He escaped China. Harassment followed him to a New York courtroom

CHAPTER 1

The knock on Christmas Eve

LONG ISLAND, New York — Ma Ju was in the kitchen making dinner on Christmas Eve 2023 when he heard a knock. The woman on the doorstep of his two-story suburban Long Island home held a manila envelope in her hand. “Mr. Ju Ma?” she asked. “Yes,” he said. 

She told him she was a lawyer from Nassau County, asked for his signature, and handed him the document.

“My eyesight isn’t great,” Ma recalled with a weary chuckle. “I glanced at it briefly and thought, ‘Huh? Who’s suing me?’” He paused, his smile fading. “At the time, I thought it might be a joke.”

Ma, a Hui Muslim originally from China, had arrived in the United States just four years earlier and had been waiting on his asylum claim ever since. But by 2023 he had become a well-known activist and vocal critic of the government in China. Christmas was not a traditional holiday in his faith, but the family had adopted it in exile. “As long as it’s a happy holiday, we’ll celebrate it,” Ma liked to say.

In Beijing’s crosshairs

Ma Ju’s clash with Beijing began long before his U.S. exile.

Born in China in 1974, Ma came from a prominent Hui Muslim family. The Hui, China’s third-largest ethnic minority, number around 11 million and live primarily in the country’s western regions. 

Unlike Uyghurs — another predominantly Muslim group — the Hui share ethnic and linguistic ties with the Han majority, with religion as their primary distinction. Beijing’s policies toward the Hui have historically been more lenient than those toward the Uyghurs, but restrictions have tightened in recent years.

Ma left China initially to complete his theology studies in Syria, but by the early 2000s he had returned and launched a mining investment business in his hometown of Gansu. His rising wealth and growing prominence made him a target for recruitment by the United Front Work Department, a powerful arm of the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, that works to extend Beijing’s influence by cultivating ties with business leaders, academics and other elites. 

Operating largely behind the scenes, the department plays a key role in shaping public opinion, suppressing dissent and advancing the party’s interests both in China and abroad.

According to sworn statements Ma filed to the Nassau court, party officials repeatedly urged him to take a seat in the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the top advisory body in the party’s United Front system. Though billed as a forum for political consultation, the conference largely serves to rally support for party policies and reinforce its control. A seat would have given Ma access to elite political circles but also required him to swear loyalty to the state.

“They wanted me to play a role in their system — to be a token representative,” Ma said. He declined each time but was careful not to offend the officials who approached him.

But in 2008, Ma began openly criticizing the CCP and its policies toward ethnic minorities after witnessing the Chinese government’s crackdown in Lhasa, Tibet. He wrote articles drawing comparisons between the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 1936 Berlin Games under Nazi rule.

He has said that he became a target of the state the following year after deadly riots in Urumqi, the capital of China’s Xinjiang region, prompted a sweeping crackdown on the country’s Muslim population. Ma, who had been funding orphanages, mosques and other charitable causes in the region, was detained for 15 days in Gansu and labeled a “terrorist” — a designation Beijing has often used against ethnic minorities, according to his sworn testimony in Nassau County Court. 

He was released, but he realized staying in China was no longer an option. He fled with his family, eventually settling in Dubai in 2011. RFA could not independently verify his account, but his experience is consistent with reports from human rights organizations, testimony from other victims who have seen similar harassment, and international media coverage.

From abroad, Ma continued to speak out online against China’s human rights abuses. But he found that distance offered little refuge from the CCP. Beijing representatives continued to attempt to persuade him to join party activities. 

The pressure intensified after Xi Jinping took power in 2012. China’s new leader aggressively pushed to bring religion and ethnic minorities more firmly under state control — a campaign branded as “Sinicization.” In practice, this meant restricting non-Mandarin language instruction, closing mosques and churches, and increasing surveillance of religious leaders and dissidents like Ma. 

Xi also devoted more resources to the United Front, which enhanced its ability to coerce or co-opt overseas figures into supporting the CCP’s agenda.

In 2014, while Ma was visiting family in China, senior officials from the United Front made him another offer over an elaborate meal in Beijing: a seat in the consultative conference. This time, a warning for noncompliance was explicit, according to Ma. 

“You cannot defy the party,” he said he was told. “If you continue to resist, it will not end well for you, your family or your community.”

Once again, Ma refused. Then came a lawsuit.

