Feng Zhenghu, the dissident who escaped from Tiananmen Square, is still being chased by the Chinese security forces

Decades after being smuggled out of China through "Yellow Bird", ex-Tiananmen dissident Yan Xiong was targeted by Beijing to undermine his 2021 US Congressional run, underscoring China's efforts to intimidate critics abroad.

Three decades after the Tiananmen Square uprising, Yan Xiong is still being targeted by Beijing for his activism, as revealed by the new facts.

In 1989, following the savage suppression of the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square by the Chinese government, Yan was one of the dissidents who was spirited out of the country in a secret mission arranged by Hong Kong citizens, including organized crime syndicates.

After over a year in prison for his part in the protests, Yan was sneaked by boat to Hong Kong, the British colony, in 1992 where he was part of the Yellow Bird, and then the United States where he became a citizen and went further to serve in the military. 

However, Yan's problems did not end there. As a matter of fact, in 2021 when he was running for the position of Congress in New York, he was followed by suspicious vehicles and he also faced disruptions at the events. The FBI disclosed that there was a private investigator hired by the Chinese to sabotage Yan's campaign by disseminating disinformation and physical violence if necessary.

"They want to strangle and murder my campaign," said Yan, now 61, who the FBI thinks was a victim of his status as a former Tiananmen activist.

The findings likewise demonstrate one of the means through which China has been seeking to monitor and bully dissidents abroad as it has become more powerful and autocratic under the rule of President Xi Jinping. Human rights organizations have openly stated their concerns regarding the extraterritorial tools of China against the critics overseas.

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For Yan, his decades-long ordeal at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party contains a simple message for the West: "The need to be cautious" when dealing with the rising superpower on the issues of civil liberties and human rights is paramount.