From 1989 to '1984': The Tiananmen Massacre and China's High-Tech Totalitarianism

1. "Chinese Miracle" and "Chinese Model"

Since 1989, China has shocked the world at least twice. The first was the Tiananmen massacre in 1989; the second was China's "economic miracle".

In fact, the economic miracle and the destruction of the democratic movement are closely related. Without the massacres of June 3 and 4, 1989, there would be no Chinese miracle. "The most ironic thing is that the privatized economic reforms carried out by the elites in China after the June 4th Movement are undoubtedly the most shameless and vile in terms of morality, but they may be the easiest and most successful in terms of benefits. The massacre completely deprived the people of their right to speak. China's privatization, without the participation and supervision of the people, turned into a straightforward appropriation of public property by a small number of officials. Officials suddenly became capitalists, and the privatization reform was implemented in one step. The high-pressure policy has created a fairly stable investment environment, attracting a large amount of foreign capital.” ^[1] There is a saying that is circulated among the people. It is said that the Chinese economist Liu Liqun said: “The sound of a gun turns stealing into robbery.” The Chinese Communist Party used the June 4 massacre to pave the way for "privatization", "marketization" and exploitation. This is a continuation of Mao Zedong's famous saying that "power comes from the barrel of a gun." The CCP also believes that "the barrel of a gun protects the political power."

In 1978, China was in the midst of political turmoil and economic collapse caused by Mao Zedong's brutal Cultural Revolution. In order to survive, the CCP had to pursue a policy of reform and opening up. However, while marketization and economic globalization continued, political reforms stagnated. The CCP never intended to give up its monopoly of power.

The CCP has many achievements to be proud of: poverty alleviation, urbanization, World Trade Organization (WTO), high-speed rail, rockets, Internet, artificial intelligence, Nobel Prize, Beijing Olympic Games, G20 summit, Belt and Road One Road, Made in China 2025 Strategy, etc. As we can see from the term "performance legitimacy" ^[2] , China's "economic miracle" has in fact become the material and to a large extent the psychological basis of the Chinese regime. The standard of living of almost all Chinese citizens has improved significantly, and they have positive and optimistic expectations for future development, which explains why the Chinese people adhere to the existing system. However, as I mentioned before, economic development cannot replace political legitimacy. In today's world, political legitimacy can only come from choices made by citizens through political party competition and free elections. In fact, economic development cannot even achieve "justification", because China's abnormal economic development without the rule of law and democracy will inevitably cause many problems to the society and the economy itself. ^[3]

The CCP takes credit for China's economic miracle, and even attributes it to the "China model" in an attempt to sell the "China solution" to the world. They also coined fancy terms like "Beijing Consensus" ^[4] and "community with a shared future for mankind". Is the Chinese miracle really that great? What's behind the glossy appearance? Is the Chinese model worth learning?

Reform and opening up did not come from the gift of the Communist Party, but from its evil. If it weren't for the closed-off planned economy, mass mobilization totalitarianism, vandalism, and anti-intellectualism of the Mao era, there would have been little need for reform and opening up. The driving force behind the reform and opening policy was to save the party, not to make China a constitutional democracy. Without the rebellion of Xiaogang villagers and brave reformers ^[5] , there would have been no reform and opening up. Official propaganda claiming that "the CCP feeds more than a billion people" is shameless and baseless. The truth is, of course, that it is the people who have fed the party and government that constantly suppress and undermine market competition, plunder the people's wealth, and deprive the people of their basic freedoms.

II. The Shadow of the "Chinese Miracle"

These are the facts behind China's economic miracle:

The foundation of China's rapid economic development is actually based on the collusion between officials and businessmen—the frenzied plundering of elite groups. The so-called socialism with Chinese characteristics is actually a beautiful nickname for crony capitalism. ^[6] It brings huge income disparities and social injustices, and it also severely destroys resources and destroys the environment at a rapid rate. China's Gini coefficient hit 0.467 in 2017 after hitting a new high of 0.491 in 2008, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics. According to assessments by academic institutions, China's Gini coefficient reached 0.61 in 2010, far higher than the 0.4 "warning line" recognized by the world as potentially causing social unrest. ^[7] China is not only one of the least free countries in the world, but also one of the most unequal.

