Fears raised for safety of defecting Chinese spy Wang Liqiang

Intelligence agent who has applied for asylum in Australia is now a target of Chinese killers

By Christopher Knaus and Ben Doherty

Security experts have urged Wang Liqiang’s minders to ‘double up’ protection.

The Australian minders of the Chinese defector Wang Liqiang have been urged to “double up” protection duties as experts raise significant fears about his safety.
Chinese state media have sought to discredit Wang as a convicted “fraudster”, liar and a fake after he publicly revealed his role within Chinese intelligence and his bid for Australia’s protection on Saturday in the Sydney Morning Herald and Age newspapers.
The Chinese government released a notice from the Shanghai public security bureau stating it was investigating him for fraud, and released an online court record suggesting a fraud conviction was recorded in 2016. 

Wang’s lawyer in Australia, George Newhouse, told Guardian Australia: “He denies those allegations.”
Wang is staying in an undisclosed location in Sydney. 

He is in the country on a tourist visa and has formally applied for asylum. 

Guardian Australia has been told he holds significant concerns for his own and his family’s safety.

One of the experts who helped investigate Wang’s claims, Alex Joske of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said there was reason to doubt the allegations aired by the Chinese government about his fraud conviction. 

He said it was clear from the Chinese police statements that Wang was now “a target”.
“He’d be a target of the Chinese government and we can see from the allegations that the Chinese government has made, those accusations from the police, that they are trying to go after him,” Joske said.
John Blaxland, a security and intelligence expert at the Australian National University, said the extraordinary revelations of China’s actions were unlike anything Australia has seen “in a generation”.
He said significant protective precautions must be taken to guard Wang against retribution. 

“If I was his minders, I would be looking to double up on protection duties,” he told the Guardian.
“And he must have minders. I’m assuming that someone is looking out for him and there are some protective measures in place. There’s a lot of egg being thrown around and it’s stuck on a lot of people’s faces.”
Asked about what was being done to keep Wang safe, prime minister Scott Morrison said simply that the public could “expect the same protections to apply to anyone who is living in our country, whether on a visa or any other arrangement”.
“Well he’s in Australia. He’s in Australia. And we have the rule of law in Australia,” Morrison said.
The concerns for Wang come after the death of Bo “Nick” Zhao in a Melbourne hotel room in March – which passed almost unnoticed at the time.
Nine newspapers reported allegations on Monday that Zhao had been approached by Chinese businessmen in Melbourne to run for federal parliament, effectively as an agent of Beijing.
Zhao, a 32-year-old car dealer who had run into financial difficulties, was found dead by a cleaner in a hotel room in Glen Waverley on 3 March this year.
Former colleagues remember him as quiet but determined.
Yvan Lieutier, who worked with Zhao through a Heidelberg car dealership for five months, told the Guardian he was a “very quiet” young man, but one who was “was pretty ambitious for his age”.
He was approached to run for parliament in early 2019, and reported the approach to Asio several weeks before his death.
A cause of death has not been established and Victoria police have referred Zhao’s death to the coroner.
Police said: “Local police prepared a report for the coroner in relation to the death of a 31-year-old man in Glen Waverley on 3 March 2019. As this matter is currently before the coroner, it would not be appropriate to comment further at this time.”
The Victorian coroner’s court confirmed that its investigation into Zhao’s death was “open and ongoing” but that no decision had been taken on if, or when, a public hearing might be held.
Blaxland said the reports of Chinese influence, if accurate, were “grave”. 

“If what we are reading is correct, then we face a challenge the likes of which we have not seen in a generation,” he told Guardian Australia.

Chongyi Feng, an associate professor in China Studies at the University of Technology Sydney, said Wang’s claims required further investigation by Australian intelligence authorities.
“The claim by Mr Wang confirms many things that have been reported and discussed over the last two years,” Feng said. 

