China alleged to run up to 6 clandestine police stations on U.S. soil, human rights group claims

By Carolina Stanton On Apr 19, 2023

The Chinese government may have as many as six clandestine police stations in the United States, according to a human rights group, whose allegations came a day after U.S. law enforcement arrested two men in New York for allegedly running a station under the direction of an official in China.

China’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday sharply denied all allegations that Beijing is operating overseas police stations, saying U.S. officials are making “groundless accusations.”

The assertion from Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin came after the FBI on Monday arrested two men in New York, identified as “Harry” Lu Jianwang, 61, and Chen Jinping, 59, both U.S. citizens.

U.S. officials said the two engaged in a range of activities, including locating Chinese dissidents living in the U.S.

The U.S. Justice Department also filed charges against 34 officers of the Chinese government’s Ministry of Public Security, alleging they operate a program to harass Chinese nationals residing in the New York metropolitan area and elsewhere in America.

Following the Justice Department actions, the Madrid, Spain-based human rights group Safeguard Defenders told the New York Post that in addition to a Chinese police station above a noodle restaurant in Manhattan’s Chinatown, another station is at an undisclosed address in New York City, with a third outpost in Los Angeles.

Safeguard Defenders, which published a report last year detailing 100 clandestine Chinese police stations around the world, told the Post there is also evidence of overseas service stations in San Francisco and Houston as well as in cities in Nebraska and Minnesota.

Specific connections between the alleged stations and the U.S. Justice Department charges against nearly three dozen Chinese government’s MPS officers are not clear.

A Justice Department press release on Monday said the charged officers are “believed to reside in the [People’s Republic of China].” They “allegedly perpetrated transnational repression schemes targeting U.S. residents whose political views and actions are disfavored by the PRC government, such as advocating for democracy in the PRC.”

In Beijing on Tuesday, Mr. Wang said China does not interfere in other countries’ sovereignty.

“China firmly opposes the smear and political manipulation by the U.S., who maliciously fabricated the narrative of so-called cross-border suppression and blatantly prosecuted Chinese law enforcement officials,” he said.

The Associated Press reported that China has shown it’s willing to target its own citizens even after they have left China for various reasons, whether political or economic. The news agency previously reported that a Chinese woman was detained in Dubai at a Chinese-run detention facility.

In recent years, Beijing has been running two campaigns to bring suspects wanted mostly for economic crimes back to China as part of an anti-corruption drive — through the use of extradition treaties or unofficial methods, such as putting coercive pressure on relatives in China.

• This article is based in part on wire service reports.