Many people unknowingly ignore this: China's "low human rights advantage" is one of the main factors behind its economic miracle. Numerous cheap labor, poor wages, minimal benefits and poor working conditions; forced land acquisition and eviction; independent trade unions, public protests and strikes banned; labor lacks the power to negotiate with management and government; wage arrears; collusion between officials and businessmen, judicial corruption And so on, have greatly reduced the cost of Chinese goods, giving Chinese goods a great price advantage. "Commodities made in China fill the world like a flood, and capital from all over the world pours into China like a flood." ^[8] No country that respects basic human rights and social welfare, and guarantees its citizens' freedom of assembly and voting rights can replicate such advantages. Forced demolition of houses, mine accidents, black brick kilns, labor camps, desperate petitioners, left-behind children in rural areas, extrajudicial detentions, suicides of Foxconn employees, closure of labor NGOs, detention of labor rights activists, etc. China's economic miracle can be said to be built on the sweat, death and humiliation of countless Chinese workers. Paradoxically, the Chinese government attributes economic success to the so-called "China model" and sells it around the world. If all countries adopt the "China Model", there will be no more "China Miracle"; instead, the whole world will be copied to China's appearance because of the race to the bottom.

The blatant looting by the authorities has brought serious environmental damage, ecological deterioration and social corruption. Under the multiple influences of political terror, thought control, censorship and brainwashing, Chinese society is rife with cynicism, money worship, consumerism and social Darwinism. The development of scholarship, knowledge, culture and art has been greatly harmed. Behind the skyscrapers and high-speed railways, there are literal prisons, the Great Firewall, concentration camps, pollution, bean curd residue projects, poisonous food and poisonous vaccines, cancer villages, AIDS villages, and more. Behind the superficial prosperity is the collapse of ecology, environment, morality and spirit, which will cause deeper and wider damage to China's future, and its influence will continue even after the fall of the CCP.

Foreign trade is a major contributor to China's economic miracle, yet the Chinese government has violated many of the commitments it made when it joined the World Trade Organization, violated international human rights standards, and competed unfairly. Theft of intellectual property rights, forced technology transfer, exchange rate manipulation, government subsidies, illegal dumping, overseas money laundering, commercial espionage, cyber attacks, bribing and infiltration of media, and blocking the Internet have aroused vigilance and rebound in Western society.

Instead of bringing about political freedom or an open society, China's economic miracle has allowed the CCP to dramatically increase its control and repression. The rise of China is not the rise of the Chinese people, but the astonishing rise of the CCP. People living in China cannot access Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and they have no right to protect their home or land. They have no freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and no right to vote. Under the blessing of economic rise and technological development, China is accelerating toward an enhanced version of "Orwell 1984".

Ginseng, tank sequelae

Deng Xiaoping is said to have said 40 days before the CCP dispatched the People's Liberation Army to suppress the protests that began in the spring of 1989, that the CCP was willing to "kill 200,000 people in exchange for 20 years of stability!" ^[9]

After a deliberate massacre by the CCP with tanks and machine guns, the Chinese have been suffering from what I call "tank sequelae." ^[10] Anger and fear transform into silence, silence into indifference, and indifference into cynicism. Brainwashing, a distorted market economy and political corruption have created pervasive consumerism, nationalism and social Darwinism.

After June 4th, under the atmosphere of fear and despair, induced by desire and power, almost all Chinese people admired the rich and powerful. They became less and less concerned with universal values and morals, and people began to forget, marginalize, and ridicule freedom fighters and prisoners of conscience. Here we see the paradox of history: survivors become accomplices of murderers. The most terrifying tyranny is not the suppression of resistance, but the tyranny that makes you unwilling to resist, unwilling to resist, or even willing to defend it.

However, we also know the existence of Tank Man, which is one of the most influential images of the twentieth century. He represents the courage and hope of the Chinese people. The June 4th spirit inspired some rights activists, and the resistance movement never stopped. ^[11] In order to realize an Orwellian state, the CCP has already encountered resistance and will inevitably encounter resistance. But when a high-tech totalitarian state is formed, any resistance movement can be easily wiped out.

savage, high-tech totalitarianism

Unprecedented "high-tech totalitarianism" is taking shape in China. The CCP has used China’s leadership in artificial intelligence to more fully implement totalitarian surveillance of Chinese society. China's Great Firewall, social media, big data, e-commerce, and modern communication technologies make it easier for the CCP to spy on people, like Jeremy Bentham's panopticon -- where no one knows Whether or when they will be watched, but the possibility of being watched is always there. ^[12] The Internet is an effective tool used by the CCP for censorship, political propaganda, and brainwashing. Face recognition, voiceprint recognition, gait recognition, DNA databases and biometric tags have all made the CCP’s all-round surveillance more efficient and more rigorous. In Shandong, the CCP uses VR (virtual reality) technology to test party members’ loyalty to the party. ^[13] The "social credit system" is a terrifying example that may be beyond Orwell's imagination. ^[14] Market research firm IDC recently predicted that public surveillance footage in China will continue to increase, reaching 2.76 billion units in 2022. ^[15] There are two surveillance cameras per capita, and this does not include surveillance tools in personal telecommunications equipment that can be digitally requisitioned by the CCP at any time.

