Dubbed "China Targets", the fresh investigation involving 42 media organisations delves into the various tactics Beijing uses to silence critics beyond its borders.

One segment of the probe published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) deals with China's increasing offensive at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

In particular, it focuses on the growing presence at the council of pro-China, government-organised non-governmental organisations, referred to as "Gongos".

Such groups crowd into council sessions to praise China and present glowing accounts of its actions that are largely at odds with UN and expert findings of widespread rights violations and repression.

A bombshell report published by former UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet in 2022 for instance cited possible "crimes against humanity" against China's Uyghur minority in the western Xinjiang region.

Other reports have highlighted the separation of Tibetan children from their families and the targeting of democracy activists in Hong Kong.

But when legitimate NGOs raise such issues at the council, Gongos often strive to disrupt the session and drown out their testimonies, the ICIJ said.

- 'Corrosive' -

An ICIJ analysis of 106 NGOs from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan registered with the UN found that 59 had close links to the government in Beijing or the Chinese Communist Party.

During a regular review of China's rights record before the council last year, attended by AFP, more than half of the NGOs granted a speaking slot were pro-government groups.

"It's corrosive. It's dishonest," Michele Taylor, who served as US ambassador to the Human Rights Council from 2022 until January this year, was quoted as saying in the report.

She decried a broader effort by Beijing "to obfuscate their own human rights violations and reshape the narrative".

Increasingly, the Beijing-controlled groups are also used to monitor and intimidate those planning to testify about alleged abuses, the investigation found.

The ICIJ and its partners said they spoke with 15 activists and lawyers focused on rights issues in China who "described being surveilled or harassed by people suspected to be proxies for the Chinese government".

Such incidents occurred both inside the UN and elsewhere in Geneva.

- 'We're watching' -

The report highlighted how a group of Chinese activists and dissidents were so fearful of Beijing's swelling presence at the council that they in March last year refused to set foot inside the UN buildings.

"Instead, they gathered for a secret meeting on the top floor of a nondescript office building nearby" with UN rights chief Volker Turk, the report said.

But suddenly, four people claiming to work with the Guangdong Human rights Association showed up asking about the meeting, to which they had not been invited.

Staff from the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) who were facilitating the meeting denied it was taking place.

The four left, but later, when two Uyghur participants left the office for a smoke, they reported that someone in a black car with tinted windows photographed them before people matching the description of the Guangdong group got into the vehicle and it pulled away.

Zumretay Arkin, vice president of the World Uyghur Congress, told ICIJ she believed the Guangdong group was sending a message from Beijing: "We're watching you... You can't escape us."

- 'Deadly reprisal' -

The activists had reason to be fearful.

Over a decade ago, activist Cao Shunli was detained as she attempted to travel to Geneva ahead of a China rights record review at the UN.

After being held for several months without charge, she fell gravely ill and died on March 14, 2014.

ICIJ said her death "stood out as a powerful warning shot", determining that the "deadly reprisal" had discouraged other activists from engaging with the UN.

A decade later, Chinese rights defenders are participating in UN activities at record low numbers, the investigation found.

At the same time, the number of Chinese NGOs registered with the UN has nearly doubled since 2018, it said.