“It is crystal clear that the Australian government and public should have done more and should do more to address Chinese interference. We already have effective new laws [targeting foreign interference], but those laws should be implemented with greater vigour.”
Zhao’s death needed “to be investigated very thoroughly,” he said.
Feng said he believed political concerns over Australia’s economic relationship with China were the most significant factor in an unwillingness to push back harder against Beijing.
“The intelligence officials of Australia understand what is happening, but … political leaders need to do more to address this, even if those actions might offend the Beijing authorities and may cause some commercial loss or lost business deals. Australia should put human rights and democracy before commercial interests.”
Asio’s director general, Mike Burgess, said his agency “was previously aware of matters that have been reported ... and has been actively investigating them.
“Given that the matter in question is subject to a coronial inquiry, and as not to prejudice our investigations, it would be inappropriate to comment further.”
Burgess said allegations of foreign interference were treated seriously, and that hostile foreign powers posed a significant threat to Australia.
“As the director general of security, I am committed to protecting Australia’s democracy and sovereignty,” he said.
“Hostile foreign intelligence activity continues to pose a real threat to our nation and its security. Asio will continue to confront and counter foreign interference and espionage in Australia.”
Wang has claimed in media interviews that he is a spy seeking to defect to Australia, and willing to reveal secrets of Chinese efforts to infiltrate and influence Australia’s political system.
He had engaged in espionage activities in Hong Kong, including helping to organise the October 2015 kidnapping of Lee Bo, the owner of Causeway Bay Bookshop, who was targeted by Beijing for allegedly distributing dissident materials.
Wang said Beijing covertly controls listed companies to finance intelligence operations, including surveilling dissidents, co-opting media organisations, and running “cyber armies” to shift political opinion.

Hong Kong bookseller released by China is missing -- daughter

BBC News

Angela Gui said she was still waiting to hear from her father a week after his release

Sweden says its citizen Gui Minhai, one of the five jailed "Hong Kong booksellers", has been released from prison in China.
But Mr Gui's daughter, Angela, said no-one had seen him or spoken to him a week after his supposed release.
Mr Gui's Hong Kong publishing house sold books about the personal lives of China's political elite.
He disappeared in Thailand in October 2015 before mysteriously turning up in detention in mainland China.
Mr Gui was officially in prison after confessing to a fatal road accident which allegedly took place in 2003. 

His daughter says the confession was forced.
The four other members of the publishing company detained in China were previously released. Three remained silent about their detention.
But one, Lam Wing-kee, who has no family on mainland China, said the confessions shown on Chinese television were forced, read from a script written by Chinese officials.
He also alleged one of the men, Lee Bo, had been abducted from Hong Kong against his will.
Allegations that Mr Lee and Mr Gui were abducted across international borders in an extrajudicial process sparked international concern.
Chinese officials say he and the four other men detained all went to China voluntarily.

'No idea where'
On Tuesday, after Mr Gui's release was announced, his daughter Angela Gui said: "I still do not know where my father is."
A spokeswoman for the Swedish foreign ministry confirmed that information about Mr Gui's release had come from the Chinese authorities and said Sweden was seeking clarification.
No other official details were available.
Ms Gui, who lives in the UK, released a statement saying the Swedish embassy had been told, in advance that her father would be released on 17 October.
She said that when Swedish officials arrived on the morning of his release, they were told by prison officials that he had already left at midnight.
"They were also told that he was 'free to travel' and that they had no idea where he was," she added.
"Neither I nor any member of my family nor any of his friends have been contacted. It is still very unclear where he is. I am deeply concerned for his wellbeing."

Rogue Nation

China Wields Its "Laws" to Silence Critics From Abroad
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and CHRIS HORTON

Lee Ming-cheh, second from left, an activist from Taiwan, in court in the Chinese city of Yueyang, Hunan Province, last week. The case against Mr. Lee punctuates what critics warn are China’s efforts to stifle what it perceives as threats from overseas. 

