Spy Games: How China operated a ‘secret police station’ in New York and threatened pro-democracy activists

The ties between the United States and China have hit an all-time low. The Communist nation is hard to be trusted. It has been accused of spying time and again. It was an alleged surveillance balloon that escalated tensions in February. And now a “secret Chinese police station” in New York City has opened a can of worms.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested two alleged Chinese agents Monday on charges that they helped establish an “undeclared police station” in Manhattan’s China Town neighbourhood on behalf of the Chinese government. That’s not all. About 34 officers with China’s national police force were charged with using social media to harass dissidents in the United States, authorities said Monday.

What do we know about the ‘secret police’ station?

The police station was allegedly operated by Lu Jianwang (61) and Chen Jinping (59). Both are American citizens and face charges of conspiring to act as agents for China and obstruction of justice.

According to the US Justice Department, Lu and Chen set up the first overseas police station in the US on behalf of China’s Ministry of Public Security in early 2022. The police station was shut down in autumn after those involved became aware of the FBI probe. The men have confessed that they deleted correspondence with an official from the Chinese ministry after they discovered they were being investigated.

Breon Peace, the US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said the men had engaged in “transnational repression targeting members of the Chinese diaspora community in New York City and elsewhere in the United States” at the behest of Beijing, according to a report in Al Jazeera.

The secret outpost “at the very least” provided Chinese citizens with basic Chinese government services like helping them renew their Chinese driver’s licences but it served a more “sinister” purpose, say reports.

A Chinese national police official directed one of the two defendants to help track a Chinese-origin pro-democracy activist in California, Al Jazeera reports. “In other words, the Chinese national police appear to have been using the station to track a US resident on US soil,” said Peace.

“This is a blatant violation of our national sovereignty,” Michael Driscoll, the head of New York’s FBI field office, said at a news conference.

Also read: Is China building a spy base on Myanmar’s Coco Islands in Bay of Bengal?

What do we know about the accused?

Lu has associated with Chinese law enforcement and was enlisted to help Beijing with “repressive activities” in the US since 2015, reports the BBC. This included harassing Chinese dissidents.

According to prosecutors, Lu attempted to push a purported Chinese fugitive to return to the country including threatening his family, living in China and the US.

During the investigation, Chen took a bathroom break during which he deleted messages with officials of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security on his phone.

The duo acknowledged their liaison with the ministry, according to court documents.

Lu and Chen appeared in court on Monday and were released on bonds. They are banned from travelling within half a mile of the Chinese consulate and mission or from communicating with co-conspirators, according to a report on CNN.

If convicted, they face up to 25 years in prison.

Though China is believed to be operating secretive police outposts in countries around the globe, the US Justice Department officials said these arrests were the first of their kind anywhere in the world.

Also read: How dangerous was the Chinese ‘spy’ balloon flying over US?

Which other countries have China’s ‘secret outposts?

China has reportedly set up at least 100 such police stations in 53 countries the world over including Canada, the United Kingdom (UK), and the Netherlands.

The Canadian police said last month that it had launched a probe into two “covert police stations” working on behalf of the Chinese government in Montreal and the suburb of Brossard, Quebec. “We’re in the process of making sure the RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police ] is following up on this and that our intelligence systems are taking this seriously,” Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said.

But the Chinese government accused Canada of a smear campaign. “China has been … strictly abiding by international law and respecting all countries’ judicial sovereignty,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at the time.

Last October, the Dutch foreign ministry said that it was investigating reports about the Chinese government setting up illegal police stations in the Netherlands. Beijing rubbished the reports calling them “absolutely false”.

Spanish human rights organisation Safeguard Defenders said in a report in September 2022 that China used these covert outposts in the US and the UK to “harass, threaten, intimidate and force targets to return to China for persecution”.

FBI director Christopher Wray said last November that his agency was monitoring reports of such stations, calling them a “real problem”, according to the BBC.

“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 coordination,” Wray said.

However, the Chinese embassies in the US and Canada call these locations “overseas service centres”, which were opened during the pandemic to help their citizens abroad with matters related to renewing driver’s licences among others.

What are the charges against the Chinese police force?

The US Justice Department on Monday also announced charges against 34 officers of the national police of China for harassing Chinese nations in the US who are critical of Beijing.

They reportedly live in China and other parts of Asia and remain at large. They are part of an elite task force –“912 Special Project Working Group” – linked to the Chinese government and their job is to influence the global perception of the country. They target Chinese dissents across the world including the US.

According to the US Justice Department, these agents US social media to put up posts in favour of China and take on their “perceived adversaries”, which include the US and China’s pro-democracy activists. They create and maintain accounts that look like they are run by American citizens, reports CNN. They target pro-democracy activists through videos and articles and some of these include explicit death threats, according to attorneys.

The Chinese propaganda machine rakes up topics like US foreign policy, the Russia-Ukraine war, human rights issues in Hong Kong, COVID-19, and demonstrations in the US like the ones which gripped the nation following the murder of George Flyod.

In another case, prosecutors alleged that an executive at a videoconferencing company (Zoom, according to CNN), conspired to disrupt a meeting to commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre at the behest of the Chinese government.

The executive, Xinjiang “Julien” Jin, was previously charged by the Justice Department for the alleged plot, CNN reports. Now nine other individuals, including officers of the Ministry of Public Security and Cyberspace Administration of China, for interfering in video calls organised by a Chinese dissent living in New York in 2018.

In 2019, Jin and other associates worked with Beijing to block accounts of those seeking to observe the Tiananmen Square killings.

With inputs from agencies

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