The Washington State Banquet and the Flushing Coffins: On the Eve of Xi Jinping’s Visit to the U.S., the Division Among Chinese Americans and an Endless Wave of Flight

September 22, 2026

As planned, Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, are scheduled to arrive at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on September 23 to begin a three-day state visit to the United States. This is his first visit to the White House since 2015 and the second reciprocal visit between the heads of state of China and the U.S. in six months, following the same courtesy extended to Trump in Beijing this past May. According to the schedule released by the White House, the morning of the 24th will feature a welcome ceremony on the South Lawn, followed by talks in the afternoon and a state dinner in the East Room in the evening, with heads of several major U.S. tech giants in attendance. On the 25th, the two couples will have tea and then visit the National Archives together to view the original copies of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Both Beijing and Washington hope to make this visit a diplomatic event that stabilizes relations. However, within the Chinese community in the U.S., the two sides have already clashed on the streets before the visit has even begun.

September 20 was a Sunday, in the area around Flushing Library on Main Street in Flushing, New York. Groups including the Democracy Party of China (DPC) International Alliance, the Chinese Democracy and Human Rights Alliance, the Chinese New Era People's Party, and the Christian Justice League marched carrying a coffin labeled "Funeral for the CCP," chanting "Xi Jinping step down" and "Down with the Communist Party." Tibetans from New York and New Jersey, as well as protesters who traveled from Calgary, Canada, were also in the ranks, with demands including the release of political prisoners such as Jimmy Lai, Zhang Zhan, and Ding Jiaxi, and the repeal of the newly implemented Law on Promoting National Unity and Progress. On the same street, a group from a hometown association marched with a banner reading "The Chinese Communist Party is for the people." A Voice of America reporter interviewed a participant named Helen, who said that the people and the Communist Party "absolutely cannot be separated." Near the end of the march, a man rushed to grab a protester's placard, leading to a scuffle, and he was handcuffed and taken away by New York police on the spot. Jie Lijian, the organizer, said that since mid-August, he and members of the alliance have received bomb or death threats almost daily, which have been reported to the FBI and the NYPD; he was wearing a bulletproof vest on the day of the march.

Two days later, the protests reached Washington. On the morning of September 22, a Tibetan student climbed a lamppost on Pennsylvania Avenue on the west side of the Capitol and hung a banner reading "Dictator Xi Jinping, your empire will eventually collapse, Free Tibet." Pennsylvania Avenue was closed in both directions, and a fire ladder truck was brought in to remove the banner. Radio Free Asia, citing an Associated Press report, stated that the protester was subsequently taken away by police. On the same day, netizens on X posted photos of DPC members gathering in front of the Capitol, and others shared placards and banners made overnight. According to arrangements by human rights groups, from the 22nd to the 25th, democracy activists, Hong Kongers, Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Falun Gong practitioners will take turns protesting outside the Capitol, the White House, the hotel where Xi Jinping is staying, and Chinese diplomatic missions in the U.S. Thirty human rights organizations, including Human Rights in China, have jointly written an open letter to Xi Jinping. Freedom House estimates that there will be hundreds of peaceful protesters in Washington at that time.

Beijing's reach extends far behind these individuals. On September 21, a member of the DPC International Alliance named WeiJun Zhang posted on X that after he went to Washington to participate in the protests, his family back in China received several phone calls in one night. The callers also sent a "letter of guarantee" in PDF format via WeChat, requiring family members to sign it and fill in their ID numbers. In his post, he refuted them point by point: complying with the law does not mean obeying infinitely expanded interpretations, criticizing the government is not a crime, and national security cannot become a catch-all charge. This practice of "protesters are overseas, but punishment falls on family members back home" is what Freedom House calls transnational repression. According to its statistics, China alone accounted for 23% of recorded physical transnational repression incidents globally from 2014 to 2025. Proven cases in the U.S. include: the establishment of secret "overseas police stations" in New York; Chen Jun and Lin Feng attempting to bribe federal officials to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Shen Yun Performing Arts, for which they pleaded guilty and were imprisoned in 2024; and, in addition, false bomb threats targeting the Flushing Library and the Service Center for Quitting the CCP.