BEIJING — On the morning he disappeared, the activist Lee Ming-cheh crossed from Macau into mainland China to meet with democracy advocates.
It was 177 days later when he reappeared in public, standing in the dock of a courtroom in central China last week, confessing to a conspiracy to subvert the Communist Party by circulating criticism on social media.
The circumstances surrounding Mr. Lee’s detainment remain murky, but what has made the case stand out from the many that the Chinese government brings against its critics is that Mr. Lee is not a citizen of China, but rather of Taiwan, the self-governing island over which Beijing claims sovereignty.
The proceedings against Mr. Lee, who is expected to be sentenced as soon as this week, punctuated what critics have warned are China’s brazen efforts to extend the reach of its security forces to stifle what it perceives as threats to its power emanating from overseas.
In recent months alone, China has sought the extradition of ethnic Uighur students studying overseas in Egypt and carried out the cinematic seizure of a billionaire from a Hong Kong hotel in violation of an agreement that allows the former British colony to run its own affairs. 

The billionaire, Xiao Jianhua, now appears to be a material witness in another politically tinged investigation against the Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda.

China abruptly surfaced charges of "rape" against yet another billionaire, Guo Wengui, after he sought political asylum in the United States, where he has been making sensational accusations about the Communist Party’s leadership. 

Mr. Guo’s case could become a major test for the Trump administration’s relations with Beijing at a time of tensions over North Korea and trade.

The Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui has sought political asylum in the United States.

“China has been extending its clampdown — its choking of civil society — throughout the world, and often it is attempting this through official channels such as the U.N. or Interpol,” said Michael Caster, a rights campaigner who was a co-founder of the Chinese Urgent Action Working Group. “Unfortunately, they’re very adept at doing it.”
The Chinese Urgent Action Working Group, which provided seminars for lawyers and legal aid for defendants in China, folded last year after the country’s powerful Ministry of State Security arrested and held Mr. Caster’s colleague, Peter Dahlin, a Swedish citizen, for 23 days.
Mr. Caster noted that Interpol’s president, Meng Hongwei, is a veteran of China’s state security apparatus. 

Human Rights Watch recently reported that China was blocking the work of United Nations agencies investigating rights issues and preventing critics from testifying at hearings, including in one case the leader of the World Uyghur Congress, Dolkun Isa.
China’s economic clout has meant that few countries are willing to do much to challenge its extraterritorial legal maneuvers. 

Some have even gone along.
And countries as varied as Armenia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Kenya, Spain and Vietnam have all extradited to China scores of people accused in a spate of telephone swindles targeting Chinese citizens, even though the suspects are, like Mr. Lee, citizens of Taiwan.
“Treating Lee Ming-cheh as a mainland Chinese marks a major watershed,” said Hsiao I-Min, a lawyer at the Judicial Reform Foundation in Taiwan, who accompanied Mr. Lee’s wife from Taiwan to attend the trial.

Peter Dahlin, a Swedish citizen, was arrested in China and held for 23 days last year.

Mr. Lee’s case has added new strain in relations with Taiwan, which have soured since the election last year of a new president, Tsai Ing-wen. 

China has cut off official communications with Ms. Tsai’s government over her refusal to voice support for what Beijing calls the “1992 consensus,” which holds that the mainland and Taiwan are both part of the same China but leaves each side to interpret what that means.
In response to Mr. Lee’s legal odyssey, Ms. Tsai’s government has been relatively muted. 

“Our consistent position on this case is that we will do everything in our power to ensure his safe return while protecting the dignity of the nation,” said a spokesman for the presidential administration, Alex Huang.
China and Taiwan had in recent years cooperated on criminal investigations under a protocol that required each to notify the other in cases involving the arrests of its citizens. 

