MIDLAND, Texas (AP) — The Chinese government is using an increasingly powerful tool to control and monitor its own officials: Surveillance technology, much of it originating in the United States, an Associated Press investigation has found.
Among its targets is Li Chuanliang, a Chinese former vice mayor hunted by Beijing with the help of surveillance technology. Li’s communications were monitored, his assets seized and his movements followed in police databases. More than 40 friends and relatives — including his pregnant daughter — were identified and detained back in China.
Deep in the Texas countryside, Li has now found refuge with members of a Chinese church living in exile after fleeing from China like Li.
Here, the Chihuahuan Desert unfurls as a stark, flat expanse of sand, punctured by phone poles and wind turbines. Tumbleweeds roll across roads, past ranches flying the Lone Star flag and pumpjacks extracting oil.
Li and members of the church are building a new life, thousands of miles from China. They cook, eat, and study together. They plant olive trees and design new homes for their budding community. On Sundays, they attend church, singing hymns and reading the Bible.
But even in the United States, Li worries he’s being watched. Strange men stalk him. Spies have looked for him. He carries multiple phones.
Surveillance technology powers China’s anti-corruption crackdown at home and abroad — a campaign critics say is used to stifle dissent and exact retribution on perceived enemies.
Beijing has accused Li of corruption totaling around $435 million, but Li says he’s being targeted for openly criticizing the Chinese Communist Party. He denies criminal charges of taking bribes and embezzling state funds.
Li exudes some of the authority he once wielded as vice mayor. But he’s traded his suit and tie for a jacket vest, the Chinese flag for America’s star-spangled banner, and his podium and phalanx of state journalists for a bright, white LED light and flimsy tripod in a sparse room behind a communal church kitchen.
From here, Li tapes videos for an online audience, fighting a war of words with the party he once swore loyalty to.
This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors.