Human rights defenders and their families placed under heavy surveillance by Xi Jinping’s agents as US president is feted

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

On day one of Donald Trump’s “state visit-plus” to China he was treated to a tour of the Forbidden City, a night at the opera and an intimate dinner with President Xi Jinping. “Beyond terrific,” he boasted.



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Li Wenzu got a loud knock at the door from a man claiming to represent the domestic security agency tasked with suppressing political dissent. “The US president is in town,” the 32-year-old mother-of-one says she was informed by the agent. “Do not go anywhere … you must cooperate with our work.”

Li is the wife of Wang Quanzhang, a crusading human rights lawyer whom she has not seen since the summer of 2015 when he was spirited into secret detention during a roundup of attorneys and activists known as Xi’s “war on law”.



Timeline Trump's tour of Asia Show Hide The US president must grapple with the thorny issues of North Korea’s nuclear ambitions as well as trade wars in Asia on one of the trickiest diplomatic tours in decades. Japan Trump warns of the North Korean threat and says Japanese orders for US-made military equipment will help keep Japan safe. Read more South Korea The North Korea rhetoric softens as the president suggests he is open to diplomatic efforts to resolve the nuclear crisis. Read more China Xi Jinping rolls out the red carpet for Trump, who lavishes praise on his host and blames his American predecessors for the "huge" trade deficit between the US and China. Read more Vietnam Trump swings through Da Nang for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, abruptly ending his diplomatic streak with a tirade against “violations, cheating or economic aggression” in the region. Read more Philippines On the final leg of his tour, Trump hails his great relationship with President Rodrigo Duterte, who shares some populist and mercurial characteristics with his guest, and stands accused of masterminding a brutal crackdown on drugs. Read more

With China’s leader out to impress his American guest, Li and dissidents like her say they have been placed under house arrest or heavy surveillance in a bid to stop them spoiling the show.



“[The authorities] are afraid of us meeting with foreign leaders, of our stories being heard by people all over the world, and of the truth being uncovered,” she said by phone on Thursday morning as Xi rolled out the red carpet for Trump in Tiananmen Square.



After the knock on her door at about 7am on Wednesday, Li said about a dozen plainclothes agents had camped outside her flat in west Beijing.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A photograph taken by Li Wenzu after plainclothes Chinese security agents were posted outside her flat. Photograph: Li Wenzu

When she tried to go out with her young son, she claimed one of the group “pushed me with his body and prevented us from going”.

“Shame on him!” Li said. “Just think about it, I don’t have the right to go anywhere in the country. It is ridiculous. I felt so powerless.”



Beijing-based activist He Depu told Radio Free Asia, a US-backed news website, other activists were also feeling the pinch because of Trump’s arrival: “All political dissidents are under surveillance right now.”

Peter Dahlin, a Swedish human rights activist who was expelled from China last year after 23 days in secret detention, said authorities saw Li – who has campaigned relentlessly on behalf of her imprisoned husband - as a “constant thorn in their side”. He called her treatment “unusual even for China” and symptomatic of a wider breakdown in the rule of law under Xi.



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Dahlin, a friend of Li’s husband, said Wang had spent so long in secret detention that “at one point people were seriously wondering if he was even alive any more”. He is now thought to be behind bars in the northern city of Tianjin.

Trump has enraged human rights activists by courting China’s authoritarian leader despite what they call the government’s worst crackdown in decades. Trump has called Xi a friend and recently praised his “extraordinary elevation” and “great political victory” after he was anointed China’s most powerful leader since Mao.



On Wednesday, Republican senator Marco Rubio rejected that description: “President Xi’s further consolidation of power, in a one-party communist state, was not a political victory. It was a tragedy for human rights advocates, reformers and thousands of political prisoners,” he tweeted.



Li Wenzu, who has not seen her husband since he was seized, said: “I hope [Trump] can show concern for human rights issues in China … He should think carefully about dealing with a country that does not care about human rights, and violates the law.

“It’s just like when we are making friends, we must first look at character of the person [we are befriending].”



Additional reporting by Wang Zhen

