{"id":2484,"date":"2023-04-28T17:32:45","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T17:32:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=2484"},"modified":"2023-04-28T18:06:38","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T18:06:38","slug":"congress-members-want-answers-about-chinese-police-stations-in-the-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=2484","title":{"rendered":"Congress Members Want Answers About Chinese Police Stations in the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/chinese-police-stations\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Chinese<\/p>\n

In a letter<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to FBI Director Chris Wray, congressional members on the U.S. Select Committee on the Chinese Community Party on Wednesday expressed concerns about the FBI potentially not knowing about Chinese \u201cpolice stations\u201d operating in the U.S. They also asked Wray to provide information about the FBI\u2019s efforts to investigate Chinese transnational repression in America.<\/p>\n

The committee received a classified briefing on March 30 after requesting information on Feb. 24. However, the briefing didn\u2019t answer their questions, prompting them to formally ask 12 questions they want answered in writing. They also expect to have another classified briefing once they receive additional information.<\/p>\n

Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., led a coalition of 12 members who signed the letter.<\/p>\n

In the letter, they cite a September 2022\u00a0report<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0published by the Madrid, Spain-based nongovernmental organization Safeguard Defenders, which explains how the PRC uses \u201cillicit methods to harass, threaten, intimidate and force targets to return to China for persecution.\u201d The PRC does this using officers working in at least 102 \u201cChinese Overseas Police Service Centers\u201d or \u201cpolice stations\u201d in 53 countries, the organization said, adding that the agents are engaging in \u201cpersuasions to return\u201d operations designed to \u201cintimidate and force targets to return to China for persecution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report cites a Chinese report on the PRC State Council Overseas Chinese Affairs Office in 2014 announcing its plans to establish 60 police stations worldwide. Since then, 46 centers have been identified in 40 countries, according to the Safeguard Defenders report. As of 2018, these offices were operating in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver in Canada and in San Francisco, Houston, Minnesota and Nebraska in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Months after Safeguard Defenders publicized its report, the Department of Justice announced it arrested two Chinese operatives in New York City on April 17 \u201cin connection with opening and operating an illegal overseas police station in lower Manhattan, New York, for a provincial branch of the Ministry of Public Safety (MPS) of the People\u2019s Republic of China.\u201d<\/p>\n

The DOJ later announced that it\u00a0filed<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0at least 44 criminal complaints against Chinese nationals who were \u201cat large\u201d for allegedly committing crimes against American citizens or residents on behalf of the People\u2019s Republic of China\u2019s Ministry of Public Security and were operating Chinese \u201cpolice stations\u201d in New York City.<\/p>\n

However, committee members raised concerns, saying, \u201cAccording to the DOJ, the FBI did not conduct a search of the secret police station until October 2022\u2014a month after the Safeguard Defenders report\u2014raising concerns that the FBI was unaware of the illegal operation prior to the public reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n

In February, the committee asked the FBI to answer seven questions about its awareness about or investigation of Chinese police stations operating in the U.S. but only received \u201cvague information \u2013 virtually all of which could be found in public reporting \u2013 which did not address any of the questions,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

The committee is asking the FBI to respond to these and five additional questions in the letter in writing by May 10.<\/p>\n

The questions ask if the FBI was aware of the Chinese police stations operating in the U.S. before the Safeguard Defender report, what steps it was taking to investigate their existence and close them, what level of resources they needed to investigate, what roles were the Chinese police stations playing in gathering intelligence information, what was the FBI\u2019s strategy for combating transnational repressions, among others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe threat of PRC transnational repression schemes that target U.S. citizens \u2013 primarily Chinese Americans \u2013 undermines the foundational American principles of freedom and liberty,\u201d they argued, adding that law enforcement agencies must better protect Americans from future threats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/chinese-police-stations\/ In a letter\u00a0to FBI Director Chris Wray, congressional members…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":2486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-right-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2484"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2487,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484\/revisions\/2487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}