China Targets: How Beijing abuses international institutions to terrorize its critics and extend its repressive tactics worldwide.

Amid fluttering Chinese and French flags, President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, stepped off their state plane under a rainy Paris sky last May. Arriving for the first leg of a five-day tour to strengthen European ties, China’s first couple was warmly greeted by throngs of Chinese bystanders waving their country’s red flag and groups performing traditional dragon and lion dances to the sound of drums and gongs.

Across town, Jiang Shengda’s phone pinged. The leader of Le Front de la Liberté en Chine, a small group of Chinese activists and artists, the 31-year-old Jiang was preparing to address hundreds of demonstrators at the Place de la République, a celebrated venue for freedom of expression, protest and dissent.

The Beijing-born artist and activist had become accustomed to speaking to large crowds, often joining Uyghurs, Tibetans and Hong Kongers overseas to denounce Xi’s oppression of human rights and civil liberties, in China and abroad. But this day, he faced an agonizing dilemma.

Jiang’s mother was calling — from 5,100 miles away in Beijing.

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