part 2:
Mr. Lu, asked during a brief phone conversation about the F.B.I. search, said he would call back but did not. He did not respond to telephone and text messages seeking comment. Spokesmen for the F.B.I. and the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn declined to comment, but the F.B.I. director, Christopher Wray, told lawmakers in November that he was aware of and concerned by the outposts, which he called police stations.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington said the sites are not police stations. “They are not police personnel from China,” said the embassy spokesperson, Liu Pengyu. “There is no need to make people nervous about this.”
What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.
Learn more about our process.
It is not automatically inappropriate for police officers to work overseas. The F.B.I., for example, posts agents abroad. But they typically declare themselves to the foreign government and work out of American embassies. If they perform law enforcement duties, it is with the permission of the local authorities. China has made similar arrangements for joint patrols in places like Italy, a popular destination for Chinese tourists.
That makes the off-the-books operations all the more curious.
China’s Foreign Ministry has said little in response to the criticism, but back in China, police departments have trumpeted their reach and information-gathering powers both in official statements and in the state news media.
Chinese police officers posing for pictures with Chinese tourists in front of the Colosseum in Rome in 2016.
Chinese police officers posing for pictures with Chinese tourists in front of the Colosseum in Rome in 2016. Nadia Shira Cohen for The New York Times
One article in a newspaper associated with the propaganda department of China’s Qingtian County describes a Chinese woman who said she had money stolen in Budapest. Instead of calling the local authorities, she sought help from the Chinese police outpost there. The people in charge of the police center, the article said, used surveillance footage from a convenience store to identify the thief, a Romanian, and recovered the money through “negotiation and education.”
The state-run China News Service said Qingtian’s overseas police centers gathered information on public opinion and the sentiment of Chinese people living abroad.
And an article posted by a Communist Party body in Jiangsu province said that Nantong City Overseas Police Linkage Service Centers had helped capture and persuade more than 80 criminal suspects to return to China since February 2016. The human rights group Safeguard Defenders said in a report late last year that the police stations carried out similar operations in Serbia, Spain and France.
It is not clear what the F.B.I. was investigating during its search, but it comes amid a broader Justice Department effort to rein in Fox Hunt. In October, prosecutors in Brooklyn — the same office that searched the New York office — charged seven Chinese nationals with harassing a U.S. resident and his son, pressuring the man to return to China to face criminal charges.
“It’s outrageous that China thinks it can come to our shores, conduct illegal operations and bend people here in the United States to their will,” Mr. Wray said in 2020, after the authorities charged eight others with being part of Fox Hunt.
Christopher Wray, the F.B.I.’s director, speaking in 2020 about arrests connected to harassment campaign on behalf of China to pressure political dissidents and fugitives in the United States to return home to face trial.
Christopher Wray, the F.B.I.’s director, speaking in 2020 about arrests connected to harassment campaign on behalf of China to pressure political dissidents and fugitives in the United States to return home to face trial.Pool photo by Sarah Silbiger
The Chinese government has also surveilled and pressured ethnic minorities abroad, including Uyghurs and Tibetans, as well as their families. Human rights groups and government officials fear that the outposts could be bases for these kinds of operations.
Current and former law enforcement officials in New York say that the Chinatown outpost, like others elsewhere in the United States, dates to the middle of the last decade. Police officials in at least one Chinese province tried then to arrange for their officers to train with the New York Police Department and other departments in cities that are home to large Chinese communities, the law enforcement officials said.
The Chinese officials wanted the N.Y.P.D. to sign a memorandum of understanding to outline the training program and make it official. But senior commanders and New York F.B.I. officials had serious concerns. They feared that the training program could legitimize the presence of Chinese officers and potentially make the N.Y.P.D. an unwitting partner in a campaign of surveillance and harassment, the officials said.
“The Chinese government wants to have more influence and to extend their transnational policing,” said Chen Yen-ting, a Taiwan-based researcher who worked on the Safeguard Defenders report. “It’s a long-arm power to show their own citizens inside China that their government is so strong. We have the power to reach globally, and even if you go out, you’re still under our control.”
The Chinese cities appear to be taking steps to conceal their efforts. Márton Tompos, a Hungarian lawmaker, said he visited a Chinese police center in Budapest last year. “There were three signs saying Qingtian Police Overseas Service Station,” he said in an interview. After he spoke about the visit, he said, the signs were removed.
Chinese outposts in Europe, like this one in Budapest connected to China’s Qingtian County, have been cited in Chinese media reports for helping aid Chinese citizens facing problems abroad.
Chinese outposts in Europe, like this one in Budapest connected to China’s Qingtian County, have been cited in Chinese media reports for helping aid Chinese citizens facing problems abroad. Anna Szilagyi/Associated Press
Not everyone is convinced that the outposts present a major threat. Jeremy Daum, a scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School, said that though government harassment of Chinese nationals is a serious problem, for the most part these personnel appear focused on arranging administrative tasks by providing video links between Chinese people abroad and police departments back in China.
In theory, a person could carry out the same video chat process, he said, using a smartphone.
“The processing and activity seems to be happening in China,” Mr. Daum said, referring to examples cited in the Safeguard Defenders report.
Chinese dissidents in Europe see things differently. “Those are things you can get done at the embassy,” said Lin Shengliang, a Chinese dissident in the Netherlands. He said people fear the police are keeping tabs on them.
“I am extremely anxious about them,” he said by phone. “There are no channels to report this, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Benjamin Weiser and Zixu Wang contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
Megha Rajagopalan is an international correspondent for The Times in London.