CHAPTER 2

Jurisprudence— with Chinese characteristics

In 2016, a few years after settling in Dubai, Ma learned that a state-owned enterprise, Yaojie Coal, was suing him in Gansu. A friend, who was the head of Yaojie Coal’s legal department, told him in private that Chinese authorities had ordered the company to file the lawsuit and that it had “no real basis” in fact, according to court filings he submitted to Nassau county. 

The case stemmed from a 2008 coal deal between Ma’s business associate, An Wujun, and Yaojie Coal. An had sold his 80% stake in a coal mine to Yaojie for 190 million yuan (equal to about $28 million at the time), while Ma retained his 20% stake, which remained untouched. However, the company paid An only 80 million yuan (about $11.8 million at that time) and never settled the balance. 

When An attempted to recover the unpaid sum through legal action, authorities strongarmed him into settling privately, warning that the courts would not rule in his favor, according to Ma’s filing. 

Fearing for his safety, An turned to Ma for help. In 2012, Ma signed a termination contract on An’s behalf, a move Ma’s legal team argues did not make him liable for any payments. Ma also never saw the 80 million yuan in question.

Nevertheless, Yaojie Coal sued Ma, and in 2017, a Chinese court ruled that he must repay the 80 million yuan — money he said he had never received— plus interest and court fees, bringing the total to 91.6 million yuan ($12.5 million, the amount now demanded from Ma).

Days after the ruling, Ma said he received a phone call from the same United Front official who had previously tried to recruit him. “You cannot defy the party,” the person said.

To Ma, the message was clear: the lawsuit, the opaque judicial process and the court’s final ruling were all part of the party’s pressure campaign against him. He says his lawyer in China withdrew from the case after being threatened. No attorney was willing to step in, and Ma, living now outside of China, abandoned his appeal.

According to legal experts RFA spoke with, Ma’s experience is typical of China’s judicial system under Xi. Since cementing his authority, Xi has revived a Mao-era tactic, reshaping the legal system into what he calls the party’s “knife handle” — a tool of control rather than justice.

At the heart of this strategy is the Communist Party’s "three warfare" doctrine, which combines public opinion, legal warfare (or “lawfare”) and “psychological tactics” — meaning harassment — to undermine opponents. 

Scholars argue that under Xi, lawfare has become a far more explicit and aggressive tool for targeting dissidents and critics. Charges like embezzlement, tax evasion and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” are commonly used to suppress dissent, often leading to asset seizures and other punitive measures within China. 

Now, Beijing is extending these legal tactics beyond its borders, using litigation as a form of transnational repression.

“Pursuing dissidents overseas through common litigation is a new form of suppression and worthy of our attention,” said Yu Ping, a scholar at Columbia University with more than 40 years of expertise in Chinese law. "No state-owned enterprise would initiate a case like this without higher-level approval,” said Yu, referring to Ma’s case.

Ma was an ideal prey for lawfare, experts say, due to his religious background and his prominent role as a human rights activist. His outspoken support for the Chinese democracy movement abroad further elevated his profile as a target.

“In politically sensitive cases, it’s not the judges who have the final say,” said a former Chinese judge who spent decades in the country’s legal system and is not being named to protect his safety. “It’s the Communist Party. They can fabricate evidence, manipulate proceedings and dictate both the charges and the verdict.”

According to testimony Ma Ju provided for his case in Nassau County Court, Chinese authorities used the ruling to seize all his assets in China, including real estate and the 20% stake in his company, with a total value exceeding 55 million yuan.

“This is a robbery,” Ma wrote in his defense statement. An, Ma’s former associate, who is believed to have held assets worth 80 million yuan, could not be reached.

CHAPTER 3

A horse before the precipice

Ma continued his activism even after his legal battles in China. If anything, exile gave him a bigger platform.

In 2018, Ma launched a YouTube channel analyzing Chinese and international politics, attracting tens of thousands of viewers. As his influence expanded, so did Beijing’s pressure.

It extended to his family. Chinese authorities had interrogated his wife, mother and sister when they were in China, ordering them to try to persuade him to stop speaking out. At other times, they were warned that their jobs and businesses in China would suffer if they didn’t cooperate.

After receiving warnings that Beijing was seeking his extradition through diplomatic channels, Ma fled Dubai in 2019, according to his court testimony. His exile resumed in the United States.

