Chinese Police Establish Overseas Branch in New York City; Republican Lawmakers Want to Know Why

US media is report­ing that Repub­li­can House mem­bers have queried Pres­i­dent Biden’s cab­i­net sec­re­taries on what is described as a branch of the Chi­nese police opened in New York City. Accord­ing to the Yahoo News report, the NYC branch is part of a “first batch” of 30 over­seas police ser­vice sta­tions in 25 cities in 21 coun­tries and are part of Chi­na’s Unit­ed Front Work Department:

Octo­ber 12, 2022 The report­ed pres­ence of China’s Fuzhou police in New York City has prompt­ed a group of Repub­li­can House law­mak­ers to seek answers from Pres­i­dent Biden’s Cab­i­net Sec­re­taries. Head­ed by Study Com­mit­tee Chair­man Jim Banks (R, IND‑3), Reps. Michael Waltz (R, FL‑6) and Mike Gal­lagher (R, WI‑8), the group of 21 law­mak­ers sent a let­ter to Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken and Attor­ney Gen­er­al Mer­rick Gar­land to demand answers on how the Chi­nese police were able to estab­lish a branch in the U. S. “We are writ­ing to express our grave con­cern over reports of the law enforce­ment pres­ence of the People’s Repub­lic of Chi­na in New York City,” the let­ter began. The let­ter fur­ther states, “The Pub­lic Secu­ri­ty (Police) Bureau of Fuzhou, Chi­na, announced in Jan­u­ary 2022 that it has opened the ‘first batch’ of 30 over­seas police ser­vice sta­tions in 25 cities in 21 coun­tries. In the Unit­ed States, the Fuzhou Police’s over­seas ser­vice sta­tion is host­ed at the Amer­i­can Changle Asso­ci­a­tion, an over­seas Chi­nese home­town orga­ni­za­tion in New York City.” Human rights NGO Safe­guard Defend­ers report­ed last month that the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment has set up at least 54 police ser­vice sta­tions world­wide as part of its Unit­ed Front Work Depart­ment. Accord­ing to the Aus­tralian Strate­gic Pol­i­cy Insti­tute, the Unit­ed Front Work Depart­ment oper­ates under the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty to direct thou­sands of groups in con­duct­ing oper­a­tions involv­ing for­eign polit­i­cal influ­ence, dis­si­dent move­ment sup­pres­sion, intel­li­gence gath­er­ing and tech­nol­o­gy transfer.

Read the rest here.

For the Safe­guard Defend­ers report, go here.

Oth­er media reports indi­cate sim­i­lar Chi­nese police branch­es have been set up in Dublin, Ire­land, and in the Ital­ian city of Pra­to.

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed ear­li­er this month on a cel­e­bra­tion held in a sub­urb of Van­cou­ver, Cana­da, to mark the 25th anniver­sary of the takeover of Hong Hong by the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment. That event was co-host­ed by two orga­ni­za­tions asso­ci­at­ed with the  Unit­ed Front Work Department.

The Unit­ed Front Work Depart­ment is a lit­tle-known Bei­jing-based agency with branch­es around the world that seeks to imple­ment the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty’s (CCP) plans to set up and con­nect an exten­sive net­work of asso­ci­a­tions, busi­ness groups, friend­ship soci­eties, or cul­tur­al groups sup­port­ive of the CCP and to ensure that its over­seas cit­i­zens, and oth­ers of eth­nic Chi­nese descent, stay loy­al. Accord­ing to a US gov­ern­ment report, Unit­ed Front work pro­motes Bei­jing’s pre­ferred glob­al nar­ra­tive, pres­sures indi­vid­u­als liv­ing in free and open soci­eties to self-cen­sor and avoid dis­cussing issues unfa­vor­able to the CCP, and harass or under­mine groups crit­i­cal of Bei­jing’s poli­cies. The Aus­tralian Strate­gic Pol­i­cy Insti­tute (ASPI), an Aus­tralian think tank, has pub­lished a report exam­in­ing the Chi­nese gov­ern­men­t’s unit­ed front sys­tem and for­eign-fac­ing role.