Episode 368: Shadow Policing and Transnational Repression: China’s Global Campaign Against Critics with Sam Goodman
In this episode, we host Sam Goodman to explore China’s global campaign of transnational repression, shadow policing, and pressure against critics abroad. Drawing on his work on Hong Kong, UK-China relations, sanctions, the BN(O) community, and economic transnational repression, Sam explains how Chinese and Hong Kong authorities project power beyond their borders through surveillance, diaspora intimidation, legal pressure, financial coercion, and attempts to silence pro-democracy voices far beyond China and Hong Kong.
We discuss the recent UK National Security Act case involving two men convicted in London for assisting a foreign intelligence service in a case centred on Hong Kong authorities, pro-democracy activists, and alleged shadow policing on British soil. Sam explains why this case matters, what it reveals about the vulnerability of open societies, and how Chinese state-linked activity can move through trade offices, former police networks, private security actors, immigration systems, community intermediaries, and financial institutions.
The conversation also explores the everyday impact of transnational repression on Hong Kongers and other diaspora communities in the UK, including fear of infiltration, pressure on family members back home, self-censorship, and the chilling effect on civic participation. Sam also explains why economic transnational repression remains under-recognised, from frozen bank accounts and blocked pension access to professional disqualification, tax pressure, lawsuits, and compliance systems that can turn Western institutions into unwitting enforcers of authoritarian political objectives.
Sam Goodman is Senior Policy Director at the China Strategic Risks Institute and co-founder of the New Diplomacy Project, a Labour-focused foreign policy think tank. He was previously Policy and Advocacy Director at Hong Kong Watch, where his work focused on Hong Kong, UK-China policy, sanctions, the BN(O) community, and responses to the Hong Kong National Security Law. He is also the author of The Imperial Premiership: The Role of the Modern Prime Minister in Foreign Policymaking 1964–2015. His recent work at the China Strategic Risks Institute examines economic transnational repression and how the PRC and Hong Kong authorities can use financial pressure, bank accounts, pension access, professional qualifications, tax claims, and compliance systems to coerce dissidents abroad.
The International Risk Podcast brings you conversations with global experts, frontline practitioners, and senior decision-makers who are shaping how we understand and respond to international risk. From geopolitical instability and organised crime to cybersecurity threats and hybrid warfare, each episode explores the forces transforming our world and what smart leaders must do to navigate them. Whether you’re a board member, policymaker, or risk professional, The International Risk Podcast delivers actionable insights, sharp analysis, and real-world stories that matter.
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Transcript
[00:00:01] Sam Goodman: We think of the more dramatic elements, you know, an individual being stalked, an individual being forced onto a plane to return home, more violent things, people being beaten up in the streets. But the financial element that’s equally coercive and equally can ruin people’s lives, we just don’t talk that much about. And it matters because China has aspirations to be a financial superpower.
[00:00:20] Dominic Bowen: Welcome back to The International Risk Podcast, where we discuss the latest world news and significant events that impact businesses and organisations worldwide. And I have a quick favour to ask before we start today. If you’re a regular listener, please subscribe and follow The International Risk Podcast. It’s the simplest way to support the show and it helps us reach more listeners who need this content. And my commitment to you is that we’ll keep improving every part of the experience from our guests, the quality of the research and the practical insights we provide.
[00:00:50] Dominic Bowen: And if there’s a guest you think we should bring on the podcast or a risk that you want unpacked, send it through to us and I promise we read all of your comments. Please hit the subscribe or follow button now and let’s jump in to today’s episode. When we talk about China’s global power, we often focus on technology, on Taiwan, on trade, and even military modernisation and diplomacy. But Chinese state action abroad also plays out much closer to home through surveillance, through intimidation of the diaspora, on legal pressure, financial coercion, and even attempts to silence critics far beyond China and Hong Kong. I’m Dominic Bowen and I’m host of The International Risk Podcast, where we unpack the topics that really matter.