Then, on July 20, 2023, Ma received a voice message from his uncle in China. He said he knew immediately what it was: a final warning from the Communist Party. 

RFA reviewed the recording. His uncle’s voice was steady, deliberate, almost rehearsed. 

“Rein in the horse at the edge of the precipice,” he said, using a Chinese proverb that means to turn back before it’s too late. “Don’t go against the state. Don’t become an American lackey. Don’t bring shame to the family. And above all, never challenge the Communist Party. Everything we have, we owe to the party.”

That same day, Ma responded on his YouTube channel, which by then had close to 40,000 subscribers.

“I received a message from the head of my family today, telling me I had 10 days to shut up or be expelled from the Ma lineage,” he said, looking directly into the camera. He smirked. “Ten days? I don’t need 10 days.”

“I will not be silenced,” he said.

Five days after Ma’s video, Chinese state-owned media published an article denouncing him as a “shameless traitor.”

A lawsuit in New York followed a few months later, in December.

The plaintiff, the Chinese state-owned coal company, framed the case as a straightforward contract dispute. But Ma’s lawyers argued it was a politically motivated effort by the Chinese Communist Party to punish him for speaking out against the regime. They contended that the 2017 judgment was based on a series of unjust legal proceedings in China and urged the U.S. court not to rely on the verdict.

Ma's lawyers sought the original termination agreement, but the opposing party provided only Chinese court rulings and enforcement documents. Ma’s request for an oral hearing was denied.

On Aug. 13, Judge Rhonda Erin Fischer ruled against Ma, ordering him to pay $12.5 million. The judge wrote that she based her decision on several factors. The court accepted Chinese court documents, authenticated by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as valid. It also reaffirmed New York’s practice of recognizing foreign judgments to maintain international legal reciprocity. 

The judge also found Ma’s legal team failed to provide sufficient evidence that China’s judicial system is fundamentally biased or does not meet international standards.

Julian Ku, a law professor at Hofstra University, said U.S. judges find it tricky to overturn foreign court rulings, particularly in commercial cases. “There’s a general deference to foreign courts as long as they meet minimum due process standards,” he told RFA. “The idea is to foster mutual respect, ensuring that U.S. judgments are also recognized abroad.

“Our courts are open to all nationalities, which is a strength,” he said. “But that openness is also being tested. They’ve learned how to use the legal systems of other countries to advance the [Chinese Communist] Party's interests.” 

China’s use of the U.S. legal system in cases like this amounts to “asymmetric lawfare,” he added.

When Ma spoke to RFA in December 2024, he was in the midst of searching for yet another new lawyer to support his legal team. Nearly a year into his legal battle in the U.S., he was down to one counsel. Three attorneys had turned him down, each citing business or family ties to China. “The case is too sensitive,” Ma said, running a hand through his graying hair. 

In the previous year, Ma’s human rights advocacy had all but ground to a halt. In addition to scrambling to secure new representation, Ma found himself responding to demands from the company suing him. As part of the court ruling, he was required to disclose his assets, cash flow and close contacts in China — a request he saw as particularly troubling.

Such lists, he argued, are often used by Chinese authorities to pressure dissidents.

A long legal arm

Awareness is growing that China and other authoritarian regimes are exploiting the U.S. legal system to target critics, but tools to push back remain limited.

In September 2024, a U.S. congressional committee held a hearing about the issue. “The Chinese Communist Party that has already squashed freedom at home now seeks to export its authoritarian model of control across the globe,” committee chairman, Rep. John Moolenaar, said at the hearing. 

“It is now trying to exploit the American legal system,” he warned.

Just how many lawsuits are directly backed by the Chinese government is difficult to say. Legal experts note that many cases likely remain under the radar, with state proxies initiating the cases to obscure Beijing’s direct involvement.

"A lot of these threats happen behind closed doors," said Zambrano, the Stanford legal scholar. "Before a lawsuit is filed, there’s usually a letter from a lawyer saying, 'Withdraw your statement, or we will sue.' We rarely see these letters, but there are likely hundreds of them circulating, trying to intimidate anyone who challenges China."

But even a few cases can have a chilling effect.

These cases bear the hallmarks of a class of lawsuits known as “Slapps” — Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. The goal of these is to drown defendants in legal fees and proceedings in order to pressure or bankrupt them into silence.

