Top News 头条
Transnational repression is top of the headlines this week, as Milan prosecutors announced on October 28 the conclusion of their investigation into ten suspects in a transnational repression case targeting “Teacher Li” or Ying Li, 34, who has millions of followers on social media and has long publicly criticized the Chinese government. Among those investigated are four Chinese nationals accused of organized crime, along with two Italians. Prosecutors allege that this group, acting under orders from Chinese police, monitored and suppressed Chinese dissidents living in Italy, with the intent to “control and silence them.”
Meanwhile, Tibetan education sociologist Gyal Lo’s residence in Toronto was recently served with documents related to litigation against him in Chinese courts. When critics reside abroad, Beijing attempts to extend pressure to their new locations through civil litigation and judicial procedures. Gyal Lo has long documented Tibet’s boarding school system, pointing out that a large number of Tibetan children are separated from their families and placed in state-established boarding schools, where their native language, cultural traditions, and ethnic identity are undermined. Since fleeing to Canada in 2021, his relatives in Tibet have been harassed, Chinese state media has launched attacks against him, and he has also reportedly been under suspected surveillance in Toronto and Geneva.
Last week, HRIC translated and posted a statement from Zhou Yiran, daughter of lawyer Zhou Shifeng who was jailed for seven years as part of the 709 Crackdown in 2015. She describes the lasting harm persecution causes families, including a childhood without her father, her mother’s death in 2024 after the family’s plight led to years of untreated illness, and ongoing repressive measures such as her father’s WeChat ban and restrictions on her phone number. Zhou Yiran demands that the wrongful verdicts of the 709 Crackdown be overturned and an independent investigation be made into all claims of torture, forged evidence and political interference.
Law & Policy 法律与政策
NPC Observer 11/02: The NPC Standing Committee will meet on November 2-6 and plans to address ten bills, including a Criminal Procedure Law amendment likely headed to the full NPC in March. The Anti-Cross-Border Corruption Law is also expected to pass on Friday, November 6.
Opinions on Adapting to the Development of Artificial Intelligence Technology to Help Build an Employment-Friendly Development Model: The October 23 guideline sets 18 tasks in six areas to grow AI jobs while cushioning displacement. It urges “unemployment buffer periods” and advance notice to affected workers, employment-risk assessments for large AI projects, and a cautious pace in labor-intensive sectors.
USALI This Week in Asian Law: The Ministry of Commerce proposed Special Provisions on Protecting Chinese Trade Secrets (保护中国商业秘密特别规定) that would allow it to penalize foreign entities whose infringement of Chinese trade secrets harms or threatens China’s sovereignty, security, or development interests.
Cyber Security & Digital Rights 网络安全与数字权利
Kylian Mbappe apologises after ‘dictator’ comment angers Chinese fans: Kylian Mbappé apologized in French, Mandarin and English, saying his comment was “ill-judged” and “hurt many people,” after intense backlash from China over an interview clip in which he referred to a meme of his face superimposed over “some guy, I think he’s a Chinese dictator,” understood to be Mao Zedong. Mbappé lost at least two Chinese sponsors, including dairy giant Mengniu, and La Liga also apologized, though the suspension of La Liga broadcasts and the suspension of Mbappé’s Xiaohongshu (Red Note) account remained in place. AP notes that the online censorship around the incident meant many ordinary Chinese people did not know exactly what Mbappé said, since his original joke was scrubbed from Chinese social media.
Graphika finds China-linked Spamouflage accounts posing as US voters on X: Graphika found three China-linked account sets on X posing as American voters and posting divisive content on politics, social issues and the midterms. Two of the sets had earlier been typical Spamouflage accounts that attacked Guo Wengui and Falun Gong before switching to US-focused content.
Warning Signals: Venezuela and the Risk of AI-Powered Chinese Digital Authoritarianism: Venezuela, which already runs a surveillance system built largely on Chinese Huawei, ZTE and Hikvision equipment, could add Chinese AI through a July 2025 memorandum with sanctioned firm iFlytek. Facial and voice recognition combined with the Carnet de la Patria ID database could enable preemptive profiling.
