In May 1999, I went to the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles to renew my passport. At that time, I was a department manager in a US-based subsidiary of a Chinese company. A few days later, the general manager asked me for a personal meeting. He told me that he was aware of my passport extension problems, which also posed significant problems for our company.

Apparently, Chinese Foreign Affairs Department staff had taken to task the director of our head office in China for failing to supervise staff stationed abroad as expected. They told our director in China that one of the U.S.-based staff members (pointing at me) was practicing Falun Gong, and that Falun Gong was an “illegal organization.” They demanded that our company send me back to China as punishment. Later, the director of our head office in China contacted me directly. According to him, the staff from Foreign Affairs Department implied there was no way I could renew my passport or change it to a private passport, simply because I practice Falun Gong.

It’s easy to imagine how much pressure this has caused for my company. It also brought enormous inconvenience to my daily work and life. Considering that I was not a key member of Falun Gong and that I only practiced Falun Gong for eight months at the time, thus was truly a new practitioner, it is a mystery how the Chinese consulate identified me as a practitioner and blacklisted me.  It is indeed scary that even a common civilian’s daily life is under surveillance by China’s security machinery.