UK Government Orders Chinese Embassy to Shut Unofficial Police Outposts

Britain's Minister of State for Security Tom Tugendhat arrives to attend the first Cabinet meeting under the new Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak in 10 Downing Street, London, on Oct. 26, 2022. (Niklas Halle'n/AFP via Getty Images)

The Chinese embassy in London has been told to shut down any so-called police service stations in the UK, British security minister Tom Tugendhat said on Tuesday.

In a written statement to Parliament, Tugendhat said the police so far haven’t found evidence of illegal activity at the addresses associated with the alleged Chinese police outposts.

The Chinese police service stations, which were opened worldwide unbeknownst to the governments of the host countries, were first revealed by human rights NGO Safeguard Defenders.

The Chinese regime said the outposts were set up to perform administrative tasks such as assisting expats with driver’s license renewal, but Safeguard Defenders have alleged some stations were involved in  “persuasion to return“ operations, meaning they had helped to coerce targets to ”voluntarily” return to China.

Safeguard Defenders have identified three such stations in the UK. The phone numbers were listed with innocuous addresses—a food delivery business and an estate agent in London and a Chinese restaurant in Glasgow.

Tugendhat on Tuesday confirmed that further allegations had been made that there was a fourth station in Belfast.

“The Police have visited each of the locations identified by Safeguard Defenders, and carefully looked into these allegations to consider whether any laws have been broken and whether any further action should be taken,” the minister said.

“I can confirm that they have not, to date, identified any evidence of illegal activity on behalf of the Chinese state across these sites. We assess that police and public scrutiny have had a suppressive impact on any administrative functions these sites may have had.”

Tugendhat said it’s “unacceptable” that Chinese authorities opened the establishment without permission, and that their presence “will have worried and intimidated those who have left China and sought safety and freedom here in the UK.”

“The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office has told the Chinese Embassy that any functions related to such ‘police service stations’ in the UK are unacceptable and that they must not operate in any form. The Chinese Embassy has subsequently responded that all such stations have closed permanently. Any further allegations will be swiftly investigated in line with UK law,” he said.

Laura Harth, campaign director at Safeguard Defenders, welcomed the announcement, saying the “excellent” statement confirmed the illegality of the establishment of such police stations.

In a thread on Twitter, Harth said the publicity around the so called police service stations had “undoubtedly raised global attention” on the Chinese regime’s transnational repression “as well as the united front networks engaged as proxies for the CCP [Chinese Communist Party],” but it “may well have made investigators’ lives more difficult.”

She called on victims to report what happened to them, saying, democratic authorities “need direct reports by victims” to effectively tackle the Chinese regime’s transnational repression.

“If you are—or know others that are—a victim of PRC transnational repression: PLEASE REPORT,” she wrote. “There is a unique window of opportunity to push/aid democracies to do more [and] better.”

The three Chinese police stations identified by Safeguard Defenders were all operated by the Fuzhou Public Security Bureau, a police bureau in Southern China’s Fujian province.

The NGO has identified 102 stations in 53 countries across six continents (pdf) that were operated by four Chinese local police jurisdictions.

It also said the real number is likely higher as more provinces had launched such projects.

The outposts have been running in parallel to a “persuasion to return” initiative, which “persuaded” some 230,000 overseas Chinese nationals to return to China to face criminal charges between April 2021 to July 2022.

In the United States, the FBI arrested two people in April in relation to a Chinese police station in New York.

According to U.S. District Attorney Breon Peace, the two individuals had established the station at the behest of the CCP, conducted transnational repression schemes in coordination with the regime’s Ministry of Public Security, and sought to destroy evidence when they found out the FBI was investigating the site.

Several other countries, including Ireland and the Netherlands, have also ordered Chinese embassies to shut down their police outposts.