Chinese overseas police stations, which came into prominence in the 2010s, are front organizations set up by the Chinese government to monitor its citizens in different countries. According to Safeguard Defenders, the campaign to combat the problem of fraud and telecommunications fraud launched by the government in 2018 has evolved alongside the establishment of these overseas Chinese police "service stations". Overseas Police Service Stations are also emerging as "Chinese Overseas Home Associations" affiliated to the CPC's United Front Work. These stations blatantly violate international law and conduct out-of-country policing operations in disregard of the supreme sovereign rights of the host countries.

The Basis of the establishment of the stations

There are many reasons for the establishment of these stations, but the main reason is to enable the return of citizens of the People's Republic of China living abroad for various reasons. In 1978, China's policies of opening its doors to the world economically led to millions of its citizens moving abroad. In the 2000s, with incentives such as tax cuts and financial support policies, calls for repatriation were launched.[1]

According to Martin Pubrick, the economic opening after the 80s also led to an increase in corruption overseas. This has led to anti-corruption policies led by Xi Jinping. As part of the Chinese government's overseas "Fox Hunt" operations, more than 9000 fugitives from 120 countries have been extradited and more than 20 billion yuan has been repatriated.[2] Through overseas policing stations, those involved in these online fraud crimes were identified and repatriated. According to a Safeguard Defenders report published in 2022, 230,000 people suspected of fraud and telecom scams were persuaded to return to the PRC.[3] As Pubrick points out, however, this number includes "'retrained' people". On September 19, 2022, the State Council of the PRC stated that "police have solved about 594,000 cases of telecom and online fraud, and 230,000 people involved have been retrained or persuaded to return from abroad."[4]

While there is no evidence that it originated from the Ministry of Public Security, some local authorities have issued instructions to avoid unnecessary travel to nine countries - Myanmar, Cambodia, the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, Turkiye and Indonesia - where fraud is said to be rife.[5] However, combating fraud is not the only work of these police stations. They do not only operate in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines and Thailand, but also in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, where fraud rings are based in Asia. In 2022 Safeguard Defenders has declared that there are 102 overseas police stations in 53 countries. [6]

Persuasion Methods to Return

Safeguard Defenders has categorized China's methods of persuading returnees to return to ensure Involuntary Return (IR). Type 1 repatriation is a method in which the target's family members in China are subjected to intimidation, harassment, detention or imprisonment to make them persuade the family member outside the country to "voluntarily" return. Type 2 involves direct online contact with the target or the use of - frequently covert - agents and/or proxies overseas to harass and threaten the target into "voluntarily" returning. Finally, Type 3 is the direct abduction of the target person from the foreign country.[7] For Chinese citizens living abroad, these methods of repatriation contravene both home country and international law.

Fox Hunt / Sky Net

Fox Hunt / Sky Net operations, run by China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS), are overseen by the National Supervisory Commission (NSC). The repatriation methods mentioned above are part of this operation.[8] These operations were launched after 2012 under the leadership of Xi Jinping to chase down fugitives suspected of corruption in the PRC.[9] The MPS announced "Fox Hunt" (猎狐) to track down the roughly 18,000 officials who had purportedly fled the country. Most of them went to Asia-Pacific nations with sizable Chinese populations.[10] "Sky Net" (天网), on the other hand, is a more global operation that makes active use of "overseas police stations".[11] Launched in 2015, the operation involved many government departments, including the State Supervisory Commission, the Ministry of Public Security, the People's Bank of China, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate (Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, March 3).

Reflections on the Objectives in the Press

The PRC has reportedly run more than 100 "police-qiao (diaspora) service stations" to follow political dissidents and criminals since 2016, according to Taiwan's National Security Bureau (NSB).[12] It was also reported that these police service stations are mostly supervised by the Public Security Bureaus of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Fujian Province.[13]

According to the Chinese government, they are not actual police stations or service facilities. According to their statement, "the relevant agencies assist overseas Chinese who are unable to return to China due to the pandemic to renew their driver's licenses and conduct physical examinations." [14]

Two Chinese nationals were detained in April 2023 for "using an illegal Chinese police station in Manhattan to go after dissidents," according to a statement from the US Department of Justice announced.[15] As noted by Politico, this "highlights the growing tentacles of Beijing's overseas operations, which it uses to harass and silence critics around the world."[16] One of the defendants, Lu Jianwang, was allegedly associated with officials of the MPS, the United Front Labor Department and a senior official of the Fuzhou All-China Federation of Overseas Chinese Returnees. It was also alleged that both defendants were members of a Fujianese association in Manhattan and were recruited by an MPS official.[17]

According to Matt Schrader, the "overseas police stations" established in South Africa are directly linked to the CCP United Front Work Department.[18]"Overseas Chinese Service Centers" (华助中心) were established in 2004 ostensibly to protect the lives and property of PRC expatriates in South Africa and facilitate cooperation with local police by providing services such as translation and language training.[19]

In 2022, the Dutch government announced that it would investigate the centers set up in the Netherlands after it was alleged that some websites were conducting transactions such as renewing driver's licenses without official diplomatic status, as well as harassing a Chinese dissident. In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian stated that the organizations are not police stations and that the people working in these offices are Chinese volunteers, not police officers working for the Chinese government.[20]

Chinese Overseas Police Stations in the Context of Violations of Domestic and International Law

"Chinese public security authorities strictly adhere to international law and fully respect the judicial sovereignty of other countries," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said in response to a question about China's police stations abroad, Reuters reported.[21] However in reality, these overseas police stations violate international law and domestic law in the countries where they are operating.

The Vienna Convention signed in 1961 has an important place in ensuring healthy inter-state diplomatic relations. According to Article 12 of this convention, which the People's Republic of China has also signed, "The sending State may not, without the prior express consent of the receiving State, establish offices forming part of the mission in localities other than those in which the mission itself is established." (United Nations, 1961) As a result, in the context of international law, the presence of government representatives of the parties to the Vienna Convention in other countries should be by mutual consent.

The question is whether these police stations, which the Chinese government has set up in many countries, are really government authorities. Chinese officials have claimed that they are not government officials, but Chinese volunteers working overseas, loyal to their country.[22] According to Safeguard Defenders' report "Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild", China's international police stations are part of United Front activities. The Chinese Communist Party's United Front effort aims to influence and co-opt influential individuals and groups, notably those in the religious, minority-ethnic, and expatriate communities.[23]

According to Safeguard Defendeers' report "Targeted in Türkiye", Uyghurs living in Türkiye are forced to engage in pro-China propaganda and spying on other Uyghurs, threatening the safety of their families in East Turkistan.[24] This is a clear violation of Turkey's supreme sovereignty. Furthermore, as in many other countries, Article 331 of the Turkish Penal Code regulates "Crimes against State Secrets and Espionage" and those who commit this crime should be prosecuted in a criminal court for crimes against the state. Persons in charge of China's overseas police stations can be prosecuted for espionage activities against dissident Chinese citizens and East Turkestanis living in the countries where the station is located, according to the law of that country. For instance, according to Turkish criminal law, Türkiye's sovereign territory includes Turkish land and airspace and Turkish territorial waters. The crime is deemed to have been committed in Türkiye in these territories and investigation and prosecution is carried out according to Turkish law.