In this powerful episode, Ray Powell and Jim Carouso sit down with Yaqiu Wang, a leading human rights advocate and fellow at the University of Chicago’s Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression. Born and raised in China, Wang offers a rare, insider perspective on what it really means to live under Xi Jinping’s surveillance state - and why the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) domestic repression is no longer just a “China problem,” but a direct threat to global freedom and Indo-Pacific security.

Most Westerners assume Chinese citizens have struck a “grand bargain” - trading freedom for economic prosperity. Wang dismantles this myth, revealing a population that never agreed to this trade-off but is coerced into silence by a sophisticated apparatus of fear. She explains how the CCP exports its model of digital authoritarianism to countries across  ...