Netherlands Orders Closure of 2 Illegal Chinese Police Stations

Minister of Foreign Affairs Wopke Hoekstra talks to the press in The Hague, the Netherlands, following the decision to expel 17 Russian diplomats on March 29, 2022. Bart Maat/ANP/AFP via Getty Images

The Netherlands demanded the closure of two illegal Chinese police “service stations” in the country.

On Nov. 2, Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wopke Hoekstra, posted on Twitter that the ministry has informed the Chinese ambassador that the stations must close immediately.

Human rights NGO, Safeguard Defenders, revealed in its September report that China had set up at least 38 Chinese police “service stations” in dozens of countries across five continents.

In the Netherlands, such stations were found in both Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

According to Hoekstra, no permission has been requested from the Netherlands for the setup of either station. “The Netherlands has asked the Chinese ambassador for full clarification … conducts research into the stations in order to find out their precise activities,” said Hoekstra.

In responding to the order from the Netherlands, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian insisted that the stations were run by local volunteers from the Chinese community, not police from China.

Overseas Chinese police “Service Stations,” or “110 Overseas,” are found in dozens of countries across five continents. Courtesy of Safeguarddefenders

Transnational Repression

Earlier, the Chinese spokesperson Wang Wenbin responded to the allegation of the overseas police service stations on Oct. 26.

He claimed those were service centers and the purpose is “to help overseas Chinese nationals in need access the platform to have their driving licenses renewed and receive physical examinations.”

Wang Jingyu, a Chinese dissident in Rotterdam, disagreed with Wang’s claim.

Jingyu said, “I have solid and clear evidence to prove it’s a Chinese overseas police station in Rotterdam.”

According to Jingyu, a staff member of the Chinese police service station in Rotterdam has been calling him with an official telephone number dozens of times a day, “He wanted me to turn myself in, to go back to China … threatened me with an officially registered Telegram text.”

“It’s exactly opposite from the Chinese foreign ministry’s claim,” he told the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times on Oct. 30.

According to the Safeguard Defenders’ report, the overseas policing operation was associated with a Beijing campaign to bring Chinese nationals back to China for fraud and telecommunication fraud investigations.

Previously, Chinese media claimed that 230,000 fraud suspects were successfully “persuaded to return” to China by the overseas police between April 2021 and July 2022.

However, the Safeguard Defenders’ report also indicated that those who were successfully persuaded claimed that “most involved dissidents or individuals that had fled religious and/or ethnic persecution.”

After the exposure of the illegal Chinese police service stations worldwide, the Irish government was the first to order the closure of a Chinese overseas police station.

Jiang Feng contributed to this report.