Investigating China’s Secret Overseas Stations | 101 East Documentary

foreign Europe Chinese dissidents are living in fear they say stalking and harassment by Chinese agents is destroying their lives [Music] some believe this alleged intimidation is linked to a Global Network of secret Chinese police outposts everything can make over 100 forgot to me Revelations have sent shock waves around the world forcing National authorities to take action the defendants work together to establish an overseas police station China denies the accusations 101 East investigates what these stations are actually used for and who is behind them [Music] thank you foreign I've come to a small town in Germany to meet a man who claims he's being stalked and threatened by Chinese agents here in Europe hi I'm Ali nice to meet you this is Yang Wei dong he's an activist and artist who fled China in 2017 after what he describes as more than a decade of harassment by authorities foreign Yang gained notoriety for a controversial documentary based on hundreds of interviews in which he asked Chinese people what they needed chassis he began the project in 2008 after his father's death the previous year which he claims was caused by an altercation with a public official foreign had consequences foreign angered by the restrictions imposed on him and his family Yang staged a naked protest that led to 114 days in prison foreign thank you Yang fled with his wife and elderly mother to Germany where they were granted political Asylum he hoped they would be safe here but he says from the moment they arrived they were stalked by Chinese agents posing as refugees inside the Asylum Center okay insurance Yang says his family has been targeted by Chinese authorities since the late 1980s because his mother a medical officer for the ministry of sports refused to dope athletes four months after arriving in Germany the family were moved to a small town in the South where they hoped they might find some peace but it was short-lived um on another occasion he says he was followed by a different group of people who tailed him onto the bus um what do you think that they're trying to achieve um foreign [Music] thinks she may have the answer what we found is what we can Define only as clandestine overseas police service centers around the world we found over 100 of them in over 50 countries she's the author of a report released by the NGO Safeguard Defenders which claims there is a web of hidden Chinese outposts across the globe known as service centers that are working with Chinese police she believes this network is being used to Monitor and harass dissidents China tries to blunt critics to silence them through various means where they approach the target abroad directly so this may consist in either sending covered agents abroad sending people from the embassies or the consulates or using proxies for example people linked to these overseas police service stations by the statements of the PRC authorities themselves by the evidence provided buy them or buy their media it's very clear that the setup of these stations Is Not Innocent the stations she's referring to are part of a program called one one zero overseas run by several police districts in China 110 is the emergency number for the police [Music] it's publicized as a mostly online service including an app phone numbers and social media platform for overseas Chinese citizens to contact police back home but there are also locations around the world linked to the scheme [Music] foreign [Music] by the police we requested interviews with Chinese authorities but were directed to statements made by the foreign Ministry foreign foreign the service does appear to be used to renew IDs and driver's licenses but these are roles traditionally performed by the police in China [Laughter] and a promotional video claims the 110 service can also be used to tackle crimes [Music] according to Chinese media the service has been used to report crimes arrest criminals and help those trafficked into crime to return home downtown Safeguard Defenders believes this service may also be used to bypass extradition laws and unlawfully coerce people to return to China to face criminal charges by their own admission they've said doing it in the legal way is quite cumbersome indeed it does take time it is under the sovereignty of the other countries but mostly I think what they mean to say is you know when you want to get an individual back for you know prosecution that person has rights that person has the right to defend themselves in a court of law from that extradition proceeding since president Xi Jinping came to power China has made a point of tackling transnational crime according to State media in the last few years hundreds of thousands of people have been persuaded to return or extradited as part of a Crackdown on fraud and online scams most of these returnees are from Southeast Asian countries I want to know if dissidents living in Europe are targeted this way and whether this network of overseas service centers is involved today I'm meeting a man in the Netherlands who claims he is such a Target hi hi hi nice to meet you I'm Wong Wang jinyu is a political dissident based in The Hague who claims he has been harassed by people connected to this service since 2022 they start starting with Funko to me you know every day they use that I mean the official number from Chinese overseas police station in Rotterdam and did you know who person was the people