Two More Chinese Police Stations in Canada Among 48 Additional Illegal Police Outposts Identified Globally: Report

The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa in a file photo. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

In addition to the three unofficial Chinese police stations in Toronto that have drawn widespread concern in recent months, two more have been found in Canada, according to a new report by Safeguard Defenders. They are among 48 Beijing-operated illegal police outputs around the world that have been newly identified by the Spain-based human rights NGO, which had earlier identified 54 such outposts.

“Patrol and Persuade," released Dec. 5, is the third report in a series of investigations conducted by Safeguard Defenders focusing on these overseas police service stations that it says are part of transnational repression and long-arm policy by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The NGO notes that all of its documentation is exclusively based on open-source accounts published by Chinese authorities and state media run by the CCP.

This brings the total number of unofficial Chinese police stations discovered to 102, with an overall presence in 53 countries. Among the two newly identified stations in Canada, one was found in Vancouver while the exact location of the other remains unknown.

A previous report, published in September, found that two local-level police authorities in two provinces under the Chinese Ministry of Public Security have been operating 54 overseas Chinese police service stations around the world, including three that are posted in the Greater Toronto Area. The service stations are run by the Fuzhou Public Security Bureau in Fujian Province and the Qingtian Public Security Bureau in Zhejiang Province.

Safeguard Defenders’ new report identified two additional local Chinese police jurisdictions that have been running at least 48 other overseas Chinese police service stations. These include 29 stations set up by the Nantong Public Security Bureau based in Jiangsu province, and 12 created by the Wenzhou Public Security Bureau, which is also in Zhejiang Province. Six additional stations are found operated by the Qingtian police and one station is set up by the Fuzhou police authority.

The Dec. 5 report says the operations of the Wenzhou police authority began with a 2016 “pilot” project in Milan, Italy, and the Nantong police authority began its overseas campaign in February 2016. The Qingtian police bureau also began its overseas operations in Milan in 2018.

“This directly refutes PRC [People’s Republic of China] authorities’ statements that the operations started in response to the Covid 19 pandemic,” Safeguard Defenders said in its report.

Operation Fox Hunt

Safeguard Defenders initiated its investigation after it saw the Chinese authorities touting the success of the overseas police service stations in supporting a Beijing campaign aimed at fighting telecommunications fraud committed by Chinese nationals living abroad.

According to the September report, between April 2021 and July 2022, the Chinese police “persuaded” up to 230,000 claimed fugitives to return to China “voluntarily” to face criminal proceedings, though it has also admitted that not all the targets have committed crimes.

“Persuasion to return” is a key method of the Chinese government’s “involuntary returns” operations, which include its “Operation Fox Hunt” and broader “Sky Net” campaign, Safeguard Defenders said.

The method entails either “tracking down of the target’s family in China in order to pressure them through means of intimidation, harassment, detention or imprisonment into persuading their family members to return ‘voluntarily,‘” or directly approaching the target “through online means or the deployment of—often undercover—agents and/or proxies abroad to threaten and harass the target into returning ‘voluntarily,’” according to the report.

The Dec. 5 report cited new data from an Oct. 27 working report by the CCP’s Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection, which said that since the start of the operations in 2014 and October 2022, over 11,000 successful Fox Hunt operations have been concluded in 120 countries.

New information also identified at least one illegal “persuasion to return” operation run through the Wenzhou station in Paris, France, and at least 80 cases where the Nantong overseas police stations have assisted in the operation to capture or persuade individuals to return to China.

“This contradicts PRC authorities’ statements that the stations are merely providing administrative services,” said the report.

The Chinese Embassy in Canada has previously acknowledged the existence of the three police service stations in the GTA in response to a CBC News inquiry, but argued that the stations are for providing Chinese citizens living abroad with civil services such as driver’s licence renewal, and that the stations are staffed by volunteers who are “not Chinese police officers” and “not involved in any criminal investigation or relevant activity.”

Safeguard Defenders, however, pointed to a contradictory statement from the Qingtian Public Security Bureau, which claimed to have “hired” 135 people to manage its first 21 service stations, according to a statement published on May 2019 by the People’s Public Security Daily, a state-media under the Ministry of Public Security.

The news article also indicated the Qingtian police service stations’ participation in Beijing’s Fox Hunt operation, saying that “through the construction of overseas service stations, Qingtian police have achieved new breakthroughs in overseas pursuit of fugitives.”

“Since 2018, they have successfully concluded 6 criminal cases involving overseas Chinese. Through the assistance of the ‘Police and Overseas Chinese Liaison Office,’ one person on the red notice was arrested and two have been persuaded to return to China. The [City of Qiantian] ranks number one in ”Fox Hunt Operation,” the state media outlet said.

Another jurisdiction, Wenzhou, uses similar language announcing the hiring or appointment of 19 persons early after the launch of their first stations, which was further confirmed by a certificate for a Stockholm “overseas liaison officer” for the station, according to Safeguard Defenders.

Canadian Ambassador Summoned

Weldon Epp, director general of Global Affairs Canada’s Asia Pacific bureau, told MPs on Nov. 29 that the federal government has summoned the Chinese ambassador over the issue of the illegal police stations and has formally asked the Chinese ambassador and Chinese Embassy to account for “any activities within Canada that fall outside of the Vienna Conventions, and account for those, and ensure that they cease and desist.”

Under the United Nations Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, administrative services in a foreign country have to be carried out by embassies and consulates. Those international treaties also state that diplomatic agents or consulate officers have “a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs” of the countries where they are posted.

Safeguard Defenders said at least 14 countries have launched official investigations into the reports of the illegal Chinese police service stations.

In its latest report, the organization also raised concerns that some countries in Asia and Africa have agreed to set up official Chines service stations within their territories, citing a 2019 article by Matt Schrader, chief editor for the Jamestown Foundation. The article, which reported the establishment of 13 “Chinese Community and Police Cooperation Centres” in South Africa, highlighted the centres’ direct link with the CCP organ United Front Work Department (UFWD), which is in charge of global influence operations.

“Both the PRC embassy and the centers are open about embassy support for the centers, in the form of money and personnel,” Schrader wrote.

“Both parties emphasize that the centers exist for the legitimate reason of protecting the lives and property of individuals of Chinese descent in South Africa by facilitating a more productive relationship with South African police,” he added.

“But in their English statements, neither party mentions that the center’s top leader also runs an important United Front Work Department body, one with expressly political aims, and in which capacity he has repeatedly expressed strong public support for CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s political agenda.”