Legal scholars say they have been used by many authoritarian governments, but that China is the worst offender. 

Although the majority of U.S. states now have anti-Slapp statutes due to past abuses stemming from these lawsuits, experts like Zambrano point to a key gap: there is no comprehensive federal equivalent. This leaves critics particularly vulnerable in cross-border cases.

“The truth is, there are currently no straightforward legal tools for defendants to quickly defeat claims by foreign dictators,” Zambrano said. “Even a single case is enough to cause concern. The whole point of the lawsuit is to impose the costs. They don't care whether they lose.”

And these cases are happening elsewhere in the West as well. Just this month, the prominent Uyghur scholar Dilnur Reyhan was sued in French court in a case recognized as a Slapp.

Operation Fox Hunt

Much of the strategy China has been employing over the past decade to flex its authority abroad can be traced back to 2014. That year, Beijing launched a wide-ranging anti-corruption campaign called Operation Fox Hunt intended to track and repatriate fugitives who fled abroad.

While Beijing claims the focus is on corrupt officials, U.S. officials argue the operation increasingly targets political opponents, dissidents and critics of the regime.

Through Fox Hunt, Beijing has sought to bypass official extradition channels, attempting to repatriate Chinese nationals accused of violating Chinese laws without involving U.S. authorities. 

In 2014, a senior Chinese official openly briefed reporters about using “lawsuits in the U.S.” as a means of pursuing fugitives, citing the absence of an extradition treaty and “the U.S.'s unpreparedness” as key reasons for this strategy. This was one of the earliest public acknowledgments of Beijing's intention to leverage the U.S. legal system to advance its enforcement agenda.

In 2019, Chinese officials celebrated the success of one such case, claiming that a civil lawsuit in California had created "enormous pressure" on the target, which was “instrumental in convincing him to return to China.”

RFA has identified at least seven civil lawsuits filed by Chinese state-owned enterprises or individuals connected to the Chinese government in U.S. courts over the past six years, in New York, New Jersey and California. Five of these cases are linked directly to Fox Hunt. At least three are under FBI investigation, RFA has found. 

These lawsuits follow a consistent pattern: harassment by Chinese authorities, threats to family members in China, and, eventually, legal action in U.S. courts.

At least one notable case has resulted in the arrest and indictment of Chinese agents on U.S. soil. It involved a scheme to forcibly and illegally repatriate a U.S. citizen, who has never been named. 

The Justice Department described the October 2022 case as part of Beijing’s broader campaign of transnational repression. It involved not only surveillance and harassment, but also a civil lawsuit that, according to the indictment, “lacked merit and was filed at the behest of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] government solely to harass” the defendant.

Court documents reviewed by RFA reveal that the target was Liu Shenxiang, a former general manager of the Chinese state-owned enterprise Shanghai Qilu, who fled China for the United States in 2000, saying he was persecuted for his political views. Liu became a U.S. citizen in 2013, but two years later, he found himself on a list of fugitives targeted under Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s Fox Hunt campaign.

Chinese authorities accused Liu of embezzling 2 million yuan from the company and placed him on a list of China’s top 100 fugitives, making him a prime target for repatriation. According to Justice Department filings, Chinese officials then began applying pressure on Liu directly, through means that “infringed upon U.S. national sovereignty,” demanding his return to face charges in China.

First, Chinese officials traveled to New York, under the pretense of tourism, bringing along one of Liu’s relatives and his supervisor to persuade Liu to return voluntarily. When that failed, Shanghai Qilu filed a civil suit in New York against Liu and his son, seeking damages of about 2 million yuan (equal to about $285,000).

A central player in the pressure campaign was An Quanzhong, a well-connected leader in New York’s Chinese community. According to court documents, An tracked Liu’s movements and passed along messages from Beijing. An told Liu that if he returned to China, the lawsuit would be dropped — but if he stayed in the United States, the litigation would continue.

“It will be an endless misery,” An told Liu, according to the indictment. 

In August 2024, An pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered agent for the Chinese government. He is scheduled to be sentenced this month.

Following An’s indictment, the lawyer representing the state-owned enterprise against Liu withdrew from the case. In a letter to the court, the lawyer, Thomas J. Benedetti, cited concerns that “the present action may be an attempt by the Chinese government to coerce Defendants’ return to China or otherwise harm Defendants.”

Benedetti did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Radio Free Asia.

