According to a recent report published by Spain-based NGO “Safeguard Defenders”, China is secretly running several “Police Service Stations” in major cities of the world including in New York, Canada, Britain and Netherlands. America’s central intelligence agency FBI has expressed concern about this secret activity of China. FBI Director Christopher said that the Chinese government has set up unauthorized Police Stations in different US cities to spread influence, which is a matter of deep concern.
The existence of China’s secret police stations in 21 countries has caused renewed concern around the world that if it is ignored can lead to serious consequences in the balance of sovereignty across different countries. The NGO claimed that it had identified three such locations operating in Toranto, Canada’s populous financial hub.
In October, in a House of Commons & Committee on Canada-Beijing relations, most of the members from across the political spectrum expressed concern that China was using the stations to ratchet up its surveillance of Chinese nationals living and working in Canada.
The establishment of such a security setup on foreign soil is a clear violation of a country’s sovereign rights and can lead to severe consequences. The report also linked the centers to the United Front Work Department, the Chinese Communist Party organ responsible for overseas influence campaigns.The establishment of the overseas police station has come as an addition to China’s surveillance and spying methods that the world has largely remained unaware of. China has a history of carrying out surveillance in Africa, and now it has expanded to other countries as well. The United States, Austria, Chile, the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Nigeria, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have announced their own reviews since the release of the Safeguard Defenders report.
The “overseas police service centers” are an extension of Chinese municipal public security bureaus, which pressure Chinese nationals and their families to persuade suspects to return home to face criminal charges. While commenting on the matter, Canadian police said that it was “aware of reports of activities that are specifically targeting the Chinese diaspora in Canada and is investigating to determine any criminality related to this matter.”
It added that Canadian police aims to prevent intimidation, threats and harassment as well as any form of harm initiated on behalf of a foreign entity being applied to any community in Canada.Meanwhile, the NGO identified 54 overseas police service centers in 25 cities and 21 countries, linked to only two public security bureaus. Public police records showed some 230,000 suspects were persuaded to return to China between April 2021 and July 2022. Since the report’s initial release, at least 16 more stations from one additional Chinese police bureau have been identified.
In response to allegations, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said that the sites were neither police station nor manned by Chinese authorities. They assist overseas Chinese nationals who need help in accessing the online service platform to get their driving licenses renewed and receive physical check-ups for that purpose. Wang Wenbin, Zhao’s colleague at the foreign ministry, described the sites in October as “overseas Chinese service centers”.
However, the centers, many of which are publicly listed on the internet, are associated with overseas Chinese communities, which the NGO said had “become overwhelmingly co-opted by the CCP’s United Front organizations, which seek to increasingly control the Chinese diaspora.” China’s notorious nature in carrying out surveillance is not a secret. For instance, in 2018, the African Union building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was found to have a rigged cluster of servers that was stealing videos from the premises of the AU. The Chinese authorities had established a digital network in the AU building, which also had a backroom channel for transferring sensitive data.
It is felt by strategic experts that all the nations that value their sovereign rights need to have safeguard against these ‘Chinese tactics’. Failing in doing so, the Chinese advances may succeed in expanding their influence much beyond Chinese territorial borders and also into sensitive regions. Also, this would help Chinese authorities to encroach upon the liberty of its own people working abroad, which it is notoriously known for doing within its own territory.