Taiwan Attacks and Possible Violence in PRC Repression

Taiwan Attacks and Possible Violence in PRC Repression

Executive Summary

• The People’s Republic of China (PRC) may be expanding its transnational repression campaign against Taiwanese individuals who speak out against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to include violent intimidation. Taiwanese comedian Huang Yi-hao was allegedly attacked by assailants in Taiwan acting on the instructions of an instigator in the PRC who sought to inflict serious injuries. Huang was likely targeted due to his xiangsheng comedy skit that satirized General Secretary Xi Jinping.
• Taiwan’s role in Xi Jinping’s vision to achieve “national rejuvenation” could result in more transnational repression against Taiwanese individuals. Beijing’s enthusiasm for clamping down on dissent against the CCP may increasingly threaten the safety of individuals in Taiwan and the nation’s sovereignty.
• Previous transnational repression cases involving Chinese-origin foreign nationals, Hong Kongers, Tibetan, and Uyghur activists show the willingness of the PRC to employ physical means outside its borders to intimidate individuals who voice undesirable opinions.
• Recent violence in PRC transnational repression has drawn comparisons to Soviet and Russian tactics, which include assassinations and attempted assassinations of political opponents abroad, such as the 2018 Salisbury poisonings in the United Kingdom. The extent to which the PRC is willing to employ lethal violence, however, as well as the level of direct state involvement in clandestine operations, remains unclear.

On September 11, a car collided with the Taiwanese comedian Huang Yi-hao (黃逸豪) as he was riding his scooter home in the Yonghe district of New Taipei. Huang suffered a bruised pelvis but escaped serious injury. What appeared to be a traffic accident soon became an investigation into a politically motivated assault.

On October 21, the Taiwanese public prosecutor’s office charged five men with taking part in a plot funded by an unidentified individual in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). According to the prosecutor’s office, the suspects intended to break Huang’s arms and legs to prevent him from performing on stage. His apparent offence was to have publicly mocked the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Xi Jinping (Focus Taiwan, October 21).

This incident raises the possibility that the PRC’s security operations abroad are shifting direction—toward employing physical violence against its critics overseas. It is unclear, however, if this is a new tactic of limited importance, or a change of strategy that might eventually mirror the “active measures” and assassinations employed by Moscow (Marshall Center, June 2019). Determining this requires distinguishing between three issues: intimidation carried out by individuals sympathetic to Beijing, operations where the instigator has not been established, and coercive operations clearly directed by Chinese state agencies.

The PRC’s use of pressure beyond its borders is nothing new, and its clandestine and covert activities in Taiwan appear to have increased in recent years (China Brief, November 10, 2023, May 9, 2025; Global Taiwan Institute, March 2025). But recent cases suggest an escalating and varied repertoire of methods, ranging from threats against relatives to surveillance, extraditions, renditions, sabotage, and, potentially, the use of violence by third parties. The Huang case could represent a further link in this continuum.

Two Attacks on Taiwanese Comedian Who Mocked Xi

Huang performs xiangsheng (相聲), or “crosstalk,” a traditional Chinese form of comic dialogue. His December 2025 performance satirizing Xi Jinping circulated online and was apparently the trigger for his assault. On May 29, shortly before Huang was due to perform in Taipei, an assailant threw bags containing paint and human excrement into the venue.

In September, the public prosecutor’s office charged two Taiwanese men in connection with the incident. It alleged that Liu Shengjie (劉昇傑), acting for an unidentified individual in the PRC, had recruited Guo Weihao (郭偉皓) to carry out the attack in return for a payment of TWD 50,000 ($1,600) (UDN; Focus Taiwan, September 29).

The next attack was more significant. According to the New Taipei City Public Prosecutor’s Office, an individual in the PRC, known only as “K,” offered a Taiwan-based intermediary, Zheng Boxuan (鄭博軒), TWD 450,000 ($14,000) to organize the attack aimed at seriously injuring Huang. Media reports said that Zheng had been monitoring Huang’s movements since July and had fitted a GPS tracking device to his scooter. Prosecutors say that K sent Zheng an advance payment of TWD 250,000 ($7,600).

