Beijing has hunted down hundreds of “fugitives” in dozens of countries including Britain and forced them back to China by pressurising their families, a report has found.
Almost 300 cases of “transnational repression” have been documented by human rights researchers since President Xi took office more than a decade ago.
Among them are Zhang Jingchuan, a university worker, Qiu Bohai, a former factory owner, and Chen Yijuan, a mobile phone company employee, who fled to the UK after being accused of committing financial crimes.
The “political and legal system” in Britain, which has no extradition treaty with Beijing, made their repatriation challenging, according to Chinese state media, prompting agents of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to turn to a “multi-pronged approach” that involved “forcing”
