A building in a business park in Markham, Ont., is seen on Oct. 31, 2022, one of three locations in the Greater Toronto Area identified by Spain-based human rights group Safeguard Defenders as being among the sites of at least 54 unofficial police stations allegedly run by police bureaus in China. (The Canadian Press/Cole Burston)
Two executives of a Chinese business association in Toronto whose address is on a list of Chinese “police service stations” in other countries attended events in China with local police and other government officials to discuss providing policing services to overseas Chinese, according to reports and photos posted by multiple local state-run media outlets and on various WeChat channels in China.
The two men, Weng Guoning and Yu Lin, are both senior members of the Canada Toronto Fuqing Business Association (CTFQBA). The CTFQBA’s Markham, Ont., address appears on a list of 30 “Fuzhou police overseas service stations” in 21 countries. The Fujian Overseas Chinese Press published the list as part of a news article on a press conference held on Jan. 22, 2022, by the Fuzhou Public Security Bureau’s “110 overseas police service desk” on its establishment of those stations.
Fuqing and Fuzhou are two cities in Fujian Province, which is on China’s southeastern coast across from Taiwan. Fuqing is under Fuzhou’s administration.
The stations are dubbed “110 overseas”—named after the police emergency line in China, 110.
The CTFQBA’s founding history, as described on its website’s home page, says the association was established “under the guidance” of various Chinese state-, provincial-, and municipal-level government and official bodies, including the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Fuqing Municipal Committee.
The UFWD functions as the CCP’s “primary foreign interference tool” working to co-opt international politicians and facilitate espionage, among other activities that endanger national security, says a 2020 report by Public Safety Canada.
On the CTFQBA website, Weng is listed as one of three permanent honorary presidents and Yu is listed as one of 43 vice-presidents.
In February 2022, Weng and Yu attended separate meetings with local police and other government officials in Fuqing. The meetings were reportedly focused on discussions about providing police services to overseas Chinese and fighting crimes that impact overseas Chinese nationals, as first reported in a Jan. 19 article by the Found in Translation newsletter on Substack.
The Epoch Times made multiple attempts to contact Weng and Yu but didn’t hear back. An individual at the CTFQBA who answered a phone call last September didn’t respond to questions. Subsequent calls went unanswered. The organization hasn’t responded to any email inquiries from The Epoch Times.
In October 2022, the RCMP said it had begun investigating reports of the three unauthorized Chinese police stations in Toronto. A senior Global Affairs Canada (GAC) official told parliamentarians at a House of Commons Canada-China committee meeting last November that GAC had summoned the Chinese ambassador on multiple occasions over the issue.
The Epoch Times also reached out to the RCMP intelligence unit and the York Regional Police (YRP) for comment in relation to the conduct of Weng and Yu. Markham is a city in the Regional Municipality of York. The YRP declined to comment while an RCMP officer said the federal police force couldn’t immediately respond.
‘Deeply Feel the Warmth’
On Feb. 11, 2022, Weng attended an “Overseas Police Lunar New Year Tea Party” for police and overseas Chinese representatives hosted by the Fuqing Public Security Bureau, according to a Feb. 15, 2022, report by the Fuqing News Network. The news network is run by the Propaganda Department of the Fuqing Municipal Committee of the CCP, a CCP internal division in charge of spreading the Party’s ideology and creating and disseminating its propaganda.
The report said the participants “discussed and exchanged views on efforts to combat crimes involving overseas Chinese and to strengthen [police] services for overseas Chinese.”
“In response to the adverse impact caused by the current [COVID-19] pandemic, the police will strengthen measures to help overseas Chinese resolve their practical problems and provide them with more services and warmth,” reads the article in Chinese.
“To protect the legal rights and interests of overseas Chinese, the police will keep a close watch on crimes that infringe upon those rights and interests and take strict measures to crack down on those crimes in accordance with the law, so that more overseas Chinese can have greater peace of mind and have their affairs go more smoothly while working hard abroad.”
Weng was one of five overseas Chinese community representatives at the party who were named in the report, from Canada, Argentina, Mozambique, Russia, and the UK.
Weng had previously praised the overseas Chinese police stations publicly. In a March 2022 report by the Overseas Edition of the state-run media People’s Daily, Weng said the stations make him “deeply feel the warmth of ’my mother’s family.'”
That March 2022 report was also shared on the website of the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese (ACFROC). The ACFROC is an agency within the CCP’s UFWD, according to a June 2020 report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) titled “The party speaks for you: Foreign interference and the Chinese Communist Party’s united front system.”
Besides being one of three CTFQBA permanent honorary presidents, Weng also has extensive connections with organizations in the Toronto Chinese-Canadian community, serving as president of the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations (CTCCO), an umbrella group with over 100 member organizations. The Epoch Times also tried to contact Weng through CTCCO but didn’t hear back.
‘Providing Services to Overseas Chinese’
Yu attended a similar Lunar New Year tea party in Fuqing on Feb. 18, 2022, held by the Honglu Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese (HFROC), which is a branch of the ACFROC. Event attendees discussed how Chinese police could provide services to overseas Chinese and fight crimes involving telecommunications fraud that are of concern to overseas Chinese, including through contact with the overseas Chinese police service stations, 110 overseas.
