Good evening. In this week’s cover story Michael Kovrig, the former Canadian diplomat detained by Chinese state security agents for almost three years, writes about the terrors of so-called “residential surveillance at a designated location”, or RSDL, which is basically a euphemism for psychological torture by means including — but not limited to — solitary confinement, marathon interrogations, and sensory and sleep deprivation. Kovrig’s article is adapted from his introduction to the third edition of a forthcoming Safeguard Defenders’ anthology, The People’s Republic of the Disappeared, in which political prisoners describe their experiences in the hells that are China’s “black jails”.

In other articles, John Pomfret and Seamus Boyle write about November’s other critical mid-term elections — in Taiwan.

Peiyue Wu looks at the controversy in Canada over a taxpayer-funded road that will benefit a Chinese-owned zinc mine in the country’s far north. 

Savannah Billman profiles Webull, the online brokerage from Hunan that is registered in the Caymans and sells its services to American investors. What could possibly go wrong? 

Eliot Chen speaks with Seth Center, a former State Department official who led bilateral AI talks with China during the Biden administration.

And finally, from now on The Wire China podcast will be released earlier in the week, normally on Tuesdays. Tune in on October 27 for a conversation with Peiyue about her recent cover on dual-use farms in China. We have also reposted a timely episode from our podcast archive, featuring Eliot talking about the debate in Canada on whether or not to allow Chinese electric vehicles to be sold into the country. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government recently signed off on just that.

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Black-Jail Survivor Tales

Before they are charged, summarily tried and summarily convicted, defendants in Chinese national security cases are subjected to a long period of solitary confinement and mental anguish known as “residential surveillance at a designated location”, or RSDL. Michael Kovrig, who knows the RSDL mind grinder all too well, exposes it in an adaptation of his introduction to a forthcoming anthology of survivor tales from China’s black jails. “RSDL inflicts psychological and physical deterioration and near or total mental breakdowns,” Kovrig writes. “The only escape is confession. That’s when your captors offer a poisoned chalice of relief that embodies the old Soviet line, ‘show me the person, and I’ll show you the crime’.”

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A Pivotal Election for Taiwan — and the World

John Pomfret and Seamus Boyle write about the other November mid-term elections — in Taiwan — and why they matter so much. Like the U.S., Taiwan has a four-year presidential election cycle with the next one in 2028. On November 28 the island’s 20 million-odd registered voters go to the polls to elect local leaders, including Taipei’s. An expected strong showing by the Democratic Progressive Party, they write, will “portend harder military coercion from Beijing” ahead of the 2028 presidential poll.

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A Northern Front, in North America, for China?

A new Chinese-owned zinc mine in Canada’s far north could become viable thanks to a controversial road, port and airport project backed — but not yet finally approved — by Ottawa. “Advancing that project while China owns the rights to the minerals or the resources flips all of its strategic benefits on their head,” one of the project’s critics tells Peiyue Wu. “What should be a very savvy economic prosperity and military security move instead becomes precisely the opposite.”

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We Who?

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A Q&A with Seth Center

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The Wire China, Issue No. 306

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