In the traditional totalitarian surveillance mechanism that the CCP has established since 1949 and has continued to strengthen over the past seven decades, a shocking "high-tech totalitarianism" has developed. China's cyber-stability maintenance, secret police, black jails, cyber navy, party-inspired nationalism, media and internet surveillance, brainwashing, mass arrests of human rights activists, and Xi Jinping's cult of personality all teach us High-tech totalitarianism has never appeared in human history. ^[16]

Wu, the Orwellian system in China that the West allows and promotes

Exactly thirty years ago, two things happened in China: a peaceful democratic movement and a bloody massacre. All democracies in the world initially condemned the massacre in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, harshly criticized China's dictators, and supported the June 4th pro-democracy activists who were imprisoned or on the run. But it wasn't long before Western leaders, driven by commercial interests, once again welcomed the People's Republic of China's butchers and dictators with red carpets, warm hugs and state dinners.

In the United States, leaders of both major political parties have avoided breaking diplomatic relations with Beijing. Only seventeen days after the Chinese government sent troops to suppress student-led protests that killed thousands, ^[17] then US President George HW Bush sent a secret letter to Deng Xiaoping, who later sent Special envoy Brent Scowcroft was on a secret mission - to Beijing to meet with Deng Xiaoping. ^[18]

By 1991, the Bush administration had eased or lifted a number of June 4-related sanctions against China. In 1994, the U.S. administration under President Clinton updated China's most-favored-nation status and delinked trade from the Chinese government's human rights record. In early 2000, Clinton proposed giving China "Permanent Normal Trade Relations" (PNTR). Boeing, Microsoft and hundreds of other U.S. manufacturers and agribusinesses spent more than $100 million lobbying members of Congress to secure passage of the bill, claiming that "China is on its way to reforms to Western-style democracy" and that "economic Development will promote political reform in China" and "the popularization of the Internet will bring freedom of the press to China". In the end, they lobbied successfully ^[19] ; in 2001, China obtained the PNTR and was allowed to join the World Trade Organization. Western companies have defeated human rights groups in a bitter battle over the decoupling of human rights from trade. After China's economic development took the fast lane of economic globalization, Western companies reaped rich rewards. Since then, China has been given the opportunity to host the Olympic Games (2008 Beijing Summer Olympics), the World Expo, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, the G20 summit and many other important international events. No country is boycotting these activities. Despite having one of the worst human rights conditions in the world, China has been repeatedly elected as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, and the Chinese government has even arrogantly manipulated the council, in violation of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. United Nations Human Rights Guidelines. ^[20]

Western companies and countries take their interests in command, ignore the necessity of universal values as a balancing factor, and allow the CCP’s expansion and brutality. Many Western companies and multinational corporations have helped the Chinese government build censorship and surveillance systems. Cisco Systems, for example, provides equipment and training to help China build and strengthen its Great Firewall. Nortel Networks, Microsoft, Intel, Websense and other technology companies also play a role in the Great Firewall project. At the request of Chinese state security agencies, Yahoo provided user information that allowed the Chinese government to identify at least four Chinese authors. The information provided by Yahoo turned out to be important evidence for the conviction. In order to be able to return to the Chinese market, Google designed a search engine called Project Dragonfly, which can filter all the information that China does not like. Many Western banks employ the families of senior Chinese officials as full-time advisers. These are just the tip of the iceberg of corrupt deals between Western corporations and authoritarian regimes. ^{[twenty one]}

With the help of Western participation, money, and technology, after the June 4 massacre, the CCP not only survived a brief period of global isolation and sanctions, but also established an increasingly powerful, brutal, and global totalitarian regime. Today, China demands a rewrite of a new set of international norms in an attempt to construct a new international order in which the rule of law can be manipulated, human dignity is degraded, the perpetrators go unpunished, and triumphant dictatorships collide .

