(RepublicanWire.org) – A confidential police station operating under the Chinese government in New York City got shut down by the FBI after several raids conducted during the last couple of months, as per a report released on Friday.
The U.S. State Department official affirmed the closure:
“The FBI has confirmed that the ‘overseas police station’ in New York linked to Fuzhou has closed. We continue to be concerned about PRC [People’s Republic of China] transnational repression efforts around the world and are also coordinating with allies and partners on this issue.”
The closure of the facility in New York’s Chinatown comes just weeks after The New York Times reported that FBI agents raided and searched the building at an undisclosed time last fall. The facility and more than 100 others like it form a network of covert facilities from which experts believe that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is conducting a campaign of transnational repression.
According to two reports published in October 2022 and December 2022 by Safeguard Defenders, a nonprofit organization, overseas police outposts are used to collect intelligence and even forcibly repatriate Chinese dissidents to the mainland to be imprisoned.
The State Department spokesperson said:
“We are aware of reports regarding alleged PRC’s overseas police stations. We take this issue very seriously. Establishing so-called overseas police stations without the invitation or approval of the country in which they are operating raises serious issues of respect for the sovereignty of that country.”
Chinese authorities maintain that the facilities, which operate in 53 nations, assist Chinese immigrants in foreign nations with tasks that would normally be handled by a consulate, such as renewing driver’s licenses and visas. However, the stations have been linked to the CCP’s United Front Work Department, an agency that works to advance the regime’s interests abroad by spreading propaganda, conducting foreign influence operations, suppressing dissident movements, gathering intelligence, and facilitating the transfer of technology to communist China.