The Chinese government has recently abandoned such diplomatic niceties, officials in Taiwan say.
Taiwan’s government was notified of Mr. Lee’s arrest only when the public was — 10 days after his detainment in March near Macau, the former Portuguese colony that, like Hong Kong, is a special administrative region of China with its own legal system.
Mr. Lee, 42, assumed enormous risk to make contact with rights campaigners inside China. 

A manager at Wenshan Community College in Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, Mr. Lee volunteered for a rights organization called Covenants Watch and often traveled to the mainland.
Mr. Lee’s wife, Lee Ching-yu, learned his case had come to a head when a state-appointed lawyer contacted her this month. 

She only found out about his court appearance last week in Yueyang, in the southern province of Hunan, from news reports that circulated two days later, according to Patrick Poon, a researcher at Amnesty International.

Lee Ching-yu, the wife of Mr. Lee, departing for her husband’s trial in China from an airport in Taipei, Taiwan, this month. 

According to excerpts released by the Yueyang Intermediate People’s Court, Mr. Lee entered a guilty plea. 

He appeared with a Chinese co-defendant, Peng Yuhua, and together they were accused of trying to organize protests using the social media platforms WeChat and QQ, as well as Facebook, which is banned here.
Mr. Lee told the court that watching Chinese state television during his prolonged detention convinced him that he had been deceived by Taiwan’s free news media and was wrong about China’s political system. 

“These incorrect thoughts led me to criminal behavior,” he said.
Mr. Hsiao, the lawyer from Taiwan, said none of Mr. Lee’s acquaintances had heard of the co-defendant. 

Mr. Peng testified that together they had established chat groups online and formed a front organization, the Plum Blossom Company, with the aim of fomenting change. 

Mr. Hsiao said that no such company existed.
“He was a fake,” Mr. Hsiao said of Mr. Peng. 

“This guy does not really exist. He was playing a role.”
Ms. Lee, too, denounced her husband’s trial as a farce. 

“Today the world and I together witnessed political theater, as well as the differences between the core beliefs of Taiwan and China,” she said at her hotel in Yueyang, adding that the “norms of expression in Taiwan are tantamount to armed rebellion in China.”
Mr. Lee’s case has echoes of the fate of five booksellers in Hong Kong, four of whom who were spirited out of the semiautonomous city in the fall of 2015 after publishing gossipy material about Chinese political intrigues, which, while legal in Hong Kong, is not in China.
One bookseller, Lee Bo, is a British citizen. 

Another, Gui Minhai, is a naturalized Swedish citizen; he vanished from his seaside apartment in Pattaya, Thailand, in October 2015 and returned to China in a manner that has not been fully explained. 

He appeared on state television in January 2016 and said he had voluntarily returned to face punishment for a fatal car accident in 2003. 

He remains in prison.
“What happened to my father is a much larger issue,” Mr. Gui’s daughter, Angela Gui, who has been campaigning for his release, wrote in an email. 

“It shows that foreign citizens aren’t safe from Chinese state security, even when they are outside China’s borders. I find it strange that governments aren’t more worried about China’s new self-proclaimed role as world police.”

Perfidious Albion

Britain is looking away as China tramples on the freedom of Hong Kong – and my father

By Angela Gui

Angela Gui: ‘My father’s case is only one out of many that illustrate the death of the rule of law in Hong Kong.’ 

Iam too young to remember the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997 and its promise for the new world I would live in. 

But I have lived to see that promise trampled.
The Sino-British Joint Declaration, signed to pave the way for the handover, was supposed to protect the people of Hong Kong from Chinese interference in their society and markets until 2047. 

Yet as the handover’s 20th anniversary approaches, China muscles in where it promised to tread lightly while Britain avoids eye contact.

Gui Minhai: the strange disappearance of a publisher who riled China's elite
As Xi Jinping has consolidated his grip on Chinese politics since he took office in 2013, Beijing has increasingly ignored the principle of “one country, two systems” on which the handover was based and actively eroded the freedoms this was supposed to guarantee.
In October 2015, my father Gui Minhai and his four colleagues were targeted and abducted by the agents of the Chinese Communist party for their work as booksellers and publishers. 

