In September, the Spanish organization Safeguard Defenders published a report that caused a stir worldwide. The message: The Chinese government is allegedly taking illegal action against its own citizens in several countries – including with secret police stations. While Southeast Asia was initially affected, more and more cases are now coming to light from Europe – an overview.
Prosecution of wanted persons abroad
As Safeguard Defenders reports, China has one goal with these secret police stations: to pursue wanted people who have fled China abroad and then – as it literally says – “persuade” them to return home. The “Fox Hunt” operations are coordinated by China’s National Monitoring Commission and thus by the Communist Party.
The fact that people are tracked down by their own police and not by international cooperation has several advantages for China. The ability of other states to act independently increases the efficiency of arrest and extradition on the one hand, and on the other it is not possible to check internationally whether human rights are actually respected in such prosecutions.
But there is a big problem: Such intervention on foreign soil is illegal.
Online Scams and Banned Countries
The increasing Chinese police actions abroad would have their origin in 2018. Then the government at a conference declared war on online fraud – a problem that the Chinese have been struggling with for some time. There would be countless criminals who want to take money from their victims in chat programs and illegal online gambling – many of them from abroad.
In response, China decided to expand its scope internationally. In 2021, China compiled a list of countries where the most scammers were located. You can find Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, UAE and Turkey.
These became the nine “forbidden countries”: since November 2021 it is forbidden to travel to such a country without “absolute necessity” or “emergency reasons”. All Chinese living there were urged to return to their homeland as soon as possible. Anyone who disobeyed this order was under general suspicion.
Threats in Myanmar
How seriously China took its project was initially apparent, especially in Myanmar. As a police officer under the pseudonym Wang Bo told the government-critical “Southern Weekend,” the first major project to persuade Chinese citizens to return home began there in 2018.
Here, too, it did not matter whether there were suspicions of individuals. And they were successful, at least according to their own account: In September 2021, Liu Zhongyi, director of the Ministry of Public Security, announced that 54,000 “suspects” had returned from the north of the country alone.
The Chinese government stopped at nothing to pursue its goal. According to a report by “Toutiao”, the government of Wenchang City threatened with devastating consequences for suspected Chinese in northern Myanmar if they refused to return – not only for themselves, but also for their partners, parents and children. The measures include the cancellation of various insurance policies, a ban on official bodies and the demolition of houses “built with stolen money”.
Police Stations in Europe
Although China has set its sights on the nine ‘forbidden countries’ in particular, there are currently increasing indications that Chinese citizens are also being illegally persecuted on European soil. According to Safeguard Defenders, a total of 36 illegal police stations are said to be active in 16 different countries. Switzerland should not be affected, but with Germany, Italy, France and Austria four neighboring countries.
According to various media reports, offices that are officially intended as service centers for Chinese abroad are particularly suspected. The Dutch research collective “Follow the Money” and “RTL Nieuws” report about an office in Amsterdam that claims to offer to renew passports or driving licenses, for example. However, this is just a facade from which to conduct police work against suspects.
The methods in Europe hardly differ from those in Asia. Track down people, threaten them, then ask them to return to China. However, the reasons for intervention should be more diverse. Both the Dutch report of “Follow the Money” and a Twitter thread by British China expert Sam Dunning show cases of people being sought who had campaigned for a more independent Hong Kong in protests.
Recently there has been a lot of attention for ‘Chinese police stations’ operating on the streets of Britain…
What links the ‘stations’ to British politics, the Chinese Communist Party, an attack in the heart of London and serious organized crime?
This is big.
1/54 pic.twitter.com/qLSMOivu2o
— Sam Dunning (@samdunningo) October 30, 2022
How Europe reacts
Germany
According to the report by Safeguards Defenders, Germany would also be affected by the illegal police activities. A foreign office in Frankfurt is under suspicion. As the Hessian authorities have confirmed to the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, these allegations are currently under investigation. Both the specialized police services and the National Office for the Protection of the Constitution are involved.
National politicians have also recently expressed concern about these reports. The chairman of the control committee of the secret service of the Bundestag Konstantin von Notz writes on Twitter that ambiguous state action outside the diplomatic framework abroad is “extremely problematic”. CDU politician Jürgen Hardt told the “Spiegel” that it was “outrageous that the Chinese dictatorship is so brutally expanding its totalitarian claim on the Chinese in Germany”.
A spokeswoman for Nandy Faesler, the federal interior minister, told Handelsblatt that the matter is being monitored and that the government is currently coordinating how to proceed.
Italy
The Chinese police are said to be even more present in Italy than in Germany. Safeguard Defenders named four locations of such stations – in the major cities of Milan, Florence and Rome and in the smaller Tuscan city of Prato.
Erica Mazzetti, a Prato-born politician from Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, called on the newly formed government to act quickly. According to “La Nazione”, she is said to have written to the new Interior Minister, Matteo Piantedosi. “You shouldn’t close your eyes here and pretend nothing is wrong,” she says. The allegations should therefore be investigated immediately.
Great Britain
In the United Kingdom, a lot of details are known about the allegations against China. There are three police stations: two in London and one in Glasgow. Although there are two offices in London, a popular Chinese restaurant in Glasgow is under suspicion.
Business in Britain in particular is explosive as there are currently discussions about possible connections to British politics. Chinese Lin Ruiyou, who heads one of the London offices, is said to have ties to several members of the conservative Tories. Lin worked according to China expert Sam Dunning once for the party as a fundraiser, in pictures he can be seen side by side with political figures like Boris Johnson or Theresa May.
