China is deploying a growing army of groups masquerading as nongovernmental organizations (NGO) to monitor and intimidate rights activists at the United Nations, an investigation found.
Dubbed “China Targets,” the investigation involving 42 media organizations delves into the tactics Beijing uses to silence critics beyond its borders.
One segment of the probe published in April 2025 by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) deals with China’s increasing offensive at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. It focuses on the growing presence at the council of pro-China, government-organized NGOs, referred to as “Gongos.”
Such groups crowd into council sessions to praise China and present glowing accounts of its actions that are largely at odds with U.N. and expert findings of widespread rights violations and repression.
A 2022 report published by the then U.N. human rights chief, for instance, cited possible “crimes against humanity” against the Uyghur minority in China’s western Xinjiang region. Other reports highlighted the separation of Tibetan children from their families and the targeting of democracy activists in Hong Kong.
But when legitimate NGOs raise such issues at the council, Gongos often strive to disrupt the session and drown out their testimonies, the ICIJ reported.
The number of Chinese NGOs registered with the U.N. has nearly doubled since 2018, the report found. An ICIJ analysis of 106 NGOs from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and self-governed Taiwan registered with the U.N. found that 59 had close links to the Chinese government or Chinese Communist Party.
“It’s corrosive. It’s dishonest,” Michele Taylor, who served as the United States ambassador to the Human Rights Council from 2022 to January 2025, was quoted as saying in the report.
She decried Beijing’s broader attempt “to obfuscate their own human rights violations and reshape the narrative.”
Increasingly, the Beijing-controlled groups also monitor and intimidate those planning to testify about alleged abuses, the investigation found.
The ICIJ and its partners said they spoke with 15 activists and lawyers focused on rights issues in China who “described being surveilled or harassed by people suspected to be proxies for the Chinese government.”
Such incidents occurred inside the U.N. and elsewhere in Geneva.
The report highlighted how a group of Chinese activists and dissidents were so fearful of Beijing’s swelling presence at the council that they refused to enter the U.N. buildings in March 2024.
“Instead, they gathered for a secret meeting on the top floor of a nondescript office building nearby” with U.N. rights chief Volker Türk, the report said.
However, four people claiming to work with the Guangdong Human Rights Association suddenly arrived and asked about the meeting, to which they were not invited.
Zumretay Arkin, vice president of the World Uyghur Congress, told the ICIJ that she believed the Guangdong group was sending a message from Beijing: “We’re watching you. … You can’t escape us.”
