On November 1, China to immediately shutter clandestine police stations operating on Dutch soil. Dutch authorities said an investigation is under way to determine the exact nature of the stations’ activities.
Days earlier, China to shut down a “police service station” operating in Dublin. And investigations into China’s overseas policing activities are happening elsewhere as well, by the Spanish human rights organization Safeguard Defenders alleging the operations are illegal.
On November 2, a journalist from Agence France-Presse asked Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian about the matter, noting the Dutch government said Beijing had never asked permission to open police service stations in the Netherlands.
Zhao denied that China was operating such stations on foreign soil:
“[T]he sites you mentioned are not ‘police stations’ or ‘police service centers.’ 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.”
That is misleading.
Zhao asserts that the centers are solely intended to “assist overseas Chinese nationals” with documents and other administrative actions. But evidence from Safeguard Defenders argues they are part of China’s broader effort to bring home dissidents and accused criminals under China’s “persuasion to return policy.”
Existence of the stations — sometimes called 110 Overseas, after China’s emergency phone number — was revealed in September. China runs at least 54 such stations in “dozens of countries across five continents.”
Although Chinese overseas assistance centers without an extraterritorial policing role, Safeguard Defenders said that starting in 2018 they took on the “more sinister goal” of cracking down on alleged criminal activity and dissident behavior “involving overseas Chinese.”
Safeguard Defenders said the impetus was China’s desire to track down individuals accused of financial and telecommunications fraud, specifically in “nine forbidden countries,” including Myanmar and Cambodia, where Chinese nationals were believed to be engaged in such activities.
However, the group said most of police service stations are in Western democratic nations, particularly in Europe, not the “nine forbidden countries.”
And Safeguard Defenders said Chinese authorities provided “direct evidence” of the centers' involvement in coercing Chinese nationals to return home.
The group described the case of a suspect identified as Liu residing in Spain. Liu was wanted in connection with environmental pollution in China. In that case, Chinese authorities operating in Spain and China worked together to see that Liu would eventually surrender in Qingtian, a county in southeastern Zhejiang province.
“Following the success of the operation, Ji Yongjun, a full-time member of the Procuratorate Committee of Qingtian County and chairman of the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese (ACFROC), was quoted to have said that ‘the procuratorate will launch a quick mechanism for handling cases involving overseas Chinese,’ ” Safeguard Defenders said.
Spanish newspaper El Correo that video evidence confirms the Chinese prosecutor's office worked with ACFROC and the Qingtian Overseas Chinese Association in Spain to intimidate Liu, with a relative present, through one of the three Madrid police service centers.
El Correo said it had verified that two Madrid-based businesses mentioned by Safeguard Defenders cooperated with Chinese police.
Speaking with El Correo, an official from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Shanghai, who spoke on condition of anonymity, defended the operation.
"Bilateral treaties are very cumbersome, and Europe is reluctant to extradite [to] China. I don't see what's wrong with pressuring criminals to face justice with all the guarantees contained in Chinese law," El Correo reported the source as saying, including the claim that “only legal means are used.”
But Safeguard Defenders said the activity “violate[s] the international rule of law and may violate the territorial integrity of third countries.” Safeguard’s report said:
Separately, the Dutch-language outlets and RTL Nieuws, said at least two police stations had been opened in the Netherlands since 2018.
The two identified stations, in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, were used to pressure dissidents to return home. Wang Jingyu, a Chinese dissident, told the Dutch news platforms that the Rotterdam station had urged him “to go back to China” and to “think about” his parents.