[00:01:30] Dominic Bowen: This month, two men were convicted in London under the UK’s National Security Act for assisting a foreign intelligence service in a case that centred on authorities from Hong Kong, centred on pro-democracy activists and shadow policing right on British soil. And this episode asks what the case actually reveals about the wider risk, about how democratic states should be protecting their open societies, how they should be protecting diaspora communities and even their public institutions from transnational repression, while still managing that complex relationship with Beijing. To help us understand and unpack this topic today, we’re joined by Sam Goodman. And Sam’s the Senior Policy Director at the China Strategic Risks Institute. He’s also the co-founder of the New Diplomacy Project.
[00:02:14] Dominic Bowen: Sam, welcome to The International Risk Podcast.
[00:02:17] Sam Goodman: Thanks for having me.
[00:02:19] Dominic Bowen: Sam, looking forward to the conversation today. Whereabouts in the world do we find you?
[00:02:22] Sam Goodman: So I’m currently sat right now in East London in my flat.
[00:02:26] Dominic Bowen: That’s a good place to be, especially when we’re recording this late at night. So thanks very much for taking the time, but it’s a really important conversation today. And before we even get into the UK case, we know that this has been happening around the world.
[00:02:39] Dominic Bowen: Just last week, a New York man was found guilty of acting as an unregistered agent on behalf of the Chinese government. Now, there was a federal trial that prosecutors alleged that he was operating a secret police station on behalf of Beijing in Manhattan, right in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighbourhood. And similar investigations and actions have been reported in Italy, in Australia, in Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan and even the Netherlands. So how should our listeners who are listening from around the world understand Chinese state action abroad today?
[00:03:10] Sam Goodman: Yeah, I mean, I think what’s quite distinctive about China and the Chinese government compared to other governments is that they consider the diaspora to be an extension of the Chinese state and they’re very keen to mobilise the diaspora. They’re very keen to put under surveillance members of the diaspora that speak out against them. And even if you’re a dual national, it doesn’t matter whether you’re an American national, a British national or an Australian national, in the eyes of the Chinese state, you’re still considered ethnically Chinese and a Chinese national. And through the United Front Work Department, which really is the unit within the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government that’s used to monitor and outreach with the Chinese diaspora. And it has a global network that undertakes surveillance, but it also seeks to mobilise the diaspora to pursue the goals and the aims of the Chinese Communist Party and to essentially tell China’s story well.
[00:04:01] Dominic Bowen: And I think that telling China’s story well is a really important one. And I’m keen to talk about the UK case with you. But even just in the last couple of days, my podcast feed and my news feed has been full of the increased reporting in the US about China and their active espionage threat inside the USA, with this emphasis on the recent American political official who was tied to Beijing and tied to transnational influence operations. And that coverage coming out of the US has been talking about Chinese activity as part of this wider information campaign involving China, Russia, Iran, and this case that the US prosecutors have recently been pushing said that a former mayor in California, of Arcadia, I think her name was Ellen Wang, she was working at the direction and the control of Chinese officials and she was running a website that was posing as a local Chinese American news outlet. It was publishing pro-Beijing material.
[00:04:55] Dominic Bowen: And I think this broader pattern and the pattern of this case really fits with Chinese efforts to cultivate local intermediaries who can shape messaging, who can mobilise diaspora audience, who can provide access to US political networks and even influence local and national politics and discussions within the USA and other countries. When you hear about these cases and you read about these cases, not just in the UK, but around the world, how much does this concern you?
[00:05:22] Sam Goodman: Yeah, I mean, I think many people would be rightly concerned about this because this is not necessarily the normal behaviour of a foreign state. And clearly, often behind these relationships there is a stated goal or an aim, right? Whether that is to acquire a particular piece of technology, whether it’s to essentially buy influence or sometimes, even mobilising individuals to really silence criticism and silence critical voices within the Chinese community itself. And that really undermines the basic freedoms of many of the countries that we all live in, where people, whether they are citizens or whether they’re foreign nationals living in our country, they should have the right to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and certainly, you know, freedom of political views.
