hot air if practical resources, support, and legal protections are not provided to those who are actually doing the work.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/can-...

Exclusive: Thai gallery removes China-focused artworks after 'pressure' from Beijing In what artists called the latest attempt by Beijing to silence critics overseas, the Bangkok Arts and Cultural Centre changed multiple works by artists in exile in the exhibit on authoritarian governments collaborating across borders.

Following the illegal deportation of 40 Uyghurs to China, artists are being censored in Thailand to avoid telling their stories of persecution and survival.

www.reuters.com/world/china/...

The survey demonstrates that there are sharply differentiated experiences in Chinese Studies depending what you research and how. I would like to hear more answers about how to enable those who do have those experiences to speak safely and less from those who have not engaged with those experiences.

I would like to know what you do propose to address the issue, particularly given there is zero support for those who face these pressures. Stating that "no one denies some China scholars face serious pressures" is simply not true and that is a serious part of the problem.

#China #UK
ukctransparency.org/wp-content/u...

lol

Authoritarian states operating with impunity to silence dissidents in UK, report finds China, Russia and Iran were the biggest perpetrators of transnational repression but several other countries are trying to silence dissidents.

It is tragic that the Joint Committee on Human Rights did not mention Uyghurs. They are a key target for transnational repression and receive almost no support.

news.sky.com/story/author...

@nateschenkkan.bsky.social @davidstroup.bsky.social @htheaker.bsky.social @zhubochubo.bsky.social @dos3ab.bsky.social @nyrolaelima.bsky.social @saipirafurstenberg.bsky.social @timothyagrose.bsky.social @rachelaharris.bsky.social @carmenlau.bsky.social @juliemillsap.bsky.social

In June 2025, academics and civil society organisations met in London for an International Network for Critical China Studies workshop to analyse how to prevent transnational repression. Governments & NGOs have not paid enough attention to TNR and need to do much more to protect people's rights.

In my undergraduate classes, you have to do the reading before commenting. You also have to analyse evidence by asking, why is this person saying this? Who is their intended audience? What verifiable evidence do they have for their statements? Repeating what people say is not analysis.

We've added a fundamental new feature/direction today, in which we'll be sharing, translating, and automatically validating various internal documents: shahit.biz/eng/#internal

Princeton University Press has yet to apologise for using politicised language and state narratives (e.g., 多元一体) that justify the elimination of group identities that the CCP does not approve.

thediplomat.com/2025/07/prin...

A generous interpretation is that the CCP/CPC 'debate' used to be a squabble over whether to emphasise socialism in one country or an international movement. Now it's a manufactured distraction to attract people who can't read Chinese.

Xi Jinping's "people's war on terror" differed significantly. CCP docs outline how it uses mass mobilisation, more intense surveillance, and detention for pre-crimes 👇

sheffield.ac.uk/las/research...

CDT is hands-down one of the most important public resources available for trying to understand China

Securing China's Northwest Frontier Cambridge Core - Asian Studies - Securing China's Northwest Frontier

www.cambridge.org/core/books/s...

After a Chinese government sponsored tour, Princeton University Press uses explicitly political language to celebrate party-state policies that removed the Uyghur language from the education system. If you are interested in what 多元一体 means in practice, chapter 2 of my book covers this 👇

🧵: It’s worth unpacking how the lines that PUP draws almost verbatim from party-state propaganda— most notably about “telling the story” of Xinjiang, which echoes Xi’s call to “tell the China story well” — have very specific applications to task the denial of abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslims

‘Ironic Points of Light’ — acts of redemption on the blank pages of history Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium Appendix XXV 贖   '... it’s like a child at the beach. You give them a shovel. They'll make a hole and a hill and work at it all day.

So much has changed since 1989 六四

chinaheritage.net/journal/iron...

10 small insights into Xinjiang camps and factories (2018-2019) A brief summary of takeaway points from a conversation between a former camp employee and a journalist, originally held off the record but now reproduced here in a very basic form.

We've published a short listicle of eyewitness points about camps and factories in 2018-2019, as delivered by an anonymous camp employee to a journalist during that period: blog.shahit.biz/2025/06/01/1...

Very short read, but insightful.