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Clandestine Chinese police stations abroad: a case with many grey areas

This glass-fronted building could house a foreign police station for China in New York's Chinatown on Monday, April 17, 2023. AP - Bebeto Matthews

Text by: Jelena Tomic Follow

5 min

The announcement of the arrest in the United States of two people accused of opening a clandestine Chinese police station in New York this week revived a case revealed last October. Interview with Jean-Louis Rocca, professor at Sciences Po Paris and researcher at the Centre de recherches internationales (Ceri).

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Clandestine Chinese police stations located in a hundred cities in 53 countries on all continents whose mission would be to monitor, intimidate and even repatriate dissidents. The case revealed in October 2022 by the NGO Safeguard Defenders has once again found itself in the spotlight. On Wednesday, April 19, the British government said it took "very seriously" the existence of these antennas that would act on its territory. Two days earlier, the arrest in New York of two suspects and the indictment of 34 others involved in these clandestine operations made headlines in the American press.

RFI: We are talking about troll farms on the internet, fake accounts used to harass, denigrate or threaten Chinese activists and dissidents around the world. U.S. authorities cite a group called "912," which is believed to be an elite police team. What is it?

Jean-Louis Rocca: This is something that is quite common in the People's Republic of China. It is known that some people are paid by the authorities, whether local or national, to influence Chinese society and even threaten a number of people. This case of trolls is a bit of an international projection of what can be found in the People's Republic of China, namely that groups dedicated to the police or more precisely to the administration of state security will try to influence local political opinions and indeed in some cases to monitor and threaten opponents. We can also question the interest of this kind of action, because as much as for the issue of the Uyghurs there has been a real impact on China's reputation and way of proceeding, Chinese dissidents abroad are essentially rather anonymous people who do not have much influence, including internationally.

Two suspects, Chinese Americans, were arrested on Monday, April 17 in Chinatown by New York police. These arrests are incomprehensible to some politicians, who wonder why the FBI did not react until five months after the discovery of this clandestine post.

I am not in the secrets of the FBI, but one can imagine that there are already many problems between China and the United States, many disputes, the most important of which lately is Taiwan. And I think that there is a desire in the United States not to multiply the files. Unlike the situation during the Cold War when we had two frontal oppositions of two quasi-independent systems fighting for world domination, today it is much more complicated. Economic relations between the two countries are extremely strong, there is significant trade interdependence, and therefore conflicts and probably also a desire not to multiply the risks. Perhaps there were also somewhat complex relationships between certain American agencies and these elements controlled by Beijing? In any case, to know the end of the story, I think you have to be initiated and inside the system, because these are very opaque issues.

► READ ALSO: United States: there was a clandestine Chinese police station in New York, say authorities

If these facts are true, how do you explain that States have been able to tolerate clandestine police in violation of national sovereignty?

It depends on the situation. In some cases, as far as we know, these are informal pharmacies of Chinese businessmen sometimes very well established in the host company, who may also have local nationality and who, for often utilitarian reasons, for example to develop businesses or have close relations with a certain number of people in China, agree to serve as relays for the Chinese authorities. The relay can be to give a hand to a certain number of Chinese to do the papers, but in this kind of informal situation we can also end up in situations – and here we enter into the logic of secret agents – where we will ask to monitor people or have information on this or that person. There are situations where we obviously have something quite formalized, and it seems that this is the case in the United States, and other situations such as Europe where we have things that are much more informal. We are in this somewhat underworld of Asian communities, not of all communities but of those who are in business, traders who go back and forth between China and Europe and who may be required, at some point, to render services to the authorities.

Several countries announced a few months ago that they had launched investigations, including the France. Since then, there has been radio silence. Why do you think this is?

Again, I am not in the secret of the Gods, but it is possible that people are involved in these organizations, these agencies and these somewhat complex relationships and that we may not want to settle the issue in a completely open way. Once again, we are in grey areas, even black from a diplomatic point of view, which are treated as grey areas. That is to say, some things exist, we do not like to see them develop and we decide at certain times to intervene, but let's say that we do not really want to reveal a certain number of things.

► Read also: Illegal Chinese police stations abroad: new data from an NGO

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