[00:06:04] Dominic Bowen: And when we talk about the UK case, I understand that centred around two people, Bill Yuen and Peter Wai. Now, they were convicted in London under Britain’s National Security Act for assisting a foreign intelligence service while targeting dissidents from Hong Kong and pro-democracy figures who are now living in Britain. Now, prosecutors from the UK said that they carried out surveillance, they were gathering intelligence and they were conducting deception on behalf of Hong Kong authorities. Now, they also said there was attention that was paid to politicians such as Iain Duncan Smith. So, Sam, what does this case reveal about how Hong Kong and Chinese authorities are actually able to operate on British soil?
[00:06:43] Sam Goodman: Yeah, I mean, what’s crazy about this case is it reads like something out of a spy thriller, but also if, you know, the spies at the centre of it were in The Thick of It, if you know that political TV show in the UK, or Veep in the US, if you’re more familiar with that, where essentially you had the manager of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, which is essentially a separate entity to the Chinese Embassy, but it’s full of Hong Kong diplomats, essentially paying individuals using the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office’s bank account to undertake espionage on UK soil to monitor activists. One of them had a fake police warrant card that he threw out of the window before he was arrested. And we now know that the two men that went to trial, actually, there were originally three, but I’ll get onto the third in a second. The two men who went to trial, their lawyers were funded by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, while at the same time the Chinese government and the Hong Kong government were claiming that they had nothing to do with these men. Other than that, you had another eight individuals that the UK police arrested in relation to this case that they had to let go because they didn’t have enough translators. And these eight individuals have fled the UK and gone back to China.
[00:07:50] Sam Goodman: You also have a third man who’s a British national who was in the military, who unfortunately killed himself. He was originally remanded and he said that if he was given bail, he would kill himself. And unfortunately, that’s what happened. So this case is — there’s all sorts of drama within it.
[00:08:05] Sam Goodman: I think what it tells us is that the Chinese government is very interested in the growing Hong Kong diaspora here in the UK that now numbers 200,000, and that for the foreseeable future they will be monitoring them.
[00:08:17] Dominic Bowen: And I wonder, Sam, you know, the use of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office and use of embassies and consulates around the world. It’s not just the Chinese, but it’s the American, it’s the British, it’s the Australian. You know, most countries use various forms of cover to collect intelligence, to understand their allies and understand their adversaries and collect information and build relationships. So if we put that critical lens on this, you know, how should we look at this? Is this any different to what the good guys are doing overseas? Or is there something different about how China’s operating in the UK, for example? And what this case showed us?
[00:08:50] Sam Goodman: Yeah, I think it’s important to say that democratic governments do not police the behaviour of their nationals overseas or people who may have an ethnic link to that country. That doesn’t happen. That is very much the case of what China is trying to do today in Britain. They’re trying to silence the voice of Hong Kongers, Hong Kong pro-democracy activists who’ve come to this country. But also, as you’ve already alluded to, also the voices of our directly elected politicians who are not Hong Kongers, who are critical of China.
[00:09:18] Sam Goodman: And I think that goes far beyond the sort of routine surveillance that countries might do on each other. Clearly behind some of this action is to silence voices, is to monitor a growing community that the Chinese state still considers to be a huge part of it. And so I think you can see the sort of the contrast between what we might accept or understand as to be reasonable activities that foreign countries take when it comes to spying on each other. I think this sits beyond the realms of that.
[00:09:44] Dominic Bowen: Thanks for making that point. I appreciate that, Sam. And, you know, when we talk about transnational repression, you know, I think many of our listeners might imagine dramatic events, abductions and threats and spyware and physical surveillance, and no doubt it does include that at times. But I think some of your recent work, Sam, focuses on economic transnational repression. Can you talk to us about what that is and why it’s important and why our listeners should understand this?
