Chinese police overseas service stations

According to Matt Schrader, writing for the Jamestown Foundation, "overseas Chinese service stations" (Chinese: 华助中心; pinyin: huázhù zhōngxīn; lit. 'Chinese assistance center') were first established in 2014, with 45 centers in 39 countries having been opened by 2019. According to Schrader, the centers were mostly formed from existing united front organizations and did not have policing authority. Schrader further stated that the centers served several legitimate purposes despite criticism of them, such as assisting crime victims with dealing with the host country's police and integrating new immigrants. Schrader pointed to a lack of transparency around the relationship between the centers and the Chinese government, particularly personnel of the United Front Work Department, and their political influence operations.[1]

According to the organization Safeguard Defenders, the Nantong police department later set up the first "overseas service stations", associated with the phrase "110 Overseas" (Chinese: 海外110; pinyin: hǎiwài yībǎiyīshí; lit. 'abroad 110'), as part of a pilot project in 2016. Safeguard Defenders said the department set up offices in six countries and had solved at least 120 criminal cases that involved Chinese nationals, as well as detaining over 80 people in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Zambia.[2] Dutch organizations RTL News and "Follow the Money" reported that afterwards, Wenzhou's Public Security Department established a "contact point" in Sydney, Australia, and the Lishui bureau established two offices in the Netherlands (one in Amsterdam, another in Rotterdam) in 2018.[2][3] According to their report, the police agencies of Fuzhou and Qingtian counties would set up the most numerous of the offices, with the latter beginning their program in 2019. Radio Free Asia reported that as of October 2022, a total of 54 such stations had been established in 30 countries.[4]

Safeguard Defenders released an initial report in September 2022 and a follow-up in December 2022,[5][6] alleging that the police stations were part of a program named Operation Fox Hunt, and were used to harass and coerce individuals wanted by the Chinese government, including dissidents, via threats to their families and themselves, pressuring them to return to China, where they would then be detained.[7][8] Safeguard Defenders claimed that, between April 2021 and July 2022, the Chinese government recorded 230,000 "suspects of fraud" who were "persuaded to return". The group stated that the stations violated the sovereignty of host countries by allowing Chinese police to circumvent police cooperation rules and procedures.[4][9] For instance, Wang Jingyu, a dissident who fled China after being targeted for social media posts and was granted asylum in the Netherlands, claimed he had been threatened and sent harassing messages by the Rotterdam station to make him return to China, with his parents who remained in China being targeted.[3][10] A broader example was a notice issued by an overseas station operated by the government of Laiyang in Myanmar, which stated that Chinese nationals who were there illegally should return to China or "there would be consequences for their loved ones", such as cancellation of their state benefits.[2] An anonymous official from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in an interview with El Correo, stated that the stations used "persuasion" tactics to convince those wanted by the government to return to China, pointing to the difficulties of getting European states to extradite to China.[11][12]

According to Yale legal scholar and China expert Jeremy Daum, the document published by Safeguard Defenders relied upon mistranslations of the Chinese language.[13] For instance, the report's authors incorrectly translated a Chinese document describing a police task force operating within Yunnan Province, believing instead that the task force was "heading abroad."[13] The mistranslation led Safeguard Defenders to assume local police actions within China were occurring in foreign countries.[13] Daum stated that the stations opened abroad are not staffed by police officers, and are not clandestine. Instead, they actively advertise their services, primarily facilitating business within and outside China.[13] Chinese dissidents living outside of China criticized Jeremy Daum's interpretation of the function of the overseas police service stations.[14]

In justifying the overseas police stations, Daum has stated that China "often lacks the capacity to extend the reach of its laws, owing to a shortage of extradition treaties, professional resources, and international influence". To the Chinese Communist Party (CPC), "the law is primarily a tool for maintaining domestic stability and CPC rule" and the "CPC rejects institutional checks on government power, such as constitutionalism, separation of powers, and judicial independence, as “incorrect Western concepts”." Daum noted the "European Court of Human Rights’ recent landmark decision to block the extradition from Poland to China of a Taiwanese man accused of fraud shows how legal processes [of Western countries with rule of law] could be used to avoid complicity in Chinese violations of due process and other basic human rights.[15]

