The RCMP is investigating "reports of criminal activity" related to foreign police stations after Spain-based human rights group Safeguard Defenders reported that China is operating more than 50 overseas station including three in the Greater Toronto Area. Here, one of the GTA locations noted is a convenience store in Scarborough, on Oct. 31, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Cole Burston)
The covert operations of the Chinese regime in Canada go beyond secret Chinese police stations, MPs said in a recent report on investigations into these purported police outposts.
The report, titled “The Chinese Communist Party’s Overseas Police Service Stations,” compiled testimonies from witnesses who appeared before the House Special Committee on the Canada–People’s Republic of China Relationship (CACN). Published on Nov. 29, the report looks into allegations that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has installed over 100 secret police stations globally, with at least seven reportedly located in the Canadian cities of Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal.
The CACN probe centred on reports released by the Spain-based NGO Safeguard Defenders in September and December 2022. These reports delved into Beijing’s long-arm policing and transnational repression. The communist regime has publicly claimed success in the “voluntary return” of roughly 230,000 Chinese diaspora with the support of its network of overseas police service centres between April 2021 to July 2022.
Witnesses have expressed concerns over Beijing’s so-called voluntary return campaign, given that its methods entail harassment and intimidation of the targets and their families back in China.
However, the report also highlighted the testimony of Laura Harth, campaign director at Safeguard Defenders, who revealed three incidents of compelled return to China, identified to have occurred beyond the activities associated with the alleged Chinese police stations in Canada.
“I can tell you that anecdotal evidence, again open source, indicates that at least three persuasion to return operations have taken place on Canadian soil,” she told CACN on March 20. “There’s likely many more, but those are the numbers we can get from the evidence.”
Coercion
These three incidents are in addition to the forced return of three individuals in Canada to China documented in the Safeguard Defenders report “Involuntary Returns: China’s covert operation to force ‘fugitives’ overseas back home,” published in January 2022.
Referring to a 2019 report by the Chinese version of Epoch Times, the document cited the case of Weidong Xie, a former judge on China’s Supreme Court. Mr. Xie, who publicly criticized China’s criminal justice system, relocated to Canada in 2014. Chinese authorities purportedly accused him of corruption and attempted to persuade him to return voluntarily. When he refused, police detained his sister and later his son in China. Authorities also contacted his ex-wife, a former long-time business partner, and others, including the lawyer representing his sister, with the aim of convincing him to return.
“Having been a judge, Xie knew very well what was in store for him should he return and he continued to refuse despite the retaliation against his family members and others. China even sent a lawyer to Canada to persuade him in person in vain,” Safeguard Defenders said.
Gloria Fung, president of Canada–Hong Kong Link, gave another example of a Chinese diaspora who came under surveillance by CCP agents for criticizing the regime.
“His family members have been shown photos of this dissident’s family picture, and also showing him having dinner with his family in Toronto. He was totally shocked about this, because he thought he had come to a safe and free society. He didn’t know that he was still under surveillance in Canada,” Ms. Fung said in her CACN testimony.
“Actually, eventually, because he refused to self-censor, his brother got laid off. Then the parents of his wife, his in-laws, were put in jail. It shows the severity of this kind of coercion and also threats, intimidation and harassment of people in Canada.”
Xie Weidong, a former Supreme Court judge in China who now lives in Toronto, in a file photo. (The Epoch Times)
‘Any Place That Causes Interference’
Former RCMP commissioner Brenda Lucki told CACN that the alleged Chinese police stations, which have also been referred to as police service centres, do not conform to the conventional characteristics of police stations.
“In the media, they’ve referred to them as police stations. For us, it’s any place that causes interference, intimidation or harassment in any form,” she testified on Feb. 6. “It’s not a police station how we define a police station. In some of these cases, it could be as simple as a room behind a commercial retail store. It’s not what we call police stations.”
Chinese officials, including the Chinese embassies in Canada and Ireland, have denied the allegations, saying the purported police stations merely provide services to Chinese nationals living abroad, such as helping them renew their driver’s licences. However, the report cited testimonies indicating that these stations have been involved in monitoring diaspora communities, gathering civil intelligence, and engaging in harassment and intimidation against critics of the Beijing regime.
“Although the Chinese Communist Party portrays the overseas police service stations as facilities providing administrative and consular services, witnesses emphasized they also monitor diaspora communities, collect civil intelligence, harass and intimidate individuals who are critical of China policies and assist China public security authorities with coerced return operations,” said the Nov. 29 CACN report.
Severalwitnessesspecified that individuals and associations operating these stations have direct links to the United Front Work Department, the CCP’s primary foreign interference tool, according to a 2020 study, “The Party Speaks for You,” by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