My father – a Swedish citizen – was taken while on holiday in Thailand, in the same place we’d spent Christmas together the year before. 

He was last seen getting into a car with a Mandarin-speaking man who had waited for him outside his holiday apartment. 

Next, his friend and colleague Lee Bo was abducted from the Hong Kong warehouse of Causeway Bay Books, which they ran together. 

Lee Bo is legally British and, like any Hong Konger, his freedom of expression should have been protected by the terms of 1997.
Their only “crime” had been to publish and sell books that were critical of the central Chinese government. 

So paranoid is Beijing about its public image, that it chooses to carry out cross-border kidnappings over some books. 

Causeway Bay Books specialised in publications that were banned on the mainland but legal in Hong Kong. 

The store’s manager, Lam Wing-kee, who was taken when travelling to Shenzhen, has described Causeway Bay Books “a symbol of resistance”. 

In spite of Hong Kong’s legal freedoms of speech and of the press the store is now closed because all its people have been abducted or bullied away. 

Other Hong Kong booksellers are picking “politically sensitive” titles off their shelves in the fear that they may be next; the next brief headline, the next gap in a family like my own.
I continue to live with my father’s absence – his image, messages from his friends, the cause he has become. 

Turning 53 this year, he spent a second birthday in a Chinese prison. 

Soon he will have spent two years in detention without access to a lawyer, Swedish consular officials, or regular contact with his family.
My father’s case is only one of many that illustrate the death of the rule of law in Hong Kong. 

Earlier this year, Canadian businessman Xiao Jianhua – who had connections to the Chinese political elite – disappeared from a Hong Kong hotel and later resurfaced on the mainland. 

In last year’s legislative council elections, six candidates were barred from running because of their political stance. 

The two pro-independence candidates who did end up getting elected were prevented from taking office. 

If “intolerable political stance” is now a valid excuse for barring LegCo candidates, then it won’t be long before the entire Hong Kong government is reduced to a miniature version of China’s.
The Joint Declaration was meant to guarantee that no Hong Kong resident would have to fear a “midnight knock on the door”. 

The reality at present is that what happened to my father can happen to any Hong Kong resident the mainland authorities wish to silence or bring before their own system of “justice”. 

Twenty-one years ago, John Major pledged that Britain would continue to defend the freedoms granted to Hong Kong by the Joint Declaration against its autocratic neighbour. 

Today, instead of holding China to its agreement, Britain glances down at its shoes and mumbles about the importance of trade. 

It is as if the British government wants to forget all about the promise it made to the people of Hong Kong. 

But China’s crackdown on dissent has made it difficult for Hong Kongers to forget.
Theresa May often emphasises the importance of British values in her speeches. 

But Britain’s limpness over Hong Kong seems to demonstrate only how easily these values are compromised away. 

I worry about the global implications of China being allowed to just walk away from such an important treaty. 

And I worry that in the years to come, we will have many more Lee Bos and Gui Minhais, kidnapped and detained because their work facilitated free speech. 

Hong Kong’s last governor, Lord Patten, has repeatedly argued that human rights issues can be pushed without bad effects on trade. 

Germany, for example, has shown that this is entirely possible, with Angela Merkel often publicly criticising China’s human rights record. 

With a potentially hard Brexit around the bend, a much reduced Britain will need a world governed by the rule of law. 

How the government handles its responsibilities to Hong Kong will be decisive in shaping the international character of the country that a stand-alone Britain will become. 

I for one hope it will be a country that honours its commitments and that stands up to defend human rights.

Mystery Surrounds Whereabouts of Chinese Tycoon

Hong Kong police investigate after speculation billionaire Xiao Jianhua was abducted.
By JOSH CHIN in Beijing and CHESTER YUNG in Hong Kong

Xiao Jianhua is a finance tycoon who had been living in Hong Kong. 