According to the Chinese government, the centers had been set up to allow Chinese nationals to access administrative services such as driver's license and other document renewals without having to travel to China, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to confront transnational crime, especially fraud, affecting overseas Chinese communities.[16][9] In May 2022, China Youth Daily claimed that the stations operated by Fuzhou authorities had received over 1,800 reports from 88 countries.[17]

Meanwhile, China's domestic media had described the overseas police outposts as “collecting intelligence” and solving crimes abroad without collaborating with local officials. Some of these online articles were deleted after these police stations were called out by human rights activists and governments. [14]

In response, some countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, announced they would investigate the stations.[18][4][19]

In November 2022, Canada summoned the Chinese ambassador Cong Peiwu and issued a "cease and desist" warning concerning the stations.[20]

In March 2023, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced investigations into two police stations in Quebec.[21][22][23] The same month, Taiwan's Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) announced that a Chinese overseas police station in France engaged in cyberattacks against an OCAC language school in France.[24]

In March 2023, Rita Schwarzelühr-Sutter stated that two police stations remain operational in Germany, in violation of the country's sovereignty. She stated that they are run by "people who have good contacts with the diplomatic missions of the People's Republic of China and who enjoy the trust of the Chinese security authorities. They are also involved in Chinese United Front organizations."[25]

The overseas service stations in Dublin were ordered to close by the Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in late October 2022, although one had already stopped operations and took down its sign earlier when electronic ID renewal procedures were introduced.[26][4]

In December 2022, Italy announced that its police would cease joint patrols with Chinese police officers inside of Italian cities, with interior minister Matteo Piantedosi clarifying that the patrols in question had no relation to the overseas stations.[27]

The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs also stated that, as the Chinese government had failed to notify the country about the stations through diplomatic means, they had been operating illegally, with further investigation to be conducted into their conduct.[28] Foreign minister Wopke Hoekstra later ordered both offices to close.[29]

FBI director Christopher A. Wray said in November 2022 that the FBI was monitoring reports of the Chinese government establishing unregistered police stations in the U.S., saying that the conduct was "outrageous"; violated U.S. sovereignty; and "circumvents standard judicial and law enforcement cooperation processes."[30]

In January 2023, The New York Times reported that according to anonymous tipsters, counterintelligence agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided a suspected station set up by Fuzhou municipal authorities, hosted in the offices of the American Changle Association in Chinatown, Manhattan, in late 2022.[14] The station reportedly occupied an entire floor.[31] It shuttered after an October 2022 FBI raid.[30]

In April 2023, the FBI arrested two American citizens: "Harry" Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping.[31][32][33] They were charged by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn (the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York) with conspiring to act as unregistered agents of the Chinese government for operating the police outpost in Manhattan, and with obstruction of justice for deleting messages with an official of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) who had been directing their activities in the U.S.[31] Prosecutors said that Lu began to aid China's attempts to repress dissidents living in the U.S. in 2015.[30] On the same day, the Department of Justice unsealed charges against 34 MPS officers, charging them with "transnational repression offenses targeting U.S. residents" and alleging the use of fake social media accounts to harass and intimidate Chinese nationals in the U.S., with the intent to suppress free speech of Chinese dissidents living abroad.[34][30][31] The 34 officers are believed to be living in China, and are all members of the "912 Special Project Working Group", an Internet-based government influencing effort to enhance global perceptions of China.[35]

U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said the episode "reveals the Chinese government's flagrant violation of our nation's sovereignty";[31][30] Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the United States Department of Justice National Security Division said that the Chinese government's actions "go far beyond the bounds of acceptable nation-state conduct" and were an attempt to extend "authoritarian repression" to the U.S.[30]