Standing opposite the protesters is another mobilization machine. In early September, X user @helen_maga99 posted screenshots from a Los Angeles Chinese WeChat group. A recruiter known as "Sister Xia" stated in the group that the event was organized and funded by the "embassy and chambers of commerce." From September 22 to 26, airfare, food, lodging, and transportation were all covered, with an additional $80 in "labor fees" provided; registration required submitting ID numbers and passport information. "Derun Media" (@DXDWX999) also released a recording of the recruitment. This playbook is one the CCP has long mastered in the United States, visible during every visit by its leaders: "welcoming crowds" paid for by the wallet, uniformly distributed flags and banners, and compensation for lost wages calculated by headcount—this time was simply following the same prescription. The most thoroughly investigated instance was confirmed by media during Xi Jinping's visit to San Francisco for APEC in November 2023: The Washington Post later found that the Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles paid for hotels and meals for the "welcoming crowds"; at least 35 pro-CCP overseas Chinese associations traveled from New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington state; the Chinese side hired at least 60 private security guards; and at least four Chinese diplomats appeared in the crowd, sometimes directly communicating with those who were physically attacking others. Protesters were beaten with flagpoles and sprayed with chemical irritants, with some suffering serious injuries. Tibetan activist Chemi Lhamo was surrounded and harassed for nearly 15 minutes, her hair pulled and her phone snatched. The two chairs of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China wrote to the Attorney General afterward demanding an investigation, but to date, no one has been held accountable. Similar mobilization could be seen in the online discourse leading up to this visit. Searching for "Welcome Xi Jinping Washington" on X yielded a string of accounts with names containing "mutual follow" (hufo), with profile pictures and bios mostly originating from Huantai, Zibo. Within a dozen minutes, they all posted the exact same sentence, word for word: "From Beijing to Washington, we look forward to China-US relations continuing to sail along the correct course of constructive strategic stability, riding the waves and moving forward."

The two groups are both Chinese people in the United States, yet they seem to be from two different worlds, and the conflict between them is not merely a difference in political stance. The pro-Beijing side is composed primarily of old overseas associations, hometown associations, and chambers of commerce. These organizations have dealt with domestic overseas Chinese affairs and United Front systems for decades; their members have businesses, properties, and relatives in China, and maintaining good relations with embassies and consulates yields tangible benefits. The anti-CCP side is a motley mix: veteran democracy activists who fled after the June 4th crackdown, Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hong Kongers, and, increasingly, new immigrants who have "run" from China in recent years. The two sides do not even get their information from the same places: one side uses WeChat, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu, while the other mobilizes and argues on X, YouTube, and Telegram—the recruitment screenshots for the "welcoming groups" only came to light after leaking from WeChat groups to X. The risks borne by the two sides also differ: one side receives travel stipends, while the other side has family members back in China forced to sign guarantee letters. Reporters Without Borders released a report on September 21 stating that only about 15 independent Chinese-language newspapers and radio stations remain in the US today, down from 40 in the late 1990s. The organization's researcher, Wang Yaqiu, summarized Beijing's narrative: it always wants you to understand that your bloodline is Chinese, and that the country you live in actually does not like you.

The anti-CCP camp is not a monolith either, and this visit exposed its most awkward aspects. A significant number of overseas anti-CCP Chinese are supporters of Trump, yet this time, it was Trump who gave Xi Jinping a state-dinner-level reception, intending to discuss artificial intelligence, tariffs, rare earths, and a trade truce expiring on November 10 with Beijing. The "tough on China" stance that anti-CCP individuals had bet on clearly took a backseat in the diplomatic arrangements of this visit, leaving many in a dilemma. Those hostile to the protesters seized the opportunity to mock them: one blogger ridiculed some "democracy activists" for only daring to record protest videos behind closed doors for fear of being caught by immigration authorities. This taunt hit on a fact: among the protesters, many are themselves waiting in line for asylum, their status unresolved. Comments from the pro-CCP side were even more crude, with accounts provoking protesters under their posts, saying, "You idiots can't even solve the problem of putting food on the table."