The event was reported in an article titled “Honglu Street Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese Lunar New Year Tea Party,” published on Feb. 20, 2022, by Fuzhou News, a local media outlet. The article cited “Safety Fuqing,” the official WeChat account of the Fuqing Public Security Bureau, as its source. The article is also posted on the HFROC’s official WeChat account and on “Fuqing United Front,” the WeChat account of the UFWD of the CCP Fuqing Municipal Committee.
Representatives of overseas Chinese organizations from some 10 countries and regions attended the party, according to the report.
Among a number of photos accompanying the article, one shows Yu sitting with other business and community leaders around a conference table. Behind him is a screen that displays in Chinese, “Honglu Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese Lunar New Year Tea Party,” with a second line that reads in Chinese, “Interaction between police and overseas Chinese, providing services to overseas Chinese.” The article also included a group photo showing Yu and 19 other participants posing in front of the HFROC building, with two men in police uniform.
Local government officials and CCP committee members attended the gathering, including Zhang Zhenyun, deputy secretary of the Honglu Street CCP Working Committee; and Zhang Xiaoyong, director of the Honglu Street Public Security Bureau, according to the article and accompanying photos.
Zhang Xiaoyong was said to have especially spoken about the problem of telecommunications fraud and about police efforts to combat transnational telecommunications fraud, said the article.
He also said Fuqing City is the first to establish special channels to provide services to overseas Chinese, such as helping overseas Chinese who wish to return to Fujian Province to settle down, providing temporary residence registration for overseas Chinese returning to China, extending and renewing driver’s licences for overseas Chinese, as well as linking with “110 Overseas” police service stations and other platforms to “serve overseas compatriots to the maximum extent.”
The article also noted that in 2021, the Honglu Street Public Security Bureau in Fuqing established the first municipal liaison office liaising between Chinese police and overseas Chinese. It was established through joint efforts of the police bureau and the HFROC and served the combined functions of “mediation centre,” “service centre,” “propaganda centre,” and “communication centre,” acting as a bridge between the HFROC and Fuqing diaspora, the article said.
According to the article, the overseas Chinese at the gathering praised the HFROC and the Honglu Street police bureau for their work in various areas to benefit overseas Chinese people and combat transnational telecommunication fraud.
The participants also put forward suggestions for further strengthening the legal rights protection of overseas Chinese, communication between the police and overseas Chinese, and the work to “persuade” overseas Chinese nationals suspected of crimes to return to China to face justice, such as those living in northern Myanmar, said the article.
‘Transnational Repression’
Some of the police services provided to overseas Chinese discussed at the Lunar New Year tea parties Weng and Yu attended are in line with the functions of the overseas Chinese police service stations whose existence raised global concerns in recent months following a report published by Spain-based NGO Safeguard Defenders last September. That report found at least 54 such outposts in dozens of countries.
The NGO said it identified the stations based on open-source information, referring to the Fuzhou Public Security Bureau’s January 2022 announcement as the source of 30 of those 54 outposts.
Besides the Markham address of the CTFQBA, a federally incorporated not-for-profit organization, two other addresses on the Fuzhou police bureau’s list are in the Greater Toronto Area. One has been identified as the location of a convenience store on Warden Ave. in Scarborough. The other is the address of a residential home in Markham.
Just one of those 30 Fuzhou-linked stations was in the United States, in New York’s Chinatown. According to the U.S. State Department in a recent email to The Epoch Times, “The FBI has confirmed that the ‘overseas police station’ in New York linked to Fuzhou has closed.” This development follows a FBI raid that reportedly took place last fall at the building where the station was located.
“We continue to be concerned about PRC [People’s Republic of China] transnational repression efforts around the world and are also coordinating with allies and partners on this issue,” the State Department’s email added.
Chinese authorities, including the Chinese embassies in Canada and Ireland have previously said that the local stations weren’t involved in any law enforcement activities, but were offering administrative assistance to Chinese nationals living abroad, such as driver’s licence renewals.
The Safeguard Defenders report said these operations “eschew official bilateral police and judicial cooperation” and show the worrying growth of the CCP’s “transnational repression” and “long-arm policing.” It noted that some of these stations in different parts of the world have reportedly targeted not only criminals and corrupt officials but also dissidents.
Safeguard Defenders said evidence points to these stations often making use of local Chinese overseas home associations that are linked to the CCP’s United Front system. Among those first overseas stations identified were a number of these hometown associations.
The report said these associations, “while often providing genuine services to the community, have by now become overwhelmingly co-opted by the CCP’s United Front organizations, which seek to increasingly control the Chinese diaspora.”
The report also said some of these stations are related to a larger CCP campaign launched in 2018 that the regime said were aimed at combating telecommunication fraud by Chinese nationals living abroad, by “persuading” them to return to China to face criminal proceedings.
The Chinese authorities have touted that some 230,000 overseas Chinese nationals had been “persuaded to return” to China between April 2021 and July 2022.
Overseas Chinese police “service stations,” also known as “110 overseas,” named after the police emergency number, 100, in China, are found in dozens of countries across five continents. (Courtesy of Safeguard Defenders)
Investigations
In a follow-up report, published in December 2022, Safeguard Defenders identified 48 additional Chinese overseas police service stations, bringing the total to 102, with an overall presence in 53 countries. Two of those 48 stations are in Canada, with one in Vancouver while the location of the other remains unknown.
The reports prompted multiple countries to launch investigations into these stations, which allegedly are run by select local police forces in China and consist of a combination of physical overseas stations and an online platform to provide services and receive reporting.