Hong Kong police waded into a mystery surrounding the whereabouts of a Chinese billionaire on Wednesday, saying they had asked mainland authorities for more information after determining the businessman crossed the border into China.
The police probe came after speculation the billionaire, Xiao Jianhua, a finance tycoon who had been living in Hong Kong, had been abducted by Chinese agents. 

The reports rekindled concerns over threats to the independence of the city’s legal system, which bars such operations. 

Many in Hong Kong were rattled last year when local bookseller Lee Bo, a British citizen, was seized by Chinese agents and taken to the mainland.
Xiao is the founder of Tomorrow Holding Ltd. Co, also known as Tomorrow Group, a Beijing-based holding company with investments in areas ranging from real estate to agriculture. 

The Hurun Report ranked Xiao, who is in his mid-40s, as No. 32 on its latest list of China’s wealthiest individuals with an estimated personal fortune of $6 billion.
China’s financial media frequently marvel at the quick rise of Xiao, who graduated from Peking University in 1990 while still a teenager. 

Several news organizations, including the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper People’s Daily, have referred to him as xiaoxiong, a play on his name that describes someone who is uncommonly ambitious and formidable.

Xiao Jianhua
Reports by Bloomberg in 2012 and the New York Times in 2014 said Xiao has helped broker deals for members of China’s political elite, including relatives of Xi Jinping. 

In a public statement in response to the New York Times profile, Tomorrow Group denied that the financier’s wealth stemmed from political connections, saying instead he made money by studying the methods of American investor Warren Buffett.
In the same statement, the company spoke about Xiao’s decision not to join the 1989 student protests around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, saying the aggressiveness of the protesters led him to avoid politics and instead concentrate on his studies.
Disquiet over Xiao’s fate is likely to spread further if it emerges that Xiao, a well-connected businessman, was subject to the same treatment as Lee, the bookseller, in a city long celebrated as a capitalist sanctuary. 

Lee returned after three months and gave few details of his absence beyond saying he had gone to the mainland voluntarily to assist in an investigation
Concern around Xiao’s whereabouts was reported to Hong Kong police on Saturday, though police declined to say by whom. 

It set off a whirlwind of speculation. 

Some Chinese media, including the website of the state-run Securities Daily newspaper, dismissed as rumors reports that he had been abducted.
One of Xiao’s relatives reported to police on Sunday that the businessman told his family he was safe, according to Hong Kong police, which said that the investigation would proceed nonetheless.
Securities Daily and others quoted a statement posted Monday to Tomorrow Group’s public account on the WeChat messaging app that said Xiao was “recuperating overseas.” 

The Securities Daily article was no longer accessible by Wednesday morning.
Another statement posted to Tomorrow Group’s WeChat account on Tuesday explicitly denied that Xiao had been abducted, describing the Chinese government as "civilized" and "law-abiding".

It also said he is a Canadian citizen with permanent-resident status in Hong Kong. 

Both statements were attributed to Xiao himself.
“I’m a patriotic overseas Chinese. I’ve always loved the Communist Party and the nation and have never participated in any activity that harmed the interests of the country or the image of the government,” read the statement, which was reprinted as a full-page ad in Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper on Wednesday. 

“Nor have I supported any hostile forces or organizations.”
By Wednesday, the two posts had been deleted from Tomorrow Group’s WeChat account. 

Calls and emails to Tomorrow Group went unanswered. 

The company’s website was also unavailable.
The Canadian consulate in Hong Kong said it had contacted authorities for more information and to provide assistance. 

It said it couldn’t release further information because of privacy concerns.
An official in the press office of China’s Ministry of Public Security said the office couldn’t process requests for comment during the Lunar New Year holiday. 

Calls to the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office went unanswered.
A number of high-profile businessmen have gone missing since Xi vowed to sweep away corruption four years ago. 

