Police officers stand guard as residents queue to undergo COVID-19 testing in Nantong in China's eastern coastal Jiangsu Province on Feb. 15, 2022. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)
An online post by a local police bureau in China lists a shopping mall location in Richmond, B.C., as one of the bureau’s affiliated Chinese overseas police service centres. The phone number of the centre matches the contact number of the B.C.-based Canadian Association of Nantong Merchants Abroad.
The post by the Nantong Public Security Bureau, which is being first reported in English by The Epoch Times, was published in July 2020. Nantong is a city in China’s eastern coastal province of Jiangsu.
The post said the Nantong police bureau in 2016 took the lead to establish China’s “first police-and-overseas-Chinese joint service centre” in collaboration with the Municipal Overseas Chinese Affairs Office and the Association of Nantong Merchants Abroad (ANMA). The Canadian Association of Nantong Merchants Abroad, a non-profit organization registered in B.C., is a branch of the ANMA.
The Chinese overseas police stations are affiliated with different local police bureaus in China. According to Spanish NGO Safeguard Defenders, which first drew public attention to the existence of these stations in a September 2022 report and produced a follow-up report in December 2022, most of the stations identified in the follow-up report were established starting in 2016 by two local Chinese jurisdictions, Nantong and Wenzhou, the latter a city in China’s southeastern coastal Zhejiang Province.
The RCMP in December 2022 reportedly paid a visit to the Wenzhou Friendship Society (WFS) in a mostly residential area in Richmond, a part of Metro Vancouver. While not directly confirming the police action in response to media inquiries, the RCMP on Dec. 12, 2022, cited its ongoing investigation into “reports of criminal activity in relation to the so-called ‘police’ stations nationally,” according to Global News. The WFS has not returned The Epoch Times’ requests for comment.
The B.C. location posted by the Nantong Public Security Bureau is the address of a unit that’s part of a mall in Richmond. The listed address of the Canadian Association of Nantong Merchants Abroad is in a building right beside the mall location.
Regional Chinese police jurisdictions. (Safeguard Defenders)
RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki told MPs at a House of Commons committee hearing on Feb. 6 that the national police force is currently investigating four alleged unofficial Chinese police stations in Canada: three in the Toronto area and one in Vancouver.
Uniformed officers have visited these four locations so that the public can see the “visible presence” of police and thus provide the RCMP with more information, Lucki told the Special Committee on the Canada-People’s Republic of China Relationship (CACN).
Safeguard Defenders said in its December 2022 report that it had so far learned of the presence of five such stations in Canada: three in the Toronto area, one in Vancouver, and another one in an unspecified location.
The Epoch Times asked the RCMP whether it is aware of the Nantong police bureau’s listing of the Richmond mall location as an overseas service station, but didn’t hear back by publication time. The national police force first confirmed in October 2022, in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times, that it was investigating reports of these overseas Chinese police stations.
Police Services
Chinese authorities say the so-called unofficial Chinese overseas police stations provide services to Chinese nationals living abroad such as helping them renew their driver’s licences. Safeguard Defenders says these stations “eschew official bilateral police and judicial cooperation” and show the worrying growth of the CCP’s “transnational repression” and “long-arm policing.”
An individual in the Vancouver Chinese community who in January called the phone number of the Nantong-affiliated Richmond location told The Epoch Times that the man who answered the phone denied being associated with a Chinese police service centre. The caller, whom The Epoch Times is not naming out of concern for the individual’s safety, also described the man’s reaction to his phone call as being “peculiar.”
“I told him I saw in media reports that the Chinese police service centres could [help Chinese nationals] renew driver’s licences, and I asked if they could provide this service to me. The man said they don’t provide such services,” the caller told The Epoch Times.
“He then asked who introduced me [to call this number]. I was caught off guard and gave him a random name. The man said he doesn’t recognize this name and immediately hung up. It seems very peculiar to me.”
The Epoch Times called the number numerous times, but the calls all went unanswered.
Victor Chen, listed as vice-president on the association’s website, confirmed to The Epoch Times that the phone number belongs to Zhou. When asked about links to China’s overseas police stations, Chen said inquiries should be directed to Zhou. Chen added that Zhou is currently in China and will be staying there for several months.
The Epoch Times contacted Zhou via email but didn’t receive a response.
