Chinese police overseas service stations
Schrader further stated that the centers served several legitimate purposes despite criticism of them, such as assisting crime victims with dealing with the host country's police and integrating new immigrants.
Schrader pointed to a lack of transparency around the relationship between the centers and the Chinese government, particularly personnel of the United Front Work Department (UFWD), and their political influence operations.
The department set up offices in six countries and had solved at least 120 criminal cases that involved Chinese nationals, as well as detaining over 80 people in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Zambia.
[5] Safeguard Defenders released an initial report in September 2022 and a follow-up in December 2022,[6][7] alleging that the police stations were part of a program named Operation Fox Hunt, and were used to harass and coerce individuals wanted by the Chinese government, including dissidents, via threats to their families and themselves, pressuring them to return to China, where they would then be detained.
[17] Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, said that the stations needed registration regardless of their purpose, adding the controversy "raises doubts about the actuality of [China’s] commitment to rule of law and respect for sovereignty despite official statements otherwise.
Mei Chiu, coordinator of the Chinatown roundtable in Montreal, criticized the RCMP's investigation on these groups for not even asking to talk to the employees, and only interviewing the board members.
The groups say they have lost government funding, forcing them to cut back programs such as French language education and support of victims of domestic violence.
[26]: 115–128 In July 2024, the Canadian government announced that it had mapped Chinese police stations in the country would share the information with the G7 to explore a response.
[28] In March 2023, politician Rita Schwarzelühr-Sutter (SPD) stated that two police stations remain operational in Germany, in violation of the country's sovereignty.
[28] The overseas service stations in Dublin were ordered to close by the Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in late October 2022, although one had already stopped operations and took down its sign earlier when electronic ID renewal procedures were introduced.
[31] In 2023, a ProPublica investigation found that the leaders of "Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station" in Prato had ties to organized crime.
[47][48][49] They were charged by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn (the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York) with conspiring to act as unregistered agents of the Chinese government for operating the police outpost in Manhattan, and with obstruction of justice for deleting messages with an official of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) who had been directing their activities in the U.S.[47] Prosecutors said that Lu began to aid China's attempts to repress dissidents living in the U.S. in 2015.
[45] On the same day, the US Department of Justice unsealed charges against 34 MPS officers, charging them with "transnational repression offenses targeting U.S. residents" and alleging the use of fake social media accounts to harass and intimidate Chinese nationals in the U.S., with the intent to suppress free speech of Chinese dissidents living abroad.
[51] U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said the episode "reveals the Chinese government's flagrant violation of our nation's sovereignty";[47][45] Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the United States Department of Justice National Security Division said that the Chinese government's actions "go far beyond the bounds of acceptable nation-state conduct" and were an attempt to extend "authoritarian repression" to the U.S.[45] In July 2023, a group of U.S. senators asked the United States Department of Justice to investigate "Overseas Chinese Service Centers" with alleged ties to the UFWD that are operating in seven U.S.
