Senior Manager for East Asia at @NEDemocracy. posts on China/中国, human rights, IR, Catholicism, trail running. Views expressed are my own.
Washington, DC
Joined September 2009
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📢 My op-ed in @thehill is out:
The piece answers a paradox: many Uyghurs overseas continue to deal with detained relatives & transnational repression.
Meanwhile, some non-Uyghurs may assume the situation has improved, as the re-education camps are no longer in global headlines
William Nee retweeted
China is rolling out even more export controls.
Just days after draft export controls on AI, biotech, and solar, China is now adding or updating export controls on dual-use items:
- Drones
- Construction machinery
- Dredging equipment
China is imposing export controls on more drones and machinery, as the world’s second-biggest economy flexes its industrial muscles. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
More censorship on viral human trafficking cases in China
“Last month, the case of Sun Meihua (孫美華) rattled China before her name disappeared from the internet.”
chinamediaproject.org/2026/1… via @cnmediaproject
China proposes export controls on 12 solar technologies, citing national security;
Ministry of Commerce also includes AI and biotechnology oversight.
chinaglobalsouth.com/2026/10…
William Nee retweeted
Joe, a Keeta rider, looked down for two seconds when an order alert went off. He crashed and is now paralysed.
Under the proposed gig work law, he would get no statutory compensation: the crash was between orders. 🧵
Photo: HKFP
William Nee retweeted
Young North Koreans are not simply survivors of dictatorship. They are leaders shaping their country’s future.
Their Washington Declaration calls for turning hope into action—and small ripples into a tidal wave for freedom.
Read their declaration: ned.org/dignity-hope-freedom…
@DamonMacWilson praises the young North Korean defectors who have come together as leaders and professionals, producing the Washington Declaration for the Dignity, Hope and Freedom of North Koreans in 2024 at Capitol Hill.
@DamonMacWilson: “They expressed the hope that their small ripples, as they called it, would become a tidal wave for change.”
“But hope is not a strategy unless we actually invest in it.”
William Nee retweeted
Joshua Wong has been imprisoned by the CCP for his pro-democracy activism in Hong Kong since 2020. Wong’s courage is why Chairman @RepMoolenaar has sponsored him for the Defending Freedoms Project at the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in Congress. The chairman’s statement:
William Nee retweeted
As @SecRubio prepares to visit Uzbekistan this month, he has an opportunity to stand up for Uyghurs across Central Asia facing China's intimidation and threats of deportation. U.S. diplomacy could be a lifeline.
My new op-ed in @Diplomat_APAC:
thediplomat.com/2026/10/for-…
William Nee retweeted
The HK gov't's announced a 6th overseas non-permanent judge will join the Court of Final Appeal: 79yo Terence Arnold of New Zealand.
We've called on all overseas judges to resign due to the drastic erosion of rule of law in #HongKong: no complicity in repression or whitewashing!
ALT See https://thewitnesshk.com/%E6%96%B0%E8%A5%BF%E8%98%AD%E6%9C%80%E9%AB%98%E6%B3%95%E9%99%A2%E5%89%8D%E6%B3%95%E5%AE%98%E5%8D%80%E8%AB%BE%E5%BE%B7-%E7%8D%B2%E6%8E%A8%E8%96%A6%E7%82%BA%E7%B5%82%E9%99%A2%E6%B5%B7%E5%A4%96%E9%9D%9E/?utm_source=tg&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=nonee and https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202610/16/P2026101600437.htm
William Nee retweeted
60 years after the famous scholar Gao Bin killed himself, a young person found some of his papers in a flea market and began a search for Gao's life--a journey that caused the author to see parallels between then and now. @MinjianArchives exclusive:
chinaunofficialarchives.subs…
It’s at least interesting to see such implementers of the banality of evil cry out and invoke unfairness (冤枉) & innocence (无辜), which at least assumes a baseline moral order or social contract.
Universal values for me — but not for @whyyoutouzhele
For 100 euros she stalked democracy activists in Italy.
Got caught, deported, Schengen-banned, and is now crying online that her life is “worse than death.”
Handler ghosted her. Family’s money gone. Chinese netizens can’t stop laughing:
“Sold yourself as a spy for the price of a decent dinner. Classic pinko cannon fodder.”
William Nee retweeted
Thank you @NEWSMAX for running my latest on Russia’s abduction of children from Ukraine.
"Oct. 10, 2026 marked one year since first lady Melania Trump took on the cause of returning Ukraine's stolen children from Russia.
@FLOTUS opened a door nobody else could open, and she deserves credit for that. A reunion is a family put back together. It is also a child who will not be drilled, given a new name, and eventually handed a Russian weapon and uniform.