A post on the website of the Association of Nantong Merchants Abroad, the mother organization of the Canadian association, says the Canadian branch’s unveiling at a June 2017 ceremony in Vancouver was done personally by Lu Zhipeng, Nantong’s Chinese Community Party (CCP) Party secretary—the city’s highest-ranking official.
Another post on the association’s website, from July 2018, shows Zhou posing for a photo with Dai Junliang, deputy director of the United Front Work Department of the CCP’s Central Committee. A report by Public Safety Canada cites research by think tanks that says the CCP’s United Front Work Department is “a primary foreign interference tool.”
The Canadian Association of Nantong Merchants Abroad was among multiple Chinese organizations in Canada which often take pro-Beijing positions signing their names in a 2021 newspaper advertisement opposing calls for boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics over human right concerns.
Location
The address of the Nantong-associated Chinese overseas police service station is that of an empty store in the Aberdeen Square in Richmond. An Epoch Times reporter who lives in the area says the store was active last summer.
The unit listed by the Nantong Public Security Bureau as a Chinese overseas service station, inside Aberdeen Square in Richmond, B.C., on Jan. 13, 2023. (Iris Liang/The Epoch Times)
The empty store has a sign that reads “Σ & π.” The address of the unit appears on the Richmond municipal government website on a list of new business licences issued in 2017. The address appears as that of a business registered under the name “Sigma & Pai Investment International Ltd.,” whose licence was issued on Aug. 11, 2017.
The Epoch Times called the listed phone number of the business, but the calls went unanswered.
The website ImportGenius.com, which tracks global import and export data, lists Sigma & Pai Investment International’s supplier as Nantong New Top Trade Co. Ltd.
The store currently has the contact information of a realtor listed on its storefront. The Epoch Times contacted the realtor multiple times, but the calls went unanswered.
The Epoch Times visited the address of the listed owners of the property, whose residence is in Vancouver, but no one answered the door. A neighbour told The Epoch Times that she has never seen anyone entering or coming out of the residence.
Extending Chinese Police Services Overseas
The Richmond location was only one of 29 Chinese overseas police service centre branch locations on the list provided by the Nantong Public Security Bureau in the July 2020 post on QQ.com, a Chinese social media site. The list also included locations in New Zealand, Australia, France, South Africa, Peru, Cambodia, and the United Arab Emirates, among others.
The list appears to be part of a handbook titled “Overseas Preventive Security Guidance Handbook” published by Nantong’s police-and-overseas-Chinese joint service centre.
Another July 2020 post, by the QQ.com account of Jiangsu Legal News, a state-owned Jiangsu Province media outlet, includes the handbook’s cover page and several opening pages, whose colours and design match those of the list in the other QQ.com post where the Richmond location appears.
The post by the Nantong Public Security Bureau says the overseas locations provide the functions of “sharing various types of information between domestic and foreign governments and private organizations, and to ensure that the reach of [Chinese] public security agencies’ services are extended overseas.”
‘Persuade to Return’ Campaign
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino told MPs at the Feb. 6 House of Commons CACN committee hearing that he was briefed about the presence of China’s overseas police service stations within the last year.
Brigitte Gauvin, RCMP acting director for federal policing and national security, told MPs at the same committee hearing that the alleged Chinese police service centres may contribute to forced repatriation of individuals to China.
The RCMP logo is seen outside Royal Canadian Mounted Police "E" Division Headquarters, in Surrey, B.C., on April 13, 2018. (The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck)
“This is concerning for several reasons. These alleged police stations may contribute to the involuntary return of individuals to China. Also, families living in both China and Canada may become the target of harassment, intimidation, or experience other negative consequences,” Gauvin said.
Gauvin’s remarks were consistent with concerns captured by the Safeguard Defenders September 2022 report. According to open-source information compiled by the NGO, Chinese authorities have touted that an estimated “230,000 nationals had been ‘persuaded to return’ to face criminal proceedings in China” between April 2021 and July 2022, in some cases with the support of Chinese overseas police service centres, as part of a 2018 national campaign aimed at fighting fraud and telecommunications fraud by Chinese nationals living abroad.
Safeguard Defenders noted that this “persuade to return” campaign has also targeted dissidents and individuals who had fled persecution, as well as their family members back in China.
Fanny Qiu, Iris Liang, and NTD’s Vivian Yu contributed to this report.
