Does IBM have “robust processes” to ensure that none of the technology it has sold to the Chinese Communist Party is ever used improperly?
In a follow-up report about how U.S. technology firms have provided surveillance and tracking tools for the party-state, The Associated Press tells the story of Li Chuanliang, who fled from South Korea to the United States to avoid being deported to China. In New York, in California, in Texas, “the Chinese government continued to hunt him down with the help of surveillance technology” (December 12, 2025).
Li’s communications were monitored, his assets seized and his movements followed in police databases. More than 40 friends, relatives, and associates—including his pregnant daughter—were identified and detained, even by tracking down their cab drivers through facial recognition software. Three former associates died in detention, and for months shadowy men Li believed to be Chinese operatives stalked him across continents, interviews and documents seen by The Associated Press show.
“They track you 24 hours a day. All your electronics, your phone—they’ll use every method to find you, your relatives, your friends, where you live,” Li said. “No matter where you are, you’re under their control.”
The Chinese government is using an increasingly powerful tool to cement its power at home and vastly amplify it abroad: Surveillance technology, much of it originating in the U.S., an AP investigation has found….
Li is now cut off from friends and family, denied legal assistance and clueless even to the details of the charges against him. So he is once again resorting to speaking out—this time on YouTube.
Li acknowledges the situation seems hopeless. But he’s pressing on.
“Why am I speaking up?” he said. “Today, it’s me. Tomorrow, it might be you.”
The Chinese government accuses Li of corruption that amounts to $435 million in ill-gotten gain.
But Li contends that his real “crime” is criticizing the government. The report backs him up: “A review of thousands of pages of legal, property, and corporate records, interrogation transcripts, and Li’s medical and travel files obtained exclusively by AP, as well as interviews with nine lawyers, support key parts of his story, showing distorted charges, blocked access to evidence, coercive confessions, and altered legal records.”
The evidence indicates that Li Chuanliang was targeted not for being corrupt but for exposing corruption.
According to internal documents from 2018, IBM sold surveillance software to China’s Economic Crime Investigation Bureau, i.e., to the Chinese government. Other records indicate that Oracle and Microsoft also sold software to this Bureau. Also:
Leaked emails show i2 software was copied by a former IBM partner, Landasoft, and sold to China’s disciplinary commissions, which investigate officials. None of the sales violated U.S. sanctions.
IBM said in a statement that it sold its division making the i2 program in 2022, and has “robust processes” to ensure its technology is used responsibly. Oracle declined comment, and Microsoft did not respond.
Li Gongjing, a police captain in Shanghai, told state media that a fugitive “is like a kite. “He may be abroad, but the string is in China, and he can always be found through his family.” And through technology provided courtesy of U.S. tech firms.
Also see:
Associated Press: “US government allowed and even helped US firms sell tech used for surveillance in China, AP finds” (October 30, 2025)
National Interest: “Oracle is Powering China’s Surveillance State” (September 4, 2025)
“Oracle, a titan of enterprise software, has a long history of engagement with Beijing and is perhaps the quintessential case of a US tech firm entrenched in China’s public-sector IT infrastructure. By the mid-2010s, Oracle’s database and enterprise management tools were ubiquitous across Chinese government agencies and state-owned enterprises, forming a critical backbone of official IT systems. An online portal run by China’s State Council even touted that Oracle databases power e-government services at all levels. In effect, Oracle became woven into the fabric of China’s governance networks, networks that are being leveraged for surveillance and censorship.”