Lu, Chinese long arms

If we look closely, we can see the true characteristics of the "China Model". Under the Chinese model, economic development is costly: human rights are compromised, society is rife with corruption and inequality, and the environment is destroyed; people are brainwashed with censorship and propaganda; state violence is used to suppress dissenting voices and activities ; and, using trade, diplomacy, and overseas penetration to maintain international favoritism for the CCP’s one-party dictatorship. In short, the Chinese model is "kleptocratic capitalism" plus "high-tech totalitarianism".

With its rise, China has become increasingly aggressive on the international stage and a threat to global freedom. The CCP’s extraterritorial laws and regime black hands have spread out in many different ways, such as kidnapping dissidents, booksellers, Uyghurs, businessmen and other refugees overseas. The CCP institutionalizes theft and bribery through the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, aggression in the South China Sea, cyber attacks and espionage against other countries, and the “Thousand Talents Plan” and political propaganda.

Organizations such as the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA), Confucius Institutes, alumni associations, hometown associations, chambers of commerce, etc. are all controlled or directed by the Chinese embassy, consulate or the United Front Work Department. ^[22] A report by the Hoover Institution shows that the Chinese government has eliminated almost all independent Chinese-language media based in the United States. ^[23] In other regions such as Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, etc., the fate of independent Chinese-language media is even worse.

Overseas pro-democracy activists and dissidents cannot escape the clutches of the CCP. Their relatives in China could be intimidated, arrested or detained. Well-known pro-democracy activist Wang Bingzhang, who is also a permanent resident of the United States, was kidnapped in Vietnam in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison in China. ^[24] In October 2015, Swedish publisher Gui Minhai was kidnapped by Chinese secret police from his apartment in Thailand. Three months after his disappearance, he suddenly appeared in Chinese state media and was forced to plead guilty. He was released after being detained for two years, but was taken away again a few months later, this time in front of Swedish diplomats. ^[25] Gui Minhai’s partner, Lu Bo, a Hong Kong resident with a British passport, was kidnapped in Hong Kong on December 30, 2015. ^[26] Dozens of family members of at least six Uyghur journalists working for Radio Free Asia have been detained by Chinese reprisals for their reporting. ^[27] Tibetans, Uyghurs, Falun Gong members, and Chinese dissidents have been harassed and physically assaulted by those employed by the Chinese embassy in Mexico, Argentina, India, Thailand, Canada, and the United States. New Zealand's Professor Anne-Marie Brady had a computer stolen from her home in February 2018, the same year after she wrote a widely publicized report on Chinese political interference. The tires of her car were deflated in November, and her colleagues in China were taken in for questioning. ^[28]

The Chinese government has all but torn up its "one country, two systems" promise to Hong Kong; in other words, it is violating the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed in 1984. China has intervened in Taiwan's politics through trade discrimination, disinformation, media infiltration, and repeated threats of military aggression against Taiwan. China also violated a 2016 arbitration decision under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) by threatening war against the Philippines. China recklessly manipulates the UN by blocking independent NGOs from speaking up, punishing pro-democracy activists, harassing and intimidating UN staff and experts, preventing or weakening UN resolutions, and cooperating with dictatorships with the worst human rights records human rights mechanisms. ^[29]

7. Lessons learned by the CCP from June 4th

Most scholars and politicians had believed that embracing the market economy and globalization would promote freedom and democratization in China; this is not the case. Quite the contrary, China today is farther from democracy and freedom than it was in 1989. Economic power and high technology have greatly strengthened the CCP's control over China, which is rapidly moving towards fascism with Chinese characteristics.

People are keen to discuss the rise of China, but it is the CCP established in 1921 that has risen violently at an alarming rate. People living in China cannot access Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube; nor do they have the right to protect their home or land. They have no freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and no right to vote. In China, even "Winnie the Pooh" is banned. ^[30] Countless Chinese do not have access to fresh air and clean water. Tens of thousands of human rights defenders, lawyers, dissidents, journalists are behind bars. Some political prisoners died behind bars, including Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died in 2017. Families of human rights activists were implicated, and human rights NGOs were shut down. Torture, forced demolition, enforced disappearance, and unjust imprisonment are everywhere. Falun Gong members, Tibetans, Christians, and other religious groups suffer severe persecution. Up to 1.5 million Uyghurs and other Turkic-speaking Muslims have been sent by the CCP to concentration camps in Xinjiang. ^[31] This is not a "Chinese miracle" or a "Chinese dream", but a Chinese nightmare.