calling you did they identify themselves from Chinese overseas producer service he tells me he has received thousands of calls and messages from different phone numbers and has been harassed and threatened in person by people he believes to be Chinese agents in Europe almost every day they make a phone call to me I don't understand me and they say oh don't think another country will protect you or the child always a very strong Wong left China in 2019 after police questioned him for posting support for Hong Kong democracy protesters on social media in 2021 he publicly questioned the official number of Chinese soldiers killed in a border clash with India the year before I said the Chinese government under the Chinese government they put an award on state media after police announced criminal charges against Wang he says they began calling him asking him to return home and turn himself injury and also send a message to me I gave you three days go back to China a lot of the rest of your family or your parents have a problem when he didn't return to China he says his parents were detained then in April 2021 while transiting on a flight from Turkey to New York he says he was arrested in Dubai where he claims Chinese Embassy staff visited him and tried to get him to sign documents in Arabic why arrival to Dubai to please arrest me because of China and they put me in prison almost two months the Dubai government told 101 East that Wang was detained on domestic charges and Chinese authorities neither asked about him nor requested he be deported human rights groups intervened and the charges were dropped soon after he moved to the Netherlands where he sought Asylum but ever since he says his life has been dominated by constant harassment and he says some of it comes from the official number of a 110 overseas service station this is a islamber underneath how often he was calling you and this is in the middle of the night yeah 2 am 4 AM I I'll just say I said hello you are obviously I because I I saw your phone number either the Safeguard different records you are a Chinese overseas police oh I so scared Wang says what began as calls and messages escalated to bomb threats made in his name an in-person encounters he has made dozens of police reports about these incidents and collected mountains of evidence on his mobile phone a man sent a message to me he said please come from a Germany a Frankfurt I guess he he's on the train to Netherlands he said he will kill me and after I think probably a few hours someone press the yellows he showed me his life he said I'm I'm going to kill you the man fled before police arrived but he sent photos of his passport and claimed he was being paid as a government agent I say I'm from Chinese government you are my enemy I don't care please do you think this is really coming from the Chinese authorities because he have a lot of money this guy he have a bit of cream of contact actually they have a lot of money he tend to us he say today I received the new money this Chinese authorities did not respond when asked about the claims of harassment made by Wang I decided to go to Rotterdam to find out more about the service station Wang says has been calling him a few minutes after we arrive uh hello a young man opens the door I'm from Al Jazeera he tells me he lives here but strenuously denies it's being used as a Chinese service station it's all false I don't know what they're talking about we just left here so that was one of the addresses listed in the Safeguard Defenders report as an overseas Chinese police station it looks like just an ordinary house the guy who lives there didn't want to be on camera but he denies any association with the Chinese police he did confirm though that the phone number one claims has called him repeatedly belongs to his father I try calling the number but there's no answer if this is an overseas service center it doesn't seem very official but the Dutch government is taking it seriously so the immediate reaction of the Dutch government was to the man from the Chinese Ambassador there these police stations be closed and they're there they've been closed shortsma A Member of Parliament from the ruling Coalition says no permission was sought to set up these centers so no matter how informal their very existence is illegal the thing I think that worries me most is in mp is that our government was unaware of the existence of these police stations it's simply illegal to employ such activities without the explicit consent of host countries he says the Dutch police are still investigating what these stations were actually doing when it comes to working with our legal authorities with our police they're very clear procedures which you must follow if you want to address for for instance the presence of Chinese criminals and Dutch soil but going through these police stations going through an informal route you circumvent the fact that there's there needs to be formal contact between the Dutch and the Chinese he believes there is definitely cause for concern most of the Chinese operations start out relatively small and then when they go either they go unnoticed or they are not being met with a forceful response and the Chinese government sees this as an invitation to enlarge their activities to enhance their position in a certain country China rejects such claims Ians China has had bilateral agreements with law enforcement in Europe in the past conducting joint police Patrols in countries