The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has used the September 3rd military parade to showcase its powerful military both domestically and internationally. In order to do so, they have been intercepting and arresting dissidents, controlling dissenters and believers in various locations, and extending their human rights violations overseas.
Los Angeles resident Mrs. Zhao Ye and her husband moved to the United States in October 2023, thinking they wouldn’t have to worry about the CCP’s iron fist anymore. However, the authorities have visited her multiple times to threaten her young daughter back in China, resorting to transnational coercion against her.
Zhao Ye’s oldest daughter, Yang Xiao, is an active activist in Los Angeles. During the 2019 National Day celebration organized by a pro-CCP overseas Chinese community, she splashed ink on the CCP’s five-star flag, causing a stir in the Chinese community. At that time, Zhao Ye was still in China, and the CCP harassed her, even resorting to physical violence, to pressure Yang Xiao.
Zhao Ye said that during that time, the police questioned her, not only verbally threatening her but also slapping her multiple times. However, she couldn’t access outside information at the time and didn’t know what Yang Xiao had done, unable to provide satisfactory answers to the police.
Upon coming abroad, the CCP police couldn’t find Zhao Ye, so they targeted her daughter in China. The latest threat occurred on September 1st, just before the CCP’s military parade. According to reports, police across the country received stability maintenance tasks, with some citizens being confined to their homes and others being sent to secret prisons.
On that day, the director of the Shanxi Province Jinzhong City police station visited Zhao Ye’s daughter’s auto parts shop. “They claimed that I was organizing a cult in the United States to resist the country, especially during the sensitive time of the military parade, causing trouble in front of the consulate, engaging in ‘judgments’,” Zhao Ye recounted, “The director said, ‘The higher-ups are very angry, provincial leaders are overseeing this, your entire family is under scrutiny. Don’t cause trouble again, especially during the military parade, just live honestly in the United States, or it will affect your family.'”
Last month, the “All-powerful Christ Anti-Communist Front” organized a protest in front of the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles, judging the CCP’s “Nine Sins.” Zhao Ye is one of the initiators of the Front. The timing of the event was sensitive, just four days before the September 3rd military parade.
Under CCTV’s intimidation and coercion, Zhao Ye’s daughter urgently contacted her mother, giving her a “scolding”: “Don’t think that the police don’t know what you’re doing; they know everything.” Her daughter pleaded with her mother to “stop causing trouble and just live honestly.”
To control Zhao Ye’s daughter’s movements, the CCP police confiscated her passport and prohibited her and her family from obtaining new passports. During the call, her daughter’s voice trembled, saying, “If you keep causing trouble, I won’t be able to get a passport, and I will always be a hostage in their hands.”
Many overseas Chinese are afraid of their relatives becoming CCP hostages, avoiding criticism of the authorities and refraining from speaking out outside consulates. However, there are still many Chinese who refuse to back down, using various opportunities to express their views, like Zhao Ye, by directly organizing groups and protesting activities.
Yang Xiao stated that she and her mother are in a land of freedom, but the CCP’s repeated pressure on their relatives in China has caused them great distress: “This kind of transnational suppression always makes us feel like the CCP’s tentacles are trying to reach us.”
Yang Xiao’s sister has three young children. When the police harassed her sister, they told her that Yang Xiao and her mother are anti-Party elements. They even asked Yang Xiao’s brother-in-law, “Why did you marry someone like her?” Yang Xiao said, “This kind of implication and instigation has also affected my sister and brother-in-law’s marital relationship.”
“My sister is very frightened,” she said, adding that due to the police threats, her sister harbors resentment towards her. She understands her sister’s emotions, saying, “She’s very timid. Under pressure, she cut off contact with me long ago, blocked me on WeChat, and only occasionally communicates with our mother.”
Yang Xiao emphasized that her sister did nothing illegal. “The CCP’s goal is to silence us. If threatening our families can silence overseas Chinese, then their goal is achieved; if it doesn’t work, I believe they will reduce such actions in the future. Therefore, we will not stop speaking up for human rights and freedom in China,” she said.
In recent years, the persecution of Chinese Christians has worsened. Fu Xiqiu, head of the Aid to China Association, pointed out last year that Chinese Christians are experiencing the most severe persecution since the Cultural Revolution, with no voice; if overseas Chinese don’t support them in seeking religious freedom, their situation will deteriorate further.
Yang Xiao said they cherish the freedom in the United States, realizing even more the value and meaning of the social democracy and religious freedom they pursue.
Li Shao-hua, a former Beijing lawyer now residing in Los Angeles, is well-versed in CCP’s laws. He pointed out that the CCP police harassing and threatening Zhao Ye’s daughter violates “Chinese law.”
“The CCP’s Constitution, Criminal Law, and Criminal Procedure Law clearly stipulate that a person must have committed a crime for them to bear legal responsibility,” he said. “Both Zhao Ye and her daughter are adults and independent individuals. Zhao Ye protesting against the CCP in the United States has no relation to her daughter.”
Did Zhao Ye violate “Chinese law” by organizing people to protest at the Chinese consulate? Li Shao-hua explained that Zhao Ye, in the United States, enjoys freedom of speech protected by American law; even the CCP’s law claims that people have the freedom of speech, so protesting at the consulate is exercising the right to speech, which is legal from both American and Chinese legal perspectives.
He said that the CCP inviting leaders from various countries for the military parade is for show, “They certainly don’t want anything to make them unhappy or displease the Party leader.” Zhao Ye’s organizing of the protest against the “Nine Sins of the CCP” at the end of August embarrassed the CCP officials and also angered the provincial leaders in her hometown.
“There are many cases of such transnational threats,” Li Shao-hua concluded, “America is a place of free speech. For the CCP to threaten overseas Chinese about their relatives in China is extremely despicable.” ◇