Famous Chinese investigative journalist Bai Zhaodong secretly abducted in Thailand by the CCP regime in collusion with Thai authorities, missing for six months

（Rights Defense Network Information Center report）On May 24, 2026，this outlet learned： Bai Zhaodong, a former investigative journalist with 《Caijing》, has been missing in Thailand since November 2025，and has remained unreachable for six months. It was initially suspected that his disappearance was related to a local property dispute，but it was later confirmed that it had nothing to do with a civil dispute，and was instead a secret abduction carried out by the CCP regime in collusion with Thai authorities. Before leaving China for Thailand，Bai Zhaodong engaged in in-depth investigative reporting that exposed the corrupt power-and-money dealings of CCP officials and businesspeople，thereby touching the interests of CCP bureaucrats.

On November 27, 2025，Bai Zhaodong lost contact after sending his final message from Thailand. In February 2026，an article seeking help and appealing for assistance, titled 《Searching for Investigative Journalist Bai Zhaodong》, circulated widely online，but the article was soon blocked in China，and its original author also appeared to delete it under pressure. Bai Zhaodong has now been without any news for six months.

In recent years，Chinese dissidents、rights defenders and refugees seeking asylum in Thailand have faced extremely serious security threats. The CCP’s state security and public security systems have exploited the close bilateral relationship between China and Thailand，using “joint case handling”、diplomatic pressure、financial inducements or transnational abductions that circumvent regular procedures，to forcibly take Chinese citizens who have fled to Thailand back to China. For example：

In February 2025，Thailand’s mass forced repatriation of Xinjiang Uyghur refugees. Approximately 40 Uyghur refugees of Chinese nationality had been arbitrarily detained in Thailand’s immigration detention centers for as long as 11 years. The United Nations、Human Rights Watch and other organizations had repeatedly urged the Thai government to observe the “principle of non-refoulement.” However，on February 27, 2025，the Thai authorities，under pressure from the CCP regime，forcibly repatriated the 40 refugees to China. To this day，the CCP regime has refused to explain these people’s fate or whereabouts.

In November 2019，Chinese rights defender and citizen journalist Xing Jian, who was living in exile in Thailand，was arrested by the Thai authorities at his Bangkok residence under the direct command of police from the CCP regime. Xing Jian’s prison suicide note that later emerged directly stated: “The CCP has sent large numbers of agents to seriously infiltrate Thailand……gradually breaking down refugees who fled to Thailand，secretly abducting them one by one and sending them back to China.”

In January 2016，Li Xin, a former new-media editor at 《Southern Metropolis Daily》who had fled to Thailand to seek refuge after refusing to serve as an informant for the CCP’s state security apparatus，was secretly abducted by personnel of the CCP regime on a train traveling from Bangkok toward the Thai-Lao (Laos) border. Several days later, Li Xin was confirmed to be in China and under the control of CCP police. The CCP’s official media outlet 《Global Times》published a commentary afterward，publicly defending this kind of “cross-border arrest” for the first time，claiming that “Chinese law allows law enforcement personnel to travel abroad to conduct work with approval,” openly declaring that the CCP’s “cross-border abduction/law enforcement” hand reached directly into Thai territory.

In October 2015，Gui Minhai, a Swedish national of Chinese origin and shareholder in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay Books，was secretly abducted from his apartment in Pattaya, Thailand, and taken back to China by personnel of the CCP regime. Several months later，he suddenly appeared on the CCP’s CCTV to “confess on television,” claiming that he had “voluntarily returned to China to turn himself in.” This case bypassed Thailand’s normal judicial extradition procedures，constituting an outright secret abduction abroad.

In November 2015，the repatriation of Dong Guangping and Jiang Yefei. Chinese dissidents Jiang Yefei and Dong Guangping, who were living in exile in Thailand，were arrested in Bangkok and detained in an immigration detention prison by the CCP police acting directly in coordination with the Thai authorities，despite having been granted formal refugee protection status by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The Canadian government had already approved emergency asylum visas for both men and purchased their plane tickets，but the Thai authorities nevertheless forcibly handed them over to Chinese police and escorted them back to China on a chartered flight several days before they were due to board. Both men were subsequently sentenced in China. This was a typical and egregious case in which people were jointly arrested even after they had obtained formal refugee status from the United Nations.

Profile of Bai Zhaodong：Born on January 10, 1970，he is from Hengshan District, Yulin City, Shaanxi, and is a former investigative journalist with 《Caijing》. He joined the legal and public affairs group of 《Caijing》 magazine in 2015 and engaged for many years in in-depth investigative reporting on the judicial、political-business and social spheres. His investigative works include the series 《The Hundred-Billion-Yuan Fake Gold Loan Fraud Case》、《Qinghai Alkaline Industry’s 3.3 Billion Yuan in Assets Taken Over at Half Price by a Local State-Owned Enterprise》《Turbulence in Gansu’s Officialdom: Several Officials Jump into the Yellow River》《The Qinling Mountains’ Super Illegal Villas》and others，which attracted widespread attention in the public sphere. In the years before leaving China for Thailand，he had focused on power and gray-interest structures in Shaanxi and northwestern China. Representative reports include 《Uncovering the Interest Chain Behind Private Lending in Yan’an》and 《Shaanxi’s Version of the “Sun Xiaoguo Case”: After Robbing, Escaping Prison and Killing a Police “Informant,” He Mysteriously Walked Free and Became a Coal Boss》.