How it feels to live under surveillance by China
www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au
I write this as an Australian citizen targeted by the Chinese security establishment. I am also a journalist, a former commentator on China for international media and a recovering patient of post-traumatic stress disorder, acquired as the result of persecution by the Chinese security apparatus. I’ve been accused of treason in the People’s Republic of China, where I’m no

Cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/12976581

Freely accessible archived version.

“The actions of mine that were deemed treasonous [by China] involved writing about China’s concentration camps, which hold up to a million Uighurs, and forced Uighur labour that implicated global supply chains,” says Vicky Xu, an Australian journalist and researcher, previously with The New York Times and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“In the visit of Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi last month, there was positive talk of trade and bilateral relations between Australia and China but nothing about me or the many other Australian citizens and residents targeted by the Chinese state on Australian soil. I thought I’d remind people of our existence and present my point of view.”

“It has grown tiresome for me to recount how my life has been ruined by the Chinese state, how my family and friends were taken away as a result of my journalistic work on China. In Australia I’ve been followed around. Strange East Asian men stood in front of my apartment complex like voluntary doormen. I changed my number, got new email addresses, installed home security systems, moved again and again. Counter-surveillance has been a full-time job. As I write this, I do not have a stable home address because my current solution to the problem is leading a nomadic lifestyle to stay a step ahead of Chinese Communist Party goons. I don’t know what their plans are if and when they catch up with me again. I’m not the only China scholar who lives in fear of abduction or assassination.”