These ‘citizens’ from Steve Bannon and a Chinese billionaire’s ‘federal state’ have been protesting in a Metro Vancouver cul-de-sac for nearly 50 days. What do they want?

“They claim our neighbour is a CCP spy. They put leaflets in mailboxes. (Benson Gao’s) daughter is obviously freaked out by this, as is the neighbourhood,” said resident Bob Petersen. He said several fellow neighbours have sent complaints to Surrey RCMP and City Hall.

The protesters the Star spoke with say they don’t mean to hassle the neighbours. They tell the Star they are peaceful “citizens” of the “New Federal State of China,” which was co-founded by former White House Chief strategist Steve Bannon and Chinese billionaire in self-exile, Guo Wengui, who is also known as Miles Kwok.

“We support them so much,” one man said in Mandarin, referring to Bannon and Guo.

The goal of the New Federal State of China, declared in June 2020 by banners carried by aircrafts flying over American cities, is to take down the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and create an alternative Chinese state.

The group promotes its messages through popular social media sites as well as an online ecosystem of proprietary websites and video streaming platforms like G News and GTV named after Guo.

So why is the Canadian chapter of this group concentrating its efforts on a quiet neighbourhood in Surrey, B.C.?

As a journalist and activist, Benson Gao has spoken out against Beijing’s authoritarian rule for over a decade. He is the co-founder of the 60-member Vancouver Society of Freedom, Democracy & Human Rights in China, formerly called Alliance of the Guard of Canadian Values. The group lobbies the Canadian government to guard against Beijing’s attempts to influence Canadian institutions. His stance would seem to make Benson Gao an unlikely target for this group.

When the Star asked protesters why they believe Benson Gao was a spy, a man replied: “It’s because his videos distort the truth.”

Another interjected.

“(Gao) spread misinformation about the scientist!” he said.

He is referring to Benson Gao publicly saying in his YouTube videos that he didn’t believe a Hong Kong scientist’s theories on COVID-19’s origins.

Another protest group member handed over a pamphlet.

It told a story of a scientist from Hong Kong, Yan Li-Meng, fleeing to the U.S. and describing herself as a whistleblower on the origins of COVID-19. Fox News aired an interview with Yan in mid-September in which she said her research provides evidence that COVID-19 was made in a Chinese lab and intentionally released into the world — claims that other scientists have widely rejected as unfounded. But Yan doubled down, publishing a second report on Oct. 8 titled “SARS-CoV-2 is an Unrestricted Bioweapon.” Both reports listed non-profit groups founded by Bannon and Guo as funding sources.

None of the protesters provided their names, saying they feared Beijing would kidnap them.

Meanwhile, Benson Gao sits inside his home office, watching the scene through his security camera feeds.

Once the group arrives each day, he tries to keep his 10-year-old daughter inside, and console his wife and mother-in-law, who are “angry and disturbed” by the protesters.

“The protesters accuse me of being a CCP spy and say I’ve sent their photos to China, and their family members are affected. I absolutely don’t know them and I don’t have their photos.

“Afterwards I found out this kind of thing hasn’t only happened in Canada. Wearing the same clothes and shouting the same slogans, these (protests) have happened in some five or six countries around the world … but I’m the only one I know of in Canada who has been targeted,” he told the Star in Mandarin.

In an Aug. 29 news release, the New Federal State of China said it had organized general public protests in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya in Japan, Taipei in Taiwan, Munich in Germany, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Tucson in the U.S., and Vancouver in Canada. Protests in Ottawa and Toronto later took place in September.

The Star has independently confirmed that protests taking place daily outside a person’s home have occurred in at least Vancouver and Texas.

In several YouTube videos before the protests started, Benson Gao had criticized the “nonsense spouted by Guo Wengui.” Recently in social media posts, he has been open with his theory that whipping up supporters to target certain individuals was Guo’s way to silence influential critics of him among Chinese-language commentators. Benson Gao says he thinks the Federal State’s goals are questionable, since they are seeking to silence people like him who have spoken out against Beijing’s authoritarian rule for decades.

The Star viewed a series of videos of a man listing names of people including Benson Gao and telling his supporters that “they all deserve to die.” The man in the video looked and sounded like Guo Wengui, multiple people listed in the video told the Star. He was wearing a hat with a “G” logo and sunglasses. Most of the people listed in the video as “traitors” appear to be pro-democracy figures who are openly critical of Beijing. The videos have since been deleted on Twitter, but appear on YouTube accounts that are not clearly affiliated with the New Federal State of China.

