The crowds of protesters gathered outside Gao Bing Chen’s home on a cul-de-sac in Surrey, B.C., for 11 weeks, rain or shine.
The group of up to 60 people distributed pamphlets describing their baseless claims that the journalist and commentator was a traitor and an agent of China.
They played funeral music outside Gao’s house, upsetting his wife, young daughter and mother-in-law, and livestreamed the protests around the world, where they were watched by up to 100,000 people.
They harassed his wife and told her to get a divorce.
Two of them beat up a friend of Gao’s outside the home, resulting in assault convictions.
Now, six years after his ordeal began, Gao has been awarded $275,000 in defamation damages from one of his tormentors, Yun Fei Zhu.
“Justice might be delayed, but it will never come too late,” said Gao in an interview in Mandarin on Monday.
“This is likely the first case in Canada where protesters managed to move cyberbullying directly from the internet to my doorstep, livestreaming for five hours a day for 77 consecutive days. If I were not tough enough, I might have lost my mind already.”
Last week’s ruling says Gao suffered “severe distress” from the defamatory comments, forcing him to consider moving his family out of Canada entirely.
The harassment stemmed from Gao’s criticism of exiled Chinese businessman and convicted fraudster Guo Wengui, who had set up a project called the New Federal State of China with Steve Bannon, the former adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump.
Get breaking National news
Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won’t miss a trending story.
It was presented as a political movement to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party, and had a presence in Vancouver and Toronto, but the B.C. Supreme Court defamation ruling says critics regarded Guo and the New Federal State of China as “unreliable, conspiratorial and cult‑like.”
Gao was himself a critic of China’s government, testifying that he was well known in the Chinese Canadian community “as a pro‑democracy activist and commentator.” But the trouble began when he took issue with Guo’s movement.
Zhu, who lives in White Rock, B.C., livestreamed the protests that ensued outside Gao’s home for weeks, five hours a day. They began on Sept. 15, 2020.
“In the course of those livestreams, Gao was called many things, including a spy whose hands were covered in the blood of democracy activists. There is no evidence to suggest any of that is true,” says the ruling by Justice Richard Hewson.
While Gao said the ruling brought him tears and relief, it could not undo the harm to him, his family and their neighbours.
Zhu is described in the ruling as a freelance handyman and goldsmith who operates a YouTube channel about events of interest in the Chinese-Canadian community.
He “does not appear to be a man of means,” the ruling notes, adding that paying the defamation award will be a considerable hardship.
But the impact on Gao was extreme.
“His standing in the Chinese-Canadian community was destroyed,” the ruling says. “He is no longer able to participate in the community in the ways and to nearly the extent that he had in the past. He deserves to have his reputation vindicated.”
Hewson awarded $250,000 in general damages, plus $25,000 in aggravated damages.
Gao said the accusations against him outlined in the pamphlets, which were also distributed to neighbours, were all nonsense.
“These protesters tried to cancel me from my neighbourhood, my family, my community,” said Gao.
“Every time my wife tried to leave home, they would approach her, asking her to ‘hurry up and file a divorce,’ saying she shouldn’t have married a spy from the Chinese Communist Party and if she didn’t do it, our marriage would fail.”
When the protests started up again in 2023, Gao briefly left Canada, hoping his family would be left in peace.
“There were clear allegations of criminal conduct, including treason, all of which were made without any investigation of the truth,” Hewson’s ruling says.
“(Gao) knew they were being extensively circulated. He considered moving his family out of the area and perhaps leaving his home in Canada entirely.”
The ruling says Zhu admitted that in 2024 and 2025 he continued to make similar statements about Gao.
Zhu could not immediately be reached for comment.
As for Guo, he was sentenced to 30 years in a U.S. jail for fraud in July.
Judge Analisa Torres in the Southern District of New York said Guo “preyed on those seeking to bring democracy to China,” taking their money so he could live lavishly, saying he had called upon supporters “to harass and intimidate those who dare to speak out against him.”
Although he is relieved, Gao said he’s still haunted by the months-long protest.
“I am hoping to move on, but it’s hard. The fear and trauma lingers,” he said.
