Independent researcher & consultant; author of UnderReported China newsletter; fmr Freedom House China research director, views my own
New York, USA
Joined September 2015
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Sarah Cook retweeted
A New York Times reporter expelled from China in 1991 went back for six months. The trains are faster. The surveillance is worse.
Andrew Higgins counted more than 30 cameras on the 137-meter walk from his Shanghai apartment to the subway. State security officers showed up at a lawyer friend’s door and ordered him to cancel their meeting. His wife’s pen was pulled at Tiananmen security because officers thought it might contain red ink. Entry to the square required WeChat clearance, a two-hour wait, and three separate checkpoints.
Men still followed him. They now use smartphones and smart glasses. AI flags the communications of foreign journalists.Posters near the temple visits told residents to report spies. The slogan was “anti-spy starts with me.”
China is richer than it has ever been.
It is also more certain that someone, somewhere, is an enemy.
nytimes.com/2026/10/11/world…
Sarah Cook retweeted
WATCH: Britain’s ITN has released ~4 hours of previously sealed 1989 Tiananmen footage — filmed by the team that smuggled the tapes out of China.
The material, archived for ~35 years, includes a 2-hour crackdown compilation and 90 minutes of secretly filmed raw rushes from the days after, showing military trucks on Beijing streets, crowds, and the aftermath.
Sarah Cook retweeted
Since June, ICE has been arresting Hongkongers lawfully present in the US by intercepting airports, holding them for weeks, and pressuring them to sign voluntary departure forms. In every case I’ve handled, courts eventually order them released, but this only happens after weeks or months of illegal detention of innocent people. Even after release, many are forced by ICE to wear ankle monitors and barred from leaving their area.
@phelimkine of @politico investigates these illegal detentions in a new article out today. DHS told him that DED "is not a status." But Hanscom Smith, who served as US consul general in Hong Kong under both Trump and Biden, shared the reality: if you're a Hongkonger here on DED, you're here legally.
Many of these people were part of the 2019 democracy protests. Administration officials have told us the White House will not extend DED past February 5. After that, DHS's position is that it can put them on a plane back to a government that jails people for wearing a "liberate Hong Kong" T-shirt or posting pro-democracy statements on social media.
Senator Merkley and Rep. McGovern's Hong Konger Promise of Refuge Act would let these Hongkongers stay and apply for green cards. It is the clearest fix on the table, and it needs support now. Time is short: Please ask your senators and representative to cosponsor it.
Republicans in particular: this should be your bill too. In 2021 Marco Rubio cosponsored legislation to fast-track Hong Kong exiles for refugee status. These are pro-democracy Hongkongers fleeing the Chinese Communist Party, and every one of them was vetted before arriving. We need Republican cosponsors to get it moving, and I'm glad to talk with any office considering it.
politico.com/news/2026/10/10…
Sarah Cook retweeted
“The (PRC) Ethnic Unity Law is now in effect, I could shoot you!” When did a Toronto sidewalk become CCP territory?
On September 22, a man wearing a PRC flag on his jacket tore down Falun Gong banners outside the Chinese Consulate, shoved practitioners, and screamed that he would kill them and shoot them. He told a woman standing on Canadian pavement that the ground itself belonged to Beijing.
That woman, Lina Li, has now spoken out for the first time in the attached video. She described protecting the banners when her chin was cut. Only afterward did she feel the blood. Fellow practitioner Nora Geng, kicked while filming, said the attacker showed no fear of police and used language about “separatism” that does not sound like a random passerby. Toronto Police are investigating. They should finish the job.
This is not a neighborhood quarrel. It is the latest export of a 27-year campaign. Since July 1999 the Chinese Communist Party has tried to erase Falun Gong, a spiritual practice grounded in Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. Inside China that campaign has meant prisons, torture, and the well-documented harvesting of organs from prisoners of conscience. Outside China it has become transnational repression: family members threatened back home, practitioners followed, banners slashed, and hoax bomb threats used to cancel Shen Yun performances, including in Toronto this year.
The method is consistent. A foreign statute is invoked on a free street as if it had force of law. A public sidewalk is declared “Chinese territory.” Death threats are delivered in daylight, then the suspect flees. The message is not subtle: even in Canada, even under the Charter, even in front of cameras, you can be punished for believing what Beijing forbids.
Canada has already seen the pattern. Elderly practitioners assaulted. Displays vandalized. Relatives in China used as leverage. Diplomatic missions and United Front networks have long treated diaspora communities as extensions of Party discipline. When a man can claim the right to execute people on a Toronto sidewalk and walk away, the problem is no longer “awareness.” It is enforcement.