Those for whom "even putting food on the table is a problem" are precisely the main body of the exodus from China over the past decade. Data from the UNHCR shows that during Hu Jintao's ten-year tenure, the number of Chinese citizens applying for asylum globally ranged from only 7,000 to 21,000 per year, totaling about 160,000 over the decade; since Xi Jinping took power, this cumulative figure has risen to approximately 1.33 million. Preliminary statistics for 2025 show about 179,000 people globally, approaching the historical high of 2024, with about 148,000 of them applying in the United States. Outside the U.S., there were about 10,000 in Australia and 6,435 in Canada, more than double the pre-pandemic levels. 2023 to 2024 was the peak of the "walking the line" (zou xian) route: people would first fly visa-free to Ecuador, then trek north through the Darien Gap rainforest. Data from the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security shows that in just the first eight months of fiscal year 2024, more than 31,000 Chinese citizens were intercepted at the southwest border. Trump's second term sealed the border, and this route was almost completely cut off: the number of monthly border crossings fell from about 6,000 in December 2023 to about 80 in July 2025. Unable to go south, those with money head east. The number of Chinese in Japan has exceeded 900,000; in 2025, Japan approved about 9,200 naturalization applications, of which about 3,500 were from China, ranking first among all countries for two consecutive years. High-rise residential buildings along the Tokyo Bay area have been occupied by so many Chinese tech nouveau riche that it is being called a "Digital Chinatown." Yet Japan is also closing its doors; starting October 2025, the capital threshold for the Business Manager Visa was raised from 5 million yen to 30 million yen in one fell swoop.

It is not just the poor who are leaving, but also entrepreneurs. After his speech at the Bund in 2020, Jack Ma watched as Ant Group's IPO was halted; since then, he has lived in Japan for long periods, holding a visiting professor title at the University of Tokyo. According to media reports, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming resides in Singapore; Haidilao founder Zhang Yong and his wife have long since naturalized in Singapore. The Li Ka-shing family has been moving assets abroad for years, and when they sold a Panama port in 2025, they were once again criticized by state media. The number of single-family offices in Singapore has increased from about 400 to about 2,000 in just a few years, a large number of which come from mainland China. According to estimates by Henley & Partners, the net outflow of high-net-worth individuals from China was about 13,500 in 2023, about 15,200 in 2024, and dropped to 7,800 in 2025, but it still ranks second in the world. A netizen's comment circulating on X is mean-spirited but not without reason: entrepreneurs in the Xi Jinping era, if they haven't "run" (runxue), are either being slaughtered like fat sheep or are in prison or on their way to prison. "Slaughtering fat sheep" is not just a metaphor. In the Chronicle recorded by this site on September 21, Zheng Shuai, head of Shanghai Maise Technology, was taken across provinces by police from Shaoyang County, Hunan, in January 2024, on the grounds that an overseas outsourcing project his company undertook had VPN functionality. The then-county Public Security Bureau chief Yin Xiangfeng and deputy chief Tang Zhanxiong demanded 100 million yuan in "returned loot" from the start, with the amount paid linked to whether he would receive a heavy sentence; in the end, at least 64.8 million yuan went into the non-tax revenue account of the Shaoyang County treasury. The two bureau chiefs were removed from their posts in July 2025, but Zheng Shuai is still being detained. The procuratorate has issued two notices to correct illegalities, but the case remains in a state of "internal study" with no verdict. This practice of crossing provinces to arrest entrepreneurs and exchanging money for freedom is called "deep-sea fishing" by the public. Li Wei'ao, chief reporter for the Economic Observer, said he has encountered several private entrepreneurs who were "fished," involving amounts of 60 million, over 200 million, and 307 million yuan respectively. A netizen on X recalled that an entrepreneur friend of his in Wuxi was "fished" to Jinghong, Yunnan, in 2023 and only released after paying over 100 million yuan; even he himself received a call while overseas telling him to "go back and cooperate with the investigation."

