The US-China relationship has been constantly under the scanner in recent times. To begin with there was the incident of the Chinese spy balloon and now reports indicate the presence of secret Chinese police stations in the US.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) unveiled (14 April 2023) three cases targeting alleged Chinese spy and intimidation efforts in the US. Two men have been arrested and accused of operating an “illegal overseas police station” in Manhattan’s Chinatown on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Both the arrested men, Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping, are US citizens and charged with using the now closed facility, to track and intimidate Chinese dissidents and pro-democracy activists living in the US. The station itself, part of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS), was shut last year. There is another case which accuses 34 Chinese national police officers of working to silence dissidents in the US. All these individuals are believed to be currently living in China, and none of them have been apprehended yet.
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) claims the accused are part of the China’s 912 Special Project Working Group, which aims to positively influence public perception about China by having members pose as Americans on social media and post pro-Chinese Communist Party information. A few of the individuals were also accused of issuing death threats against Chinese dissidents and pro-democracy activists in the US. This builds on a December 2020 criminal complaint alleging that a China-based Zoom employee worked with the MPS to spy on Zoom meetings on topics China considers sensitive, including meetings commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. The DOJ statement says that “While acting under the direction and control of a Ministry of Public Security official, Lu and Chen helped open and operate the clandestine police station.”
US DOJ also claims that “None of the participants in the scheme informed the US government that they were helping the PRC government surreptitiously open and operate an illegal MPS police station on US soil.” According to the criminal complaint, Lu also helped track down dissidents living in the city. Chinese officials also requested that he participate in demonstrations against Falun Gong, a religious movement subject to crackdown across the globe by the CCP, the complaint said. China has rejected the claims made by the US DOJ, terming the FBI’s investigation “political manipulation” and a “slander and smear campaign.” These arrests and unsealed cases are just the latest in a series focused on stopping Chinese intimidation tactics.
While the FBI has helped shut down a clandestine Chinese “police station” in Manhattan, there are several more of these illegal organizations scattered across the US. According to Safeguard Defenders, a Madrid-based human rights group, there is another station at an undisclosed address in New York City, in addition to the Chinese police station above a noodle restaurant in Manhattan’s Chinatown. There is also an outpost in Los Angeles. This group published a report last year detailing a hundred Chinese police stations in existence globally. In addition to Los Angeles and New York, the non-profit has found so-called “overseas service stations” in San Francisco and Houston as well as, in Nebraska and Minnesota. These law enforcement organizations, operated by the CCP, are tasked with spying on Chinese nationals around the world. Safeguard Defenders found at least four listed in the US by the People’s Republic of China public security authorities, plus flagged an additional four overseas Chinese service centres in the US set up by the United Front Work Department, a Chinese government agency that controls overseas ethnic and religious affairs.
Prosecution documents reveal the Chinese government’s flagrant violation of US sovereignty by establishing a secret police station in the middle of New York City, says US Attorney Breon Peace. He asserted that “Such a police station has no place here in New York City, or any American community.” Lu and Chen also allegedly tried to obstruct the DOJ’s investigation by deleting their communications with an official of MPS after finding out about the FBI investigation, federal prosecutors said. The criminal complaint against Lu and Chen was unsealed while 44 other defendants were also being charged, in two separate complaints in Brooklyn Federal Court, for various crimes related to illegally acting on behalf of China in the US. In New York’s Chinatown, the police station was run by the America Chang Le Association NY Inc., which owns the building at 107 East Broadway where the operation was located.
The non-profit organization, which listed its charitable mission as a “social gathering place for Fujianese people,” paid US$ 1.3 million in 2016 for the suite of offices that houses the Fuzhou Police Overseas Chinese Affairs bureau at the East Broadway location. Last year, the group held its annual gala dinner, featuring New York City Mayor Eric Adams as the Guest of Honour, an event that was not disclosed on the Mayor’s official agenda. China is thus using all tricks in the book to not only spy on foreign countries, but also on its own citizens overseas, mostly dissidents and relatives of other Chinese nationals. The challenge for the US, at this point, when relations with Beijing are tense, is to keep up the pressure, but not allow it to spill over into an open confrontation. This is because American attention is focused solely on Russia and the Ukraine conflict. However, China will continue to play the game of cat and mouse as it aspires to catch up with the US and eventually, overtake it in all domains.
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Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65305415
Source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/secret-chinese-police-station-in-new-york-leads-to-arrests-1.6359431
Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11988889/China-six-illegal-police-stations-US.html