William K. Rashbaum is a senior writer on the Metro desk, where he covers political and municipal corruption, courts, terrorism and law enforcement. He was a part of the team awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News. @WRashbaum • Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 13, 2023, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Chinese Police Far From China Raise Concerns. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Mr. Lu, asked during a brief phone conversation about the F.B.I. search, said he would call back but did not. He did not respond to telephone and text messages seeking comment. Spokesmen for the F.B.I. and the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn declined to comment, but the F.B.I. director, Christopher Wray, told lawmakers in November that he was aware of and concerned by the outposts, which he called police stations.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington said the sites are not police stations. “They are not police personnel from China,” said the embassy spokesperson, Liu Pengyu. “There is no need to make people nervous about this.”
What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.
Learn more about our process.
It is not automatically inappropriate for police officers to work overseas. The F.B.I., for example, posts agents abroad. But they typically declare themselves to the foreign government and work out of American embassies. If they perform law enforcement duties, it is with the permission of the local authorities. China has made similar arrangements for joint patrols in places like Italy, a popular destination for Chinese tourists.
That makes the off-the-books operations all the more curious.
China’s Foreign Ministry has said little in response to the criticism, but back in China, police departments have trumpeted their reach and information-gathering powers both in official statements and in the state news media.
Chinese police officers posing for pictures with Chinese tourists in front of the Colosseum in Rome in 2016.
Chinese police officers posing for pictures with Chinese tourists in front of the Colosseum in Rome in 2016. Nadia Shira Cohen for The New York Times
One article in a newspaper associated with the propaganda department of China’s Qingtian County describes a Chinese woman who said she had money stolen in Budapest. Instead of calling the local authorities, she sought help from the Chinese police outpost there. The people in charge of the police center, the article said, used surveillance footage from a convenience store to identify the thief, a Romanian, and recovered the money through “negotiation and education.”
The state-run China News Service said Qingtian’s overseas police centers gathered information on public opinion and the sentiment of Chinese people living abroad.
And an article posted by a Communist Party body in Jiangsu province said that Nantong City Overseas Police Linkage Service Centers had helped capture and persuade more than 80 criminal suspects to return to China since February 2016. The human rights group Safeguard Defenders said in a report late last year that the police stations carried out similar operations in Serbia, Spain and France.
It is not clear what the F.B.I. was investigating during its search, but it comes amid a broader Justice Department effort to rein in Fox Hunt. In October, prosecutors in Brooklyn — the same office that searched the New York office — charged seven Chinese nationals with harassing a U.S. resident and his son, pressuring the man to return to China to face criminal charges.
“It’s outrageous that China thinks it can come to our shores, conduct illegal operations and bend people here in the United States to their will,” Mr. Wray said in 2020, after the authorities charged eight others with being part of Fox Hunt.
Christopher Wray, the F.B.I.’s director, speaking in 2020 about arrests connected to harassment campaign on behalf of China to pressure political dissidents and fugitives in the United States to return home to face trial.
Christopher Wray, the F.B.I.’s director, speaking in 2020 about arrests connected to harassment campaign on behalf of China to pressure political dissidents and fugitives in the United States to return home to face trial.Pool photo by Sarah Silbiger
The Chinese government has also surveilled and pressured ethnic minorities abroad, including Uyghurs and Tibetans, as well as their families. Human rights groups and government officials fear that the outposts could be bases for these kinds of operations.
Current and former law enforcement officials in New York say that the Chinatown outpost, like others elsewhere in the United States, dates to the middle of the last decade. Police officials in at least one Chinese province tried then to arrange for their officers to train with the New York Police Department and other departments in cities that are home to large Chinese communities, the law enforcement officials said.
The Chinese officials wanted the N.Y.P.D. to sign a memorandum of understanding to outline the training program and make it official. But senior commanders and New York F.B.I. officials had serious concerns. They feared that the training program could legitimize the presence of Chinese officers and potentially make the N.Y.P.D. an unwitting partner in a campaign of surveillance and harassment, the officials said.
“The Chinese government wants to have more influence and to extend their transnational policing,” said Chen Yen-ting, a Taiwan-based researcher who worked on the Safeguard Defenders report. “It’s a long-arm power to show their own citizens inside China that their government is so strong. We have the power to reach globally, and even if you go out, you’re still under our control.”
The Chinese cities appear to be taking steps to conceal their efforts. Márton Tompos, a Hungarian lawmaker, said he visited a Chinese police center in Budapest last year. “There were three signs saying Qingtian Police Overseas Service Station,” he said in an interview. After he spoke about the visit, he said, the signs were removed.
Chinese outposts in Europe, like this one in Budapest connected to China’s Qingtian County, have been cited in Chinese media reports for helping aid Chinese citizens facing problems abroad.
Chinese outposts in Europe, like this one in Budapest connected to China’s Qingtian County, have been cited in Chinese media reports for helping aid Chinese citizens facing problems abroad. Anna Szilagyi/Associated Press
Not everyone is convinced that the outposts present a major threat. Jeremy Daum, a scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School, said that though government harassment of Chinese nationals is a serious problem, for the most part these personnel appear focused on arranging administrative tasks by providing video links between Chinese people abroad and police departments back in China.
In theory, a person could carry out the same video chat process, he said, using a smartphone.
“The processing and activity seems to be happening in China,” Mr. Daum said, referring to examples cited in the Safeguard Defenders report.
Chinese dissidents in Europe see things differently. “Those are things you can get done at the embassy,” said Lin Shengliang, a Chinese dissident in the Netherlands. He said people fear the police are keeping tabs on them.
“I am extremely anxious about them,” he said by phone. “There are no channels to report this, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Benjamin Weiser and Zixu Wang contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
Megha Rajagopalan is an international correspondent for The Times in London.
William K. Rashbaum is a senior writer on the Metro desk, where he covers political and municipal corruption, courts, terrorism and law enforcement. He was a part of the team awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News. @WRashbaum • Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 13, 2023, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Chinese Police Far From China Raise Concerns. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