In another video shared from the GTV platform, which is still publicly available, Guo’s face is clearly shown, and he says, “Let’s eliminate traitors in the world … Let’s finish with these traitors first,” but he does not list any names. Bannon doesn’t appear in most GTV videos, and it’s unclear what role he plays in the organization.

The Star made efforts over a week to contact Guo and Bannon, sending multiple requests through New Federal State of China members requesting interviews. The Star additionally sent an emailed request to Bannon’s public relations manager. The Star was unable to find phone numbers connected with either men. The requests asked if the group’s two founders condoned the protests. (It should be noted that Bannon made a fictional film in 2019, “Claws of the Red Dragon,” that said on its website that it was inspired by this reporter’s interview with former Canadian ambassador to China John McCallum.)

In Midland, Texas, Christian Pastor Bob Fu, who’s a prominent advocate for Chinese dissidents with his NGO ChinaAid, told the Star that shortly after Guo’s videos were posted, dozens of protesters gathered outside his home. Days later, he received online death threats and bomb threats.

“Federal FBI and local law enforcement had to evacuate us from our home to an undisclosed safe location on Oct. 5,” Fu said.

But protesters continue to gather outside his residence each day, and Fu is finding himself monitoring the situation on social media, not knowing when his family would be able to return home.

To Benson Gao, U.S. authorities are handling the situation appropriately, and he questions why Canadian authorities haven’t done more to protect his family or investigate the dubious actions of the New Federal State of China.

“Police just told us to stay inside our homes when the protesters come … We feel trapped, and guilty that our neighbours have to deal with these disturbances, too,” he said.

Surrey RCMP said in a statement to the Star that they couldn’t confirm “specifics about what attending officers discussed with the individuals involved.”

But Corporal Elenore Sturko, a spokesperson for the RCMP, said police understand that Benson Gao and his neighbours are upset and concerned.

“We’re … trying to have this ongoing community issue resolved. What’s happening right now, though, is that there hasn’t been activity that’s met the threshold for any criminal charges.

“As for our ability to arrest this problem away, it’s not something we can do,” she added.

The Star reached out to Toronto-based spokespeople for the New Federal State of China’s Canadian chapter to ask about Benson Gao’s theory that the protests are a form of revenge for criticizing Guo.

A spokesperson who gave his first name as Richard insisted their group is genuinely acting out of the interests of all Canadians.

“Gao is killing people. He’s hurting Canadians because he’s helping the Chinese Communist Party, like a wingman.

“I don’t have direct evidence to prove it to you. Our belief is he’s a very sneaky guy,” Richard said in a telephone interview, adding that his fellow volunteers also go to Surrey RCMP detachments every day to ask police to investigate Benson Gao.

These are allegations that Gao has vehemently denied.

Another spokesperson, who goes by the nickname “Khaleesi,” after the “Game of Thrones” television show character, denied that their group was associated with those who were filmed in early October calling Benson Gao insults like “son of a dog” and saying that Gao should be “deleted,” which could be construed as a death threat. The Star was unable to confirm the identities of the people in the video from a visit to the protest site in mid-October, since everybody was wearing masks. The video is pinned to the top of Benson Gao’s Twitter page.

“We don’t know them … We can’t stop other people from wearing similar clothes, but for our volunteer group, this is impossible,” Khaleesi said in a message.

To Vancouver criminal defence lawyer Paul Doroshenko, this is a case where there’s a clash between the right to protest and the right to be protected from harassment.

“It’s one thing to be protesting, and another thing to protest day after day, week after week. If police are telling the family to stay inside, they’re essentially telling them to be prisoners in their own home in order to avoid being a victim of a crime.

“That seems completely ridiculous,” Doroshenko said.

“To me, this calls out for some kind of provincial legislation … if existing laws do not cover the situation,” he said.

B.C.’s Ministry of Public Safety declined to provide a statement.

A spokesperson for the City of Surrey told the Star that bylaw enforcement officers have been monitoring the situation, but have so far found no violations of city bylaws. There are no bylaws in the city that pertain to the duration of protests, the spokesperson said.