How Does China Run Secret Police Stations Around the World?

The FBI said it had arrested two people of Chinese descent on suspicion of operating a clandestine police station for Beijing in the heart of New York’s Chinatown, a bustling hub of social and commercial activity for the Chinese and Asian communities in the city.

The case echoes a similar incident in December, when Germany sent a protest note to the Chinese Embassy over the illegal presence of two Chinese police stations in the country, according to the German government.

The government said the stations were “organized on a person-by-person basis, mobile and not permanently established.”

They were run by members of the “Chinese diaspora,” including five “district officers,” one of whom was in Berlin, and offered legal advice and assistance with paperwork to Chinese and Germans of Chinese descent.

 

Repeating Pattern

Similarly, a human rights group in Spain has accused China of operating more than 100 secret police stations around the world, aimed at silencing dissidents and spying on foreign countries.

The report, released by the Spanish NGO Protection of Human Rights Defenders, said the stations “provide diplomatic services but also try to intimidate Chinese dissidents and critics in Europe.”

It cited cases of harassment and threats in the Netherlands, Canada, and other countries.

The report added to the growing concerns about China’s covert activities abroad, as it seeks to expand its influence and suppress dissent among its diaspora.

Last month, Canadian authorities said they were investigating two sites in Montreal that were suspected of being Chinese police outposts. The sites were among at least 100 that the report said were operating in 53 countries, including the UK and the U.S.

China has denied having any secret police stations outside its territory, and said it was only providing consular services to its citizens.

But some of the stations have been linked to incidents of intimidation and coercion against dissidents, such as Wang Jingyu, a refugee in the Netherlands who fled China after criticizing its handling of a border clash with India.

Last October, Dutch media reported that Wang had received phone calls from the Chinese police station in Rotterdam, telling him to “go back to China to solve [his] problems” and to “think about [his] parents.”

The Dutch government said it was illegal for foreign police to operate on its soil and launched an investigation into the matter.

The Spanish report urged European governments to take action against the secret police stations and to protect the rights and safety of Chinese dissidents and critics living in their countries. It also called on China to respect international law and human rights standards.

The United States has accused 34 officers from China’s Ministry of Public Security of using fake social media accounts to harass Chinese dissidents living in the United States and spread propaganda on behalf of the Chinese government.

The officers, who were charged in a separate complaint this month, are all members of an elite task force called the 912 Special Project Working Group, whose mission is to “target Chinese dissidents located throughout the world, including in the United States,” according to prosecutors.

“As alleged, the PRC government deploys its national police and the 912 Special Project Working Group not as an instrument to uphold the law and protect public safety, but rather as a troll farm that attacks persons in our country for exercising free speech,” said Breon Peace, the United States attorney.

None of the defendants are believed to be in the United States or in custody. They are thought to reside in China or elsewhere in Asia.

A human rights group focusing on China and Vietnam, Safeguard Defenders, has also identified two cases in which criminal suspects were coerced to return to China from Europe with the involvement of police service stations: one in Madrid in January 2020 and another in Belgrade, Serbia, in October 2018.

The Chinese government has boasted about its “persuasion operations,” claiming that it had successfully persuaded 230,000 overseas fraud suspects to return home since April 2021, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

 

FBI’s Report

Two men who worked to set up a covert police station in New York on behalf of China’s Ministry of Public Security were arrested and charged with conspiracy, acting as agents of a foreign government, and obstructing justice, federal prosecutors said.

The men, Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping, were part of a scheme that began in October 2022 to recruit and monitor Chinese citizens living in the United States, according to a criminal complaint.

The police station, which operated from an office in Manhattan, was shut down in the fall of 2022 after the FBI uncovered the operation and raided the premises. “This case exposes the brazen attempt by the Chinese government to violate our nation’s sovereignty by establishing a secret police station in the middle of New York City,” said Breon Pearce, the United States attorney in Brooklyn.

“We will vigorously defend the rights and freedoms of all those who live in our country from the threat of authoritarian repression.”

The revelations of the network have prompted swift reactions from governments. In Ireland, the authorities ordered the closure of a police station in central Dublin that had a sign advertising itself as the “Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station.”

In Britain, the government said it was “very concerned” by the allegations and lawmakers planned a session in Parliament to gather evidence on the issue. Canadian police have also opened an investigation.

 

100 Globally

China has denied any ties to a network of more than 100 “overseas police stations” that it has established in dozens of countries to monitor, harass and even repatriate Chinese citizens living abroad, according to a human rights group.

The group, Safeguard Defenders, said in a report that it had evidence of 102 such centers worldwide, including six in the United States, where they operate as “service centers” for Chinese nationals abroad.

The centers claim to offer assistance with administrative matters like renewing driving licenses, but in fact they are run by the Chinese Communist Party’s law enforcement agencies and are tasked with spying on Chinese citizens around the world, the report said.

The report’s findings were corroborated by the New York Post, which reported on the arrest of a Chinese national in New York who was accused of working as an agent for one of the centers.

The Post also quoted a spokesman for Safeguard Defenders as saying that some host countries had cooperated with China in arresting and deporting dissidents and activists.

The existence of the centers has also raised alarm in Canada, where the police opened an investigation in March into two suspected sites in Montreal that were believed to be working for Beijing.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at the time that his government was “very concerned” about the issue.