Uyghurs and Tibetans in Switzerland are afraid of China’s extended arm.

It’s a world first: a national government has commissioned a study on the extent to which communities in exile on its territory are subject to surveillance and intimidation by China. The task went to Ralph Weber and his team at the Institute of European Global Studies at the University of Basel.

The studyExternal link focuses on violations of basic rights and systematic pressure applied by the Chinese Communist regime on the Tibetan and Uyghur communities in Switzerland between the year 2000 and the present. Both attempted violations and those actually carried out were studied.

The report comes to a clear conclusion. Members of the Tibetan and Uyghur diaspora are being monitored, threatened, and even pressured to return to China by agents of the People’s Republic. This transnational repression, as it is being called, can involve various approaches. Often it takes the form of threatening phone calls from China demanding that the person concerned spy on their own community or making pointed allusions to the safety of family members still living on Chinese territory.

Tibetans in particular also feel that Swiss authorities curtail their basic rights, such as when demonstrations in front of parliament in Bern are restricted or asylum practices become more restrictive. These views were expressed not just by those who are politically exposed. The researchers based their findings in part on interviews conducted with 60 people.

Approach used by the study
“As the person commissioned to do this study, I approached the question with an open mind,” says lead author and China expert Weber. “We just wanted to get to the facts. Looking back, I can only say that what we found was to be expected.”

He and his team began by compiling existing international studies and cases of repression of the two communities. They then investigated the extent to which these subversions of human rights were happening in Switzerland too. Just as elsewhere in Europe, “dozens of agents of the security services” of the People’s Republic of China are active in the Alpine nation. They often disguise themselves as embassy or consulate staff.

The report also gives examples of pressure exerted on Swiss authorities by China. But the authors weren’t able to assess how successful these efforts have been. The study does conclude that local authorities are often less intimidated than their national counterparts.

One consequence of transnational repression by China, Weber points out, is that it undermines trust within exile communities and can lead to division. “We have found that many people in the Tibetan community in Switzerland suspect other members of the diaspora are working for ‘the Chinese’,” says the expert. This mistrust is particularly high towards those who have only recently come to Switzerland, as they still have family in Tibet and are therefore more vulnerable to pressure tactics.

“We don’t want our report to add to this atmosphere of mistrust”, says Weber. The pressure coming from agents of the Chinese regime is already creating a climate of fear among the people exposed to it. It is nevertheless important to recognise, he adds, that the situations are often complex, and there may be different actors involved with all kinds of different motivations. “Contacts with Chinese officials are by no means proof that the person concerned is on the side of China or acting as an informer,” he says.

Weber believes the government, which issued a reportExternal link on the study findings, should act. The report condemns violations of the rights of communities in exile and lists planned responses, including greater care in choosing interpreters for asylum hearings. In the past there have been suggestions that some of these interpreters might have been informers. It also calls for awareness-raising among all authorities at federal, cantonal and municipal levels, so they can identify and respond to such activities.

However, the government remains vague on how Switzerland intends to confront China with these findings. It simply refers to the “dialogue on human rights” that Switzerland and China have held since 1991. This dialogue is often criticised as mere tokenism. “Those affected have said again and again that basic rights such as freedom of expression are increasingly being restricted in favour of economic interests,” says Weber. “That should worry us as a liberal democracy.”

Views of campaigners
The study has a long history. It began with a petition from the Swiss NGO Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) in 2018, which called for a report on whether ethnic groups repressed in China are having their basic rights curtailed in Switzerland as well. The foreign policy committee of the House of Representatives then called on the government to come up with a detailed report on the situation of Tibetans and Uyghurs in the country.

For the STP, the actions proposed by the government are not enough. In a statement, it calls for a clear definition of what constitutes transnational repression and for Switzerland to adopt appropriate legislation to counter it effectively. It also calls for a reporting and advocacy office to be set up, and for those affected to be consulted in political decision-making. The Swiss government, it says, needs to expose the offences publicly and expel the perpetrators.

Switzerland is not the only country with this problem. Transnational repression appears to be on the rise globally. The phenomenon has grown thanks to digitalisation and artificial intelligence. Zumretay Arkin, vice-president of the World Uyghur Congress in Munich, tells SWI swissinfo.ch: “Practically every Uyghur in exile has experienced some kind of repression at the hands of the Chinese government. It can be anything from phone calls from Chinese police and attempts to block international travel, to arrest, imprisonment or even deportation to China.”

One challenge is that those affected are used to these tactics and fail to protest. “For many of us it is part of everyday life to be spied on, so it hardly occurs to anyone to report it,” says Arkin. Police forces in other countries are often not particularly well-informed of the situation and incidents are hard to prove.

David Missal of the German NGO Tibet Initiative Deutschland confirms this. Apart from the diaspora communities themselves, governments and elected officials must become aware of the issue. “So far there has been no response to this at the political level,” he says. “We would like there to be state-sponsored resources for victims of transnational repression, which would also provide psychological and legal assistance.” Missal would like to see German authorities carry out a similar study to that of the Swiss.

Sensitive diplomatic context
Weber does give Switzerland some credit: “That the Swiss government, which is known for its understated position in dealing with China, commissioned such a study is worthy of note in itself.”

Admittedly, the government took its time to release the report. The study was completed in April 2024, and publication was postponed a few times. “I can imagine this was a sensitive report, and there were a few questions that officials wanted time to consider,” he says. According to an investigation by Tamedia newspapers, there was disagreement at the top about how to handle the “troubling findings” of the study.

Publication has come at an awkward time for Switzerland. This year the country is marking 75 years of diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. Updating the 2014 free trade agreement (FTA) between the two countries is on the agenda. The parliamentary foreign policy committee has called for the findings of the study to be brought to the FTA negotiations. The government does not make mention of this in its report.

Weber believes Switzerland owes it to Tibetans and Uyghurs in the country to follow the study up with action, including opening up a public debate on the issue and speaking out against repression. “Many of the people we spoke to are tired of providing information about their situation, only to find that nothing happens,” says Weber.