[00:10:08] Sam Goodman: So my research on financial transnational repression has focused on the freezing of activist bank accounts, the revocation of their professional qualifications, the targeting of family members back in China financially, like threatening their jobs or their livelihoods, using the tax authorities to go after individuals, or essentially freezing or withholding benefits that they’re legally entitled to, like their pension fund. The reason why we’ve been quite keen to focus on this area is that it’s kind of an undiscussed part of transnational repression, as you rightly say. I mean, we think of the more dramatic elements, you know, an individual being stalked, an individual being forced onto a plane to return home, more violent things, people being beaten up in the streets. But the financial element that’s equally coercive and equally can ruin people’s lives, we just don’t talk that much about. And it matters because China has aspirations to be a financial superpower.
[00:10:58] Sam Goodman: Increasingly, China is encouraging countries to use the renminbi that makes up about 7%, I think, at the moment, of global currencies and usage. And at the same time, many multilateral banks want access to China. And so when the Chinese put pressure on these banks, when they give them evidence or they accuse individuals of money laundering, these banks are put in a particularly difficult position as to whether they will follow the laws laid out by China or the laws laid out by the West. And that, I think, gets to the heart of the problem. Of course, China isn’t the only one.
[00:11:28] Sam Goodman: The Iranians have done this before, the Turks, thousands of Russians have had their bank accounts frozen or cancelled since the war in Ukraine began because they’ve been put on an extremist list. But as China’s influence grows, I think we are more likely to see more of these financial levers pulled.
[00:11:43] Dominic Bowen: And so for our leaders, and we’ve got a huge listener base in Europe and North America, Sam, what do they need to understand about their company’s institutional exposure, about the legal risks, maybe even employee safety compliance traps, and the accountability for the business leaders when it comes to companies that are operating in Europe and North America? How can they become unintentionally or even unawarely involved in transnational repression, perhaps without even realising it?
[00:12:09] Sam Goodman: My research has looked at banks who often are behind the freezing of these assets. We already have processes for the de-banking of individuals or politically exposed individuals. And many of these banks, they consider themselves to be apolitical. They take information, they make judgments on it. Of course, you and I both know that there’s more to this and many of the banks, if they were sat with you right now, they would say that they independently look at information that’s given to them, whether someone has an arrest warrant out for them, criminal conviction, they don’t pass a judgement on what it is.
[00:12:39] Sam Goodman: And they give equal weighting to whether this is coming from a democracy or whether this is coming from an autocracy. And that for them, they’re very process orientated. I think where we would sit is obviously saying that there is a wider context for this and that financial institutions need to properly do their due diligence when they’re looking at this information and, of course, give individuals involved recourse to challenge these decisions. In the same way that if your bank called you up tomorrow and said, sorry Dominic, we’re closing your bank account, they give you a period of time to offer evidence, to show why they shouldn’t do that, to object. And if you couldn’t convince the bank, you could take it to the relevant financial regulator.
[00:13:15] Sam Goodman: Something similar should be set up for victims of transnational repression. So I think for the banks it’s about doing more due diligence. We’re not asking them to remake the wheel. This is something that they already do, that they could plug into and actually in the long run would save them legal risk if customers wanted to sue them. Reputational risk.
[00:13:34] Sam Goodman: Obviously you don’t want your bank on the front page of a newspaper saying that you’re targeting the victims of TNR and, of course, dealing with some of these governance risks as well, where often cases, you know, some of these banks have governance structures in China. We have the Chinese Communist Party involved and again, they’re quite opaque.
[00:13:50] Dominic Bowen: Yeah, thanks for explaining that, Sam. And I’ll just take a moment to remind our listeners that if you prefer to watch your podcast, The International Risk Podcast is always available on YouTube. So please do go to YouTube and search for The International Risk Podcast. And please, if you like our content, subscribe, maybe share it with a friend. This is really, really important for our success.