One notable example is Hua Bangsong, the founder of refinery designer Wison Engineering Services Co., who was detained by investigators in 2013 and sentenced in 2015 to three years in prison for bribery. 

Days after he was detained, he made his debut on the Hurun Report rich list at No. 335 with an estimated worth of $900 million.
Others reappeared after brief periods in government custody. 

They include Guo Guangchang, the billionaire founder of conglomerate Fosun Group, who disappeared briefly in December 2015. 

The company said Mr. Guo had been assisting authorities with an unspecified investigation.
In April 2015, property developer Kaisa Group Holdings welcomed back chairman Kwok Ying Shing less than four months after he resigned and disappeared amid speculation of his involvement in a corruption probe in the southern city of Shenzhen. 

Neither Mr. Guo nor Mr. Kwok have given details from their time away from the public view.

Hong Kong bookseller case shows weak international community: report

• International community not doing enough to pressure China on human rights, report says
• Actions by UK and Swedish governments regarding citizens detained by China rebuked

By James Griffiths
Hong Kong bookseller goes public 

Hong Kong -- The case of five Hong Kong booksellers abducted by Chinese government agents shows how the international community has failed to pressure Beijing on human rights, a new report claims.
In June, bookseller Lam Wing-kee told CNN how he was blindfolded and seized by "special forces" as he crossed the border from Hong Kong to China.
He spent five months in solitary confinement and a time under house arrest before being returned to Hong Kong on bail, where he defied his captors to tell the world what had happened.
"The booksellers' disappearances were a vivid indication that the long arm of the Chinese security state could and would reach into Hong Kong and beyond," PEN America, which lobbies for free speech rights worldwide, said in a statement.

Hong Kong after the umbrellas







Photos: Hong Kong after the umbrellas



Angry response
Beijing has always reacted vociferously to international criticism, especially on what it considers "sensitive" topics like Hong Kong, Tibet or Taiwan.
Last month, Foreign Ministry officials angrily slapped down a British report into the situation in Hong Kong.
The UK -- which has a treaty obligation to Hong Kong as a signatory to the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration -- said the booksellers case was a "serious breach" of the declaration and raised concerns over the city's constitutional protections.
"Given this hostile response to public expressions of alarm or outrage, foreign governments have often preferred private diplomacy in China over public condemnation of even egregious human rights violations," according to the PEN report.
Human Rights Watch warned last year that "even as China has taken major steps backwards on human rights under Xi Jinping, most foreign governments have muted their criticisms of its record."
Speaking at an event in New York this week, dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei asked whether "human rights (is) still an issue can be talked about?"
He called on foreign governments to do more to pressure Beijing:
"There's no excuse to sacrifice any values, to not mention human rights, not to defend those values. This is a very bad move."

'Bizarre view of citizenship'
Angela Gui, whose father Gui Minhai is still in detention in China, told PEN that "if the international community stays quiet, it's just going to be forgotten about and the Chinese will keep him as long as they like."
Gui Minhai is a Swedish citizen, and the country's representatives have called for him to be released. He was born in China but does not hold a Chinese passport.
Beijing however has largely refused to acknowledge Gui's Swedish citizenship, and regards him as Chinese.
British diplomats have also complained of being denied access to detained bookseller Lee Bo, who holds a UK passport.
Lee is "first and foremost a Chinese citizen," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in January.
"It's a bizarre view of citizenship," Angela Gui told CNN recently.
"China is a country that doesn't really respect the rule of law."
China has repeatedly asserted that it views Gui and Lee's cases as an internal affair, and warned against "unwarranted accusations" from outside parties.
The booksellers case, warns PEN, "indicates China's determination to unilaterally define issues of narrative and even identity, in the expectation that it will not be challenged."

A protester displays a photo of Xi Jinping during a rally to support the Hong Kong booksellers.

Wives of detained Chinese human rights lawyers refuse to be silenced