China apparently has 'secret police stations' in cities from New York to Tokyo. Why, what?
The Chinese government is known for its widespread surveillance and intimidation tactics to suppress criticism in its country. However, under Xi Jinping, the oppression and surveillance have gone beyond China's borders, with the help of the "secret police stations", according to a human rights group.
Spain-based Asia-focused human rights group, Safeguard Defenders, has published two reports since earlier this year alleging that the Chinese Communist Party is running illegal "police stations" in foreign places with a high concentration of Chinese expatriates, to target dissenters.
In the latest: The Chinese foreign ministry on Thursday, December 22, denied the existence of any such institutions.
China has claimed that these facilities are run by volunteers to offer overseas Chinese citizens administrative services such as renewing documents, getting a driver's license etc. These were set up during the Covid pandemic due to the disruption of other official services.
But not everybody is convinced. And investigations in some European countries show that the illegal centres indeed exist, though the nature of their operations remains unclear.
- Japan said on Thursday that it will investigate the reports. China has "secret police stations" in Tokyo and other unknown locations in Japan, according to the NGO.
- South Korea is also reportedly looking into the reports.
- Canadian Police launched its investigation and also summoned Beijing's envoy to explain the issue. Ottawa has already ordered Chinese government agencies operating in Canada to "cease and desist" from all illegal activities.
- On Thursday, Czechoslovakia announced that China closed two such facilities in Prague.
- Before this, the Netherlands had confirmed they closed similar unauthorised Chinese government centres in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
- Ireland also ordered an illegal Chinese centre in Dublin to shut down.
Safeguard Defenders states that such police stations are operating in several other countries like the UK, Spain, Italy, Australia, and more. There are reportedly 102 such Chinese overseas police stations in 53 countries.
A report by Politico states that the secret police stations were likely modelled after the first Chinese police stations set up in Italy as part of a 2015 bilateral agreement between the two countries on joint police patrols.
So far, no report has found any such Chinese police stations operating in India.
What do the secret police stations do? According to Safeguard Defenders, these "service centres" veiled as administrative offices, are covertly run by the police from various Chinese jurisdictions.
- They reportedly harass, threaten, and intimidate targetted Chinese citizens residing abroad in order to get them to return to China "voluntarily" to face criminal charges.
- These centres reportedly try to "persuade" the targetted individuals to return using tactics such as threatening family members back home including denying education to the children of the targets, similar to what North Korea does to its defectors.
- Safeguard Defenders claims that China successfully "persuaded" some 2,30,000 Chinese fugitives to return to China between April 2021 and July 2022, even though not all had committed crimes.
- These facilities bypass extradition rules that apply to asylum seekers or fugitives, that protect the rights of individuals in case of state-sponsored persecution.
Running unauthorised government agencies in foreign countries is a violation of international laws. Under the 1963 Vienna Convention rules, setting up "a vice-consular or a consular agency" without the consent of the host country is considered a violation of the international pact adopted by the United Nations.