Vicky Xiuzhong Xu, 27, is a writer, researcher and stand-up comedian living in Australia. Her work has been instrumental in exposing the scale of China’s forced labor program in Xinjiang, where Uyghurs are corralled into heavily guarded compounds to work in factories under prison-like conditions. She became a key propaganda target for Chinese authorities, who have denounced her as a national traitor, after her research on human rights abuses was published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

She is now writing a memoir about her experiences, titled “You’re So Brave.” In October, she and her colleagues at ASPI published a new report detailing the complex network of repression in Xinjiang. 

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

You’ve been researching surveillance in Xinjiang for years. Was there anything that shocked you while you were working on this project?