[00:14:09] Dominic Bowen: But Sam, a phrase that’s often used by the US and by British authorities and even we’ve seen in Italy, the Netherlands and Australia is about these shadow police stations and shadow policing. Can you tell us what is it? Are they handing out parking fines to Chinese citizens in the UK or is there something much more sinister? And I shouldn’t joke about it because I know it’s serious, but tell us, what is shadow policing and what are these shadow police stations?
[00:14:33] Sam Goodman: So, essentially, a lot of the discussion around shadow policing can go back to a report that was published by Safeguard Defenders in 2022 that found that there were dozens of these shadow police stations across the world that a lot of governments didn’t know about. And essentially they were spaces that were being rented by essentially extensions of the Chinese state, where you had people who were employed, who often were settling legal issues or they were shadowing the community. And it really varies as to what these activities are that go on in these shadow police stations. Some of them are monitoring the community, but some of them also claim that what they’re dealing with are legal issues that have to be settled back in China, where they could claim sovereignty over this particular office. So, to give your listeners an example, that was given to me when I was asking one of the researchers about this, you know, say there’s a Chinese couple and the man is in, say, the UK and the wife stayed in China and they want to get divorced, but they haven’t signed the paperwork.
[00:15:30] Sam Goodman: The man could go to, essentially, the shadow police station and sign a legal document granting a divorce to his wife. Now, of course, the problem here is that these people do not have any official accreditation, right, in the countries that they’re operating, and they’re not officially registered as diplomats of the Chinese. But also the buildings that they’re operating in don’t have any legal sovereignty to say that they’re Chinese territory. That’s really the kind of issue that we’re facing. It’s why we were concerned about the shadow policing, is that you’re having individuals from the Chinese intelligence community essentially claiming jurisdiction in our countries outside of embassies and outside of any diplomatic credentials.
[00:16:07] Dominic Bowen: And if we can take this all the way back to Hong Kong and to China, can you help us understand? I think many people understand, as you mentioned, about the Chinese law and how that extends to Chinese citizens or anyone of Chinese ethnicity, regardless of what nationality they may regard themselves. But the Hong Kong National Security Law talks about the extraterritorial dimension. So can you talk to us about how this changed and what changed in 2020 and how Hong Kong’s own national security legislation is affecting people from Hong Kong who now live overseas?
[00:16:40] Sam Goodman: Yeah. So really we have to go back to 1997. Not to bore you with a history lesson, but Hong Kong used to be a British colony. We handed it back to China in 1997 and we did so with an agreement, which is the Joint Declaration, where we said that the limited democracy that the Brits had introduced would be maintained for 50 years.
[00:16:58] Sam Goodman: And that included independent courts, free media, direct elections to their parliament. But also the Chinese promised in this document that the Hong Kong Chief Executive, who’s a bit like a governor, I guess, of Hong Kong, would be elected eventually by universal suffrage. Now, in 2014, the Chinese published a white paper where they say, actually, this doesn’t feel like a good idea. We don’t really want to do this. Instead, we’ll select two candidates and you can pick out the two that we select who’ve been pre-screened.
[00:17:25] Sam Goodman: And this led to huge protests in Hong Kong and the birth really of the pro-democracy movement there. And then these protests really continue up until 2019, where you have another bill, an extradition bill, that essentially would allow Hong Kongers for the first time to be extradited to mainland China, to stand trial. And at that point, about two million Hong Kongers come out on the street. And given that, you know, the population of Hong Kong is close to seven million, that’s a big number. That’s nearly one in three Hong Kongers.
[00:17:51] Sam Goodman: Now, this obviously shocked the Chinese, right? They were really worried about this particularly. What really shocked them is this idea of a Hong Kong identity that increasingly, particularly amongst the young Hong Kongers, they were more associating with being Hong Kongers than being mainland Chinese, which was never the plan, right? The plan in the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party was that they got Hong Kong back, they integrated Hong Kong back into China. That was the end of the story.
