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Police in New York have arrested two men for allegedly setting up a secret police station for a Chinese provincial police agency to collect information on opponents of the ruling Communist Party.
Such offices have been reported across North America, Europe and in other countries where Chinese communities include critics of the Communist Party who have family or business contacts in China. China denies that they are police stations, saying that they exist mainly to provide citizen services such as renewing driver’s licenses.
Party leader and head of state Xi Jinping has waged a campaign against corruption that has also targeted criticism of his regime at home and abroad, while seeking to chase down those accused of financial crimes.
The arrests Monday in New York came alongside charges against 34 officers with China’s national police force in China for using social media to harass party critics in the United States, authorities said Monday.
Below is a look at the allegations that China is running secret overseas police stations and the backlash they have encountered.
WHAT IS THE LATEST IN THE NEW YORK CASE?
The two men who were arrested were acting under the direction and control of a Chinese government official, the Justice Department said in a statement Monday.
The arrests of the men, identified as “Harry” Lu Jianwang, 61, of the Bronx, and Chen Jinping, 59, of Manhattan, both U.S. citizens, are the first of their kind anywhere in the world.
The two did not register with the Justice Department as agents of a foreign government, U.S. law enforcement officials said. And though the office did perform some services such as helping Chinese citizens renew their Chinese driver’s licenses, it also served a more “sinister” function, including helping the Chinese government locate a pro-democracy activist of Chinese descent living in California and threatening a fugitive whom police wanted to return to China, officials said.
