China's NYC police station nothing new as Beijing has over 100 stations in 53 countries

New Delhi: After the discovery of a Chinese police station covertly running in New York, all eyes are on how many more such police stations, China has established in foreign countries.

Reports say that Beijing has more than 100 overseas police stations set up in foreign countries, allegedly to keep tabs, harass and sometimes recover Chinese citizens living abroad in exile.

According to a recent report, Beijing has established more than 100 so-called overseas police stations around the world to keep tabs on, harass, and in some cases repatriate Chinese nationals living in exile.

In order to set up a strong presence, Beijing has reportedly used bilateral security agreements with nations in Europe and Africa, reports say.

A human rights advocacy group based in Madrid named Safeguard Defenders claimed in September that there were 54 such stations and now, according to its recent reports named ‘Patrol and Persuade’, it has discovered evidence of 48 new police stations abroad.

The report examines the scope of the network and the role that joint law enforcement efforts between China and several European countries, such as Italy, Croatia, Serbia, and Romania, have played in launching a wider expansion of Chinese overseas stations than was previously known.

The group has accused Chinese undercover officers looking after one such police station in Paris of allegedly tortured a Chinese citizen so much so that he had to return back to China.

This is in addition to an earlier admission that two more Chinese exiles have been forcibly returned from Europe — one in Serbia and the other in Spain.

Four distinct police jurisdictions of China’s Ministry of Public Security have been identified by Safeguard Defenders, which searches open-source, official Chinese documents for evidence of alleged human rights violations.

These jurisdictions are allegedly active across at least 53 countries, covering all four corners of the world, and are ostensibly there to assist expatriates from those regions of China with their needs abroad.

How do these stations operate?

Beijing has denied operating unregistered police units outside of its borders. In a statement to CNN in November, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: “We hope that relevant parties avoid publicising it to create problems. It is unacceptable to use this to defame China.

China has argued that the buildings are actually administrative hubs designed to assist Chinese expats with duties like renewing their driver’s licences.

The Covid-19 pandemic had left many residents locked down in other nations and locked out of China, unable to renew documentation, according to China, which also claimed the offices were a response to this.

The overseas stations were staffed by volunteers, according to China’s foreign affairs ministry, which responded to a query from CNN last month over the Safeguard Defenders’ first accusations.

However, according to the organisation’s most recent study, one police network it looked at had 135 employees working at its initial 21 stations.

The company also found a worker hired at a foreign station in Stockholm a three-year contract.

The Safeguard Defenders study alleges that China’s overseas offices predate the pandemic by several years. Undeclared consular actions outside of a nation’s official diplomatic missions are exceedingly unusual and unlawful, unless a host government has granted their explicit agreement.

Their allegations have sparked inquiries in at least 13 different nations so far and stoked a diplomatic spat between China and countries like Canada, which has a sizable Chinese diaspora.

Is China alone?

The employment of extrajudicial methods to reach targets for law enforcement or for the purposes of political repression abroad has been attributed to more than only China, a superpower.

For instance, Russia has twice been charged of using radioactive and chemical weapons on British soil to try to kill its former spies. Russia has always refuted these accusations.

After 9/11, the CIA in the United States faced criticism for the extraordinary rendition of terrorism suspects from the streets of Italy to Guantanamo Bay.

But as China’s third term under leader Xi Jinping begins, the idea of widespread repression of its nationals abroad comes at a crucial time for a government already dealing with domestic instability and growing discontent with the nation’s rigorous zero-Covid policy.

Three years after the start of Covid-19, China made a last week announcement that some of its pandemic restrictions would be loosened.

Setting up security for others or surveillance system for own?

China, the second-largest economy in the world, has grown closer to many of the nations where the suspected new police stations are located, which poses uncomfortable issues for national governments juggling business interests with national security.

Italy, which has since 2015 signed a number of bilateral security agreements with China under several regimes, has mostly remained mute during the revelations of suspected actions on its territory.

Italian police frequently patrolled alongside Chinese police between 2016 and 2018, first in Rome and Milan and then in other cities, such as Naples, where, according to Safeguard Defenders, evidence has been discovered that a video surveillance system was installed ostensibly “to effectively deter crimes there.”

Joint policing would “lead to a wider international cooperation, exchange of information and sharing resources to combat the criminal and terrorist groups that afflict our countries,” an Italian police officer told NPR in 2016.

According to the NGO, 11 Chinese police stations have been established in Italy, including ones in Prato, close to Florence, and Venice.

According to recordings published on Chinese websites, Italian police officials attended one ceremony in Rome to commemorate the opening of a new station in 2018, highlighting the tight links between the two nations’ police forces.

Local inquiries of one of the stations, according to a story in the Italian newspaper La Nazione earlier this year, had turned up no evidence of unlawful behaviour.

Police chiefs were recently quoted by Il Foglio as saying that the stations did not appear to be particularly concerning as they appeared to be purely bureaucratic.

Italy has not reacted to any of these claims, reports say.

Combined Police Patrol

As part of the country’s expanding strategic footprint along the course of Xi Jinping’s defining foreign policy, known as the Belt and Road Initiative, China also signed such combined police patrol agreements with Croatia and Serbia between 2018 and 2019.

Chinese media said that as recently as July of this year, Chinese cops were spotted patrolling together with their Croatian counterparts on the streets of Zagreb, the country’s city.

According to a Zagreb police official Xinhua spoke with, the patrols were crucial for “protecting and luring foreign tourists.”

In order to deal with the inflow of Chinese tourists, Chinese officers reportedly joined Serbian officers on patrol in Belgrade in 2019. One Serbian policeman observed that the Chinese lacked the authority to make arrests.

According to Safeguard Defenders, a similar agreement with Pretoria, which had been in place for years, allowed Chinese stations to establish a foothold in South Africa and other adjacent countries.

Early traces

Nearly two decades ago, China started laying the groundwork for closer policing ties with South Africa’s law enforcement agencies.

Later, in collaboration with the government of South Africa, and as a result of subsequent bilateral security agreements, China established a network of what are officially called “Overseas Chinese Service Centers.”

The initiative “unites all the communities, both South Africans and foreign citizens in South Africa,” according to the Chinese consulate in Cape Town.

The framework, which the consulate noted is made up of non-profit organisations without “law enforcement authority,” “has been actively preventing crimes against the community and reducing the number of cases since its establishment,” it has been reported.

When attempting to gauge the scope of China’s efforts to persuade some of its citizens to return to China even against their will, Safeguard Defenders stumbled upon the police networks.

According to official Chinese data, there may have been close to a quarter of a million of these individuals around the world during the time Xi has been in power.

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