Yet the world is accustomed to wishful thinking about China's progress. China implements a market economy, joins the World Trade Organization, allows elites to surf the Internet through virtual private networks (VPNs), and has ratified dozens of international human rights treaties. Then why did China not move towards freedom and democracy, but moved towards 1984?

When discussing the current state of Chinese politics, we should keep one thing in mind: the CCP does not represent the interests of China or the Chinese people. Its highest priority is to perpetuate the one-party dictatorship, thereby safeguarding the interests of those privileged under the one-party dictatorship. ^[32]

Beginning in the 1980s, China's economic growth, global markets, the legal profession, and the Internet and social media gave rights organizations and an empowered civil society some space. At the same time, however, the Chinese government has never relaxed its censorship, surveillance and control over society and its citizens. If the CCP has learned anything from the June 4 incident, it is that the CCP should do whatever it takes to maintain a one-party dictatorship. When the party senses that civil society is starting to gain more resources and influence, it moves to tighten its grip. But over the past few decades, the so-called "China model" - what I call "kleptocracy plus high-tech totalitarianism" - has been pushing China into a full-blown crisis. It brought widespread official corruption, official-civilian conflict, ecological disaster, religious persecution, racial hatred and concentration camps in Tibet and Xinjiang. ^[33]

Most importantly, there are already signs that China has been unable to reap more economic dividends from its demographic advantage, cheap labor, and globalization. On the contrary, those economic dividends have begun to diminish. China's gross domestic product (GDP) growth is decelerating. There are only two solutions to China's political, social and economic crisis—either loosen surveillance and establish the rule of law and democracy, or increase repression. The CCP chose the latter without hesitation. Of course, fundamentally speaking, this is the evil way to aggravate the crisis rather than solve it.

Another lesson the CCP has learned from June 4 is that it needs to be wary of the threat posed by Western ideological influence to one-party dictatorship. This is why, in addition to monitoring information at home, the CCP is also trying to control the overseas Chinese community. The CCP has long been an important and sincere supporter of nearly every dictatorship. It has been exporting to dictators around the world the technology, experience, and surveillance models that suppress citizens, preventing and destroying any democratization efforts. The CCP’s goal is to do whatever it takes to maintain the party’s rule over China, so it acts to ensure that the international environment is conducive to the CCP’s security.

As a result, the high-tech Orwellian state under the CCP has increasingly become an urgent threat to universal values. Many scholars and experts have to admit that the U.S. policy of engagement with China in the past has failed. ^[34] It is not unreasonable to compare China today to Germany in the 1930s: absolute one-party dictatorship, nationalist political propaganda, information censorship, personality cult, religious persecution, concentration camps, secret police, comprehensive surveillance, exclusion of dissidents , rapid economic and military growth, aggressive foreign policy, ambitious global plans, and more. While there are also many differences between the two regimes, the similarities between the two are staggering. The free world can and must learn from history. In the face of a powerful and ambitious totalitarian regime, a policy of appeasement (in the name of "engagement policy") will not contribute anything to security, liberty, or sustainable prosperity, but will only lead to a most tragic humanitarian catastrophe.

[The English version of this article was published in Contemporary Chinese Political Economy and Strategic Relations (CCPS), Vol.5, No. 2, June/August 2019. ]

^[1] Hu, Ping. 2008. “The Massacre and the Miracle.” Radio Free Asia, September 2, 2008.

^[2] Holbig, Heike & Gilley, Bruce. 2010. “Reclaiming Legitimacy in China.” Politics & Policy 38 (3): 395, 405 ; Zhao, Dingxin. 2009. “The Mandate of Heaven and Performance Legitimation in Historical and Contemporary China.” American Behavioral Scientist , 53(3):416.

^[3] Teng, Biao. 2009. “Charter 08 and political legitimacy.” China Rights Forum . in https://www.hrichina.org/en/content/3791 . Latest updated 2019/9/18

^[4] CooperRamo, Joshua. 2004. The Beijing Consensus. TheForeign Policy Center

^[5] Dandan, Ni. 2018. “The Farmer who changed China forever.” Six Tone

^[6] Pei, Minxin. 2016. China's Crony Capitalism: The Dynamics of Regime Decay. Harvard University Press

^[7] Xu, Jia. 2016. “The truth of the mainland Geni coefficient,” iFeng Weekly, February 2013, No. 461, in http://www.ifengweekly.com/detil.php?id=869 .Latest updated 18 September 2019

^[8] Qin, Hui. 2007. “The low human rights advantage in China's economic development.” in http://www.aisixiang.com/data/16401.html .Latest updated 18 September 2019

^[9] Chen Xiaoya. 2006. "Tracking Notes on the Two "Unsolved Cases" of the June 4 Incident." https://www.chinesepen.org/old-posts/?p=3385 . 2019/9/18

^[10] Teng Biao. 2014. "China under the Crushing of Tanks". East Net. https://hk.on.cc/cn/bkn/cnt/commentary/20140604/bkncn-20140604000318291-0604_05411_001_cn.html . 2019/9/18

^[11] Teng, Biao, The Rights Defense Movement, in Sarah Biddulph (ed.), Handbook on Human Rights in China, Routledge, 2019.

