Teacher Li: the full transnational repression story

Prior to his activity on X, Li was active on Weibo. After the repeated banning of his (up to 53), in mid-2022 he switched to Twitter and started reposting information relayed to him by Chinese netizens during the harsh COVID lockdowns. 

As early as September 2022, when he shared information on a Lhasa (Tibet) protest against pandemic measures, some of his friends in China are questioned by public security authorities eager to learn more about his identity. 

Things escalate as protests mount across the country in November 2022. People flock to his account, making it a go-to source on the White Paper movement shaking the country. Chinese netizens increasingly share real-time information, videos and images of developments on the ground, which he faithfully shares on his account. 

Overnight, his following on X grows from 170,000 to 780,000.  His account, tweets and videos also get picked up by international media, with reporting featuring his interviews on CNN, Reuters, Bloomberg, Il Foglio, France24, La Repubblica and others. 

On November 28, 2022, his identity is doxed for the first time by anonymous accounts online. It wouldn’t be the last time. Over the past years, personal details such as his address in Italy and pictures of his passport have been leaked online. Some of the anonymous X accounts involved in such activities have also sent him repeated death threats or engaged in discrediting operations. 

It is hard to believe it a mere coincidence that on that very same November 28th, State Security authorities pay their first visit to his parent’s house in Fuyang City (Anhui Province). Through to mid-December 2022, MSS officials, Anhui Public Security officials and the Fuyang police chief visit his parents every single day with questions centering on his current whereabouts and false allegations around foreign funding or membership of a foreign anti-China organization, etc. 

When questioning yields little results, they move to intimidate his parents and request they exercise pressure on Li to delete his social media account, stop publishing any further content and immediately return to China. If not, in a typical collective punishment measure, they would move to “block their pensions”. 

To add pressure to their requests, for a subsequent period of time, every one of his social media posts is matched by a visit by two or more officials to his parents’ house. 

On April 12, 2023, he finds all his Chinese accounts have been frozen. This includes his bank cards, AliPay, WeChat Pay, etc. When he inquires as to the reasons, his bank informs him that public security authorities from various parts of the country had requested his personal information more than 30 times and that “he must have a serious problem”.  

In the meantime, surveillance cameras are installed outside his parents’ house. At this point, they only receive occasional visits by authorities but are placed under constant surveillance. When his father travels to Beijing for a medical check-up in August, public security officials visit his home to ask his mother about his whereabouts and the motive for his absence from the house. 

In May 2023, a pro-democracy acquaintance in Milan informs Li that inquiries on his whereabouts have been ongoing in the local Chinese church with the accusation he had “played on the sentiments of a woman and defrauded her”. Similar discrediting allegations persistently flood social media. 

Li becomes increasingly despondent as to the likelihood of seeing his passport renewed and publicly laments the difficulty he faces. He is soon made aware that individuals expressing their sympathies are called in for questioning. As Li starts contemplating alternative solutions, he suddenly receives word from the Associazione cinese a Milano that his passport is ready for pick-up. Li is convinced the passport release was a response to his public expression of the issues faced and the attention that might bring to his case. 

His relief is short-lived: one month later, the same social media account that previously doxed his old home address and called on local Chinese students to “go find him”, publishes pictures of his old and new passport, as well as the signed passport renewal request. 

Li frequently receives unveiled threats as to the Chinese authorities’ intentions. While he is not able to verify their veracity, they are often eerily synchronized to real-life events taking place shortly after. 

Among those threats the intent to “mobilize, intimidate, and pressure his family to ensure that he returns”. Alternatively, “to form a special team composed of public security and state security elements to go to Italy if necessary, and take coercive measures as the situation requires to arrest him and return him to China.”

Soon, Li receives reports from individuals to whom he’s had a loose connection in the past that they’ve been interrogated on their relation with him and any information they could provide as to his life and habits in Italy, such as food and restaurant preferences.  

Another one threatens that any electronic communications may be monitored. A threat that soon materializes as during Winter of 2023-2024, Li starts receiving a growing number of messages by X followers that they have been questioned by public security authorities and urged to unfollow him. 

Li obtains a sample of such a conversation (edited for security reasons): 

-    Is this XX?
-    Yes.
-    This is the police from YZ. We noted that you started following someone on Twitter or some other platform a while ago?
-    Erm…?
-    It’s about that. You follow that person but they have made some false statements on the platform. So now we are calling everyone who followed this person to inform them to unfollow. We are worried there might be some punishment in the future and you might be seen as a supporter…
-    Ok, I guess you are talking about Teacher Li, right?
-    Yes, that’s right.
-    Ok, I see.
-    Just unfollow him on the platform. If you do so, there shouldn’t be any further issues. But you should disassociate from him.
-    Ok, got it. Thanks.
-    Just take care of that and you’ll be fine. 

After receiving over a hundred notifications of targeted followers, on February 25, 2024, Li posts a warning on X, leading to a loss of about 200,000 followers in a couple of days. The surveillance of social media activities on foreign platforms is not a novelty for PRC authorities as a leaked old list of well over 20,000 critical social media accounts and their personal Chinese data shows. 

In March-April of this year, threats against his parents become more prominent again, with one account threatening his parents will be detained if he does not return to China voluntarily and warning of repercussions if he were to share the messages received. Simultaneously, deeply insulting memes and comments about his parents are posted across social media accounts and in response to Li’s posts.