WeChat, QQ Users Banned for Hiding the Emperor’s New Clothes: Users have reported permanent suspensions from WeChat and QQ after posting the sentence “Lately, I’ve grown used to quiet, uneventful days” (Xíguàn le jìnlái píngpíngdàndàn de rìzi), which likely “triggered keyword scans with its non-sequential incorporation of Xi Jinping’s name.” Users complain that platforms tend to simply accept false positives as preferable to missing any politically sensitive content.
CDT’s “404 Deleted Content Archive” Summary for September 2026: CDT archived 31 deleted pieces from the Chinese internet covering topics including the Sun Meihua case (a Beijing woman found in Shandong after 26 years), a Guangzhou stabbing which targeted women, the Shaoyang 100-million-yuan official extortion case, Beijing’s drone-storage ban, Xingyu workers’ labor activism, and Wuhan’s fines on Guo Degang’s performance organizers.
Hong Kong privacy watchdog issues guidance on AI ‘smart glasses’ to curb covert surveillance: The Hong Kong privacy commissioner’s December 2025 CCTV guidance describes covert surveillance as “a last resort,” and China issued a voluntary smart-glasses code after outrage over covert filming with Rokid glasses.
Diaspora Community & Transnational Repression 海外社群和跨国镇压
Uyghur Rights Groups Urge Thailand Not to Deport Two Uyghur Refugees to China: Rights groups and three Thai civil-society networks warned that two Uyghurs held since 2014, who were pardoned on October 21 and moved to Bangkok immigration detention, risk torture and disappearance if returned to China. No lawyers, rights groups, or Thailand’s human rights commission have been allowed to visit them. Thailand deported 109 Uyghurs in 2015 and 40 more in February 2025, whose fate is still unknown.
Human Rights Defenders & Civil Society 人权捍卫者与公民社会
HRIC on Twitter/X: On October 30, 2026, International Political Prisoners Day, Luo Shengchun, wife of human rights lawyer and defender Ding Jiaxi, called on the Chinese government to release her husband. Since December 26, 2019, he has been imprisoned for his work advocating civic connection and political participation, freedom of speech, and the rule of law.
Beijing Queer film festival cancelled after harassment from authorities: The Love Queer Cinema Week, planned for October 30 to November 8, was cancelled after what is understood to have been sustained police harassment, including repeated phone calls in recent weeks. Several international filmmakers had already traveled to China. IndieChina festival in New York was also cancelled last year amid pressure from Beijing.
Keeping China’s Labor Misery Off the Record: Labor journalist Feng Rui was released on bail on October 21 after 37 days of detention for “picking quarrels.” The piece also notes the detention of journalist Hong Guangyu and the closure of China Labor Trends as a push to keep workers’ grievances fragmented. It adds that the state promotes “new popular literature” about workers to turn their hardship into “positive energy.”
HRIC on Twitter/X: In August 2024, public-account writer Hui Jian (Wu Kai) exposed Anhui chamber of commerce head Liu Ren in Cambodia over alleged telecom fraud parks and violent lending, then refused to delete the piece under pressure. In November 2024, a group was hired who posed as police, abducted Hui Jian, forced him to delete his articles and tortured him to death. Online rumors then claimed that he had been detained for extortion. The truth emerged only after Liu Ren was repatriated in June 2026 and the verdict was disclosed in late October.
76岁北京维权军嫂国俪堃被当局剥夺退休金和医保，维权公民的养老保障被中共当局“武器化” [Guo Likun, a 76-year-old Beijing-based rights activist and military spouse, has been stripped of her pension and medical insurance by the authorities. This incident exemplifies the “weaponization” of pension security for rights-defending citizens by the Chinese Communist Party]: According to Weiquanwang, 76-year-old military widow Guo Likun, a Beijing rights activist whose husband died after a 2015 forced demolition, has had her pension and medical insurance paused since July, citing her 2021-2023 sentence for “picking quarrels.” The group calls this a “weaponization” of retirement security.
