CCP Opens 54 “Overseas Police Stations” in 30 Countries

According to a report titled “110 Overseas: Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild,” released by Safeguard Defenders, a Spain-based human rights nonprofit organization, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established 30 overseas surveillance stations in 21 countries at the beginning of 2022 and has expanded to 54 stations in 30 countries so far.

These surveillance stations are under the jurisdiction of the Fuzhou Public Security Bureau in Fujian Province, which is under the CCP’s Ministry of Public Security. Europe is home to most CCP police stations, with locations spread across the continent in places such as London, Amsterdam, Prague, Budapest, Athens, Paris, Madrid, and Frankfurt. North America is also home to four stations, with three in Toronto and one in New York. The Telegraph reports that these police stations are often run at innocuous locations such as Chinese restaurants, convenience stores, real estate agents, and even private homes.

The CCP claims that the stations provide vital services to its citizens living abroad. However, Safeguard Defenders believes that the stations function mainly as outposts for the CCP police of “involuntary return” – CCP’s covert operations to force fugitives overseas back home. They also serve as centers of propaganda for the CCP and surveillance of the behavior and opinions of Chinese citizens.

Between April 2021 and July 2022, CCP police “persuaded” 230,000 alleged fugitives to return to Communist China “involuntarily” by threatening to cut off electricity supplies to relatives in the country or restricting their access to public schools (while admitting not all the targets have committed any crimes).