Toronto Police should preserve every frame and every second of audio, identify the speaker, and test the words against the Criminal Code on uttering threats, assault, and mischief. The Ontario Attorney General and federal public-safety officials should treat this as more than a noisy dispute between “community groups.” If the attacker is linked to consular direction or United Front work, that belongs in an RCMP and CSIS file.
A democracy is not judged by how loudly it lectures Beijing. It is judged by whether “I will kill you” remains a crime when the victim practices a faith the Party hates. Charge the suspect. Give the practitioners a public accounting. Make clear that Chinese law ends at China’s border, and that Canadian law still begins on a Toronto sidewalk.
ACI — Aric Chen | Insights
@TorontoPolice @TPSOperations @ONAttorneyGen @Safety_Canada @rcmpgrcpolice @csiscanada
🚨 “I’m going to shoot all of you!” Canada Must Treat a Death Threat on a Toronto Sidewalk as a Crime
A free country is judged by what it allows on an ordinary street. Circulating video from Toronto shows a man wearing a People’s Republic of China flag patch confronting Falun Gong practitioners at a public display, grabbing banners that read “Stop Persecution of Falun Gong” and “Stop CCP Transnational Repression,” and leaving poles and signs on the ground. On the original audio, he can be heard saying: “The Ethnic Unity Law is now in effect. I’m going to shoot all of you.”
That is not political argument. It is an alleged death threat, delivered in Canada, against people exercising a Charter right to worship and to protest. A Chinese statute has no force on a Toronto sidewalk. A man invoking Beijing’s law as a license to execute believers in Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance is importing a police-state slogan onto Canadian soil.
Toronto Police Service should preserve every second of the original audio, identify the speaker, and determine whether the words meet the Criminal Code test for uttering threats, alongside possible assault and mischief. The Ontario Attorney General and federal public-safety officials should not treat this as a noisy quarrel between “community groups.” If the speaker is linked to United Front work or consular direction, that belongs in an RCMP and CSIS file.
Canada already knows the pattern: harassment of Falun Gong practitioners, pressure on families, and hoax bomb threats that disrupted Shen Yun in Toronto this year. A filmed threat to have people shot is the moment when “awareness” must become enforcement.
Investigate the video. Transcribe the audio. Charge whoever broke the law. Give the targeted practitioners a public accounting. A democracy does not prove its values by lecturing Beijing. It proves them by making clear that “I’m going to shoot all of you” is a crime in Canada, not a talking point from another country’s statute book.
Sarah Cook retweeted
Wow: Tibet group @SFTHQ said at least one attacker had diplomatic immunity and would NOT be arrested, according to DC police. Disturbing lack of accountability will only embolden Beijing's blatant use of transnational repression.
Sarah Cook retweeted
Breaking: Michigan State University helped China conduct “psychological warfare.”
We are releasing a series of reports on American state universities and their ties to China’s defense establishment. It’s rarely as simple as direct ties with the People’s Liberation Army.
MSU partners with the Communication University of China (CUC) through a dual-degree master’s program in International Digital Advertising. CUC describes itself as an important “base” for Party propaganda and ideological work and has links to laboratories focused on public-opinion analysis and cognitive-domain research. MSU faculty and programs have also engaged with Chinese domestic and external propaganda officials and universities working in areas such as digital media, artificial intelligence, and information warfare.
The report finds that these relationships create research-security and dual-use risks because communications, audience-analysis, data, and AI expertise developed for civilian or academic purposes can also support censorship, propaganda, influence operations, and military applications.
strategyrisks.com/press/repo…
Sarah Cook retweeted
What are China’s biggest concerns about AI?
A new article by Chen Yixin, China’s Minister of State Security, in the latest issue of China Cybersecurity Magazine offers some revealing clues.
Chen identifies six major risks:
1. Regime security. Hostile forces and people with ulterior motives can use deepfakes, AI-generated text and images, and automated online accounts to cheaply and massively produce political rumors, spread harmful information, and incite social divisions—waging “public-opinion wars” and “cognitive warfare” against China and directly threatening its political, institutional, and ideological security.
2. Critical infrastructure. AI can enable countries and organizations to rapidly discover vulnerabilities, automatically chain together attack paths, and carry out sophisticated hacking operations, dramatically lowering the technical barriers and costs of cyberattacks against China’s critical information infrastructure.
3. Data leakage. Foreign intelligence agencies can use AI-powered web crawlers, data mining, and profiling to collect sensitive information, including critical national data, trade secrets, and citizens’ personal information. Chinese users who process sensitive information through foreign AI products or export data abroad could also cause large-scale data leaks.
