China is expanding its surveillance and repression activities in Latin America, targeting dissidents and minorities. This effort to reinforce the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) repressive influence in the region uses tactics like “forced vacations,” a report from the Madrid-based human rights organization Safeguard Defenders indicates.
These forced vacations consist of making people considered troublesome disappear for days or weeks. “The goal is to prevent them from disrupting the CCP’s public image at times when international attention is focused on China, such as during major political or media events, for example, the Olympic Games,” Laura Harth, director of Safeguard Defenders’ China in the World program, told Diálogo.
According to Harth, the strategy is not limited to Chinese territory. “At key moments, dissidents abroad, including those in Latin America, also experience increased pressure in the form of surveillance, harassment, online threats, intimidation of family members remaining in China, and even forced or extrajudicial repatriations.”
An investigation by Ecuadorian investigative journalism site Código Vidrio found that even after a clandestine Chinese police station in Quito officially closed in 2024, surveillance activities linked to China continue in the country. These activities are reportedly managed by Chinese business leaders with close ties to the CCP. According to Código Vidrio, the network involves shell companies, Chinese-language media outlets, and local diaspora associations, all part of a global control system first denounced in 2022 by Safeguard Defenders, which documented a police station in Guayaquil as well.
Harth said the CCP aims to actively control the entire Chinese diaspora, creating a widespread climate of fear. She added that over the past decade, Beijing has exported its internal system of social control and repression, leading to broader knock-on effects on societies. This is evident in “the systematic attempts to censor anyone who tells the truth about the CCP and its aggressive global objectives,” she said.
Between 2016 and 2022, four local Chinese public security bureaus established 102 police stations abroad in 53 countries worldwide, including Latin America. In the region, in addition to Ecuador, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Panama, and Brazil have also been affected, with two headquarters, one in Rio de Janeiro and the other in São Paulo.
The stations, Harth said, are affiliated with the United Front, a political strategy of the CCP for foreign interference. The United Front is a network of groups and individuals used to influence, co-opt, and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies of the CCP. It is a unique blend of engagement, influence activities, and intelligence that the CCP uses to shape its political environment.
These police stations, ostensibly created to provide administrative services to Chinese citizens abroad, have been investigated in multiple countries on suspicion of surveillance, foreign interference, and intimidation of Chinese dissidents. “These police stations have not been declared to the host countries, which makes them clandestine under international law and constitutes a clear violation of national sovereignty,” Harth said.
In a separate effort to formalize its repressive reach, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security signed an agreement with the Brazilian Federal Police in 2023 to facilitate information sharing, joint investigations, and training. This cooperation continued in April 2025, when a Chinese vice minister promoted further collaboration in Brazil against organized crime and in the field of cybersecurity, with a focus on artificial intelligence and big data.
“Through these links, the CCP seeks to create a more favorable environment for its repressive activities abroad, obtain information, and send a clear message to those it intends to target that no place is safe,” Harth said.
The CCP’s reach in the region extends to monitoring and censoring any reporting on marginalized groups, such as the Muslim Uyghur minority and practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice viewed as a threat and banned by the CCP. Uyghur activist Zumretay Arkin visited Ecuador in May to denounce the CCP’s persecution, citing practices like detention, torture, and surveillance. “Using WhatsApp, wearing a beard, wearing a hijab, or having contact with foreigners can make you a target for China,” she said. A Falun Gong-related show was canceled in Ecuador in 2015 due to China’s pressure. The CCP has labeled both groups “poisonous.”
“It’s important for countries to train their law enforcement agencies and institutions to recognize and counter the foreign interference activities of the People’s Republic of China, including transnational repression,” Harth said. Latin America, she added, has been at the forefront in recognizing the crime of enforced disappearances, which pose a threat to the Chinese diaspora and to the national security of host countries.