Zheng and another intermediary, You Weijie (游幃捷), allegedly recruited a driver and two accomplices. On September 11, the group waited near Huang’s home. When he emerged, the driver struck him with their vehicle while a passenger filmed the collision. Subsequently, the conspirators allegedly obtained Huang’s medical certificate on the pretext of helping him file an insurance claim and forwarded an image to K. The instigator from the PRC reportedly refused to pay the remaining TWD 200,000 ($6,100) on the grounds that the injuries were not sufficiently serious (Taipei Times, October 21, UDN, October 21).

The incident exhibited characteristics often seen in a clandestine operation: surveillance of the target, “need-to-know” compartmentalized recruitment, financial inducements, a plausible cover story, and a requirement to document the outcome. It also differed from more common forms of CCP repression, however, such as non-violent intimidation against dissidents abroad and “law enforcement” actions taken against comedians inside the PRC (Index on Censorship, July 2023). The apparent intention in targeting Huang on the streets of Taipei was not simply to issue a warning but to inflict severe injury.

Attribution remains uncertain. Prosecutors have not publicly established K’s identity or demonstrated that he was acting on behalf of a PRC entity, such as the Ministry of State Security or the Ministry of Public Security; and while the defendants have been charged, they have not been convicted. On October 28, the spokesperson for the PRC Taiwan Affairs Office, Chen Binhua (陈斌华), rejected the allegation of PRC involvement, accusing Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party of stirring up hostility toward the PRC (Taiwan Affairs Office, October 28).

Hong Kong and Thailand: Extradition and Control

A significant precedent illustrating Beijing’s desire to exercise coercive power outside PRC territory emerged in 2015. That year, five men linked to the Hong Kong bookshop Causeway Bay Books (銅鑼灣書店), which sold politically sensitive publications concerning Chinese leaders, disappeared under suspicious circumstances.

The most striking case is that of Gui Minhai (桂敏海), a Swedish citizen and Hong Kong-based publisher. He disappeared from Pattaya, Thailand, on October 17, 2015, and subsequently appeared in Chinese state media, where he reportedly confessed to a previous traffic offence.

Another bookseller, Lee Bo (李波), disappeared from Hong Kong in December 2015 before reappearing in detention on the Chinese mainland. The Hong Kong authorities had no record of his lawful departure. Three other booksellers disappeared while visiting the Chinese mainland.

Human Rights Watch concluded that the five booksellers had been victims of an enforced disappearance orchestrated by the Chinese authorities. A Swedish government investigation characterized Gui’s removal from Thailand as an abduction (Human Rights Watch, February 10, 2016; Government of Sweden, 2022). In 2020, the Chinese authorities sentenced him to ten years’ imprisonment (Amnesty International, October 16, 2025).

These incidents demonstrated that Chinese authorities were prepared to use clandestine means to project jurisdiction abroad to neutralize individuals whose publications challenged political authority. They also highlighted the difficulty of identifying precisely which Chinese security or police agencies were involved.

In April 2020, Lam Wing-kee (林榮基), one of the five booksellers, was doused with red paint in Taipei shortly before the opening of a new bookshop. Three men from the region were convicted of the assault. Lam believed that Beijing was behind the attack, but the findings made public did not corroborate that idea (CNA Taiwan, April 22, 2020). This suggests that the attack on the comedian Huang may not have been the PRC’s first use of politically motivated violence in Taiwan, though Huang’s case could signal a degree of escalation of such violence.

CCP Coercion Sans Abduction: ‘Fox Hunt’ and Pressure on Relatives

Physical abduction is just one method among many of extraterritorial coercion. Beijing launched “Operation Fox Hunt” (猎狐行动) in 2014 to return persons abroad suspected of corruption (China Brief, May 14, 2022). Some returns have taken place within the framework of formal legal cooperation. Others have involved methods described by the Chinese authorities as “persuasion to return” (劝返), which includes pressure exerted on the individuals abroad and their relatives in the PRC.

