China just claimed legal jurisdiction over you protesting Xi in Washington DC next week.
China's Ethnic Unity Law asserts Beijing's authority to prosecute anyone anywhere, including U.S. citizens, whose speech it decides "undermines ethnic unity." Freedom House's read is blunt: this gives China a legal basis to go after anyone who shows up to protest Xi's visit on September 24th.
This isn't theoretical. Last time Xi was on U.S. soil, in San Francisco in 2023, hundreds of protesters, many of them American citizens, were documented being beaten and harassed by individuals and groups tied to the Chinese government. Police reportedly stood by.
China runs the most extensive transnational repression campaign of any government on earth, responsible for nearly a quarter of every documented case worldwide since 2014. Illegal overseas police stations. Stalking convictions in U.S. courts. A U.S. Olympic athlete's own father, targeted by a Chinese spy ring, for his daughter's public support of Tibet.
Xi gets a state dinner at the White House next week. The people planning to stand outside it exercising a constitutional right are the ones Beijing is asserting the power to come after.
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