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Students from China comprise one of Canada’s largest international student populations—nearly 15 percent of the University of Toronto’s total student population in 2024. The majority aren’t leading anti-government marches in the street, or hatching plans to harm their classmates in group chats. But as a result of overseas surveillance and intimidation by the Chinese government, an atmosphere of fear and repression looms over the community at large, chilling free and open discourse. It’s led to a conflict within this community, left largely unaddressed by school authorities, that threatens one of the core values of a university in a free society.

“I think the CCP has created an environment where students are too scared or uncomfortable to talk about politics at all,” [one Chinese student in Canada] says.

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For decades, members of the Chinese diaspora worldwide have been subjected to the phenomenon of “transnational repression.” This term broadly describes “efforts by states to use coercion to silence critics in their diasporas,” according to Emile Dirks, a senior research associate at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, who specializes in Chinese politics and state repression.

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