But Putin has used the dialogue to smudge the difference between a crime and the ordinary wreckage of war.
Most of the 31 children returned under the pressure the first lady applied came out of occupied territory in Ukraine, not out of Russia itself. Some of the children sent back were never abducted. They were separated by fighting, or they were living on the wrong side of a new line.
Putin releases the children it can afford to release, and would like us to call that cooperation.
We must not let the channel the first lady opened become a stage for the children Moscow was already willing to give up. The goal is thousands, not dozens. This is the test of whether the channel is ours or his." — Sarah E. Makin @DCSas for @NEWSMAX.
newsmax.com/politics/childre…
William Nee retweeted
🛐 Infiltration and subversion of religious institutions in #Taiwan
🔦 Ben Sando explores the seemingly innocuous world of prayer and proselytizing, and uncovers a web of money, politics, and organized crime.
📖 Read the full article here: ow.ly/ZsHE50ZYxQQ
William Nee retweeted
Reading Yasinjan Toxti’s story was not easy. He died in Chinese custody in 2018, but authorities told his family he had been killed in a traffic accident. Only now, through @RadioFreeAsia’s investigation, has his sister received confirmation that he died while detained.
As someone whose own sister, Dr. Gulshan Abbas, has been imprisoned by the CCP for eight years, I understand the anguish of searching for answers while Chinese authorities conceal the truth.
No family should have to spend years wondering what happened to their loved ones.
Read here:
rfa.org/english/uyghur/2026/…
William Nee retweeted
NOW: @SenMcCormickPA delivers remarks and sits down with @ChairmanG to discuss his recent trip to Japan and South Korea, and how the US can work with its allies to win the AI race. xitter.cf/i/broadcasts/1DGLdZLyD…
William Nee retweeted
Last month, we convened a closed, bipartisan roundtable on Capitol Hill, “China’s Transnational Repression: Three Communities, Three Phases, One Evolving System,” examining how TNR threatens Uyghur, Tibetan, and Hong Kong diasporas globally.
Learn more: docs.rfa.org/english/docs/RF…
William Nee retweeted
So delighted, the night before I left Washington, DC, to meet my courageous friend @luoshch, wife of jailed Chinese dissident Ding Jiaxi, and to receive a copy of jailed dissident Xu Zhiyong’s new book!
I can’t wait to read it!
#FreeDingJiaxi #FreeXuZhiyong #FreeChina
William Nee retweeted
Vitaly, Iryna and their 13-year-old son survived on a cup of grain a day in Russian-occupied Oleshky. They escaped along a mined road. Some 1,700 civilians remain trapped.
When we debate occupied territory in Ukraine, we are really talking about occupied people. Russia’s illegal occupation is robbing Ukrainians of their freedom, dignity and basic security. Their lives are not bargaining chips.
washingtonpost.com/world/202…
“DeepZang’s launch in March came roughly three years after the unveiling of Monlam AI, a Tibetan-language LLM developed by Monlam Tibetan IT Research Centre, a non-profit organisation based in Dharamsala – the Indian hillside town that has hosted the 14th Dalai Lama…”
Founder of Deep Zang, a Chinese government-sanctioned Tibetan LLM, says the AI tool intends to foster ethnic assimilation (in Chinese, "ethnic integration "民族...交融"): scmp.com/news/china/politics… Original Chinese: chinanews.com/sh/2026/10-05/…
William Nee retweeted
Repression at home fuels aggression abroad. Today’s @CSIS–@TheBushCenter report exposes how North Korean forced labor helps fuel Russia’s war in Ukraine. Human rights are central to our security I argued. And North Koreans themselves—like Joseph Kim—hold the promise of a different future.
📢 ICYMI | Without Parallel: North Korean Human Rights and the Russia Axis
@CSIS and @TheBushCenter held a panel discussion refocusing attention on North Korean human rights by examining conditions at the Alabuga drone-production facilities in Russia.
🔗 Watch it Live: youtube.com/live/a0vu9qAgZEQ…
🔗 Read the Report: csis.org/analysis/human-righ…
This an alarming development 🚨 👇
In a report for @ThinkDemocracy, @Caroline_Costel and I flagged #China’s use of economic transnational repression (#TNR) as an issue to watch for the international community
ned.org/testing-the-limits-c…
BEA's London branch canceled a payment from HRIC to a third party in September, raising questions about the extraterritorial reach of China's political sanctions and the responsibilities of financial institutions operating under UK regulation. Read: news.hrichina.org/p/london-b…
