Global Courant
SEOUL — South Korean authorities said Thursday they are unofficially investigating set up Chinese “police stations” across the country after scrutinizing the alleged presence of such an entity in Seoul earlier this year.
The National Intelligence Agency, along with the police, is investigating suspected activities of covertly operating “police stations” for the Chinese government, not only in Seoul but in other regions, including Jeju Island south of the peninsula.
Last month, the intelligence agency came to the preliminary conclusion that a Chinese restaurant in downtown Seoul, Songpa-gu, was acting as a base for undeclared police operations for Beijing.
Findings released Thursday by the ruling People Power Party representative, Choe Jae-hyeong, showed that the Chinese government’s Confucius Institutes allegedly spread propaganda on behalf of Beijing, and organized activities to counter student activities that had threatened democracy movements in Hong Kong to South Korean universities.
According to Safeguard Defenders, a non-governmental organization based in Spain, China is said to be running more than 100 police stations in at least 53 countries with the aim of expanding its influence and forcibly repatriating Chinese nationals.
Chinese officials have repeatedly denied the existence of such police stations abroad.
The so-called Chinese “secret police station” on South Korea’s Jeju Island does not exist and media reports of such a place have no factual basis and are “deliberate speculation,” the Chinese consulate in Jeju said Thursday, Reuters reported.
“We are deeply dissatisfied with and strongly oppose such inaccurate reports,” the consulate said in a statement posted to its WeChat account.
In a May 15 press briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wengbin reiterated that there are “no so-called overseas police stations” and that such allegations were “disinformation … smearing and discrediting China.”
Wang admitted there were institutions helping Chinese nationals in other countries to return home during the pandemic, but said they were “not so-called police stations or police service centers.”
“China always upholds the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, strictly abides by international law and respects the judicial sovereignty of all countries,” he said. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
