• Beijing has established more than 100 overseas police stations to keep tabs on, harass, and in some cases repatriate Chinese nationals living abroad.
• Human rights group claims it has discovered evidence that China is running 48 additional police stations abroad.
• Beijing denies operating unregistered police units outside its borders.

Beijing has established more than 100 “overseas police stations” around the world to keep tabs on, harass, and in some cases repatriate Chinese nationals living abroad.

To do this, Beijing allegedly used bilateral security agreements made with nations in Europe and Africa to establish a strong presence abroad.

Since the group first revealed there were 54 such stations in September, Safeguard Defenders, a human rights organization based in Madrid, claims it has discovered evidence that China is running 48 additional police stations abroad.

Its most recent publication, “Patrol and Persuade,” examines the size of the network and the role that cooperative law enforcement efforts between China and several European countries, such as Italy, Croatia, Serbia, and Romania, have played in launching a wider expansion of Chinese overseas stations than was previously known.

In addition to an earlier admission that two more Chinese exiles have been forcibly returned from Europe, the group has now made additional claims, including the coercion of a Chinese citizen into returning home by operatives operating undercover in a Chinese overseas police station in a suburb of Paris, specifically hired for that purpose. One of the exiles was coerced into returning home while the other was forced to do so in Spain.

Four distinct police jurisdictions of China’s Ministry of Public Security have been identified by Safeguard Defenders, which searches open-source, official Chinese documents for evidence of alleged human rights violations.

These jurisdictions are allegedly active across at least 53 countries, covering all four corners of the world, and are ostensibly there to assist expatriates from those regions of China with their needs abroad.

Beijing has denied operating unregistered police units outside of its borders. In a statement to Media in November, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: “We hope that relevant parties avoid publicizing it to create problems. It is unacceptable to use this to defame China.

China has argued that the buildings are actually administrative hubs designed to assist Chinese expats with things like renewing their driver’s licenses.

The Covid-19 pandemic had left many residents locked down in other nations and locked out of China, unable to renew documentation, according to China, which also claimed the offices were a response to this.

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