like Italy but the stations do not seem to be official police posts manned by law enforcement instead they appear to be housed in existing offices restaurants and homes of prominent members of the Chinese diaspora often connected to Hometown or friendship associations Ingrid de hocher from the klingendel China Center says these groups are not directly organized by the Chinese government but many fall under their influence the Chinese government and the Communist Party in China is increasingly reaching out to these groups and strengthening relationships with these groups because they consider Chinese living abroad to be a part of China an Inseparable part of China and the leaders of these organizations are asked to come to China for political training courses and then they are asked to contribute to the motherland in 2020 a Chinese man living in Spain was persuaded to return home by one of these associations which are teamed up with prosecutors in China [Music] Europe is not the only place where questions are being asked in the U.S the FBI arrested two men connected with an overseas service center in New York's Chinatown in April 2023 they said that while the office did perform some basic Services it also helped the Chinese government locate a pro-democracy activist of Chinese descent in California the Chinese National Police appeared have been using the station to track a U.S resident on U.S soil the two defendants whose arrests we're announcing today destroyed evidence of their Communications with the Chinese National Police when they learned of the FBI's investigation these two defendants knew they had something to hide and they obstructed Justice in an attempt to prevent the FBI from learning the full extent of what they were up to a couple of months after I first met Wang Jin Yu he contacts me again to say he has news Wang jinyu has had to leave the Hague he said his address was exposed and the harassment got too much so I'm on the way to meet him at his new house which is in the middle of the countryside Wong says he was forced to move because he'd been receiving unwelcome visitors throughout the night every day from 7 PM to 7 A.M every half hour someone will lock my door there using my name book the taxi ambulance and the baby care other Uber Eats or yeah I can't get any sleep and the harassment has taken a different turn instead of dishing out threats he says they're now offering him money they contacted me probably one month ago they asked me to do something and they will stop the harassment or harassment and they will they will give me some money and they asked me first is the stop August chapter media interview under the second day you stop talking the Chinese overseas service station and the third is the stop standard tweets if I accept this they will stop at all harassment they will give me money and they even say that they will promise to me they were released by parents we just did ask you to stop talking overseas service station I think who are you working for yeah he said I'm working for Chinese Embassy in Germany and belong to Chinese a Ministry of Foreign Affairs the Chinese Embassy in Germany say they have never had any contact with Wang or tried to silence or harass anyone the messages include photos of cash and Promises to deliver but a quick reverse image search shows the photos are fake while I'm with him the man messages Wang again he says he's coming to the Netherlands to give him 100 000 Euros and has already sent 10 000 of it via PayPal he said we are on the way not still in Germany concerned for his safety Wang Returns the money and blocks them from contacting him again he's convinced that the Chinese authorities are Behind These approaches but public prosecutors in The Hague say they have no evidence that China is behind the harassment and the investigation has been stopped due to a lack of leads the Chinese government did not respond to the claims made in this film meanwhile Wang feels his life is on hold till the perpetrators can be stopped my parents is doing no the police department charge him my father my mother I can't get any information from Chinese Authority I can't contact her I tried to get information from my family members but they are so scared my dream is Dutch Authority or the German Authority the confeder who did this and then they can take a song action if they do this I think I will be safe young Wei dong had dreamed of integrating into German Society today even going to a supermarket frightens him the overseas police service centers are just the tip of the iceberg the whole system is set up really to to silence people to make people afraid because the message that is consistently being sent from PRC authorities and very openly we will chase them till the end of the Earth people you know should be afraid we will find you we can find you will use any means necessary they may be miles from home but for those who have sought sanctuary in Europe China's Shadow still looms large

Channel: Al Jazeera English

Views: 186,781

Keywords: 101 east, Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English, abuse, al Jazeera, al jazeera English, al jazeera live, al jazeera video, aljazeera, aljazeera English, aljazeera latest, aljazeera live, aljazeera live news, asia pacific, china, documentary, europe, government, harassment, latest news, news headlines, police, spy, surveillance

Id: NhajZSk4XYg

Length: 25min 0sec (1500 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 01 2023