[00:18:16] Sam Goodman: Now, their response to these protests was the National Security Law that was brought in in July 2020, which essentially criminalises three things. It criminalises sedition, that’s essentially saying things that Hong Kong should be its own country, or, you know, Hong Kong independence, which was a slogan in 2019 amongst some of the young people. It criminalises subversion. It doesn’t define very clearly what subversion is, so we can discuss whatever the hell that means. And it also criminalises collusion with foreign political forces, which it defines very broadly and could mean anything from a Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker going to the US Embassy for a roundtable event to taking money from individuals outside of Hong Kong if you did a crowdfunder, for instance, or maybe even speaking on a panel right outside of Hong Kong, you know, if Nathan Law, who’s one of the pro-democracy activists, spoke at a panel in, say, Italy, that could count.
[00:19:08] Sam Goodman: And the problem with this law, of course, is that it doesn’t just apply to activity in Hong Kong, it applies to activity everywhere. And you don’t need to be in Hong Kong. And obviously, as we’ve discussed, just because you’ve left Hong Kong doesn’t mean that the Hong Kong government isn’t interested in what you’re doing outside of Hong Kong. And so that’s really where I think the problems are with this law, that it’s been used to essentially round up all of the pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong and put them in jail. But it’s also being used to target Hong Kongers overseas who continue to speak out against the Hong Kong government.
[00:19:39] Dominic Bowen: And I’d love to hear more about that, Sam, because I understand that Hong Kong Watch, an organisation, released a survey this month that found that many Hong Kongers in the UK actually feel at risk of transnational repression from Hong Kong and China. They said there’s that fear of infiltration within their communities, the identification of them in their roles and what they’re doing today, but also concern for family members back home. And I guess that means that we could look at these individuals as potential victims of repression, but they could also be threats to many companies. And I know that’s the way many business leaders are quite concerned about employing people from Iran, from India, from China, from Russia, countries that have a reputation for repression and a reputation for intimidating family members back home in order to get nationals who are now living in Europe and North America to collect information, to share information. How should we be understanding people from Hong Kong who are now working in legitimate roles for legitimate companies and government agencies?
[00:20:34] Dominic Bowen: Are they victims or are they potential threats? How do we understand that situation?
[00:20:39] Sam Goodman: I mean, I think the threat-victim dynamic is too binary, right? I think a lot of the Hong Kongers who’ve left Hong Kong, yes, they’re very sympathetic to democratic values, otherwise they wouldn’t have left Hong Kong and brought their families with them. But many of them want a relatively normal life, like, they are not going to be doing activism every day of the week. They’ve come to the UK, they’ve come to America, they’ve left Hong Kong for better lives. And about half a million Hong Kongers have left since 2020.
[00:21:06] Sam Goodman: And that’s a pretty conservative estimate. I think you’re right to talk about the fear within the Hong Kong community, certainly something I experienced when I worked at Hong Kong Watch. Every time I talked with people within the community, there is this paranoia that they’re being watched and this real risk of infiltration. Sure.
[00:21:21] Sam Goodman: But the other problem, as you pointed out, is that for those that have their families in Hong Kong, there’s always a risk that their family members will be targeted. It’s common practice in China for family members to be targeted of dissidents. They’re normally invited for cups of tea with the Ministry of State Security, which is a polite euphemism for essentially an interrogation, essentially being sat down and asked about their family members overseas and then asked to communicate with their family members overseas to get them to stop their activities. Sometimes it may also require their family members trying to get them to go back to China as well. So this is also a dynamic that’s at play in the Hong Kong community as well, and we have to be cognizant of that.
[00:22:02] Sam Goodman: That doesn’t mean that we should look at the Hong Kong community with suspicion, nor should we view them purely with sympathy. We should treat them as we would want to be treated. I think it’s a very difficult situation and there aren’t necessarily easy answers of what local enforcement or what businesses can do really to respond to this.
