China's alleged consular assistance offices actually serve to illegally pursue and coerce Chinese citizens considered suspected by Beijing, According to the NGO Safeguard Defenders
Pablo Morán
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The fight against corruption in China It was one of the objectives that Xi Jinping was set during the Communist Party Congress that raised him to the level of Mao Zedong. The problem is that this fight against corruption is transferring many legal limits, even outside the Chinese territory.
The NGO Safeguard Defenders has denounced the practices of the Chinese police worldwide even in countries such as Spain through a kind of police police stations. Officially they are Chinese consular assistance offices abroad., but the organization has proven that among its tasks is also the persecution and coercion of Chinese citizens considered suspicious by Beijing.
Laura Harth, Safeguard Defenders campaign director, explains that these police stations or “police service centers” abroad “are completely illegal because local governments and national authorities have not been informed of its implementation, so any of the services they are running and the people who operate them are doing so illegally.”.
Throughout its tracking of the People's Republic of China's transnational oppression around the world, The NGO has realized these “illegal transnational police mechanisms and, also, extrajudicial ". Harth says that among the "suspicious" operations that have tracked are the "threats and harassment against family members in China, even the detention or prosecution of all those family members. They also send undercover agents abroad to intimidate the suspect directly and even, at worst, They are kidnapped ".
More of 230.000 people have returned
According to statements from the Ministry of Public Security of China, only between April 2021 and July of this year has been achieved “persuade”, Through these illegal methods, to more than 230.000 people to return to China.
The Public Security Bureau of two specific regions in China has at least 54 centers abroad, in 30 countries around the world, several Europeans, including Spain, assures the NGO. These are officially in charge of providing consular services for the renewal of passports and driver's licenses., For example. “But we want to emphasize once again that this is illegal, and , "It is also a tactic used to pressure people to do certain things or perhaps even coerce them into returning to China by refusing to renew their passport unless they return.", insists the campaign director of Safeguard Defenders.
“Among its other tasks is also monitoring the state of public opinion in overseas Chinese communities and suppressing crime.”, "Assist public security officials and institutions in China in pursuing fugitives.". All, to “make sure people are afraid, so they don't talk about what is happening inside China, of what the communist party is doing outside”.
In Spain they have found at least nine stations, but there are also them in Ireland, in the UK, Canada, France, Italia, USA, Argentina, Brazil, Hungary, Greece, Nigeria, Pakistan, Czech Republic, Mongolia, Chile, Portugal, Brunei, Ecuador, Japan, Netherlands, Cambodia, Slovakia and many more. They are generally hidden offices, with addresses that do not correspond to the center.
Upon learning of its existence, authorities in some countries have begun to act. “Countries like Ireland, Germany, The Netherlands or Germany have already declared that these police stations are completely illegal. “Ireland has ordered its closure”, Harth says.. Y “Spain, Portugal, Swiss, The United Kingdom and the United States have launched investigations into repression activities international that the Communist Party of China has been carrying out for a long time”.
China prides itself on its power
The journalist Zigor Aldama, specialized in international and economic affairs and former correspondent in China, sees a clear relationship between these police stations and the thousands of Chinese citizens who have returned to the country. China itself has published information about these centers, “He even shows his chest” for getting so many people to return to face Justice there.
The Government presents it as a sign of its power and a tool to fight crime outside its borders. The problem is that Beijing lacks judicial processes with guarantees, This allows him to do “things that we would consider mafia methods.”, says Aldama, how to use family members to extort.
With these methods, China avoids the long and complex legal processes for the repatriation of suspects.
They are operations designed by the Government body itself “to catch the corrupt people and part of the money they had taken”, explains the journalist. But once that infrastructure is built, That system “can be used to hunt down many other people.”, They may be scammers or common criminals., but they can also be dissidents, political activists and others.
