AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Next, we have a conversation about journalism and the challenges of covering the shadowy world of the Chinese Communist Party. My colleague, Frank Langfitt, spent years as a reporter in China. He now works on NPR's investigations team. And recently, he thought he had a big scoop about the Chinese government targeting critics, only to find the real story was even more intriguing. Frank Langfitt joins us now. Hi, Frank.
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.
CHANG: So when you were first setting out to report this story, what were you originally trying to figure out?
LANGFITT: Yeah, I was trying to document how the Chinese Communist Party targets its critics overseas. And I became intrigued with this one young Chinese dissident. His name is Wang Jingyu. He lives in the Netherlands. And Wang claims that the Chinese secret police had routinely called him and harassed him, threatened his family if he didn't return to China. And this is what Wang told me.
WANG JINGYU: So I left China. They keep persecuting me. They keep, you know, doing some crazy things to me. And now I'm in a democracy country. I'm in a European Union country, in the Netherlands. I can't understand why they kept doing this. This is really unacceptable.
LANGFITT: Wang, as he told it, was under near-constant harassment. And dozens of news organizations - they either covered him or they referenced him in stories. Now, the Chinese government has threatened critics overseas for years. But what intrigued me was there was this new tactic that Wang said he'd been hit with. And what was happening is somebody was calling in bomb threats in Wang's name to Chinese embassies and hotels, trying to get him arrested.
CHANG: Right. OK. Well, was there a specific bomb threat case that you dug into?
LANGFITT: Yeah. So I'd been talking to Wang for a while, and then he told me, last year, there was this family of his housemate. This was a fellow dissident, a guy named Gao Zhi. And they were falsely accused, Wang said, of making bomb threats as they were traveling through Thailand. And I wanted to be among the first to report this story. And Wang vouched for the evidence, which was kind of thin. There was just an email from the Dutch government. It confirmed the bomb threats and the allegations against the family. But here's the thing, Ailsa. When I actually called the Dutch government to learn more about this, they told me that that email was a forgery.
CHANG: A forgery?
LANGFITT: Yeah.
CHANG: Wait, wait - who was forging this email, and why? Like, did you ever figure that out?
LANGFITT: Yeah. Well, that was what we started to pursue 'cause we realized this is a totally different story than what we've been told.
CHANG: Yeah.
LANGFITT: And I was - I should say, I was working with a reporting partner on this who can't use their name - to protect their family. And what we found out is that the Gao family gave their credit card details to this fake Dutch government email account. And Gao later told me he finally realized that Wang, this celebrity dissident I've been telling you about, was running that fake account.
CHANG: Ah.
LANGFITT: And Gao said Wang used the family's credit cards to wipe out their life savings. And Gao provided lots of documentation. And one thing people have asked is, like, what would the motive be? Well, Gao and these other dissidents that we've been talking to think Wang was seeking publicity and, frankly, just money.
CHANG: Well, what does Wang say about all this?
LANGFITT: Yeah, I want to be clear. Police have not charged him with anything related to Gao's accusations. And Wang even says, you know, someone did con Gao. But he says it wasn't him and denies that he did anything wrong. And this is a little bit of one of my exchanges with him.
WANG: Yeah. I'm telling you the truth, I mean, a hundred percent.
LANGFITT: Oh, OK. So you're telling the truth, a hundred percent.
WANG: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
CHANG: Well, a lot of news organizations covered Wang. As we said, he is/was a well-known Chinese dissident. So after your reporting and these allegations came out, how did these other news organizations respond to their prior reporting?
LANGFITT: Well, the Associated Press, they retracted their story about the Gao family and these false bomb threats in Thailand. One German public broadcaster removed a documentary featuring Wang that was seen by more than 2 million people. And another German broadcaster has amended some of their coverage, saying these bomb threats related to the Gaos could no longer be reliably attributed to the Chinese government. And we expect more news organizations are going to take action.
CHANG: I mean, how did Wang persuade so many journalists in the first place to write about him? Like, how did he become so famous?
LANGFITT: Well, he's a rarity. You know, most people are too afraid to talk about this when they've been targeted. And want to say, this is a very real thing - the targeting that the Chinese government does overseas. But this made him very helpful for reporters - to have somebody who would talk openly. And also, I found him to be a pretty helpful source, at least seemingly so. Like, when I first reached out to him, Ailsa, he actually sent me links to all the stories about him so I could study up and ask more informed questions.
CHANG: (Laughter).
LANGFITT: Keep in mind, Ailsa, one thing I haven't told you yet is Wang is only 22 years old.
CHANG: Oh, wow. I didn't realize he was that young.
LANGFITT: Yeah.
CHANG: Well, looking back on the very long time you have spent reporting out this story, what do you think you took away from all of this?
LANGFITT: You know, Ailsa, I say kind of a healthy dose of humility. I was weeks into reporting this story before I actually was able to figure it out. And also, I feel like there's a lesson for all of us journalists in this age of disinformation - check everything, including the authenticity of documents, and always make that extra phone call.
CHANG: You've just made me way more paranoid. That is NPR's Frank Langfitt. Thank you so much, Frank.
LANGFITT: Happy to do it, Ailsa.
CHANG: If you want to read or hear more about this story, go to npr.org and search for chinese impostor. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
