Nowhere to Hide: China’s Global Surveillance Dragnet Targets Former Officials

When retired Chinese official Li Chuanliang received an urgent warning while recuperating from cancer on a Korean resort island, his life changed forever. “Don’t return to China,” a friend cautioned. “You’re now a fugitive.”

Days later, after a stranger photographed him in a café, Li fled to the United States on a tourist visa and applied for asylum. But even in America – from New York to California to the remote Texas desert – the Chinese government’s surveillance apparatus continued tracking his every move.

“They track you 24 hours a day. All your electronics, your phone — they’ll use every method to find you, your relatives, your friends, where you live,” Li told The Associated Press. “No matter where you are, you’re under their control.”

Li’s communications were monitored, his assets seized, and his movements tracked through police databases. More than 40 friends, relatives, and associates – including his pregnant daughter – were detained, some identified through facial recognition software that tracked down their taxi drivers. Three former associates died in detention, while men Li believed to be Chinese operatives stalked him across continents.

The Chinese government has transformed surveillance technology into a potent weapon to cement power domestically and project authority globally, much of it built with technology originating from American companies, an AP investigation has found.

Inside China, this technology helped identify and punish almost 900,000 officials last year alone – nearly five times more than in 2012, according to state figures. Beijing claims it’s cracking down on corruption, but critics charge that such technology primarily serves to stifle dissent and exact retribution on perceived enemies.

Beyond China’s borders, the same technology enables operations “Fox Hunt” and “Sky Net,” which target wayward officials, dissidents, and alleged criminals. The U.S. government has criticized these overseas operations as a “threat” and an “affront to national sovereignty.” More than 14,000 people, including approximately 3,000 officials, have been forcibly returned to China from over 120 countries through coercion, arrests, and pressure on relatives, according to state media.

“They’re actively pursuing those people who fled China as a way to demonstrate power, to show there’s no way you can escape,” said Yaqiu Wang, a fellow at the University of Chicago. “The chilling effect is enormously effective.”

The surveillance technology deployed over the past decade came from Silicon Valley companies including IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft, according to hundreds of leaked emails, government procurement documents, and internal corporate presentations obtained exclusively by AP. This technology mines texts, payments, flight records, phone calls, and other data to identify officials’ associates and assets.

IBM said in a statement that it sold its division making the i2 surveillance software program in 2022 and maintains “robust processes” to ensure its technology is used responsibly. Oracle declined comment, and Microsoft did not respond to inquiries.

China’s foreign ministry told AP that Chinese authorities protect suspects’ rights, handle cases lawfully, and respect foreign sovereignty. “We urge relevant countries to drop double standards and avoid becoming a safe haven for corrupt officials and their assets,” the ministry stated.

Li’s story offers a rare firsthand account from a former Chinese official. While Beijing has accused him of corruption totaling around $435 million, Li claims he’s being targeted for openly criticizing the Chinese government and denies criminal charges of bribery and embezzlement. A review of thousands of pages of legal, property, and corporate records, interrogation transcripts, and Li’s medical and travel files obtained by AP, along with interviews with nine lawyers, support key parts of his account.

“China places enormous emphasis on the political discipline of even former officials and Communist Party members,” explained Jeremy Daum, Senior Fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center. “So when one becomes a vocal critic of the country’s leadership, it doesn’t go over well.”

Li’s path to becoming a target began in his hometown of Jixi in northeastern China, where he worked as a state accountant and later became vice mayor. He gained a reputation as a “bulwark against corruption” in local media, but eventually grew disillusioned with the system after witnessing the extravagance of his boss, local party secretary Xu Zhaojun.

When President Xi Jinping called on the party to catch “tigers and flies” in corruption – officials high-ranking and low – Li gathered evidence against Xu, accusing him and his associates of embezzling more than $100 million. While Xu was eventually sentenced to 14 years in prison, the experience left Li deeply skeptical of the party.

“I saw through the nature of the system,” Li said. “So I quit.”

In 2014 and 2015, China launched operations Fox Hunt and Sky Net, establishing big data centers to track money and relationships of officials abroad. A leaked photo of the internal police software suggests the name “Sky Net” was inspired by “The Terminator,” a movie about a cyborg assassin that hunts humans.

After criticizing China’s censorship during the COVID-19 pandemic, Li found himself targeted. In 2020, while at a pro-democracy gathering in California, he was tailed and questioned by a stranger who knew his identity. That November, an activist secretly working for Beijing added him to a dissident group chat monitored by Chinese police, according to a 2025 federal indictment. This June, Li received a letter from the FBI identifying him as the possible victim of a crime involving an unregistered Chinese agent.

Li’s future in the U.S. remains uncertain. The Trump administration has paused asylum applications. If he doesn’t return to China, he could face trial in absentia; if convicted and deported, he could face life imprisonment.

“Electronic surveillance is the arteries for China to project power into the world,” Li warned. “Each step that every one of your relatives takes is being monitored and analyzed with big data. It’s absolutely terrifying.”