Yeah, weird & ominous. Was reading about this days ago, & Canada isn’t the only place, but it’s a soft target.
Canada is but one of several dozen countries that are now home to overseas outposts of Chinese law enforcement. This week, a
report in The Irish Times noted the opening of a Fuzhou Overseas Police Service Station in central Dublin.
Critics say the vaguely named stations are an 'extrajudicial' way for China to keep tabs on their nationals abroad
nationalpost.com
Three addresses in Toronto are known to be registered as “service stations” operated by the Fuzhou Public Security Bureau, a police force active in the Chinese metropolis of Fuzhou.
China maintains that the stations exist simply to assist expats in completing administrative tasks such as renewing driver’s licences.
Safeguard Defenders holds that the stations function mainly as outposts for the Chinese policy of “Involuntary Return” – a program of compelling Chinese nationals to return home whenever the country’s security service deems that they’ve violated Chinese law. “These operations eschew official bilateral police and judicial cooperation,” they wrote.
China has opened dozens of “overseas police service stations” around the globe to monitor its citizens living abroad, including one location in New York City and three in Toronto.
nypost.com
Europe is home to most of the police stations, with locations spread across the continent in places such as London, Amsterdam, Prague, Budapest, Athens, Paris, Madrid and Frankfurt. North America is also home to four of the stations, with three locations in Toronto and one in
New York City. In all, there are 54 such stations in 30 different countries.
(The fact that they’re only mentioning three stations in Toronto and none in Vancouver seems kind of fishy all by itself)
“These operations eschew official bilateral police and judicial cooperation and violate the international rule of law, and may violate the territorial integrity in third countries involved in setting up a parallel policing mechanism using illegal methods,” the report by Safeguard Defenders, a human rights watchdog, said,
according to the New York Post.
New York city has the other North American location
torontosun.com
The report, titled “110 Overseas: Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild,” details China’s extensive efforts to combat “fraud” by its citizens living overseas, in part by opening several police stations on five continents that have assisted Chinese authorities in “carrying out policing operations on foreign soil.”
"Canada is becoming China’s chew toy," warns Senior Fellow Charles Burton. Beijing’s meddling in Canadians affairs includes an alleged disinformation campaign which helped “unfriendly” Conservative MPs of Chinese ethnicity lose their seats in the 2021 federal election.
In China, the high-profile TV drama In The Name Of The People has become a smash hit.
macdonaldlaurier.ca
Chinese police
setting up offices in Canada, then “persuading” alleged criminals to return to the motherland to face “justice” – while our own government and security services apparently choose to look the other way – represents a gross violation of Canada’s national sovereignty, international law and the norms of diplomacy.
China is extending the grip of its Orwellian police state into this country, with seemingly no worry about being confronted by our own national security agencies.
The RCMP and politicians of all stripes routinely condemn Chinese state harassment of people in Canada, but what action has been taken? There have been no arrests or any expulsion of any Chinese diplomats who might be co-ordinating this kind of thuggery.
This bold strategy is consistent with China’s propensity for routinely flouting international laws, including those that require any other country’s police wishing to gather evidence in Canada to work through the RCMP.
In the case of these “police service centres,” Safeguard Defenders reports that agents press their targets to return home, including by offering vague promises of leniency or even urging families back home to encourage them to do so. The officers have taken aim at these alleged (and unproven) criminals by seizing their families’ assets, denying children in China access to schools, and terminating family members’ employment, all in violation of due process.
The more we ignore reports of China’s growing presence in Canada – including its interference in our electoral process, its
potential espionagein our universities and research institutes, and so on – the more emboldened and manipulative Chinese agents become. With no sign that it will be held accountable, China will only increase the size and threat of its operations, because it can.
With its seeming indifference toward China’s blatant contempt for our laws and security, Ottawa is playing an extremely dangerous game with Canada’s sovereignty.
www.theglobeandmail.com