CHAPTER 4

The court in Mineola

The air in the courtroom in Mineola, the seat of the Nassau County Court, felt heavy, with the kind of weight that settles onto shoulders when a case drags on for too long. It was January 2025, and Ma stood quietly in his dark suit, watching everything unfold. Through it all, Ma said, he still “believes in the process, respects the process.”

Ma’s counsel, Times Wang, a human rights lawyer at Farra & Wang PLLC who has represented him since the case began, has spent much of his career handling cases related to China. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this — a dissident sued so openly in an American court, and the system failed to protect him,” Wang told RFA.

Wang’s own father, Wang Bingzhang, was one of the earliest leaders of China’s overseas pro-democracy movement. In 2002, while meeting with fellow activists near the China-Vietnam border, the elder Wang was abducted and taken back to China, where he was sentenced to life in prison on charges of espionage and terrorism — allegations that human rights groups, the United Nations and the U.S. Congress have all condemned as politically motivated. Now in his 70s, he remains behind bars.

When Ma’s case landed on his desk, Wang knew he had to take it. “I understand exactly what it means to stand up publicly against the Communist Party,” he said. “People willing to take that kind of risk — they need support. They need someone to stand with them.”

In early 2025, Ma’s legal team got a boost when Michael Herbert Masri, a seasoned New York litigator, joined the defense. Masri understood exile in his own way — his family fled religious persecution in Iraq. Reflecting on Ma’s ordeal, Masri told RFA, “Let me put it this way: I don’t believe a Jew fleeing Germany would expect a fair trial in a German court.”

At the January status hearing, Masri’s arrival injected fresh urgency — and a sharper edge — into the more-than-a-year-long case. Across the aisle sat Edward G. Toptani, representing the Chinese state-owned enterprise suing Ma. Toptani assured the judge that his line of questioning, including inquiries into how Ma financed an orphanage in Xinjiang, was standard practice in a commercial dispute.

Masri wasn’t having it.

“Why does this matter? How does this actually relate to the case? What are they really trying to do here?” Masri’s voice cut through the courtroom’s low murmur, drawing glances from several people who had been half-listening. Then, turning to the judge, he added, “What he’s saying, your honor, is that they are here to abuse the process — to exploit this court, to disrespect this court.” The judge said each side would have to go back and refile papers to resolve the issue.

Even after the hearing ended, the tension followed them into the hallway.

There, Masri confronted Toptani: “You went up for the Chinese government. Unbelievable. I can’t believe you’re not embarrassed.”

Toptani’s posture stiffened. “You’re agitated,” he said.

A security guard stepped in before the exchange could go any further. Toptani did not answer multiple requests for comment. 

Ma’s team are now in the midst of fighting to get the judge to vacate her previous order. They also plan to appeal.

Despite the stress of his legal challenges, Ma still spends most of his time helping Chinese immigrants — new arrivals from his hometown and farther afield trying to find their footing in New York. More than 600 people have spent time in Ma’s shelter for immigrants since it opened in 2023.

Ma Fuma (no relation to Ma Ju, Ma being a common surname in the part of China they are from) was one of the first to pass through. Fleeing religious persecution in China, he had contacted Ma out of the blue, and Ma took him in. With Ma’s help, he said, he found something he hadn’t felt in years — a sense of home. 

Ma Fuma now works with other new arrivals in a new halal noodle shop on Third Avenue in Manhattan. The space is simple and bright, with a short menu featuring just a few signature dishes — freshly pulled beef noodles made to order.

Many of the people who work here once spent time in Ma Ju’s shelter. It’s a tightknit group. They cheer when a new five-star review pops up online, and brainstorm menu ideas. They also trade stories of displacement, trauma and longing for the homes they left behind.

Each of them carries their own version of the same story of being pushed into exile by the CCP. The reasons vary.

One woman used to advocate for women’s rights in China; another was an investigative journalist; a third ran a small business. After a few rounds of tea, someone joked, “I guess this is a little rogue club — pretty much everyone here has done their time in JuZi.”

Laughter filled the room — JuZi being slang for a Chinese detention center.

Ma Ju still visits often. What keeps him going, Ma said, isn’t faith or anger — it’s this. The stubborn hope shared by those who refuse to surrender their sense of decency, of honor.

“I’ll just keep doing what I’m supposed to do,” he said.