For those who cannot leave, they must face a tax net that is tightening day by day. In mid-September, Fanzei.net recorded two consecutive Chronicle entries. On September 15, multiple posts regarding finance and taxation surfaced on platforms like Xiaohongshu, stating that many enterprises were still being required to pay back individual income taxes after deregistration, undergo audits of undistributed profits, and were even ordered to restore tax registrations. Some companies were pursued for taxes two years after deregistration, and the system would directly block instant deregistration due to "declared income being less than the income reported by the platform." On September 17, in many parts of Jiangxi, individual businesses that had already been deregistered were forcibly ordered by tax authorities to restore their tax registrations, with notices requiring shop owners to bring cost and expense vouchers for inspection within five working days. A Mr. Shi in Nanchang said that his friend's breakfast stall could not survive, so it was deregistered and transferred to someone else, yet they were still approached by the tax bureau for back taxes based on platform transaction flows and bank records. When Teacher Li Is Not Your Teacher relayed these posts on X, he quoted a netizen: "Are they shaking the dead back to life just to suck a little more blood?" This post received nearly 100,000 views. Some finance and tax bloggers on X also pointed out that between 2020 and 2022, some enterprises did indeed use the tax incentives for individual businesses to split wages into service fees, deregistering once the quota was used up; now that the Golden Tax system can track this, they are investigating everything that can be investigated. This argument holds up legally, but it fails to answer a bigger question: why now, of all times, are they reaching out to breakfast stalls that have already closed? The answer lies in local government finances. In the first four months of 2025, the national fiscal deficit expanded by more than 50% year-on-year, exceeding $360 billion. In the first half of this year, hundreds of listed companies were pursued for back taxes and late fees, totaling approximately 7.7 billion yuan; Beidahuang alone was pursued for 1.41 billion yuan, more than its annual net profit. The 20% individual income tax on overseas income is also being investigated, moving from billionaires at the tens-of-millions-of-dollars level down to the middle class with less than a million dollars, with some cases being traced back more than twenty years. While taxes are being pursued on one side, politics is being preached on the other: from September 8 to 10, the United Front Work Department held a training class in Dalian for more than 50 key private entrepreneurs. Executive Deputy Minister Shen Ying demanded in her opening speech that they support the "Two Affirmations," achieve the "Two Maintenances," and always be "politically clear-headed." Bloomberg reported that the list of entrepreneurs accompanying Xi Jinping on his visit to the U.S. was also screened layer by layer; beyond looking at how much business could be negotiated, it also depended on political loyalty, with requirements that they not steal the spotlight from the leader.

