Chinese police overseas service stations

The term "overseas service station" and the associated phrase, "Overseas 110" or "110 Overseas" (alluding to China's emergency number for the police, 110), refer to various extralegal offices established by China's Ministry of Public Security and its public security bureaus in other countries.

In 2022, human rights group Safeguard Defenders published a report finding that the Chinese government illegally used these offices to intimidate Chinese dissidents and criminal suspects abroad and to pressure them to return to China. The report led to investigations of the stations by the governments of several countries.

Safeguard Defenders report
According to Matt Schrader, writing for the Jamestown Foundation, "overseas Chinese service stations" were first established in 2014, with 45 centers in 39 countries having been opened by 2019. According to Schrader, the centers were mostly formed from existing united front organizations and did not have policing authority. Schrader further stated that the centers served several legitimate purposes despite criticism of them, such as assisting crime victims with dealing with the host country's police and integrating new immigrants. Schrader pointed to a lack of transparency around the relationship between the centers and the Chinese government, particularly personnel of the United Front Work Department (UFWD), and their political influence operations.

The Nantong police department later set up the first "overseas service stations", associated with the phrase "110 Overseas", as part of a pilot project in 2016. The department set up offices in six countries and had solved at least 120 criminal cases that involved Chinese nationals, as well as detaining over 80 people in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Zambia. Dutch organizations RTL News and "Follow the Money" found that afterwards, Wenzhou's public security bureau established a "contact point" in Sydney, Australia, and the Lishui public security bureau established two offices in the Netherlands (one in Amsterdam, another in Rotterdam) in 2018. The police agencies of Fuzhou and Qingtian counties would set up the most numerous of the offices, with the latter beginning their program in 2019. Radio Free Asia reported that as of October 2022, a total of 54 such stations had been established in 30 countries.

Safeguard Defenders released an initial report in September 2022 and a follow-up in December 2022, alleging that the police stations were part of a program named Operation Fox Hunt, and were used to harass and coerce individuals wanted by the Chinese government, including dissidents, via threats to their families and themselves, pressuring them to return to China, where they would then be detained. Safeguard Defenders claimed that, between April 2021 and July 2022, the Chinese government recorded 230,000 "suspects of fraud" who were "persuaded to return". The group stated that the stations violated the sovereignty of host countries by allowing Chinese police to circumvent police cooperation rules and procedures. For instance, Wang Jingyu, a dissident who fled China after being targeted for social media posts and was granted asylum in the Netherlands, claimed he had been threatened and sent harassing messages by the Rotterdam station to make him return to China, with his parents who remained in China being targeted. A broader example was a notice issued by an overseas station operated by the government of Laiyang in Myanmar, which stated that Chinese nationals who were there illegally should return to China or "there would be consequences for their loved ones", such as cancellation of their state benefits. An anonymous official from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in an interview with El Correo, stated that the stations used "persuasion" tactics to convince those wanted by the government to return to China, pointing to the difficulties of getting European states to extradite to China.

Reactions
According to Yale legal scholar and China expert Jeremy Daum, the report contained several factual and context errors. Safeguard Defenders subsequently published a revised report which it said corrected some of the mistakes Daum had indicated.

Chinese dissidents living outside of China found the overseas police service stations threatening. Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, said that the stations needed registration regardless of their purpose, adding the controversy "raises doubts about the actuality of [China’s] commitment to rule of law and respect for sovereignty despite official statements otherwise."

Investigations by other governments
In response, some countries, including the United States, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, announced they would investigate the stations.

Canada
In November 2022, Canada summoned the Chinese ambassador Cong Peiwu and issued a "cease and desist" warning concerning the stations.

In March 2023, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) announced investigations into two alleged police stations in Quebec.

Two Chinese community groups in the Montreal area have declared they will sue the RCMP if they do not apologize for their accusations of them hosting secret Chinese police stations, and are seeking $2.5 million in damages. Maryse Lapointe, the groups' lawyer, called the allegations false and defamatory. Mei Chiu, coordinator of the Chinatown roundtable in Montreal, criticized the RCMP's investigation on these groups for not even asking to talk to the employees, and only interviewing the board members. The groups say they have lost government funding, forcing them to cut back programs such as French language education and support of victims of domestic violence. The RCMP stated broadly: "It is important to note that some of the activity the RCMP is investigating is occurring at locations where other legitimate services to the Chinese Canadian Community are being offered."