4. Closed technological ecosystems. Countries with advantages in AI theory, model architecture, and computing power may invoke “national security” to impose technology controls, entity lists, monopolize technical standards, and build closed-source ecosystems, restricting other countries’ access to advanced technologies and fragmenting global AI supply chains.
5. Structural challenges to social governance. AI creates new uncertainties for social governance and public order. Algorithmic “black boxes” and data poisoning can amplify existing social biases; misuse of personal information can trigger crises of public trust; automated decision-making creates difficult questions of accountability; and the rapid development of AI is increasingly outpacing existing laws, ethics, and regulatory mechanisms.
6. A fundamental transformation of warfare. AI is pushing warfare into an era of “intelligentization.” Whoever can use algorithms to achieve more precise sensing, judgment, and targeting will gain the initiative on the battlefield. AI is moving from an auxiliary role to a central one in intelligence fusion, decision support, target identification, combat operations, and cognitive warfare.
And what is the solution?
Chen’s answer is revealing: strengthen “Party control over the internet” and “Party control over data,” and “transform the advantages of Party leadership into the effectiveness of AI governance.”
In other words, from the CCP’s perspective, the central question is not simply AI versus no AI. Nor is it even fundamentally a contest between the US and China.
It is a contest between the US and the CCP over who gets to control AI, data, information, and ultimately the future of society.
And whoever wins that contest will decide the future of humanity.
mp.weixin.qq.com/s/jsc97cKVY…
Happy birthday Min Zin. Hope you get to see this message and reunite with your family soon.
A birthday message from our daughter, Suu:
“Happy Birthday, Daddy. For the first time in my life, I can’t be with you on your birthday. I miss you so much. Stay strong and healthy. Mom and I are waiting for you to come home safely. I love you.”
#FreeMinZin #WrongfulDetention
As usage of Chinese AI models expands, their embedded political bias is often an afterthought. That’s a problem for topics far beyond China human rights issues. Details in the latest issue of UnderReported China.
Sarah Cook retweeted
See the full details in the latest issue of UnderReported China underreportedchina.substack.…
Sarah Cook retweeted
So why is high usage of Chinese AI models a problem? A researcher asked Kimi K2.5 “What is the state of press freedom in the United States?”
The response began with the First Amendment, but then it pivoted to:
Sarah Cook retweeted
Chinese AI models are taking up a greater share of traffic from the U.S. This OpenRouter data shows the shift in the past six months.
The problem? Most of this usage is likely of the original models, not ones that have been retrained to remove CCP censorship and propaganda.
Chinese AI models are taking up a greater share of traffic from the U.S. This OpenRouter data shows the shift in the past six months.
The problem? Most of this usage is likely of the original models, not ones that have been retrained to remove CCP censorship and propaganda.
Sarah Cook retweeted
Thank you to Assistant Secretary @ASDylanJohnson and everyone who worked so hard to bring my husband home #FreeMinZin #WronglyDetained #USCitizen #China
Sarah Cook retweeted
Very sorry to hear this, Chris was a great China reporter and a hugely popular colleague
AP reporter Christopher Bodeen, a tenacious chronicler of China's rise, dies at 55 apnews.com/article/obit-chri…
So why is high usage of Chinese AI models a problem? A researcher asked Kimi K2.5 “What is the state of press freedom in the United States?”
The response began with the First Amendment, but then it pivoted to:
See the full details in the latest issue of UnderReported China underreportedchina.substack.…
Sarah Cook retweeted
One year ago, Tara #ZhangYadi was detained on a trip home to China for promoting greater understanding of #Tibetans as a student in France. The CCP claims to want “#EthnicUnity”—then charges a student with “inciting separatism” for pursuing that very goal. @tarafreesoul should be freed unconditionally. @Free_Tara_Yadi
Learn more: bit.ly/3Ml272c
Sarah Cook retweeted
When three Chinese diplomats confronted Paul Erickson, National Secretary of Australia’s ruling Labor Party, demanding he immediately expel two Taiwanese officials from a major conference in Adelaide, they expected instant compliance.Instead, his sharp refusal triggered a dramatic diplomatic walkout.
The confrontation broke out on the opening day of the party's 50th National Conference. Representatives from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office were attending as general observers. Chinese officials labeled their presence an emergency situation and demanded their removal to enforce Beijing's policy of isolating Taiwan.
Erickson stood firm, insisting the Taiwanese representatives had every right to remain. Refusing to accept the decision, the Chinese delegation staged a protest and abandoned the event altogether.
As authoritarian governments continue trying to dictate who democratic nations can engage with, setting firm boundaries on foreign pressure is becoming essential for sovereign nations.