Putting all these pieces together, one can see where the plight of China's economy today comes from. It is not caused by a sudden deterioration of the external environment, but is the result of a series of decisions accumulated step by step over thirteen years. The 2018 constitutional amendment abolished term limits for the state president, rendering collective leadership a mere formality, and since then, there has been almost no error-correction mechanism for major decisions. In 2020, the IPO of Ant Group was halted, followed by crackdowns on Didi, the platform economy, and the gaming industry; in 2021, a single document on "double reduction" wiped out the after-school tutoring industry almost overnight, with the livelihoods of tens of millions of people and hundreds of billions of yuan in market value disappearing along with it. That same year, the "three red lines" for real estate were suddenly tightened, leading to a series of defaults by developers like Evergrande and Country Garden, causing property, which accounts for the bulk of household wealth, to continuously depreciate; in 2024, a Hong Kong court ordered the liquidation of Evergrande, and Evergrande Auto announced this month that it was withdrawing from car manufacturing, with debts exceeding 32.7 billion yuan. The three-year zero-COVID policy reached its peak with the two-month lockdown of Shanghai in 2022, shattering both supply chains and public confidence. After the youth unemployment rate hit 21.3% in June 2023, the National Bureau of Statistics simply stopped releasing data and changed its calculation method; in August of this year, the unemployment rate for non-student youth aged 16 to 24, calculated using the new method, remained as high as 18.9%. Under the banners of "common prosperity," "the state advances, the private sector retreats," and "retroactive investigations of thirty years," private enterprises dare not invest, and foreign capital is turning away: according to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, net inflows of foreign direct investment fell from $344.1 billion in 2021 to $4.5 billion in 2024, the lowest since 1991. With local finances unable to sustain themselves through land sales, it is now the turn of "offshore fishing" (extortionate tax collection), the pursuit of old taxes, and the "zombie-like" resurrection of deregistered companies to pay back taxes.

Externally, "wolf warrior diplomacy" soured China's relations with its neighbors one by one during the same period. In 2020, Hong Kong implemented the National Security Law, rendering "one country, two systems" a mere shell, which prompted the West to impose sanctions and revoke Hong Kong's special status. That same year, Beijing retaliated against Australia with trade measures after Canberra called for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19. In 2021, Beijing exerted comprehensive pressure on Lithuania over the naming of a Taiwan representative office, pushing the entire European Union toward an adversarial stance. Concentration camps and forced labor in Xinjiang drew import bans from the U.S. and Europe. On the eve of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, China and Russia declared a friendship with "no limits"; since then, Beijing has consistently provided economic support to Moscow, leading to public criticism from Zelenskyy for favoring Russia. In the South China Sea, Chinese coast guard vessels have repeatedly rammed Philippine government ships, most recently this month in the waters off Palawan. Taiwan Strait military drills have become increasingly aggressive year by year. After Sanae Takaichi made remarks on the Taiwan issue in November 2025, Beijing issued a travel warning for Japan and halted imports of Japanese aquatic products, causing relations with Japan to plummet to freezing point. Regarding the U.S., the trade war that began in 2018 escalated to tariffs as high as 145% by 2025, followed by Beijing's countermeasures through rare earth export controls; in August of this year, exports of rare earth magnets to the U.S. fell by 21% compared to the previous month. Xi Jinping's visit to Washington this time is precisely to address the stalemate he single-handedly created over these years.

Internal tightening is also escalating in tandem. The "Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress," passed in March and effective July 1, mandates Mandarin as the primary language of instruction from preschool through high school, effectively purging Tibetan, Uyghur, and Mongolian from core curricula. UN human rights experts have warned that this could severely undermine the autonomy of ethnic minorities in language, culture, and religion. Following the implementation of the new law, a Tibetan woman had her livestream banned for singing a song in Tibetan. More directly, the act of leaving the country itself has been tightened. On September 15, State Council Order No. 841, the "Regulations on Exit and Entry Administration," took effect, allowing authorities to "dissuade" citizens from traveling to undefined "high-risk" countries, requiring travelers to prove the "authenticity and legality" of their travel purpose, and permitting a ban on exit for up to three years for those with "illegal activities" abroad. In cases involving "national security," written notice of the exit ban may not even be provided. Maya Wang, Associate Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, stated that the Chinese government is tightening rules and arbitrarily deciding who can leave China and who cannot. In the Chronicle recorded by this site during the same week, a netizen was subjected to detailed questioning about their reasons and itinerary while attempting to leave the country on the very day the new regulations took effect. On September 12, another netizen in Guangzhou with all necessary documents in order was persuaded by border inspection to return home while attempting to fly to Vietnam. Certain work units have required all staff, both permanent and contract, to surrender their passports and Hong Kong-Macau travel permits to the personnel department for filing; for non-civil servants in public institutions, the system now triggers a pop-up window requiring a letter of consent from the unit's personnel department when applying for travel documents. Another netizen who has worked abroad for many years reported that their village party secretary contacted their family to demand their departure date, phone number, and city of residence; after this was provided, the secretary demanded the specific workplace, claiming it was required for filing per a "document issued by the provincial government." Official cyberspace and immigration authorities have denied the rumors, calling the claim of a "closed-door policy starting September 15" a fabrication. However, for those who have already been turned back or had their passports confiscated, these denials change nothing.

