Countries should close Chinese consulates until the communist regime shuts down its network of illegal police operations, a former deputy national security adviser said after nearly 50 additional stations were found.
“China’s overseas police stations are one of several ways that Beijing is eroding our national sovereignty and depriving ethnic Chinese, in particular, of their rights as citizens of democracies,” the president told Fox News. from the China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Matt Pottinger. . “Democracies should close Chinese consulates until Beijing withdraws its illegal and extraterritorial law enforcement on our borders.”
Safeguard Defenders, a pan-Asian human rights organization, published an investigation on Monday, called “Patrol and Persuade,” reporting that 48 other Chinese police service stations were operating abroad, in addition to the 54 the group had identified in September. The reported locations span 53 countries, including four stations in the US: two in New York City, one in Los Angeles, and one set up by the Nantong Public Security Bureau at an undisclosed location.
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“We know that the Communist Party of China (CCP) has been intensifying its transnational suppression efforts around the world for the past several years,” Safeguard Defenders campaign manager Laura Harth told Fox News. “And that the United Front Labor networks linked to these stations have long been involved in operations of influence and interference abroad.”
“Seasons appear as the latest iteration of such growth practices,” he said.
These overseas police stations allow the Chinese authorities to “carry out police operations on foreign soil” and have aided a CCP campaign to combat citizens living abroad who have allegedly committed “fraud and fraud in telecommunications,” Harth said. Since the campaign’s launch in April 2021, 230,000 Chinese citizens have been “persuaded to return” to their homes to face prosecution for alleged crimes, according to China’s Ministry of Public Security.
Safeguard Defenders also linked the alleged overseas police network to the activities of China’s United Front Work Department, a Communist Party organization tasked with spreading its influence and propaganda abroad.
“The best testimony to the scale of clandestine police operations led by the [People’s Republic of China] the authorities come from their own official statements and work reports,” Harth said. Beijing has touted the success of Operation Fox Hunt, a campaign that has returned more than 11,000 high-value fugitives to China since 2014, according to Harth.
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Through its “110 Overseas” campaign, China’s Ministry of Foreign Security has persuaded more than 230,000 suspected overseas Chinese to return to the mainland and face criminal charges.
((Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images))
“The numbers and the scale speak for themselves,” he said. “Especially in combination with the framework of the illegal methods used… which include threats, harassment, detention of relatives at home; the deployment of undercover agents, embassy personnel, persons linked to stations abroad or agents hired for / “persuade” the target abroad directly on foreign soil, and even kidnappings.”
China’s foreign ministry has denied it is operating undeclared police forces and said the locations provide services to its citizens living abroad, such as ID and driver’s license renewals.
However, the newly reported stations were established as early as 2016, according to research by Safeguard Defenders, which disputes China’s claims that operations were launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Even more worrisome than China’s expanding operations, Harth said, is that “the vast majority of targeted countries seemed completely unaware” of the CCP’s police networks operating on their loot, “highlighting an urgent need for a coordinated response in the entire democratic alliance”.
At least 13 countries, including Canada, Germany and the Netherlands, have launched investigations into these police stations following the initial report of their existence, according to Safeguard Defenders. The United States also made the list, but it’s unclear what steps the government is taking to investigate the issue.
Telecom scam suspects return to China from Cambodia as the CCP cracks down on fraud committed by its citizens abroad.
(Xinhua News Agency / Contributor)
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FBI Director Christopher Wray told a US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs hearing in November that he was aware of the existence of the stations and found the issue very concerning, but was He refused to detail the investigative work of the office in this regard.
“But to me, it’s outrageous to think that the Chinese police would try to set up shop in, you know, New York, let’s say, without proper coordination,” Wray said. “It violates sovereignty and circumvents standard police and judicial cooperation processes.”
Harth said it has been “extremely encouraging to see the response from some governments” but recommended that all countries hosting one of these stations “take steps to counter this common domestic threat and attack on fundamental freedoms and territorial sovereignty.”
