Berlin, June 29 (IANS) Despite being less reliant on Chinese investment and technology than many countries in the Global South, Europe remains vulnerable to Beijing’s political pressure and influence campaigns.

Several incidents have underscored these concerns, including reports that in late 2025 Sheffield Hallam University in the UK sought to shut down its renowned forced-labour research programme after months of pressure from the Chinese authorities.

In Italy, the alleged harassment of a prominent Chinese dissident and social media activist, both online and offline, also prompted authorities to deport eight Chinese nationals, a report has stated.

“Signs are mounting that the Chinese government is expanding its transnational repression both in terms of tools and targets. The first half of 2026 has seen evidence of online and offline attempts to silence overseas critics that cross its political red lines. Only in May, an AI-generated harassment campaign against Europe-based human rights researcher Laura Harth, known for her work exposing China’s overseas police stations, was made public,” German think tank Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) mentioned.

“The campaign, which relied on misogynistic and sexualised images, shows how Beijing is incorporating generative AI into its transnational repression efforts, allowing new forms of scalable, personalised attacks aimed at damaging the reputation of critics abroad,” it stated.

According to the report, attempts to silence individuals have expanded to target global civil society as well. Among recent targets was an international conference dedicated to advancing digital rights for all – including privacy, freedom of expression, access to information and protection from unlawful surveillance – which was subjected to a Chinese government campaign.

The report highlighted that RightsCon, a leading global summit on digital rights, was scheduled to take place in Zambia during the first week of May. However, the Zambian government cancelled the event at the last minute, reportedly following pressure from China – a major investor in Zambian infrastructure and mining – over the participation of Taiwanese civil society groups.

“China’s digital authoritarianism was among the key issues that the RightsCon community was set to discuss,” it stated.

The report noted that while Beijing has long targeted individual activists, its apparent campaign against the global digital rights movement marks a troubling development.

“Its ability to disrupt such well-established global forums like RightsCon not only undermines international efforts to develop shared norms on digital rights but also creates more space for the authoritarian misuse of technology, as illustrated by the targeting of Laura Harth,” it added.

Highlighting the wider implication of China’s transnational repression, the report said, “Europe needs to better support digital norm-setting and protect it against attacks. This includes creating safeguards and ad-hoc channels for reporting abuses, as well as training authorities to respond appropriately online and offline. Civil society needs to be acutely aware of the dangerous intersection of China’s global influence, regional autocratic tendencies and the proliferation of new digital tools, as addressing these issues in isolation will not suffice.”

–IANS

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