《TAIPEI TIMES》 CCP’s ‘overseas policing’ activity rising, report says

A person holds a Safeguard Defenders report titled "A Formula for Repression: China's Global Grid for Community Control" at the cross-party Inter-Parliamentary Coalition on China (IPAC) meeting in The Hague, Netherlands. Photo: CNA

Sovereignty at risk: Safeguard Defenders says policymakers should develop strategies to deal with 'superstructure' of Chinese interference

By Fion Khan / Reporter, working with CNA

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The Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) "overseas police stations" have not closed, but are expanding in number. Human rights organization Safeguard Defenders said in a report released on Friday that it has nearly 1,250 officially designated operating points in at least 91 countries.

The report, titled "Formula of Repression: China's Global Network of Community Control," was released at the annual meeting of the Inter-Party Inter-Parliamentary Coalition on China (IPAC) in the Netherlands.

The report pointed out that 74 CCP authorities and CCP agencies, under the guidance of the CCP’s United Front Work Department, operate through 1,247 designated overseas contact points and use these offices to monitor China’s overseas communities.

The number may be lower than the actual scale of activity, the report said, adding that Beijing's claims that its overseas Chinese police stations had been closed were false.

Safeguard Defenders released two reports in 2022 detailing the activities of more than 100 overseas sites in more than 50 countries, prompting many affected countries to condemn these illegal operations and some countries to launch criminal investigations.

China later claimed the sites were shut down, but reports this week said more than 10 police forces from five Chinese provinces were involved in a global network of Chinese operatives.

Since the end of 2024, five new national policies have directed authorities across China to expand such overseas activities, aiming to export the domestic grid management system to control China's overseas communities.

This system of mass surveillance, control and repression is projected through a global network of United Front-affiliated organizations or designated offices, providing an accessible infrastructure for other Chinese authorities—police, prosecutors, courts, bureaus of justice, etc.—mostly run by overseas federations, the report said.

Every designated liaison office and every mission they carry out is a violation of sovereignty, the report said, describing it as "a manifestation of transnational repression" and an "active national security threat."

The group said policymakers should quickly develop strategies to deal with the "superstructure" of Chinese interference.

Report author Laura Harth, head of transnational countermeasures at Safeguard Defenders, said these operations should no longer be described as police stations but instead as "cyber systems".

Harth said China's illegal overseas police stations not only remain in operation but continue to expand under the guise of legitimate community service.

She said the system threatens the sovereignty of other countries, undermines democratic institutions, and exposes Chinese overseas communities to widespread surveillance and coercion, creating fear.

She said that the CCP’s definition of overseas Chinese can be traced back 10 generations.

She said anyone of Chinese origin overseas, including those from Hong Kong and Taiwan, could be considered an overseas Chinese by the Communist Party, making them a potential target for its surveillance network.

IPAC warned that the Chinese Communist Party’s overseas interference and transnational repression in democratic countries are becoming increasingly common, pervasive and harmful.

IPAC co-founder and executive director Luke de Pulford said democracies should introduce a foreign agent registration system and impose criminal liability for breaches.

De Pulford said organizations associated with the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party should be required to register.

Registration and enforcement requirements should follow an organization's "united front" affiliation, regardless of changes in its public name, he said.

The government should also issue public notices detailing the activities, strategies, goals and targets of the CCP and the United Front Work Department, and publish an annual national report on Chinese interference, he said.

De Pulford said they should also establish channels for affected overseas communities to report incidents and engage directly with isolated communities and groups.

He said that democratic governments and parliaments must resist the CCP’s persecution of specific groups.

He said government officials should expand formal meetings with Taiwan's elected representatives, pro-democracy dissidents, human rights advocates and vulnerable overseas communities.

He added that they should also openly confront Chinese officials who seek to suppress these communities, as this is a direct way to defend national sovereignty and increase democratic resilience.

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