Following reports that the Chinese Communist Party was actively opening and utilizing overseas police departments, U.S. Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), with an additional 20 Republican lawmakers, penned a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding action.
According to a recent report by Safeguard Defenders, a human rights non-governmental organization based in Spain, the Chinese Community Party has increasingly co-opted Chinese hometown associations to control and enforce its laws and ideas on the Chinese diaspora. Worse, that report noted Chinese authorities used those efforts to pull nationals back home for criminal proceedings.
“As part of a massive nationwide campaign to combat the growing issue of fraud and telecommunication fraud by Chinese nationals living abroad, Chinese authorities claim that from April 2021 to July 2022, 230,000 nationals had been “persuaded to return” to face criminal proceedings in China,” Safeguard wrote in “110 OVERSEAS: Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild.”
This came on the heels of the Public Security Bureau of Fuzhou, China, openly announcing at the beginning of this year that the first batch of 30 overseas police service stations had been opened in 25 cities in 21 countries, including the U.S. Domestically, the corresponding station is hosted at the American Changle Association in New York City. For the lawmakers, this was a step too far, though these operations do also provide some genuine services to their local communities.
“It is deeply troubling that the Chinese government could use these service stations as its long-arm policing abroad,” the lawmakers wrote.
Fuzhou noted that these efforts help the Chinese community with consular or administrative matters, like renewing their driver’s licenses. However, the lawmakers also accused the operations of coercing Chinese fugitives abroad to return to China to face legal consequences while avoiding international oversight of the process.
“There should be no room for the Chinese government to exercise extraterritorial law enforcement unilaterally on U.S. soil,” said the lawmakers. “The Chinese overseas police service station established in New York City earlier this year appears to be a further step of China’s illicit long-arm policing on U.S. soil that violates our sovereignty.”
With this as a backdrop, the representatives asked for answers to several questions from Blinken and Garland:
- If any federal agency invited the Fuzhou police to establish a presence in New York City;
- If any other Chinese law enforcement presence is known to operate in the United States;
- Whether the Biden administration rescinded the visa restrictions imposed by the Trump administration on Chinese nationals engaged in United Front work activities;
- If the Department of State granted visas to Chinese nationals for law enforcement or other government duties at the Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station;
- Whether that station and its employees have registered appropriately with the federal government; and
- If the station has engaged in any known activities to monitor, harass or coerce U.S. residents or purported fugitives outside of U.S. due process.