Chinese dissident Wang Jingyu thought he was safe from the Chinese Communist Party after he established a residence in Amsterdam . That was before he received a phone call from a Chinese “police station” in the Netherlands.
The caller told him to return to China to “sort out my problems and to think about my parents,” Wang recalled. The call was then followed up by a systematic campaign of harassment and intimidation by people inside the Netherlands.
Dutch police now have Wang under protection. The government has lodged a complaint with the Chinese government, which has denied the allegations.
What China cannot deny is that it has set up a network of “service stations” around the world that it claims are only there to provide services for Chinese nationals abroad — renewing their Chinese driver’s licenses, for example. China claims the offices are staffed with “local volunteers” who are not connected to Chinese law enforcement at all.
But Safeguard Defenders, a Spanish nongovernmental organization that focuses on Chinese oppression, claims otherwise. In a new report , Safeguard Defenders identifies 38 similar Chinese service stations in 28 countries, including the United States and Canada .
Sheng Xue escaped from China in 1989 following the Tiananmen Square massacre but still reports being targeted by Chinese officials online. “Now the Chinese police station is here, just a few kilometers from me, so I am asking myself where else I can escape to,” Sheng told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are now investigating whether the Chinese service station in Toronto was involved in harassment campaigns against local Chinese dissidents.
Ireland also moved quickly to shut down the service station identified by Safeguard Defenders in Dublin. “Actions of all foreign states on Irish territory must be in compliance with international law and domestic law requirements,” an Irish government spokesman said. “On this basis, the department informed the [Chinese] embassy that the office on Capel Street should close and cease operations.”
Unfortunately, not all allies are moving as quickly against this sustained campaign of Chinese overseas oppression. Germany has said there are “no indications” that any pressuring of Chinese dissidents has occurred out of the Frankfurt stations identified by Safeguard Defenders. Germany, however, has a history of turning a blind eye to the threat posed by the CCP. It has let the Chinese government-owned Huawei corporation deploy “safe city” surveillance technology in Germany and is even letting China's Sai Microelectronics take over Germany’s largest computer chip manufacturer.
The Germans seem to have learned nothing from letting their energy sector become entirely dependent on Russian President Vladimir Putin . They now seem intent on making a very similar mistake with China.
The U.S. must put pressure on all the nations listed in the Safeguard Defenders report to investigate these extraterritorial Chinese police stations. It should put extra pressure on Germany to turn away from becoming dependent on Beijing before it is too late.
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