Canadian intelligence analyst Scott McGregor and journalist Ina Mitchell noted in their 2023 book, The Mosaic Effect, that S.U.C.C.E.S.S., a Canadian social services organization headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, that is listed as an "Overseas Chinese Services Organization" by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (OCAO), is an example of an organization that provides legitimate services to the Chinese Canadian Community while also working with entities tied to Operation Foxhunt. In July 2024, the Canadian government announced that it had mapped Chinese police stations in the country would share the information with the G7 to explore a response.

Germany
In March 2023, Rita Schwarzelühr-Sutter stated that two police stations remain operational in Germany, in violation of the country's sovereignty. She stated that they are run by "people who have good contacts with the diplomatic missions of the People's Republic of China and who enjoy the trust of the Chinese security authorities. They are also involved in Chinese united front organizations."

Ireland
The overseas service stations in Dublin were ordered to close by the Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in late October 2022, although one had already stopped operations and took down its sign earlier when electronic ID renewal procedures were introduced.

Italy
In December 2022, Italy announced that its police would cease joint patrols with Chinese police officers inside of Italian cities, with interior minister Matteo Piantedosi clarifying that the patrols in question had no relation to the overseas stations. In 2023, a ProPublica investigation found that the leaders of "Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station" in Prato had ties to organized crime.

Japan
In February 2024, Tokyo police raided an overseas police station as part of a COVID-19 fraud investigation.

Netherlands
The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs also stated that, as the Chinese government had failed to notify the country about the stations through diplomatic means, they had been operating illegally, with further investigation to be conducted into their conduct. Foreign minister Wopke Hoekstra later ordered both offices to close. The mayor of Amsterdam later announced in February 2023 that the Amsterdam police were unable to locate any police stations in the city.

South Korea
In June 2023, it was reported that South Korean authorities were investigating Chinese police overseas service stations in the country. In response, the authorities shuttered a Chinese police station at a restaurant on the Han River and legislators began crafting new legislation to close loopholes in the country's counterespionage laws.

Taiwan
In March 2023, Taiwan's Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) announced that a Chinese overseas police station in France engaged in cyberattacks against an OCAC language school in France.

In a May 2023 report to the Legislative Yuan Taiwan's National Security Bureau (NSB) said that they had identified over 100 secret Chinese police stations around the world targeting the overseas Chinese community. The covert locations the stations operated from included restaurants, convenience stores, and private homes. The NSB said that it was collaborating with law enforcement in other countries on the issue.

United Kingdom
In June 2023, British Security Minister Tom Tugendhat stated that China had closed its police service stations in Britain and that an investigation found no illegal activity associated with the stations.

United States
FBI director Christopher A. Wray said in November 2022 that the FBI was monitoring reports of the Chinese government establishing unregistered police stations in the U.S., saying that the conduct was "outrageous"; violated U.S. sovereignty; and "circumvents standard judicial and law enforcement cooperation processes."

In January 2023, The New York Times reported that according to anonymous tipsters, counterintelligence agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided a suspected station set up by Fuzhou municipal authorities, hosted in the offices of the American Changle Association (named after Changle District) in Chinatown, Manhattan, in late 2022. The station reportedly occupied an entire floor. It shuttered after an October 2022 FBI raid.

In April 2023, the FBI arrested two American citizens: "Harry" Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping. They were charged by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn (the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York) with conspiring to act as unregistered agents of the Chinese government for operating the police outpost in Manhattan, and with obstruction of justice for deleting messages with an official of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) who had been directing their activities in the U.S. Prosecutors said that Lu began to aid China's attempts to repress dissidents living in the U.S. in 2015. On the same day, the US Department of Justice unsealed charges against 34 MPS officers, charging them with "transnational repression offenses targeting U.S. residents" and alleging the use of fake social media accounts to harass and intimidate Chinese nationals in the U.S., with the intent to suppress free speech of Chinese dissidents living abroad. The 34 officers are believed to be living in China, and are all members of the "912 Special Project Working Group", an Internet-based government influencing effort to enhance global perceptions of China.

U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said the episode "reveals the Chinese government's flagrant violation of our nation's sovereignty"; Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the United States Department of Justice National Security Division said that the Chinese government's actions "go far beyond the bounds of acceptable nation-state conduct" and were an attempt to extend "authoritarian repression" to the U.S.

In July 2023, a group of U.S. senators asked the United States Department of Justice to investigate "Overseas Chinese Service Centers" with alleged ties to the UFWD that are operating in seven U.S. cities.

Chinese government response
According to the Chinese government, the centers had been set up to allow Chinese nationals to access administrative services such as driver's license and other document renewals without having to travel to China, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to confront transnational crime, especially fraud, affecting overseas Chinese communities. In May 2022, China Youth Daily claimed that the stations operated by Fuzhou authorities had received over 1,800 reports from 88 countries.