^[12] Foucault, Michel. 1995. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage.

^[13] “China's Communist party using VR gear to test member loyalty.” Economic Times. 7 May 2018.

^[14] Marr, Bernard. 2019. Chinese Social Credit Score: Utopian Big Data Bliss Or Black Mirror On Steroids? Forbes

^[15] 2019. “By 2022, Every Chinese Will 'Own' Two Surveillance Cameras.” Radio Free Asia. 4 February 2019.

^[16] Teng, Biao. 2018. “Has Xi Jinping Changed China? Not Really. “in http://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/has-xi-jinping-changed-china-not-really . Latest updated 18 September 2019.

^[17] Official estimates at the time were anywhere from 800 to 3,000 civilian deaths; but a British government document declassified in 2017 indicates upwards of 10,000 civilian deaths. See, Tiananmen Square protest death toll 'was 10,000'. BBC, 2017.12.23

^[18] Bush, George. 2000. All the Best: My Life in Letters and Other Writings, “Scribner. See also, Did President George HW Bush Mishandle China?” A ChinaFile Conversation.4December2018. in http://www.chinafile .com/conversation/did-president-george-hw-bush-mishandle-china . Latest updated 18 September 2019.

^[19] Zhou, Xiaohui. 2016. “CCP export toxins lure Western multinationals.” in The Epoch Times.

^[20] Human Rights Watch. 2017. “The Costs of International Advocacy: China's Interference in United Nations Human Rights Mechanisms.”

^[21] Teng, Biao. 2019. Self-censorship and Abetting Evil: Western corporations and the suppression of freedom and human rights in China .

^[22] An example is how Confucius Institutes work in the US higher education. See, National Association of Scholars. 2017. Outsourced to China: Confucius Institutes and Soft Power in American Higher Education .

^[23] China's Influence & American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance. the Hoover Institution. 2018.11.29. in https://www.hoover.org/research/chinese-influence-american-interests-promoting-constructive-vigilance . Latest updated 18 September 2019.

^[24] Dorfman, Zach. 2018. “The Disappeared”. The Foreign Policy. in https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-renditions-kidnapping . Latest updated 18 September 2019.

^[25] Jiang, Steven. 2018. Swedish bookseller GuiMinhai 'abducted' by Chinese agents, CNN. in https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/22/asia/bookseller-abduction-china-intl/index. html . Latest updated 18 September 2019.

^[26] Phillips, Tom. 2016. “China behaving like 'gangster' state with bookseller kidnap, say Hong Kong politicians. the Guardian.

^[27] “The families left behind: RFA'S Uyghur reporters tell the stories of their family members' detentions.” RFA. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/special/uyghurfamilies/ . Latest updated 18 September 2019

^[28] Eleanor Ainge Roy. 2018. NZ police investigate after prominent China critic's car 'sabotaged', the Guardian. in https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/16/nz-police-investigate-after -prominent-china-critic-says-car-sabotaged . Latest updated 18 September 2019.

^[29] Human Rights Watch. 2017. “The Costs of International Advocacy: China's Interference in United Nations Human Rights .” Mechanisms.

^[30] McDonell, Stephen. 2017. “Why China cinensors banned Winnie the Pooh.” BBC News 17 July 2017.

^[31] “The Guardian view on Xinjiang's detention camps: not just China's shame.” editorial, The Guardian 17 March 2019.

^[32] Teng, Biao. 2018. “China's 'Perfect Dictatorship' and Its Impact — An Interview With Professor Stein Ringen, China Change.” in https://chinachange.org/2018/11/06/chinas-perfect-dictatorship -and-its-impact-an-interview-with-professor-stein-ringen/ Latest updated 18 September 2019/

^[33] Teng, Biao. 2015. “China's irrepressible lawyers.” the Washington Post.

^[34] 2018. “China v America: The end of engagement.” the Economist.