It isn't improbable that the author and her immediate family is in the US, and that the Party will have limited reach on the author.
Chinese society is extremely family-oriented. Xi Jinping has been much more aggressive with government power than his immediate predecessors, but his biggest themes are conservative and traditional. Lots of taoism and confucius.
I'd posit that their government doesn't go after (han chinese) families because it turns one dissident into 50.