Thus, there were two scenes in Washington this week. In the East Room of the White House, the two heads of state raised their glasses; the entrepreneurs accompanying the Chinese side were only on the list after passing political loyalty screenings. On Pennsylvania Avenue, Tibetan students climbing lampposts were taken away by police, and the families of those holding signs in front of Congress were being pressured back home to sign pledges. The two groups in Flushing were both people who had come out of China: one was still tethered to the system, collecting stipends and shouting "the Communist Party is for the people"; the other was composed of those who had voted with their feet. Over the past thirteen years, the number of people fleeing China has risen from ten or twenty thousand per year to over one hundred thousand. After September 15, Beijing's solution is to block the road out as well.

References

Visit Schedule and Background: Wikipedia, US News, RFA

Protest scene: Voice of America (Flushing), Voice of America X post, The Epoch Times (coffin-carrying parade), Secret China (summary of protest plans), NBC Washington (light pole banner), X posts: @RFA_Chinese, @MinMin89485072, @weijun_zha11159 (family members forced to sign guarantee letters), @leige88888, @CHN070864, as well as accounts like @Yunbo90990985, @NihaoHuantai, @shnghuzibich11, etc., which posted identical content from "Beijing to Washington" (all from 2026-09-21/22, X search "Xi Jinping US visit protest", "Welcome Xi Jinping Washington")

Transnational repression and "welcoming groups": Freedom House, HRIC, Secret China (paid welcome), The Epoch Times (Reporters Without Borders report), The Washington Post (2023 San Francisco investigation), VOA

Asylum and Flight: Pardafas (UNHCR/Safeguard Defenders data), House Committee on Homeland Security, Wikipedia: Zouxian, Made in China Journal, Forbidden News (Running to Japan), Huxiu, Japan Naturalisation Data, AP (Investors and Intellectuals Heading to Japan), CNBC (Singapore Wealth Hub), Henley 2025

Entrepreneurs and Taxation: Fanzei Chronicle Zheng Shuai Demanded 100 Million Yuan, Jiangxi Individual Business Deregistered Forced to Resume Tax Registration, Multiple Regions Track Down Taxes on Closed Enterprises, United Front Work Department Dalian Private Enterprise Training Class, Follow-up Entrepreneur List Screening; Wenxuecity (Shaoyang Bureau Chief Dismissed), NetEase (Pelagic Fishing), X Posts: @wangjupaian, @AsiaFinance (Li Weiao), @Wongergouzi, @whyyoutouzhele (2026-09-15), @hongchaomori, @FinTax_lab, @xiangli001; ANI (Closed Enterprises Investigated for Taxes), Crypto Briefing (Listed Companies Make Up Back Taxes), Japan Times, IFC Review (Taxing Overseas Income), CNBC (Tax Net for the Rich)

Economy and Diplomacy: Fanzei Chronicle Youth Unemployment Rate 18.9%, Evergrande Auto Quits Car Manufacturing, August Rare Earth Magnet Exports to the US Drop; Global Finance (FDI Hits 30-Year Low)

Exit and Ethnic Policies: Human Rights Watch (Decree No. 841), France 24, Fanzei Chronicle Detailed Inspection and Repatriation on the First Day of New Regulations, Confiscation of Passports by Work Units, Restrictions on Entry and Exit for Public Institution Personnel, Mandatory Registration for Village Party Secretaries; CNN (Ethnic Unity Law), RFA Analysis