The United States on Monday arrested two men of Chinese descent for allegedly setting up a Chinese ‘police station’ in New York city’s ChinaTown. While these are first arrests of such kind anywhere in the world, the existence of such overseas policing operations by Beijing is known since September 2022.
China’s overseas ‘police stations’: The ‘110 Overseas’ operation
Chinese authorities claim that from April 2021 to July 2022, 230,000 nationals had been “persuaded to return” from abroad to face criminal proceedings in China. Beijing justifies this operation as part of a nationwide campaign to combat telecommunication frauds.
Spain-based human rights organisation Safeguard Defenders, in its September 2022 report titled ‘110 Overseas, Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild’, extensively delved on the matter.
So far, it is revealed that China established its first overseas Chinese police ‘service station’ in 2016, as part of ‘110 overseas’, after the country’s national emergency number akin to USA’s 911, it said.
Across 53 countries, these ‘service stations’ act as de-facto policing operation centres meant to police the Chinese overseas deemed as targets by Beijing for a number of reasons. The most commonly used justification is combating online frauds and ensuring that fugitives in the concerned cases return to China. But often, the targets are Chinese dissidents who oppose Beijing’s repression in regions of contested territorial ambitions, such as Xinjiang and Taiwan.
Other than that, individuals who had fled religious or ethnic persecution, have been targeted by these police stations.
China’s overseas police stations: Isn’t it a violation of international law?
These operations bypass bilateral police and principles of judicial cooperation by the host country. This also violates the territorial integrity of third countries involved as China sets up a parallel policing mechanism using illegal methods.
Openly labelled as overseas police service stations to accommodate the growing administrative needs of Chinese residents abroad – for example in renewing Chinese driver’s licences remotely and other tasks typically considered of a consular nature – the “110 Overseas stations”, both in their online and physical overseas form, also serve the so-called goal of “resolutely cracking down on all kinds of illegal and criminal activities involving overseas Chinese.”
China’s overseas police stations: Where all do they exist?
According to Safeguard Defenders, Beijing operated at least 102 ‘Chinese Overseas Police Service Centers’ in 53 countries around the world.
These countries are Angola, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Brunei, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mongolia, Myanmar, Namibia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Sudan, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovak Republic, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Tanzania, The Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zambia.
Chinese ‘police stations’ abroad: Tactics used
The Safeguard Defenders’ report cites official statements that detail upon depriving the target person’s children the right to education back in China, and actions against relatives and family members in a ‘guilt by association’ campaign. Following which, the target person abroad is forced to return to China.
Chinese authorities also track down the target’s family in China in order to pressure them through means of intimidation, harassment, detention or imprisonment into persuading their family members to return “voluntarily”.