[00:22:20] Dominic Bowen: And I’m wondering about the UK’s response and proactivity. I mean, there’s the National Security Act from about three years ago, 2023, that was designed to update the UK’s tools against state activity, such as this. You know, we’ve all seen in the newspaper the controversy of China’s plan for its new embassy near the Royal Mint, near the Tower of London. And of course, it’s, you know, very close access to really sensitive fibre optic cables. You know, many people are saying this creates espionage risk, this creates even more access to Chinese security services and is able to provide surveillance and pressure on Chinese and Hong Kong dissidents living in the UK. How seriously do you think the current government in the UK is taking this threat?
[00:23:01] Sam Goodman: The problem that the current government has, I think, particularly with the issue of the embassy, is that they inherited this issue from the last government. Essentially the government of Boris Johnson agreed to sell the site of the Royal Mint building to China and then we’ve ended up in a long dispute about the planning permission. I think Boris Johnson’s predecessors were less keen on the site, but then the Chinese essentially threatened the UK and said that if the UK didn’t essentially agree to this new embassy site, there wouldn’t be engagement on economic talks, but also the UK wouldn’t be able to renovate its own embassy in Beijing. I actually was at one of the first protests outside the embassy when the site was announced that it was going forward.
[00:23:41] Sam Goodman: And the one thing I took away was just the huge amount of Hong Kongers that were there. I mean, there were thousands of people, but the lion’s share of people protesting the embassy site was the Hong Kong community, for the very reason that you’ve highlighted, which is that many of them feel that this huge and enhanced embassy site will be used as a base of operations to target them.
[00:24:01] Dominic Bowen: And I wonder, you know, continuing on with my curiosity around the UK’s seriousness and the ability to respond, I’ve heard a lot of commentators talking about, you know, the rise of AI and how, you know, studying Mandarin and Cantonese is such a silly idea. But, you know, I actually still don’t understand that particular analysis because I think cultural understanding and linguistic understanding of our allies and our adversaries is just critical for intelligence collection and security and defence of our countries. So when you look at the police forces and the security services within the UK, you mentioned translation earlier in our conversation.
[00:24:37] Dominic Bowen: Is there enough linguistic, is there enough cultural understanding to actually identify transnational repression and support local communities and conduct the sort of monitoring and response that we expect of our security services today?
[00:24:51] Sam Goodman: It’s not just transnational repression, also when it comes to criminal gangs as well. A friend of mine who looks at this, who does a lot of research around Chinese criminal gangs, points to the fact that there’s a real lack of translators in the police force for particular regional dialects when it comes to China. So he highlighted the fact that a lot of allegedly Chinese criminal gangs come from the Fujian province and that there aren’t many translators who understand that dialect and those that do, these criminal gangs are aware of. So it makes it very difficult if you’re a translator, if you’re going to translate against people who know you and know your family. That’s a very difficult issue. I think AI can help.
[00:25:28] Sam Goodman: Surely it can supplement some of this, but it’s not going to be able to do all the work. One of my big pleas to the government has always been to use the Hong Kong community as a resource. Right. These are people who have the linguistic skills. They clearly believe in democratic values because they’ve come here at great financial disadvantage themselves in many ways as political refugees.
[00:25:47] Sam Goodman: And I think they’re very keen to help. Of course, you’d have to vet these people, but you should be able to find, you know, 10, 15, 20 Hong Kongers who’d be willing to offer translation services for police forces across the country. And overnight, I think you could really increase the capacity for getting around and dealing with some of these issues.
[00:26:05] Dominic Bowen: And one question that we ask all guests on The International Risk Podcast is, Sam, I know you do a lot of work and you’ve spoken a lot about different foreign policy issues over the years, but when you look around the world today, what are the international risks that concern you the most?
[00:26:19] Sam Goodman: I think if you work on China, you’re always going to be worried about Taiwan and anything that will happen in the Taiwan Strait. Not just because of the amount of traffic that goes through the Taiwan Strait in terms of cargo traffic, but the fact alone that Taiwan produces around 93% of the world’s high-value chips. The things that go in your smartphones, the things that are powering the AI revolution, and that you simply cannot replace that. If TSMC went out of business tomorrow, we’d be in real trouble. And there’s been some great analysis done by Rhodium, the think tank, looking at some of the ballpark figures of what a Taiwan crisis might cost the global economy.
