CBN News published January 31, 2023: China is Operating Illicit Police Stations Inside the US - Why Are They Still Allowed to Be Here? Above a noodle shop in New York's Chinatown, agents of the Chinese communist government reportedly operated an overseas police station for years. There are more than one hundred of them worldwide. They might not look like police stations. They may only be the back room to a restaurant, but they're staffed by Chinese government officials.
The police stations along with so-called "aid stations" across the U.S. are used by the Chinese government to harass and threaten pro-democracy Chinese immigrants to stop speaking out against the regime and go back to China, even kidnapping them if necessary.
LiveNOW from FOX published April 17, 2023: Illegal Chinese police station in NY: FBI arrests 2 in 'national security matter'. Two people have been arrested by the FBI on allegations they helped operate an illegal police station for the government of China in lower Manhattan. The FBI said in a press conference the stations poses "a national security threat."
CBS New York published April 17, 2023: 2 arrested for operating illegal police station for Chinese govt. in NYC. According to the feds, the men are U.S. citizens who acted as Chinese operatives embedded in Lower Manhattan for more than a year, CBS2's Jessica Moore reports.
BBC News, UK
written by Holly Honderich
Monday April 17, 2023
US prosecutors have arrested two men in New York for allegedly operating a Chinese "secret police station" in Manhattan's Chinatown neighbourhood.
Lu Jianwang, 61, and Chen Jinping, 59, both New York City residents, face charges of conspiring to act as agents for China and obstruction of justice.
They are expected to appear in federal court in Brooklyn on Monday.
China has previously denied operating the stations, calling them "service centres" for nationals overseas.
Mr Lu of the Bronx and Mr Chen of Manhattan worked together to establish the first overseas police station in the United States on behalf of China's Ministry of Public Security, the US Department of Justice alleged on Monday.
The outpost was closed in autumn of 2022, the department said, after those involved became aware of an FBI investigation into the station.
"This prosecution reveals the Chinese government's flagrant violation of our nation's sovereignty by establishing a secret police station in the middle of New York City," said Breon Pearce, the top prosecutor in Brooklyn.
The stations are believed to be among at least 100 operating across the globe in 53 countries, including the UK and the Netherlands. And last month, Canada's federal police announced an investigation into two Montreal-area sites thought to be police outposts.
"The PRC's [People's Republic of China] actions go far beyond the bounds of acceptable nation-state conduct. We will resolutely defend the freedoms of all those living in our country from the threat of authoritarian repression," said assistant attorney general Matthew Olsen, from the Justice Department's National Security Division.
According to prosecutors, Mr Lu was closely connected to Chinese law enforcement, and was enlisted to help China with "repressive activities" in the US beginning in 2015, including harassing Chinese dissidents.
In 2018, he allegedly participated in efforts to push a purported Chinese fugitive to return to China, including repeated harassment and threats to the individual and his family, living in China and the US. And prosecutors said he was also enlisted to locate a pro-democracy activist in China. Mr Lu denied these actions when confronted by US authorities.
He and Mr Chen were questioned by authorities in October 2022, when the FBI conducted a search of the suspected station. Their phones were seized as part of the search and both men admitted they had deleted communication with an official from China's Ministry of Public Security who was allegedly directing their behaviour in the US, prosecutors alleged.
If convicted, both Mr Lu and Mr Chen face up to 25 years in prison.
Chinese embassies in the US and Canada have said the locations are "overseas service stations'' opened during the pandemic to assist nationals abroad with driver's licence renewal and similar matters.
But human rights groups have accused China of using the outposts to threaten and monitor Chinese nationals abroad.
Last month, the Canada's federal force asked Chinese Canadians who may have been targeted by threats from "alleged Chinese police stations" to come forward.
"We're in the process of making sure the RCMP is following up on this and that our intelligence systems are taking this seriously," Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said last November that his agency was monitoring reports of such stations, calling them a "real problem".
"To me, it is outrageous to think that the Chinese police would attempt to set up shop, you know, in New York, let's say, without proper co-ordination," Mr Wray said. "It violates sovereignty and circumvents standard judicial and law enforcement co-operation processes."
In a separate complaint unveiled by US officials on Monday, 34 officers from China's Ministry of Public Security were charged with using fake social media accounts to harass Chinese dissidents in the US and spread official Chinese government propaganda.
Prosecutors said all of the accused belong to an elite task force known as the 912 Special Project Working Group, whose purpose is to "target Chinese dissidents located throughout the world, including in the United States".
"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," US Attorney Peace said.
All 34 of these defendants are believed to live in China or elsewhere in Asia.
DW News, Germany published December 12, 2022: How China operates illegal 'police stations' in foreign countries. Germany says China is operating two illegal 'police stations' on its territory. These set-ups don't have a fixed office, and are run by private individuals from the Chinese diaspora. The aim is to collect information on Chinese dissidents and citizens in exile and pass that on to Beijing.
Its a pattern that's come to light across the world. An earlier report by Madrid based NGO Safeguard Defenders claimed there were more than a hundred such 'police stations' in at least 53 countries. Most exist illegally and aim to monitor, coerce and in some instances repatriate, those Beijing considers criminal or anti-China.
WION published October 26, 2022: Gravitas: Inside China's police stations overseas. The Chinese government is said to have opened 54 overseas police stations in 21 countries. Two offices have been uncovered in the Netherlands alone. The Dutch foreign ministry has termed them illegal. Molly Gambhir tells you more.
WION News, India
written by Anamica Singh
December 5, 2022
A CNN report says that China has opened over 100 "overseas police stations" across the globe aimed at monitoring, harassing and even repatriating Chinese citizens living in exile. Madrid-based human rights campaigner Safeguard Defenders had revealed in September that 54 such stations exist worldwide. Now in a new report the group says that it has evidence that China was operating 48 additional police stations.
The report, called “Patrol and Persuade”, further says that China has struck bilateral security arrangements with some European and African countries to gain a widespread presence internationally.
The group's report focusses on the scale of the network and the role the joint policing initiatives between China and several European nations have played to help the spread of Chinese overseas stations. The countries in question include Italy, Croatia, Serbia and Romania.
The group claims that operatives working undercover in Paris forced a Chinese citizen to return home. Earlier, two other Chinese exiles were also forced to return home from Serbia and Spain.
Safeguard Defenders says it has identified four different police jurisdictions of China’s Ministry of Public Security active across at least 53 countries. These stations attend to the needs of expatriates from those parts of China.
Beijing has dismissed all reports of such police stations being run abroad. It told CNN last month, "We hope that relevant parties stop hyping it up to create tensions. Using this as a pretext to smear China is unacceptable.”
China claims that these centers are administrative hubs tasked with helping Chinese expatriates renew documentation. It also said that these centers were opened to help citizens stuck in other countries following the Covid-19 pandemic. However, as per the report, these centers predate the pandemic by several years.
Responding to Safeguard Defenders’ original allegations, China had said that these centers are staffed by volunteers. However, the group's report now says that one of its police networks hired 135 people for its first 21 stations.
Investigations were launched in at least 13 different countries after reports on the operation of these police stations first came out. Tensions between China and countries like Canada have also flared.
While China isn't the only country to have employed extrajudicial means to reach targets for law enforcement or for political persecution, the timing of the report hurts the nation already going through turmoil at home. People have been protesting the country's zero-Covid policy and demanding curbs to be loosened even as case numbers have been continuously increasing.
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