In 2022, the human rights nonprofit Safeguard Defenders documented the use of threats against relatives, restrictions imposed on family members, and other coercive methods to encourage targets to return from abroad. However, official Chinese reports do not always distinguish between coercion and genuinely voluntary return, so these cases must be treated with caution (Safeguard Defenders, January 17, 2022).

The United States has uncovered more directly verifiable examples. In June 2023, a federal jury convicted Michael McMahon, a retired New York police sergeant, along with two co-defendants in a case involving attempts to force a Chinese national residing in the United States to return to the PRC. McMahon, working as a private detective, followed his target and passed information to the Chinese authorities via third parties. Prosecutors established that Ministry of Public Security officers and the PRC public prosecutor oversaw an operation to threaten the target’s family. McMahon was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment in April 2025 (U.S. Department of Justice [DOJ], April 16, 2025).

This operation showed collaboration between Chinese law enforcement, private detectives, and locally recruited intermediaries. The similarity in method to the Huang case in Taiwan is striking, though the objectives were different: the U.S. operation aimed at forced repatriation, while in Taiwan it allegedly aimed to inflict serious physical harm.

In a second instance, the Department of Justice alleged that individuals acting on behalf of Chinese intelligence services had organized the surveillance of dissidents and conspired to destroy works of art critical of Xi Jinping. A sculpture depicting Xi in the form of a coronavirus molecule was destroyed in California in 2021. The indictment cited GPS surveillance, hidden cameras, and a coordinator based in the PRC (DOJ, March 16, 2022). Earlier this year, security contractors working for the PRC consulates in Los Angeles and New York were observed harassing protestors, including with the use of pepper spray (China Brief, May 29).

These incidents suggest that certain elements of Operation Huang’s operational methods—notably the surveillance and attacks on critics—already had precedents in Chinese activities abroad.

Uyghurs and Tibetans: Crackdowns Exploiting Families’ Vulnerability

Other forms of repression are less visible but potentially more pervasive. Uyghur and Tibetan activists abroad have repeatedly described the efforts made by the Chinese authorities to stifle criticism by targeting their relatives in the PRC. Such pressure can take the form of detentions, threats, travel restrictions, interference with communications, and demands on exiles to provide information about diaspora communities.

A Human Rights Watch investigation published in August 2026 documented the pressure exerted on Australian Uzbeks who had travelled to Xinjiang. Those interviewed described police interrogations concerning activists in Australia and attempts to persuade them to cooperate in the surveillance of community organizations. Other Uzbeks reported that the authorities were using their access to relatives in Xinjiang to dissuade them from engaging in political activities (HRW, August 16).

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) has documented similar efforts to use family ties, personal information, and intimidation to influence the behavior of communities in exile. The U.S. State Department’s 2024 report on human rights described these practices, drawing on testimonies from Tibetan exiles (U.S. State Department, August 2025; TCHRD, April 9, 2025).

Such activities take their toll on critics without necessarily leading to high-profile incidents. Their effects are difficult to measure, as those who are intimidated may withdraw from public life without reporting the pressure they have faced.

Australia’s domestic intelligence services have also warned of foreign governments attempting to coerce residents there. In its 2025 Annual Threat Assessment, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) described operations involving local surveillance, telephone harassment, and threats against family members. It did not publicly identify all the foreign governments involved, cautioning against attributing all such cases to the PRC (ASIO, February 19, 2025).

Taken together, these examples demonstrate that coercion exerted from abroad does not necessarily result in abductions or physical assaults. Their broader aim may be to influence an individual’s behavior by making political engagement personally costly—and it may be that harsher measures are undertaken once others employing mere intimidation have failed.

