A Czech citizen, taken this summer by Chinese police – or more likely by the Ministry of State Security (MSS) – as part of hostage diplomacy, to pressure the Czech government into releasing an alleged Chinese spy. One U.S. citizen taken by the MSS after being lured into the country. Another U.S. citizen only just moved into formal arrest. A British citizen whose release from prison was only recently made public. Two Japanese businessmen working in the sensitive field of rare earth materials. A Chinese journalist whose whereabouts and condition remain unknown to this day. An endless parade of Chinese lawyers, journalists, and NGO workers.

These people all have one thing in common: they are – or were – disappeared. Not detained. Not arrested. Disappeared into what China euphemistically calls “residential surveillance at a designated location,” better known these days as RSDL. The fact that these cases are so disjointed and vary so much from one another is simple to explain: RSDL is becoming a go-to tool for the CCP in an ever-growing number of scenarios. And these cases cited above are just the tip of the iceberg.

It has long been known that China has used the system on foreigners in the past – myself included. However, the sheer number of cases only now coming to light suggests that past foreign victims were either just a small fraction of the real number, or, more likely, that Chinese police and the MSS alike are becoming more carefree about placing foreign citizens into the system, especially when the victim is intended as a tool of foreign policy. Or, to put it plainly: hostage diplomacy.

It is with this in mind that Safeguard Defenders, the NGO I work with, has released the third edition of the book “The People’s Republic of the Disappeared,” a collection of first-person testimonies from these secret prisons. When we first started on the book, we knew we wanted to focus on foreign citizens as victims – first because it seemed to be happening more and more, but also because we have worked for years with RSDL victims, often Chinese lawyers, journalists, and activists, and knew their experiences well. But what about those foreign citizens? How did their experiences compare? And what about the cases where the system was so clearly being used merely as a tool of hostage diplomacy?

The book, an anthology of sorts, contains first-person short stories from a myriad of victims. Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig, a prime example of such hostage diplomacy, didn’t just write his own story – he wrote the book’s foreword. Australian news anchor Cheng Lei and Taiwanese activist Lee Ming-che are other contributors. As a former NGO worker in China who ended up in RSDL myself, I contributed too. And so did many others.

The stories are not exactly an easy read, but they should be mandatory reading for those in foreign governments working to protect their citizens abroad from arbitrary detention – both governments with recent or current victims, and those who will almost certainly have their own citizens taken into the system the next time the CCP feels it can use them as leverage in trade negotiations, “prisoner” exchanges, or other foreign policy goals. For those in foreign ministries tasked with keeping their citizens safe from such treatment, failure to learn how the system actually works should not be an option.

In fact, foreign ministries in countries whose citizens have been disappeared into the system have been consistently slow – at best – or have downright avoided learning about RSDL from past victims, when they have every reason, and indeed an obligation, to learn as much as they can: both to better help their own citizens, and as a means of pressuring the CCP to roll back its use of arbitrary detention and hostage diplomacy against other countries.

The book, of course, also includes numerous testimonies from Chinese victims – from lawyers to media workers to those who were merely collateral damage – and shows how the system is used as a tool of political terror within and against China’s fledgling human rights community, whose members seek something as audacious as basic rights, religious freedom, and the rule of law.

While we continue to publish new analysis and data showing how many tens of thousands are being put into the system, and to expose how the facilities are built and what they look like inside, none of that can ever compare with letting readers hear directly from those who have the real experience of going through the system, and how it changes everyone who has been through it.

The one positive thing one can take from these testimonies is the often incredible stories of resilience – how people, domestic activists and foreign victims alike, draw strength from these experiences. Few who have gone through it ever give up; most return even more determined. Others, having faced such horror, become public advocates against the system, or work to help both future and past victims. And there is much to be learned from this, as people have made clear in the past: by reading how others have experienced RSDL, those at risk of becoming future victims have been able to prepare themselves and work out strategies to protect themselves, their partners, and their loved ones, should they face it themselves.

Which is why the book – also available in a Chinese-language edition – is being made available for free, for all Chinese activists, dissidents, and others to freely access.