[00:26:55] Sam Goodman: And it’s huge. I mean, it’s scary numbers. It would be bigger than the 2008 financial crash and bigger than the economic hit of COVID-19. And in some ways, I think that’s what makes it so difficult for policymakers to get their heads around. Even more difficult now today with what’s going on with Iran.
[00:27:09] Sam Goodman: Right. It’s very hard to get people to pay attention to the next huge crisis that’s going to change the world when they’re still trying to deal with the one that they’ve got right in front of them. But I think this is something that more people need to be thinking about, thinking about Taiwan, thinking about the supply chain issues, but also the broader economic issues and also, I suppose, thinking more about democracy as well. You know, do we want democracy in the Indo-Pacific region? Are we willing to stand up for democracy?
[00:27:32] Sam Goodman: And at what cost? So I think this is always something that I like to remind people about whenever I’m on podcasts or panels, that we should all probably be thinking a lot more about Taiwan.
[00:27:42] Dominic Bowen: It’d be remiss, noting what you just said then, Sam, for me not to ask a follow-up question. I mean, Donald Trump, President of the USA, just had face-to-face meetings with Xi Jinping in China and of course, it appears that Donald Trump has come away with not much more than he could have achieved on a phone call. But Xi Jinping did take the very clear opportunity to talk about non-interference and to not get in the way of reunification with Taiwan. It’s been what, 24, 48 hours since that visit’s completed. How are you feeling when you think about that visit and what the Chinese state said and how the US responded?
[00:28:15] Dominic Bowen: How are you feeling today about, as Donald Trump said, the G2 and the risks for the Indo-Pacific region?
[00:28:21] Sam Goodman: Going into this summit between Xi and Trump, there was a lot of fear that Trump was going to give the house away, particularly on arms sales to Taiwan or language around Taiwan. But actually, what he said was quite consistent with US policy. The US has always maintained strategic ambiguity in regards to Taiwan, where it certainly won’t comment on supporting independence and it will reaffirm the status quo. Of course, you’re right to say the Chinese got the sound bite and the clip that they wanted, which essentially was Trump warning President Lai in Taiwan about independence.
[00:28:50] Sam Goodman: But ultimately, I don’t think the details or the reality of what’s going on right now actually changes in the Taiwan Strait. It’s more of the same. Sure, there’s this talk of a G2, but I think structurally what’s going on between the US and China right now is essentially China challenging the Americans economically and geopolitically and some people arguing the Americans being on the back foot means that the dynamic and the relationship between them is always going to be fractious. And for the rest of the world, we’re going to have to navigate that.
[00:29:17] Dominic Bowen: Yeah. Thanks very much for that analysis, Sam, and thank you very much for coming on The International Risk Podcast today.
[00:29:22] Sam Goodman: My pleasure.
[00:29:23] Dominic Bowen: Well, that was a great conversation with Sam Goodman. Sam’s the Senior Policy Director at the China Strategic Risks Institute and he’s the co-founder of the New Diplomacy Project. And I really appreciated hearing Sam’s thoughts on how Chinese and Hong Kong authorities are projecting power beyond their borders, but also our vulnerabilities and the associated international risks. Today’s podcast was produced and coordinated by Edward Penrose. I’m Dominic Bowen, your host.
[00:29:45] Dominic Bowen: Thanks very much for listening. We’ll speak again in the next couple of days. Thank you for listening to this episode of The International Risk Podcast. For more episodes and articles, visit TheInternationalRiskPodcast.com.
[00:29:57] Dominic Bowen: Follow us on LinkedIn, Bluesky and Instagram for the latest updates and to ask your questions to our host, Dominic Bowen. See you next time.