Moscow Methods Could Preview Beijing’s Future Behavior

Comparisons with Soviet and Russian intelligence services require caution and precision. The Soviet concept of “active measures” primarily encompassed covert political influence, disinformation, document forgery, the manipulation of front organizations, and other efforts aimed at influencing political outcomes abroad. Political violence, sabotage, and assassination formed (and still form) part of a related, but analytically distinct, repertoire of clandestine operations.

Contemporary Russian security services have demonstrated a willingness to resort to lethal violence abroad. A British public inquiry concluded in 2016 that the assassination in London ten years earlier of former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko involved the Russian Federal Security Service and had likely been authorized by senior Russian leaders, including President Putin (Litvinenko Inquiry, January 2016).

In 2018, agents of the Russian military intelligence services attempted to assassinate Sergei Skripal in Salisbury using the nerve agent Novichok. A British inquiry, the report of which was published in December 2025, concluded that the Russian state authorities were responsible (The Dawn Sturgess Inquiry, December 4, 2025). German courts have also established that the murder of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin in 2019 was carried out on behalf of the Russian state authorities (Berlin Court of Appeal, December 27, 2021).

These cases differ fundamentally from the allegations concerning Huang in terms of their murderous intent, the established attribution to the state, and, in some cases, the use of specialized intelligence personnel or specific weapons. But there are similarities. Both the PRC’s transnational repression and Russia’s coercive operations abroad can exploit local contacts, conceal official support, and target individuals whose activities challenge the ruling power. Both can also have repercussions beyond the immediate victim by demonstrating that political opponents can remain vulnerable anywhere in the world. Lacking in the Huang case is hard evidence to link the attack on Huang to any PRC institution. If proven, however, it would raise the possibility that there is a convergence in coercive methods between the two partners. [1]

Taiwan’s Centrality to Xi’s Ambitions Heightens Risk

Taiwan may be a place where the CCP considers coercion to be a more justifiable and important tool than elsewhere. In China’s Global Strategy under Xi Jinping, authors Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung argue that Xi is pursuing a two-pronged strategy. The first aims to mobilize support in the Global South for changes in international governance that would steer the world toward a PRC-centered international order. The second aims to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control despite U.S. opposition. Success would demonstrate the return of China’s preeminence and the decline of the United States’ ability to preserve the existing regional order, hence Beijing’s heavy-handed approach on Taiwan (Tsang and Cheung, 2026). [2]

This framework suggests a possible explanation for Beijing’s desire to project coercive power beyond PRC borders to boost positive impressions of the PRC while suppressing adverse views. If the Party regards Taiwan’s continued political independence as a challenge both to national rejuvenation and to the legitimacy of the CCP’s rule, criticism emanating from Taiwan could take on a significance beyond its immediate audience. Mockery directed at Xi Jinping may undermine the carefully cultivated image of the leadership’s authority.

Conclusion

The attack on Huang should be viewed in the context of the PRC’s coercive practices abroad over the last decade. What sets the September 2026 incident apart is the alleged ordering of an act resulting in serious bodily harm against a comedian whose behavior involved publicly ridiculing Xi Jinping.

It remains unclear whether this represents a broader policy shift. Publicly reported incidents are not a perfect indicator of the frequency of such operations, and a single case is insufficient to establish a centrally authorized escalation. And the case itself currently lacks concrete information on the identity of “K,” the source of the payments, and any link between the attacks in May and September, as well as documentation of comparable commissioned attacks against political critics elsewhere.

The current evidence does not yet justify describing the PRC as having adopted a Russian-style campaign of assassinations abroad, it does warrant further examination to determine whether Beijing is evolving toward greater reliance on locally recruited intermediaries and physical violence. That would have serious implications for the sovereignty and civil liberties of the societies in which such operations take place.

Notes

[1] Although not formal allies in the Western sense, the PRC currently labels its bilateral relationship with Russia as “a new era comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership” (新时代全面战略协作伙伴) and describes relations as “at their best in history” (处于历史最好时期) (MFA, accessed November 4).

[2] Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung, China’s Global Strategy under Xi Jinping (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2026), 31-33, 90, 158, 186–199.