China, which came under condemnation for opening illegal police posts across the world, is now deploying consulates and overseas courts in several countries – to crush dissent against the Chinese Communist Party, according to a report shared by Investigative Journalism Reportika.
The report says that China is doing so to influence the overseas Chinese, crush dissent against CCP in a foreign country and meddling with the democratic processes of the respective countries.
It cited an October 16 incident in which, a Hong Kong pro-democracy protester was pulled into Chinese consulate grounds in Manchester and was beaten up. This reports reached the UK Parliament and the government called it extremely concerning. Greater Manchester Police has launched an investigation.
The consulate, in their defence, said that protesters displayed an insulting portrait of China’s president Xi Jinping.
Meanwhile, fake Ttwitter accounts were created to give a positive image of Chinese consulates involved in the crime using heavily edited images and video clips, reported Investigative Journalism Reportika.
This is not the first incident when consulates had been embroiled in controversy. Earlier, in 2021, Twitter locked the official account of the Chinese embassy in the United States after a tweet describing Uyghur women as “baby-making machines”. Twitter removed the post later.
In another tweet, Chinese embassy in the Netherlands were seen targeting researchers and think tanks. Meanwhile, Chinese Ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye, paid a visit to the controversial Confucius Institute at Ravenswood School for Girls. The ambassador was accompanied by Consul Liu Jianbo from the Education Office of the Chinese Consulate-General in Sydney.
The Chinese consulates and embassies also indulge in establishing Legal Service Stations or courts in other countries, according to Investigative Journalism Reportika.
China has opened courts/legal service stations in several countries under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Chinese overseas associations and its embassies and consulates establish these centres. Even the UK, Spain, and Italy have the presence of these courts. According to reports in several local media channels, they indulge in meddling in the elections, influencing local politics, influencing the youth towards communism, and controlling the dissent against Xi Jinping from outside China.
In its previous report, the Investigative Journalism Reportika detailed that earlier the Chinese government had opened numerous illegal police stations across the world including in developed countries like Canada and Ireland, triggering concerns among human rights campaigners.
The organisation cited local media to say that such informal police service stations affiliated with the Public Security Bureau (PSB) across Canada have been set up to antagonize China’s adversaries.
According to local media reports, Fuzhou has established informal police service stations affiliated with the Public Security Bureau (PSB) across Canada. At least three of these stations are located in the Greater Toronto Area only.
Moreover, the Chinese government is also influencing the elections in certain countries through these illegal police stations, the Investigative Journalism Reportika said. The Fuzhou police say it has already opened 30 such stations in 21 countries.
Countries like Ukraine, France, Spain, Germany, and the UK have such arrangements for Chinese Police Stations and the leaders of most of these countries question the rise of China and its worsening human rights records on public platforms and are themselves a part of that issue.