China acknowledged this Wednesday that it maintains “guard stations” abroad, but denied that it has carried out “police activity”, as denounced by human rights organizations even in Portugal, accusing Beijing of persecuting dissidents across borders.
A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs admitted that Beijing “maintains a network of police stations on duty” abroad, but stressed that there are no “clandestine police stations”, as denounced by third countries, such as Germany.
These stations were created “by groups of passionate overseas Chinese” and are run by “volunteers committed to the Chinese diaspora and not by Chinese policemen,” according to the spokesman.
Information obtained by the German agency DPA indicates that at least “five senior officials” who work in these stations provide legal advice to Chinese and German citizens to request documents or carry out bureaucratic procedures. However, this assistance will also be used to obtain information and promote the ideology and policies of the Chinese government.
German security forces have warned of the existence of two clandestine Chinese police stations in the country and indicated that they are allegedly used to influence the Chinese diaspora in the country, a parliamentary commission has concluded.
Human rights organizations estimate that there are one hundred police stations of this type in at least 50 countries, including Portugal.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing insists, however, that the objective is “to help Chinese citizens who were unable to travel to the country during the new coronavirus pandemic so that they can pass medical examinations and renew their driving licences.”
The authorities also stated that these centers “do not violate the law because they do not carry out police activities” and stressed that China “does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries or in their sovereignty.”
The human rights organization Safeguard Defenders revealed in a report last week that there are at least 48 more underground Chinese police stations in various countries, bringing the total number already known to 102 Chinese authority branches on foreign soil.
The organization says that these squads are present in 53 countries around the world, almost half of which (at least 41) in Europe, with Italy and Spain accounting for the largest number of these Chinese authority delegations in foreign territory. .
The existence of these “police service centers” was revealed last September, when Safeguard Defenders accused Beijing of maintaining 54 police stations in various countries, including three in Portugal (Lisbon, Porto and Madeira) with functions that pass through control of fugitives from China and return processes to that country.
The report released last week indicates that the vast majority of the stations were created in 2016, which, underlines the non-governmental organization (NGO), “directly refutes the statements by the authorities of the People’s Republic of China that operations began in response to the pandemic.
Source: TSF
