‘China forced return of 10,000 nationals’

BEIJING: Beijing has forced nearly 10,000 Chinese overseas nationals to return since 2014 using coercive means outside the justice system, according to a new report.

The figure could be the “tip of the iceberg”, Spain-based rights group Safeguard Defenders reported on Tuesday, as China aggressively pursues its nationals overseas.

The report alleges China is expanding its policing powers overseas and conducting illegal operations on foreign soil.

Officially, the targets are people wanted by the Chinese judicial system as part of President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive.

But the NGO details cases where those who criticised the Communist Party had relatives in China harassed and detained in attempts to coerce them to return.

Through two programmes, Operation Fox Hunt and Operation Sky Net, targeted individuals were pressured to return to China against their will due to a combination of non-judicial methods, including kidnappings, harassment and intimidation, according to the report.

“With the Chinese diaspora growing at an ever faster rate as more people seek to leave China... Beijing has never been more motivated to expand the powers of its security forces overseas,” the report said.

Safeguard Defenders cited government data in its estimate that almost 10,000 Chinese nationals had been forcibly returned since 2014.

Official figures from the government’s anti-graft watchdog show Beijing returned around 2,500 targeted individuals in the past two years. But the numbers do not include suspects apprehended for non-economic crimes or those who are not members of China’s ruling Communist Party.

New rules for internet behemoths in China

China’s cyberspace regulator has drafted new guidelines that will require the country’s internet behemoths to obtain its approval before they undertake any investments or fundraisings, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

The proposed requirements from the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) will apply to any platform company with more than 100 million users, or with more than 10 billion yuan ($1.58 billion) in revenue, they said.

Games app has security flaws, researchers say

An app built by China to monitor the health of attendees at the Beijing Winter Olympics next month contains security flaws that makes it vulnerable to privacy breaches and hackers, according to a report released by Canadian researchers on Tuesday. The MY2022 app was built by the Beijing Organising Committee mainly to track and share Covid-19-related medical information among the athletes.