They've been known to go after a Swedish citizen in Thailand. The Chinese government revoked his Swedish citizenship after the fact to justify the kidnapping.
It makes no difference whether China is only targeting people whose ancestry traces to Sweden or Xiamen. If they aren’t a resident of China it’s not their business, even if they still have relatives back there.
Why does it matter? Why is that point relevant or being made?
It certainly protects you from harassment by the CCP.
It does matter, because as far as I tell, there’s been zero case the gov was after a person from non-Chinese roots. I’ve also seen similar cases in other countries like some south asians/arab countries, they are only after their own/previous citizens no matter what’s their nationality. Now you may ask why?! It’s simple, those are the most influential to the local public against the current regime than say a white guy lecturing Chinese people about freedom, he/she will never have the same impact than a local one who’s outside and away from any coercive or persuasive or any consequences.
My objection is that the way it’s been phrased in this thread it’s almost giving the impression that “it’s not an American issue” that it’s China going after its own so “normal” Americans don’t need to care.
That outlook is dangerous and false. They are us, they are Americans. I’m sure China would love to propagate otherwise.
https://www.npr.org/2020/02/25/809163417/hong-kong-bookselle...
Apples and oranges to an extent but not that different to the west's treatment of Assange. The core difference being, Assange published information that highly embarassed the DOD and documented its war crimes causing a significant disturbance in the status quo for allies and the US whereas Gui apparently only published information that embarassed Xi Jinping's family. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange
Another example that comes to mind is that of Israel's kidnap of Vanunu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu
At least it wasn't simply death as per Saudi's assassination of Khashoggi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamal_Khashoggi
Alternatively, imagine if the boat you are on at the edge of an ocean on the other side of the world is suddenly blown up by a highly trained team of special ops people for a western government, as France did to Greenpeace's vessel in Auckland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior
Or even, in the same country, having a multi helicopter airborne assault team and 76 ground based personnel raid your house because you are accused by the US government of breaking copyright rules on the internet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom
Truly, it may be said that governments - whatever their continent or nominal ideological configuration - can be quite nasty to individuals and dismissive of due process. Further, they are effectively powerless to call one another to justice on such matters, and a certain amount of this sort of thing is perhaps tacitly accepted as normal covert and intelligence agency activity. Usually it becomes some sort of diplomatic or political straight-lipped talking point with apologies or statements issued many years past the fact, failing whatsoever to make amends. However, every time this occurs it fundamentally weakens territorial integrity and thus the legitimacy of governments globally, causing populations to cast them in the same light as predatory profit focused multinational corporations or - let's be honest - organized crime.