Global Courant 2023-05-02 10:14:07
The arrest of two men in New York City on April 16 marked the first known U.S. arrests related to Chinese overseas police stations. Both men worked in a building in Manhattan’s Chinatown rented by the America ChangLe Associationa charity whose tax-exempt status was revoked in May 2022.
More Chinese police stations are believed to operate throughout the US, although as in other countries not all of their locations are known.
While foreign intelligence agencies conduct large-scale espionage operations in other countries, domestic law enforcement agencies also occasionally operate abroad.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has trained many Latin Americans police units during the Cold War and has secretly active in the region for decades. In 2020 Russia too offered to send a police force to Belarus during mass protests against President Alexander Lukashenko, who blamed the West for fueling a color revolution.
However, the size of China’s international program and the scope of its responsibilities are remarkable. Mainly run by ethnic Chinese residents, the main concern of these stations seems to be the management of the over 10.5 million Chinese citizens living abroad, and to a lesser extent the 35 million to 60 million people in the Chinese diaspora.
The significant size of Chinese overseas communities has allowed Beijing to maintain an extensive global presence through these stations.
China’s first known use of these stations took place in 2004 with the establishment of the Community and Police Cooperation Center in Johannesburg, following several attacks on Chinese citizens and businesses.
The center opened with the blessing of the South African government and more than a dozen have since opened in the country. As in other countries, they help Chinese citizens obtain documents, assist in criminal cases and integrate into the country, providing “security, fire and ambulance teams.”
The Chinese government insists they are not police stations but function as “service centers.”
Two reportsreleased in September and December 2022 by the human rights organization Safeguard Defenders, indicated that there are now more than 100 overseas Chinese channels operating in more than 50 countries.
Managed by The Chinese Ministry of Public Securitythe stations are managed by police stations three Chinese provinces (Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian) and are divided into centers, which are larger, and liaisons, which have a lower profile but are more numerous.
Rising tensions
While the stations had previously attracted little attention, the reports have made Western countries much more wary in the context of rising geopolitical tensions with China in recent years.
There are also fears that the stations act as part of China’s United Front system to build political, economic and cultural connections to influence other countries.
The stations have also gained more Western attention for their role in persuading Chinese citizens to return to China to face legal charges.
Under an initiative now known as Operation Fox HuntSafeguard Defenders estimates that from April 2021 to July 2022, 230,000 Chinese citizens were persuaded or forced to return to China, according to the Chinese Ministry of Public Security 210,000 citizens back in 2021.
Western officials already accused China is abusing Interpol’s Red Notice system to arrest and extradite citizens abroad for political purposes, while Operation Fox Hunt has enabled Chinese officials to bypass Interpol and deal directly with its own citizens.
Interrupting China’s ability to implement this program is increasingly becoming a US homeland security priority. But the two men caught in New York turn out to be both US And Chinese citizens, and the incident has become the latest attempt by Chinese and Western authorities to exercise authority over each other’s citizens, as well as dual citizens.
Several dual Chinese/US citizens were banned from leaving China in 2017 And 2018 in an apparent attempt to persuade their relatives living in the US to return to China.
Meanwhile, in 2018, Meng Wanzhou, a Chinese national and chief financial officer of Huawei, was placed under house arrest in Canada pending extradition to the US on charges of fraud. In response, two Canadian businessmen were also detained in China and not allowed to leave, citing espionage charges. They were all released in 2021with the Chinese and US authorities denying any connection between them.
The US has no extradition treaty with China few European countries do that have taken steps to reduce China’s ability to do so maintain it for the past few months. While Chinese officials have shown their willingness to detain dual citizens in China, the overseas stations allow Chinese officers to directly locate and contact citizens living abroad.
Through intimidation, intimidation and coercion, Beijing has sidestepped formal extradition methods and quietly persuaded hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens to return home.
Legality at stake
Beijing’s handling of wanted citizens abroad is in stark contrast to the techniques used in other countries. Many, including the US, Russia And Iran, have used military, intelligence or organized crime resources to kill civilians who opposed governments. Iran is also known to have resorted to kidnapping to bring citizens back to the country, although this is also the case attracted a lot of attention.
The role of these stations in promoting Chinese interests and extraditing Chinese citizens has naturally raised concerns in the West. But until the 2022 Safeguard Defenders reports, the West’s response was somewhat slow.
Only after the scale of the stations became public knowledge did Western officials take substantial steps to suppress them. FBI Director Christopher Wray stated in September 2022 that he “look at the legal parametersof the stations, and the Manhattan station was raided by the agency in October.
More than a dozen other countries have also launched probes against the stations in recent months, and other countries have significantly scaled back their cooperation with them.
The growth in the number of Chinese tourists travel abroad previously incentivized many governments to facilitate cooperation with Chinese police forces, for example, and Chinese police officers were previously allowed to help Chinese tourists visiting Italian cities.
But this decision was reversed in December 2022while Croatia is under similar pressure to impose restrictions Chinese tourist aid police patrols its cities. Other restrictive measures in the US and Europe are likely to be introduced.
However, Western officials have so far refrained from paying too much attention to the centers. Accusations of McCarthyism and racial profiling could spark social unrest and prove Beijing’s hostile Western intentions toward overseas Chinese communities.
Furthermore, acknowledging the existence of secret Chinese officials operating throughout the West would publicly undermine the sanctity of Western sovereignty and reinforce perceptions of China’s growing power in international affairs.
However, the stations are destined to remain a sticking point in the West China relationship. Operation Fox Hunt reveals that not even the US has been able to protect dual citizens or asylum seekers on its own soil.
Cultivate cooperation with Beijing
While Chinese officials will probably have to act even more discreetly for some of their overseas operations, U.S. officials have yet to pinpoint where all of these stations are. And even if they are found, Beijing has traditionally done so close ties cultivated with overseas Chinese communities and has additional opportunities to exert influence.
Despite rising concerns from Western countries about the stations, other countries hosting them seem unperturbed and will continue to cooperate with China for various reasons.
2019, Chinese police officers began patrolling various Serbian cities along with Serbian police forces to help Chinese tourists. In addition, Chinese police officers have been working out of an office in Cambodia’s national police headquarters since 2019 to manage Chinese citizens suspected of involvement in crime.
China’s police and security forces have also dramatically increased their cooperation with their Latin American counterparts in the past decade to “accelerate the process of signing treaties on legal assistance in criminal matters and expand cooperation in areas such as crime prevention, repatriation of fugitives and asset recovery”, said the Chinese government.
In February, China also unveiled its Global Security Initiative to improve training and cooperation with developing countries’ security forces. And because Chinese stations act as legitimate centers aimed at helping Chinese citizens abroadcountries with good relations with China and existing and growing Chinese immigrant and working-class communities are likely to allow further expansion of Chinese overseas stations.
The stations will continue to evolve to suit their host country’s environment. Their ongoing operations demonstrate the increasingly sophisticated ways China seeks to help its citizens abroad, convince others to return home, expand its cooperation agreements and influence activities around the world.
This article was produced by Globe trotterwhich it provided to Global Courant.
Similar:
Loading…
