China Paid Pro-CCP Agitators To Clash With Dissenters During Xi’s Visit to San Francisco: Report

China paid pro-Chinese Communist Party agitators to clash with dissidents in November 2023 when the country’s president, Xi Jinping, visited San Francisco, a Washington Post investigation revealed on Tuesday.

The Post’s report found that Chinese diplomats and diaspora groups organized demonstrations to "silence" anti-Beijing protesters gathered outside the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, where Xi met with President Joe Biden and other foreign leaders. The Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles paid for the hotels and meals of pro-CCP agitators to incentivize them to participate in the violent demonstration.

The agitators harassed and beat anti-China protesters with flagpoles and chemical sprays, leaving some seriously injured, the investigation revealed. The attacks, according to the Post, were "carried out by coordinated groups of young men embedded among" the protesters to silence the dissenters, who gathered to denounce the Chinese government's domestic repression and human rights abuse.

The Post report is a result of a six-month investigation into China's campaign to silence foreign dissenters at the 2023 summit. China’s efforts at the APEC summit are part of a broader global pattern to suppress Chinese citizens abroad who advocate against the CCP and ongoing rights abuses in Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and mainland China, the U.S. government and human rights groups told the Post.

"[The CCP is] encroaching on our national sovereignty by exporting their repression and human rights abuses onto our shores," FBI director Christopher Wray told the Post regarding Beijing’s overseas operations.

The purpose of China’s actions in San Francisco, the Post reported, was to portray the Chinese diaspora as being extremely pro-CCP and loyal to Xi and to censor dissenting voices who have fled the communist state.

Chinese diplomats hired at least 60 security guards to "protect" the groups meant to welcome Xi, according to the Post. The investigation also found that at least four Chinese diplomats from California joined the pro-CCP counter protests, which lasted the entirety of the four-day summit.

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