WASHINGTON - A day after the authorities arrested two people on charges of links to a Chinese “secret police station” in New York, a US official said America is engaged in an “extensive effort” with international partners to counter Chinese influence operations.
Federal prosecutors said the arrests on Monday were part of a crackdown on China’s targeting of dissidents, which Beijing denies. Both men arrested are US citizens.
China’s Foreign Ministry has disputed the existence of such police stations but has acknowledged what it calls volunteer-run sites in the US and other countries to assist overseas Chinese nationals with tasks such as renewing driving licences.
“We will not tolerate the PRC (People’s Republic of China) government or any foreign government harassing or threatening US persons,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at a regular press briefing.
The US and Western authorities have warned that China’s government has increasingly exerted pressure to silence its critics abroad, often targeting people of Chinese origin through covert operations in attempts to stifle expression or coerce them to return to China, where they might face punishment.
Mr Rick Waters, deputy assistant secretary of state for China and Taiwan, told a US House of Representatives hearing separately that Washington was aware of China’s transnational law enforcement within the borders of “dozens of countries”.
Mr Waters said the US was working through public diplomacy and “private diplomatic channels” with partners who had found the same issue in their countries.
Meanwhile, the British government said on Wednesday it took reports of secret Chinese police stations overseas “extremely seriously”, after newspaper claims about a London-based businessman with links to Conservative politicians.
The Times said that Chinese businessman Lin Ruiyou operated a food delivery business in the London suburb of Croydon that doubled as one undeclared Chinese police station.
It said Mr Lin had also been active in local politics for the ruling Conservatives, and reprinted on Wednesday photographs of him meeting former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Theresa May.
The Times said Mr Lin had been active in a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “United Front” organisation, but that he denied working surreptitiously for provincial police to monitor other Chinese nationals in London.
“Reports of alleged, undeclared ‘police stations’ operating in the UK are of course very concerning and are taken extremely seriously,” a British government spokesman told AFP. REUTERS, AFP