China to demolish over 200 monks’ dwellings at Sershul Monastery in Tibet: Authorities reportedly carried out a demolition campaign on October 25 or 26 targeting more than 200 monks’ homes at Dza Sershul Monastery in Kham, founded in 1760 and now home to over 1,200 monks. It follows the earlier removal of over 200 young monks in 2018, protest arrests, and a wave of demolitions at Larung Gar since the Ethnic Unity Law took effect.
Hong Kong independent bookstore Luck Win to shut Mong Kok branch by year end after half a century: The bookstore, founded in 1984, will close by December 31. It was disqualified from the Hong Kong Book Fair in June alongside Elmbook, after being attacked by pro-Beijing paper Wen Wei Po for allegedly stocking “independence” titles.
Officers lack power to order identity proof under police ordinance, court hears as Ronson Chan seeks top court appeal: The former Hong Kong Journalists Association chair is asking the Court of Final Appeal to hear his obstruction conviction, which stemmed from a September 2022 stop where he delayed showing his ID. The High Court upheld the conviction on May 29 and Chan served five days.
China’s Reach & Internal Control 中国: 内控与外扩
TCHRD Raises Alarm Over Information Blackout, Aid Restrictions After Tibet Earthquake: Police are suppressing independent casualty updates and restricting grassroots aid after the October 22 quake. State media report 16 dead and 76 injured, but one local source estimates about 50 deaths in their own social circle. Volunteers heading to Drachen County reportedly must sign government pledges or are turned back at checkpoints, as in past disasters such as Dingri and Kyirong.
China expels a record number from Communist party amid Xi’s intensified purges of top officials: The fifth plenum confirmed the expulsion of a record 33 officials, including ex-Politburo members Zhang Youxia and Ma Xingrui and ex-general Liu Zhenli. Attendance fell to 279 members, the lowest of Xi’s tenure. A senior discipline official said the Central Committee under Xi has “eliminated serious hidden dangers” in the party, state and military. The expulsions and record plenum absences underscored the scale of Xi’s purges ahead of the 2027 Party Congress.
Hello Kitty firm apologises, scraps Japan TV tie-up after China anger: Sanrio apologised and ended its merchandise collaboration with the Japanese spy drama Vivant after Chinese state media attacked its portrayal of Chinese agents torturing Japanese operatives as distorting history. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said the show reveals a force in Japan seeking to “vilify and smear China.” The episode comes amid frayed China-Japan ties and Sanrio’s growing China sales.
International Responses 国际反应
US imprisons two Chinese nationals who tried to recruit military service members to spy for Beijing: Liren “Ryan” Lai, 40, and Yuance Chen, 39, were each sentenced to 30 months in prison plus three years’ supervised release in California after admitting to acting as agents of China’s Ministry of State Security. They arranged “dead drop” cash payments, photographed a U.S. Navy base and recruiting station, and tried to identify service members to recruit. They were arrested in June 2025.
US bans imports from 3 Chinese biotech companies over forced labor allegations: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is blocking shipments from BGI Group, BGI Genomics and MGI Tech under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, saying their genetic testing in Xinjiang aids the surveillance and repression of ethnic minorities and forced labor. BGI denies the accusation. The action comes before an expected Xi-Trump meeting in Shenzhen, BGI’s home city.
Current Events 热点新闻
Mining in Tibet in 2026: The Copper Boom, Troubled Rivers and the Question of Who Benefits: Zijin Mining began phase II of its Julong copper mine in January 2026, targeting 300,000-350,000 tonnes a year, while the Gyama mine’s revenue rose 68% in the first quarter. 2026 studies found that the mining footprint on the plateau grew more than eightfold, and trace metals like mercury and cadmium rose above background levels in eastern Tibet’s sediments. This piece argues that there is no clear evidence that local Tibetans benefit from these mining activities and calls for independent water testing, public environmental data, and community participation.