An unofficial Chinese police station in Dublin removed its signage in recent days after the Irish government began questioning the local Chinese Embassy about the station’s activities. The development comes as reports about three similar stations in Canada are being investigated by the federal government.
The sign at the Dublin office read, “Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station,” followed by “Dublin, Ireland.”
The police stations are among the more than 50 outposts established by two provincial-level police agencies in China, according to a recent report released by Safeguard Defenders. The Spain-based human rights NGO was investigating Beijing’s claims that 230,000 Chinese living overseas were “persuaded” to return to China via an anti-fraud program supported by some of these alleged unofficial police stations.
“After an overseas police service station in Dublin, Ireland was exposed in a [Safeguard Defenders] report, they have now removed the sign outside the building—all while the Irish government is seeking answers from China,” Peter Dahlin, founder and director of Safeguard Defenders and co-author of the report, wrote on social media.
Irish ministers were questioned in the country’s Legislature last week about the activities of the unofficial police station. Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said his department has raised the issue with the Chinese Embassy and “discussions are ongoing,” The Irish Times reported on Oct. 8.
Coveney said Irish officials are consulting “across government” to address the issue “to ensure the appropriate application of relevant international and domestic law.”
The Chinese Embassy in Ireland previously denied that the station was involved in any law enforcement activities, saying it was offering administrative assistance to Chinese nationals living abroad, such as driver’s licence renewals.
The sign for the station, located at 27 Capel Street, was removed last week, according to The Irish Times, while queries to the embassy and a phone number associated with the station went unanswered this week. It’s unknown if the station remains operational.
The station is among the “first batch” of 30 overseas Chinese police service stations established in 25 cities in 21 countries in January. These stations, also called “110 overseas service stations”—named after the Chinese national police emergency phone number, 110—are under the supervision of the Public Security Bureau in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, according to a news release from the Fujian provincial authority.
Stations in Toronto
Three of the unofficial overseas police stations run by the Fuzhou City police are located in Greater Toronto Area, the Safeguard Defenders’ report states.
The addresses of the stations, provided in the Fujian authorities’ news release, correspond to a convenience store in Scarborough and a private home in Markham. The third address is that of a property owned by the Canada Toronto FuQing Business Association (CTFQBA), a federally incorporated nonprofit.
The Epoch Times made multiple attempts to contact the CTFQBA for comment. Someone from the organization who answered a phone call didn’t respond to questions. Subsequent calls were unanswered.
Weldon Epp, director general for Global Affairs Canada’s North Asia and Oceania Bureau, told parliamentarians last week that an investigation into reports of the stations has started, adding that Ottawa has no bilateral treaties with Beijing that would allow the Chinese police to reside in Canada and open their police stations on Canadian soil.
“We are waiting for evidence, not just from media reports, but from operations underway,” he said while testifying at the Canada-China committee on Oct. 4.
Map of the 30 countries where Chinese police have established 54 known "110 Chinese overseas police stations." (Courtesy of Safeguard Defenders)
Dahlin told The Epoch Times in a previous interview that in addition to the three stations in Toronto, there are likely other unofficial Chinese police stations either existing or being established in Canada, though they have yet to be discovered.
Given the large Chinese diaspora population in Vancouver, he said he would find it “very strange” if the city didn’t have at least one of the unofficial police stations.
“We’ve also seen a [Chinese] government notice that said that 10 different provinces should launch these types of operations on a pilot basis,” he said, pointing to his report’s citation of a July 5, 2018, news release issued by Beijing.
The news release is in relation to the Chinese State Council’s 2018 “Work Plan for the Supervision of the National Special Struggle Against Gang Crimes.” A Chinese state media outlet reported in January 2019 that Beijing had conducted its first round of month-long supervision training in July 2018, in the 10 provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Liaoning, Fujian, Shandong, Henan, Hubei, Guangdong, Chongqing, and Sichuan.
Another report that year, in April 2019, said the regime had completed the second round of training for another 11 provinces, including Zhejiang Province where the Qingtian police service is located.
The Safeguard Defenders’ report has identified 22 overseas police stations operated by the Qingtian police service. A March 4, 2021, statement from a Chinese organization in Qingtian announced the creation of another five stations—in the cities of Lisbon, Bratislava, Santiago, Odessa, and Dar es Salaam—run by the Qingtian police.
Canada ‘Worse Than Europe’
The Safeguard Defenders’ report, published in September, stated that at least 230,000 Chinese nationals had been “persuaded to return” to China to face criminal proceedings between April 2021 and July 2022 under a campaign launched by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2018 aimed at combating fraud.
The report stated that “persuasion to return” is a key method of the CCP’s “involuntary returns” operations, which include its “Fox Hunt” operation and broader “Sky Net” campaign. The method includes tracking down the target’s family in China in order to pressure them into returning voluntarily, through means of “intimidation, harassment, detention or imprisonment.”
The target may also be approached directly “through online means or the deployment of—often undercover—agents and/or proxies abroad to threaten and harass the target into returning ‘voluntarily.’”
“This campaign, which started on a humble scale in 2018, has developed alongside the establishment of overseas Chinese police ’service stations,'” the report stated.
When asked about the severity of the CCP overseas operations, Dahlin told The Epoch Times that the impact in Canada is “certainly worse than Europe.”
“Canada has such a significant Chinese diaspora community—much bigger than pretty much all of Europe together—so certainly, there’s a lot more people at risk in Canada,” he said, adding that Canada, the United States, and Australia are the “big three” destinations when it comes to Chinese asylum-seekers and relocation.
Dahlin said that following the release of his organization’s findings, security police or related government agencies from North America and Europe have approached his organization asking to “sit down and have a briefing discussion” on the Chinese operations overseas.
