UK to Step Up Efforts Against “Transnational Repression”, Ministers Alarmed at Undeclared Chinese Police Stations

US media report­ed last month that the UK gov­ern­ment would increase its efforts again “transna­tion­al repres­sion” in light of reports of unof­fi­cial Chi­nese police sta­tions being set up around the coun­try. Accord­ing to the politico.eu report:

Novem­ber 1, 2022 Lon­don — The British gov­ern­ment will step up work to pre­vent “transna­tion­al repres­sion” as police inves­ti­gate reports of unde­clared Chi­nese “police sta­tions” around the coun­try, the U. K. secu­ri­ty min­is­ter said. The Chi­nese gov­ern­ment has report­ed­ly set up unde­clared “police sta­tions” in three U. K. loca­tions — two in Lon­don, in Hen­don and Croy­don, and one in Glas­gow — to harass polit­i­cal dis­si­dents. Bei­jing has also report­ed­ly estab­lished sim­i­lar cen­ters in oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries, includ­ing Ire­land and the Nether­lands. Speak­ing in the House of Com­mons Tues­day, Secu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Tom Tugend­hat said such activ­i­ties “must be stopped,” stress­ing it would be “unac­cept­able” for any for­eign gov­ern­ment to attempt to oper­ate a secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus upon U. K. shores. “Reports of unde­clared police sta­tions in the Unit­ed King­dom are of course extreme­ly con­cern­ing and will be tak­en very seri­ous­ly. Any for­eign coun­try oper­at­ing in Unit­ed King­dom soil must abide by U. K. law,” he said. “Any attempts to ille­gal­ly repa­tri­ate any indi­vid­ual will not be tol­er­at­ed.” Chi­nese offi­cials have not denied the exis­tence of such facil­i­ties, but say they exist pure­ly to pro­vide bureau­crat­ic ser­vices to Chi­nese cit­i­zens and do not involve police oper­a­tions. One of the two alleged police sta­tions in Lon­don is reg­is­tered as an estate agency, while the venue in Glas­gow is a Chi­nese restaurant.

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In Octo­ber, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed that US Repub­li­can House mem­bers had queried Pres­i­dent Biden’s cab­i­net sec­re­taries on what is described as a branch of the Chi­nese police opened in New York City. The NYC branch was report­ed to be 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.