News of the World

[kyonides]

Chinese Police Overseas NY Outpost Can Be Tool for Sabotage in US: Expert

A report emerged in September that said Chinese authorities have opened 110 police service centers outside of mainland China—including one in New York City—that repatriate Chinese people using coercion, according to a security policy expert, but which also may be used for sabotage or espionage.

Frank Gaffney, the executive chairman at the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, said that as part of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) global transnational repression those service centers can be tools to conduct espionage and sabotage work.

“The Chinese are not simply forcing people to go back to China and stand trial, but they may be giving them directions to do other things,” such as espionage, recruitment, influence operations, sabotage, or subversion, Gaffney told the “China in Focus” program on NTD news.

With such a vehicle, the regime could also “compel foreigners to China to suffer whatever fate the Chinese Communist Party would have in mind for them,” in his opinion.

“Some 230,000 people have been compelled to return to China,” said Gaffney, referring to the report that says more than 110 police service centers operate in 30 countries across 5 continents. “That alone is an extraordinary indictment of what these service centers are actually servicing.”

“China claims 230,000 suspects of fraud and telecom fraud were successfully ‘persuaded to return’ to China from April 2021 to July 2022,” according to the Safeguard Defenders report (pdf).

Gaffney said he believes the operation is likely contrary to U.S. laws given that there is no reciprocity agreement in place to allow the FBI to operate in China.