China has 'unofficial' secret police stations in Europe to hunt down dissidents: Report

Two such police stations have been found in London and one in Glasgow.

China has been accused of setting up more than 50 unofficial police "offices" in several countries across Europe to clamp down on its dissidents.

The revelation has been made by Dutch media outlet RTL News in their recent investigative report. These unofficial police offices have allegedly been found in Rotterdam and Amsterdam in The Netherlands.

The evidence accessed by the media outlet revealed that China claims to offer diplomatic services through these offices, but it is instead using them as a facade for other operations.

These offices are reportedly being used to hunt down Chinese dissidents and force them to return home. These "overseas service stations" are spread over five continents.

Last month, the Spain-based NGO Safeguard Defenders also claimed that China has at least 54 such "overseas police service centres" across 21 countries. Its report, titled "Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild," said that nine such offices are in Spain, four in Italy, two in London, and one in Glasgow.

It added that these stations work to carry out "persuasion operations" to prevent Chinese nationals from speaking out against the communist regime. They "also serve a more sinister goal as they contribute to resolutely cracking down on all kinds of illegal and criminal activities involving overseas Chinese," it read.

A report in The Independent claimed that 230,000 nationals were persuaded to return to China between 2021 and 2022.

Meanwhile, the Dutch foreign ministry, in a statement addressing the reports said that such buildings are illegal because the government was never informed about it. It has even ordered a probe into the matter.

"The Chinese government never informed us about the centres through diplomatic channels so that makes them illegal," said a spokesperson of the ministry. China has refuted these reports stating that these offices only help nationals with issues like renewing driver's licenses.

"They are in fact overseas Chinese service centres," said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, adding that the allegations "are simply untrue."